A real attempt at making the All-Time Portland Trail Blazers team
By Minh Dao
The video game NBA 2K18 recently announced their All-Time teams for every NBA franchise. This comes in 2017, also the year Portland celebrated the 40th anniversary of their 1977 NBA championship. So what better time to construct our own All-Time Trail Blazers team.
The Portland Trail Blazers entered the league in 1970 and won their first championship seven years into their existence. They have the seventh-highest winning percentage all-time and have won 2,032 games until this day.
Portland fans have seen a host of memorable names in the Blazer uniform over the years, and plenty of legends at that.
In this prediction of their All-Time team we will be constructing a team, and not just the 15 best players. We will stick to traditional positions since we are including players from the 70s, 80s, etc.
A starting lineup (C, PF, SF, SG, PG) as well as a full bench will be constructed. The selection criteria will be the greatest Blazers in history that can be shaped into a team.
This will factor in the longevity and prime of what they contributed in Portland. I will also assume that we are getting their peak production (in Portland) if there were hypothetical games to play.
They will obviously be coached by the one and only Dr. Jack Ramsay.
Let’s analyse the cast and crew starting with the man in the middle:
Starting Cast
Center: Bill Walton
Portland Tenure
- 1974-1978
- 17 (points)-14 (rebounds)-4 (assists)-3blk on 51 field goal percent and 67 free throw percent
Peak PDX Season
1977: 49-33, third in the West, NBA Championship, 19-14-4-3blk on 53 field goal percent and 70 free throw percent
Accolades (during tenure)
- NBA champion (1977)
- NBA Finals MVP (1977)
- Most Valuable Player (1978)
- 2× NBA All-Star (1977, 1978)
- All-NBA first team (1978)
- All-NBA second team (1977)
- 2× NBA All-Defensive first team (1977, 1978)
- No. 32 retired by Portland Trail Blazers
Bill Walton is the cornerstone and No. 1 option on this team. He had a shorter career than he would have liked, but boy did he make an impact when he was on the court.
Dubbed as one of the greatest passing centers of all time, he could have been one of the greats if he remained healthy. He’s the first of many what-ifs in Blazers history.
If the goofy former UCLA big man stayed healthy during the 70s, could they have been a dynasty? There’s a large consensus that thinks so.
Although 1978 was the year that Walton won MVP and made the All-NBA first team, I did not tag that his “peak season” for one reason: no championship.
He won the Blazers their lone championship in 1977 and managed to stay relatively healthy (84 games). In 1978, he went down again. He led the Blazers to a fiery 50-10 start before getting injured.
He was rushed back into the first round, and re-injured his foot in Game 2. The Blazers were unable to win without Walton as they were bounced in six games. If he had stayed healthy, they would have went back-to-back.
Prime Walton is the key to the success of the (hypothetical) All-Time Trail Blazers. He can go head-to-head with the greats of the game.
The Bucks/Lakers have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Bulls have Michael Jordan. The Blazers have Bill Walton.
Fans forget or don’t know how dominate apex Walton really was. Put him as your franchise face as he’s the jack-of-all-trades.