The Portland Trail Blazers, popularly known as the Blazers, are an American professional basketball team located in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete at the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of this league’s Western Conference Northwest Division. The group played its home games at the Memorial Coliseum before proceeding to Moda Center at 1995 (known as the Rose Garden until 2013). The franchise entered the league as an expansion team in 1970, and has enjoyed a solid following: from 1977 through 1995, the team sold out 814 consecutive home games, the longest such streak in American major pro sports in the time, and only since surpassed by the Boston Red Sox. [9] The Trail Blazers are the only NBA team located from the bi-national Pacific Northwest, following the Vancouver Grizzlies relocated to Memphis and became the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001 and the Seattle SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008.
The team has advanced to the NBA Finals three times, winning the NBA championship after in 1977. Their other NBA Finals appearances were in 1990 and 1992. The group has qualified for the playoffs at 34 seasons of their 48-season presence, including a series of 21 straight looks from 1983 through 2003, tied for the second longest streak in NBA history. The Trail Blazers’ 34 playoff appearances rank third in the NBA just behind the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs since the team’s beginning in 1970. Six Hall of Fame players have played for the Trail Blazers (Lenny Wilkens, Bill Walton, Clyde Drexler, Dra??en Petrovi??, Arvydas Sabonis, and Scottie Pippen). Bill Walton is the franchise’s most decorated player; he had been the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player in 1977, and the regular season MVP the subsequent calendar year. Four Blazer rookies (Geoff Petrie, Sidney Wicks, Brandon Roy and Damian Lillard) have won the NBA Rookie of the Year award. Three players have made the Most Improved Player award: Kevin Duckworth (1988), Zach Randolph (2004), and CJ McCollum (2016). Two Hall of Fame coaches, Lenny Wilkens and Jack Ramsay, have patrolled the sidelines for the Blazers, and two others, Mike Schuler and Mike Dunleavy, have won the NBA Coach of the Year Award with the group.
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