- Played 12 seasons with Trail Blazers (1983-95)
- Averaged 20.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game
- 8x All-Star with Trail Blazers
Clyde Drexler entered the NBA as the 14th overall pick by the Trail Blazers in the 1983 NBA Draft. He started slowly as a bench player, averaging 17.2 minutes per game as a rookie and tallying 7.7 points per contest. The next year, he became a part-time starter and saw his per-game average rocket to 17.2 points per game.
Then, everything clicked in year three. The 1985-86 campaign saw “Clyde The Glide” put up 18.5 points per game on 47.5 percent shooting to go along with eight assists and 5.6 rebounds per game. Drexler made the first of 10 total appearances in the NBA All-Star Game that year as well.
Drexler started all 82 games the following season and averaged 21.7 points per game for a Portland team that won 49 games, but was not named to the All-Star team for some reason.
However, his true dominance began in 1987-88. That year he averaged 27 points per game, followed by 27.2 a game the next year. His per-game scoring average stayed north of 20 for six consecutive years, as he slowly but surely added a 3-point shot to his game. He did this while playing with a bit of a revolving cast around him.
The duo of Drexler and point guard Terry Porter led the Trail Blazers to the NBA Finals in 1988-89 and 1991-92 with a 63-win regular season sandwiched between. Portland lost the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals in that middle year.
The Trail Blazers and Lakers were the powers of the Western Conference at the time, while the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons battled in the Eastern Conference. Drexler was the leader of a team that gave all three of those teams a run for their money year after year, although the Trail Blazers were never able to win an NBA championship for head coach Rick Adelman.
Drexler went on to play three-plus seasons for the Houston Rockets, was named to two more All-Star teams and won the 1995 title as crucial part of the Rockets squad.
Drexler, along with Arvydas Sabonis and Luke Walton, is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Of three, Drexler had the longest and most productive, impactful NBA career, and has earned his spot at No. 1 on the list of the 30 greatest Trail Blazers of all-time.