The Portland Trail Blazers came into the NBA in 1970. The franchise name means "pioneer", in reference to explorers who conquered the West in the nineteenth century. The team played its first season with the rookie Geoff Petrie at the controls. The early years of the franchise were a struggle, but the franchise changed with the arrival of Bill Walton in 1974. In his first season with the club, the Blazers won 11 more games than the previous season.
In 1976-1977, Jack Ramsay, a former ABA coach, took control of the franchise. The Blazers made their way to the NBA finals, where they faced the big favorites: Philadelphia Sixers and Julius Erving. Only seven years after its inception, the club won the championship.
The mid-1980s marked a turning point in the history of the Blazers, who "missed" two exceptional players. In 1984, the Blazers had the second choice in the draft. They then chose Sam Bowie, a talented center who was injury prone, rather than an athletic young player who had just won the NCAA title with the University of North Carolina: Michael Jordan. Portland wanted to perpetuate the tradition of the great white pivot (started with Bill Walton), and already had Clyde Drexler at the shooting guard position, selected a year earlier at the 14th position. Sam Bowie, unfortunately, had an injury plagued career. In 1986, the club selected Arvydas Sabonis, the brilliant hub of Lithuania. He joined Portland late in his career.
The club reached the final twice in 1990 and 1992, with the losses against the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. The team eventually traded Drexler away to Houston, where he ended up winning a title.
After the Drexler dynasty, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates and one of the richest men in the world came up with a new strategy for success. With general manager Bob Whitsitt, the club's strategy was to bring to the team as many stars as possible, sometimes at the expense of the collective bargaining agreement.
The players that were brought in were Kenny Anderson, Isaiah Rider, Detlef Schrempf, Arvydas Sabonis, Rasheed Wallace, Shawn Kemp, Damon Stoudamire, Scottie Pippen, Brian Grant, Shareef Abdur-Rahim. This strategy brought the Blazers as far as to the Conference Finals, losing in 1999 and 2000 to the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers. A side effect of bringing in this group of players was that these particular players brought along a lot of off court problems. Some of these players were arrested for a variety of offences from weapons to drugs. This lead to the Trail Blazers gaining the nick name of the Jail Blazers.
In 2003, the club management decided to start over. With veterans like Sabonis, Pippen, Dale Davis are gone, and players with off court problems and bad attitudes on the roster (ie Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells), the team decided to focus on younger players in hopes of better play and a better public image. The team handed their future to young stud Zach Randolph, and extended his contract until 2011, Darius Miles and the New York prodigy Sebastian Telfair.
In 2003-04, the Blazers are missed the playoffs for the first time in 22 years. Zach Randolph was named most improved player. The 2004-05 season brought the Jail Blazers nick name back as several young players on the Blazers line up had different run ins with the law.
In 2006-2007, Portland landed rookie Brandon Roy who was named rookie of the year, The team also added other young players: LaMarcus Aldridge, Jerryd Bayless, Europeans Sergio Rodriguez, Rudy Fernandez and Nicolas Batum. During the 2007 NBA draft, the Blazers select Greg Oden with their first choice. The same night, they traded Zach Randolph away.
As it stands today, the Portland lineup is very young and when all the players hit their prime, this is definitely one team to look out for.
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