The Portland Trail Blazers, commonly called the Blazers, are an American professional basketball group located in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete at the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league’s Western Conference Northwest Division. The group played its home games in the Memorial Coliseum before moving to Moda Center in 1995 (called the Rose Garden until 2013). The franchise entered the league as an expansion team in 1970, and has enjoyed a strong following: by 1977 through 1995, the team offered 814 consecutive home games, the longest such streak in Western major pro sports in the time, and only since surpassed by the Boston Red Sox. [9] The Trail Blazers are the only NBA team based from the bi-national Pacific Northwest, following the Vancouver Grizzlies jumped to Memphis and became the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001 along with 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 once in 1977. Their other NBA Finals appearances have been in 1990 and 1992. The team has qualified for the playoffs at 34 seasons of the 48-season existence, including a series of 21 straight appearances 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 inception 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 was the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player in 1977, along with the regular season MVP the following 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 earned 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 others, Mike Schuler and Mike Dunleavy, have won the NBA Coach of the Year Award together with the team.
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