For basketball in the Pacific Northwest, it’s salvation at last.

After years of losing records, declining attendance and threats of relocation, franchises in Portland and Seattle got a huge shot in the arm in yesterday’s NBA lottery when the two clubs earned the top two picks in next month’s NBA draft.

The Blazers were the biggest winners, earning the top pick after finishing with just the league’s sixth-worst record during the regular season — their odds of winning were only 5.3%. They’ll presumably add Ohio State center Greg Oden, who couldn’t possibly fit in any better with this team. The Blazers already had an impressive nucleus this year with Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, big men LaMarcus Aldridge and Zach Randolph, and point guards Jarrett Jack and Sergio Rodriguez.

Now the path to contention for the Blazers is crystal clear. One presumes they’ll trade Randolph, who will become redundant as a lowpost threat the day Oden arrives at training camp, and look to acquire a power forward who can shoot and another perimeter player.

As for the debate over who the Blazers should take with the first pick … I’m sorry, but there isn’t one. I was impressed as anyone else with the play of Texas freshman Kevin Durant, but every personnel evaluator I have talked with has said, in the clearest terms possible, that anyone passing on Oden would be making an absolutely horrific mistake.

One executive I talked to compared him to David Robinson and told me I didn’t see the real Oden that trashed the opposition in summer camps and high school play because he was nursing a wrist injury all season. His wrist is fine now, and he wowed observers in workouts this week — much as he did in a losing effort in the NCAA title game this April.

For the Sonics, Durant isn’t a bad consolation prize. He’s a devastating scorer who joins what was already one of the league’s most potent offensive teams. He’ll join the club at a tricky time — the team is trying to get a new arena built and has threatened to leave for Oklahoma City if it doesn’t get done — but perhaps this will provide enough spark among area fans to help save basketball in Seattle.

There’s a sense of poetic justice about the Sonics’ getting the second pick, too. Seattle was one of the few lottery teams that kept playing hard until the final day and didn’t engage in any dubious injury shenanigans (Ray Allen’s ankle problem was legitimate), so it’s nice to see them rewarded ahead of several teams that openly piled up losses to improve their lottery odds.

The other big winner yesterday was Isiah Thomas, who dodged a Kevlar-piercing bullet when the pick he traded to Chicago two years ago in the Eddy Curry deal landed at no. 9. In other words, it turns out that he didn’t give away a perennial All-Star to get Curry, just two lottery picks. This means the final tally on the Curry trade is more like “not particularly wise” than “an idiotic disaster.”

That said, it still cost the Knicks — New York will move down 14 spots to no. 23 in the draft as a result of the Curry trade. The Nets, incidentally, didn’t participate in the lottery because they made the playoffs — Jersey was already locked in at the 17th pick.

As far as the losers go, how about the Phoenix Suns. They owned the Hawks’ first-round pick as long as it wasn’t in the top three, a 62% proposition. Unfortunately, the ping-pong balls didn’t bounce their way. The Suns had hoped a high lottery pick could give them enough juice to get over the San Antonio hurdle in next year’s playoffs; instead they’ll have to make do with largely the same crew.

Atlanta is feeling good about being no. 3 but would be feeling a lot better if they were one spot higher because the talent drop-off from Durant is enormous. The thirdbest player in the draft is probably either Chinese 7-footer Yi Jianlin or Florida power forward Al Horford. Both may be stars in the long run but neither will make anywhere near the immediate impact that Oden and Durant will. Incidentally, Atlanta also kept the no. 11 pick when Indiana failed to finish in the top three spots.

Ironically, after all the tanking that marked the NBA’s late season, the teams with the three worst records all finished out of the money. Milwaukee, who had the third-worst record, ended up in the sixth position — a near-impossibility statistically that nonetheless happened in a karmic slap across the face to the one team that engaged in the most brazen tanking tactics. Memphis and Boston also moved down despite having the league’s two worst records.

Speaking of which, how about the Western Conference now? Is this unbelievable? We’re getting to the point where the East has Le-Bron and Wade, and the West has every other good player. Just when you didn’t think the imbalance between West and East couldn’t get any worse, it did. Big time.

But it couldn’t have happened to two better basketball towns. Portland and Seattle deserve better than they’ve had to put up with in recent years, and both are now ready for a basketball renaissance — not to mention a natural geographic rivalry between Durant and Oden that should keep us entertained for the next decade.

jhollinger@nysun.com