Portland Trail Blazers

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1970
• Home arena: Moda Center, Portland, Oregon
• Owner: Estate of Paul Allen
• Team colors: Red, black, and white

Overview

The Portland Trail Blazers is a professional basketball team that plays in the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Western Conference. The franchise was established as an expansion team in 1970 and like most new teams, struggled in its first years in the league. Portland missed the playoffs in each of its first six seasons, but its first trip to the postseason turned out to be its most productive. Led by a future Hall of Fame coach and a young All-Star brimming with potential, the Trail Blazers won the 1977 NBA championship. The title would turn out to be its only one as of 2020, although the team returned to two more NBA Finals in the early 1990s. Among NBA teams, Portland is unique in that its logo represents the game of basketball and not the team name or its home city. For thirty years, the franchise was owned by Paul Allen, one of the co-founders of the Microsoft Corporation, who invested both his money and passion into the team’s success until his death in 2018.

History

Local sports promoter Harry Glickman had been trying to land an NBA franchise in Portland since the early 1960s, but the league had continually turned him down. Then, in 1966, the NBA began a period of growth that saw the number of teams more than double over a span of fifteen years. In 1970, the NBA finally approved Glickman’s request and granted him a franchise for $3.8 million. Portland joined the league along with the Buffalo Braves and Cleveland Cavaliers. The franchise sought fan input by holding a name-the-team contest, but the winning entry, Pioneers, was already used by local Lewis and Clark College. They instead chose another entry, Trail Blazers, a reference to the early nineteenth-century explorers who charted new paths through the American wilderness.

For the team logo, Glickman turned to his cousin who was a graphic designer from Boston, Massachusetts. His design featured a group of five black lines and five red lines curving together to form a pinwheel. The groups of lines stood for the two teams of five offensive players and five defensive players. The curved shapes were meant to represent the movement of the players. Portland’s unique pinwheel design has been updated several times but has remained the centerpiece of the team’s logo since 1970. The latest version, unveiled in 2017, features five red lines in the upper left of the pinwheel and five white lines in the lower right.

As is typical of expansion teams, Portland struggled in its first several years in the league, never winning more than twenty-nine games in each of its first four seasons. In 1974, the Trail Blazers selected six-foot-eleven center Bill Walton, who had been a dominating player in college at UCLA. Despite being slowed by injuries, Walton’s presence lifted the team toward respectability, although it fell short of the playoffs in 1975 and 1976. After the 1975–1976 season, Portland changed its head coach, hiring future Hall-of-Famer Jack Ramsay.

The team responded with its best season to date, winning forty-nine games and making its first playoff appearance. Walton stayed healthy for most of the season, leading the NBA in rebounds and giving the Trail Blazers a considerable advantage close to the basket. Portland advanced to the NBA Finals, and despite falling behind 2–0 to Philadelphia, stormed back to win the championship. Portland looked ready to defend its title in 1977–1978, winning fifty of its first sixty games, but Walton’s late-season injury derailed its chances in the playoffs.

Walton left Portland via free agency after missing the 1978–1979 season, hurting the team’s title chances, but the Trail Blazers still remained in playoff contention for much of the next decade. During this time, Portland began adding some key pieces in hopes of making another championship run. In 1983, it drafted shooting guard Clyde Drexler, a college star at the University of Houston. Two years later, it drafted point guard Terry Porter out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. These moves, and a shift toward more defensive basketball, eventually paid off during the 1989–1990 season. The Trail Blazers won fifty-nine games and returned to the NBA Finals—a 4–2 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Portland advanced to the Western Conference Finals in 1991 and was back in the NBA Finals in 1992. This time, the Trail Blazers faced a Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls that was in the midst of a run of three-straight championships. Portland lost the series 4–2.

