Portland Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers won the 1977 NBA championship in their seventh year of existence, the fastest championship for any NBA expansion franchise to that point. The 1976–77 Blazers, coached by Jack Ramsay with Bill Walton at center, swept the Julius Erving-led Philadelphia 76ers 4–0 after losing the first two games of the Finals. It is still the franchise’s only championship, forty-eight years on. The franchise has reached the NBA Finals three times (1977, 1990, 1992) and the Western Conference Finals five times. Portland has been, across most of its history, a top-half-of-the-West franchise that has not built a second championship roster. The 1984 Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan draft decision is the single most-discussed draft error in NBA history. Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, owned the franchise from 1988 until his October 2018 death; his sister Jody Allen now holds the franchise in trust with a sale expected.
The 1970 expansion and the 1977 championship
Portland was awarded an NBA expansion franchise in 1970 alongside the Buffalo Braves and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The founding ownership group was led by Herman Sarkowsky and Larry Weinberg. The first head coach was Rolland Todd. The 1970–71 Blazers went 29–53.
The franchise’s competitive arc turned on the 1974 NBA Draft. Portland selected Bill Walton first overall out of UCLA. Walton had won three NCAA Player of the Year awards at UCLA under John Wooden and was widely considered the most complete prospect since Lew Alcindor. Walton missed most of his first two Portland seasons with foot injuries.
The 1976–77 Blazers acquired Maurice Lucas (from the St. Louis Spirits in the 1976 ABA dispersal draft), Lionel Hollins, Dave Twardzik, and Bob Gross. Jack Ramsay was hired as head coach in June 1976 from the Buffalo Braves. The team went 49–33 in the regular season. They beat Chicago 2–1, swept Denver 4–2, beat the Lakers 4–0, and reached the Finals against Philadelphia. Philadelphia won the first two games at home. Portland won the next four. Walton was Finals MVP with 18.5 points, 19.0 rebounds, 5.2 blocks per game in the series. It was the first 4–2 Finals win by a team coming back from 0–2. The 1977 Blazers are ranked among the top twenty-five single-season teams in NBA history in most modern retrospective lists. The run is covered in detail in David Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game, a definitive account of championship-era basketball.
Walton missed nearly all of the 1977–78 season with a broken left foot. He sued the Blazers for medical malpractice in 1978 and left the franchise after the 1978–79 season.
The 1984 Sam Bowie decision
The 1984 NBA Draft had Houston selecting Hakeem Olajuwon first, Portland picking second, and Chicago picking third. General manager Stu Inman selected Sam Bowie, a 7’1” center out of Kentucky. Chicago took Michael Jordan. Bowie’s NBA career was limited by chronic stress fractures in both legs; he played 511 career games across ten seasons with four teams. The decision is the most-cited single draft error in NBA history. Inman, in a 2009 Sports Illustrated interview, defended it on the information available at the time: Bowie was the best center prospect and Portland had already drafted Clyde Drexler (14th overall, 1983) to play shooting guard.
The 1990 and 1992 Finals
The late-1980s Blazers, coached by Rick Adelman from 1989 through 1994, built into a legitimate Finals contender. Clyde Drexler at shooting guard, Terry Porter at point guard, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams at forward, and Kevin Duckworth at center formed the core. The 1989–90 Blazers finished 59–23 and reached the 1990 NBA Finals, losing 4–1 to the Detroit Pistons. The 1991–92 Blazers finished 57–25 and reached the 1992 Finals, losing 4–2 to Michael Jordan’s Bulls. The Game 1 of the 1992 Finals is remembered for Jordan’s six first-half three-pointers and the “shrug” toward the Chicago bench.
Drexler was traded to Houston in February 1995 for Otis Thorpe and a first-round pick. Drexler’s Houston era produced the 1995 championship.
The Jail Blazers era (1998–2005)
The late-1990s and early-2000s Blazers, under general manager Bob Whitsitt, assembled a talented but combustible roster: Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, Bonzi Wells, Ruben Patterson, Zach Randolph, Scottie Pippen (acquired 1999), Shawn Kemp. The team was dubbed “the Jail Blazers” by local Portland media for a string of off-court legal issues that accumulated through the early 2000s.
