The defending champions will welcome Greg Oden to real NBA basketball.

Oden will make his debut on opening night in San Antonio, where the Spurs will celebrate their NBA championship before hosting the Portland Trail Blazers.

That's the first game on the 2007-08 schedule, which the NBA unveiled yesterday. Also on Oct. 30, Houston visits the Los Angeles Lakers, and Golden State hosts Utah in a rematch of their second-round playoff series from last season.

And the league is giving Oden and Kevin Durant the Christmas rivalry spot formally occupied by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal.

The NBA has three games that day, but did away with the Heat-Lakers matchup that has taken place every Christmas since O'Neal was dealt from Los Angeles to Miami in 2004. Both teams will still play, with the Heat visiting Cleveland before the Lakers host the Suns.

Oden and Durant were taken with the top two picks in the NBA draft and are scheduled to meet for the first time as pros to cap the holiday tripleheader when Portland hosts Seattle.

DETROIT

COACH JUST MISSES DISASTER IN MINNEAPOLIS

Road construction put Detroit coach Flip Saunders on the 10th Avenue bridge Wednesday in Minneapolis.

The detour perhaps saved his life.

"I usually take the 35W bridge, but the ramp was closed," Saunders said yesterday from Minneapolis in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "My daughter was driving in a car right behind me when the bridge collapsed — about 20 yards away from us. It sounded like a bomb when it dropped."

Saunders, a former Minnesota Timberwolves coach, was driving home after speaking at Tubby Smith's basketball camp at the University of Minnesota, where Saunders starred as a player

ELSEWHERE

Wizards: Washington forward Andray Blatche, a restricted free agent, was arrested yesterday on sexual solicitation charges. Blatche, 20, and a man identified in court documents as Gregory Palmer tried to solicit sex from an undercover police officer, according to charging documents. Blatche appeared yesterday in District of Columbia Superior Court and was released on his own recognizance.