The Trail Blazers continued to make the playoffs each season until 2004 but would not make a return to the NBA Finals. Portland did make back-to-back Western Conference Finals in 1999 and 2000 but lost both times to the eventual NBA champions. When Portland missed the postseason in 2004, it marked the end of a twenty-one-year consecutive playoff streak. From 2004 to 2013, the Trail Blazers only made three playoff appearances but were bounced out in the first round each time. The team’s fortunes began to improve in 2012 with the selection of point guard Damian Lillard out of Weber State University. Lillard led the Trail Blazers to consecutive playoff appearances from 2014 to 2019 and a berth in the 2019 Western Conference Finals.

The Trail Blazers have enjoyed enthusiastic fan support in the Pacific Northwest since arriving in 1970. From April 1977 to November 1995, the team sold out every home game, a streak of 814. It stood as an NBA record until it was broken by the Dallas Mavericks in 2020. In 1995, the team began play in a new arena called the Rose Garden. The downtown Portland facility was renamed the Moda Center in 2013.

In 1988, the franchise was sold to Paul Allen, one of the co-founders of Microsoft along with Bill Gates. Allen, who was diehard Trail Blazers fan, paid $70 million for the team and increased its value to more than $1.3 billion by 2018. He was known to invest both time and money in the team and was instrumental in building the Rose Garden in 1995, paying for the project out of his own funds. Allen died of complications from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2018.

Notable players

The Trail Blazers’ first star was guard Geoff Petrie, the team’s first ever selection in the NBA Draft. Petrie won the 1971 Rookie of the Year Award and was named to two All-Star games in his career. He retired after the 1975–1976 season and later worked in the team’s front office in the early 1990s. When Bill Walton entered the NBA, he was seen as having the potential to be the league’s next superstar. However, recurring foot injuries derailed his career, costing him four full missed seasons recovering from surgeries. In his two mostly healthy seasons with Portland, Walton made the All-Star team both times and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1977–1978. He was also named MVP of the 1977 NBA Finals. He played with Portland from 1974 to 1979 before moving on to the San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers and the Boston Celtics. For his combined body of work in college and the NBA, Walton was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. A teammate of Walton’s on the 1977 championship team was Maurice Lucas, who played in Portland from 1976 to 1980 and again for the 1987–1988 season. Lucas made three of his five All-Star appearances with the Trail Blazers.

Clyde Drexler was part of Portland’s resurgence in the early 1990s and is arguably the franchise’s best all-time player. Nicknamed “Clyde the Glide,” Drexler played with the Trail Blazers from 1983 to 1995, making eight of his ten All-Star appearances with the team. He is the team’s all-time leader in points scored with 18,040 and steals with 1,795. His 4,933 assists and 5,339 rebounds are both second on the team’s all-time list. Drexler was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004. Terry Porter was a two-time All-Star with the Trail Blazers from 1985 to 1995. He is the franchise leader in assists with 5,319 and fourth in scoring with 11,330.

LaMarcus Aldridge played for Portland from 2006 to 2015 and holds the franchise mark for rebounds with 5,434 and is third in scoring with 12,562. Aldridge made four of his seven total All-Star teams with Portland. Known for his shooting ability, Damian Lillard won the 2013 Rookie of the Year Award and has made five All-Star appearances since arriving in Portland. His 14,586 points are second in franchise history and his 3,932 assists are third as of 2020.

Bibliography

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Nesbitt, Andy. “The Hidden Meaning Behind the Portland Trail Blazers’ Unique Logo.” USA Today, 29 Apr. 2019, ftw.usatoday.com/2019/04/portland-trail-blazers-logo-meaning. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

Petkac, Luke. “The Origin Stories of Every NBA Team’s Name.” Bleacher Report, 9 Feb. 2013, bleacherreport.com/articles/1523132-the-origin-stories-of-every-nba-teams-name. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

“Portland Trail Blazers.” Basketball Reference, 2020, www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

“Portland Trail Blazers.” Oregon Encyclopedia, 1 May 2019, oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/portland‗trail‗blazers/#.XpibC8hKiUk. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

“Portland Trail Blazers.” Sports E-cyclopedia, 18 Mar. 2020, sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/portland/blazers.html. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

“Portland Trail Blazers Team History.” Sports Team History, 2020, sportsteamhistory.com/portland-trailblazers. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.