The 1999–2000 Blazers went 59–23 under head coach Mike Dunleavy and reached the Western Conference Finals, losing Game 7 to the Lakers after leading 3–2. Game 7, played at Staples Center on June 4, 2000, included a fifteen-point Portland lead going into the fourth quarter. The Lakers went on a 25–4 run. Scottie Pippen’s turnover with 1:07 remaining is widely cited as the turning point.
The 2000–01 through 2003–04 Blazers made the playoffs each year and lost in the first round each year. The team has not returned to the conference finals under any subsequent head-coaching tenure.
The Brandon Roy era and early-stage rebuild
Brandon Roy, drafted sixth overall in 2006, was Rookie of the Year in 2007 and an All-Star three times. He won the 2008–09 Western Conference Player of the Month awards and was, by most scouting consensus, on a top-ten-in-the-league trajectory before a degenerative knee condition (missing meniscus in both knees) forced him into medical retirement at age twenty-seven in December 2011. He returned briefly in 2012 with Minnesota and retired fully in January 2013.
The Roy injury, combined with LaMarcus Aldridge’s 2006 draft and Greg Oden’s 2007 first-overall pick (Oden played 105 career games due to knee injuries), shaped the entire late-2000s Blazers era. Portland did not reach the second round of the playoffs between 2002 and 2014.
The Damian Lillard era (2012–2023, 2025)
Damian Lillard was drafted sixth overall in 2012 out of Weber State. Full Lillard story here. He was 2012–13 Rookie of the Year. He spent eleven seasons with the Blazers before being traded to Milwaukee in September 2023.
The 2013–14 Blazers reached the second round, Lillard’s 0.9-second buzzer-beater over the Rockets in Game 6 of the first round is the most-replayed Blazers moment of the 2010s. The 2018–19 Blazers reached the Western Conference Finals, losing to Golden State 4–0. Lillard’s 37-foot series-clinching three over Paul George in the first round against Oklahoma City is the other marquee highlight.
Lillard was traded to Milwaukee on September 27, 2023 for Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, and a first-round pick in a three-team deal involving Phoenix. He was waived by Milwaukee in July 2025 after his April 2025 Achilles rupture and signed a three-year contract to return to Portland for the 2025–26 season.
The 2023–present rebuild
The 2023–24 Blazers went 21–61. The 2024–25 Blazers went 30–52. Deni Avdija, Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, and Toumani Camara are the core of the current rebuild. Scoot Henderson (3rd overall, 2023) has been the most-watched young Blazer. Head coach Chauncey Billups was hired in June 2021.
Ownership
Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, purchased the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 for $70 million. He owned the franchise for thirty years, in parallel with ownership of the Seattle Seahawks (purchased 1996) and the Seattle Sounders. Allen died of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on October 15, 2018. The franchises passed to the Paul G. Allen Trust, managed by his sister Jody Allen as trustee. Allen’s will included an instruction that the franchises be sold; the timing is at Jody Allen’s discretion.
The Blazers’ 2025 Forbes valuation was approximately $3.65 billion. Prospective buyers reported in Sportico include Phil Knight (Nike co-founder, Oregon native), Alan Smolinisky, and Marc Lore.
Retired numbers
Thirteen jersey numbers have been retired:
- Larry Weinberg (1, ceremonial for owner)
- Lloyd Neal (36)
- Geoff Petrie (45)
- Bill Walton (32)
- Maurice Lucas (20)
- Lionel Hollins (14)
- Larry Steele (15)
- Dave Twardzik (13)
- Bob Gross (30)
- Mychal Thompson (43)
- Clyde Drexler (22)
- Jim Paxson (4)
- Terry Porter (30)
The Blazers have retired more jerseys per franchise-season than any other NBA team.
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Sources
- Basketball-Reference, Portland Trail Blazers franchise page
- The Oregonian, Trail Blazers beat coverage
- David Halberstam, The Breaks of the Game (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981)
- 1977, 1990, 1992 NBA Finals box scores (Basketball-Reference)
- 1984 NBA Draft records (Bowie, Jordan, Olajuwon)
- 1988 Paul Allen purchase records ($70 million)
- Forbes NBA Team Valuations, 2025
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