Portland Trail Blazers: 30 greatest players in franchise history

• Played four seasons with Trail Blazers (1977-81)
• Averaged 13.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game

Tom Owens was always a consistent big man regardless of where he played — and he played a lot of places. 11 of them, if you want to include the ABA clubs he was on that didn’t always stay in one spot.

Owens spent five years in the ABA and didn’t join the NBA until the 1976-77 campaign when he played for the Houston Rockets. After missing out on the Trail Blazers’ title-winning team that year, he headed to Portland in 1977.

After averaging 10.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game over his five ABA and one NBA season to that point, Owens wasn’t expected to surprise too much when he joined the Trail Blazers towards the end of his prime.

Indeed, he only put up 10.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game as a 28-year-old in his first year in Portland, but broke out in year two, his age-29 season. In 1978-79, Owens averaged 18.5 points and nine rebounds per game, nearly doubling his career scoring average to that point. Then, he averaged 16.4 points and 7.5 rebounds per game the next year.

After that, things slowed down a bit and Owens settled back into his typical career numbers. The Trail Blazers were always a fringe playoff team with Owens in the fold, making it each year but losing in the first round each time.

Owens rounded out his career with single seasons in Indiana in 1981-82 (10.5 points, 5.0 rebounds per game) and Detroit in 1982-83 (4.2 points, 3.8 rebounds per game). He retired at the age of 34.

His brief surge in the late ’70s was enough to get him to No. 21 on our list — but not quite enough to crack the top-20.