You can vote now for your Top 5 all-time Trail Blazers - https://www.nba.com/blazers/ Here are my choices - My Starting 5: * C Drexler * B Walton * D Lillard * L Aldridge * T Porter My Bench: - J Kersey - M Lucas - R Wallace - J Paxson - C Robinson - B Roy - A Sabonis That was harder than I thought. Lots of good players on the bench there. Who are your top 5?
Starters: C - Big Red Head SG - Clyde the cheap Glide PG - Dame Dolla PF - The Enforcer Maurice Lucas SF - Uncle Cliffy Cliff Robinson
Top 5, meaning it doesn’t have to be a lineup right? Just top 5 Blazers. These five are my picks Clyde Lillard Walton Lucas Kersey
For all the hate LMA gets he was here a long time, got better year after year and I dunno I just think his talent gets overshadowed by his personality.
My general feeling is that Lucas was a better defender (and probably rebounder), but not as good offensively. I also think just like how LMA’s personality often overshadowed his talent I think that sort of comes into play with Lucas too. Except his personality was a huge plus. Tough, great teammate, endeared himself to fans, that definitely helps.
humans make mistakes TB, but why must you be so human?... I wouldn't put Aldridge over Lucas, and I wouldn't put him over Buck; and I might not put him over Rasheed, although Rasheed's T's really made me want him traded. I might even put Kersey over LMA. But I do think the way Aldridge left the Blazers is a factor if we're talking about today's NBA, and the best lineup of prime 'healthy' Blazers to fit today's NBA: Dame Clyde Kiki Rasheed Sabonis (the one we saw in Europe); otherwise Walton on more consideration, if it's 'prime-healthy-whether-or-not-they-were-Blazers-when-prime', I might put a prime Pippen over Clyde at SG
My PF picks would probably go, LMA, Rasheed, Lucas. Maybe I'm misremembering Kersey but I honestly didn't think of him when I was putting it together. Interestingly enough it's much like today's Blazers I find the SF/PF positions the weakest of the bunch, even the guys like Rasheed who had incredible talent, well he had his issues on the court.
whenever I create the alternate universe(s) where past players move forward to this current time, I assume those players would actually have grown up in the current time. That means they would go thru high school and college with the modern emphasis on floor spacing and ball handling in that regard, Kiki Vandeweghe might very well be a superstar SF. For his era, he was a premier perimeter shooter with a quick release, and if he would have grown up in this era, he would have been unstoppable.
I'm sort of at a disadvantage with some of the older guys, like Kiki I've seen the play but his best days I was a newborn. I agree though from what I've seen he would really shine in today's NBA. I almost listed Scottie as my SF, Kind of cheated I think taking two SG's in Roy / Clyde.
I saw this posted on another site, and thought it was a good twist on this topic - You have $15 to spend: I'm spending my $15 on: $5 Walton $4 Porter $3 Paxson $2 Petrie $1 Grant
It's crazy how valuable a prime (or even the Portland) Pippen would be in today's switch-happy defensive schemes. I couldn't pick Pippen, even though he's my favorite player ever, because he didn't play in Portland long enough. I don't think it's cheating to switch players between shooting guard and small forward. There's really no functional difference between the two, except perhaps you'd like a bit more height at small forward. Both are called "swingmen" for a reason. Perimeter players who can swing between either position.