Solid list. Other than Sidney Wicks.. Sidney Wicks - I challenge you to find another NBA player that had their scoring average go down every single year starting from their rookie year. That's especially impressive since Wicks played for 10 seasons. 1971-72, 24.5 ppg (ROY, All-Star) 1972-73, 23.8 ppg (All-Star) 1973-74, 22.5 ppg (All-Star) 1974-75, 21.7 ppg (All-Star) 1975-76, 19.1 ppg 1976-77, 15.1 ppg 1977-78, 13.4 ppg 1978-79, 9.8 ppg 1979-80, 7.1 ppg 1980-81, 6.8 ppg 0 playoff games with the Blazers. Played in only 9 playoff games his entire career. I'd think about retiring Steve Blake's number before I retired Sidney Wicks'.
A little sad that some of those numbers are retired. We have the 2nd most retired numbers in the league? Serious symbolism over substance. Walton Drexler (maybe Lucas because he was the #2 on a team that won a title) (possibly Porter as he got to 2 finals as a #2) Weinberg/Ramsay as huge parts of the franchise ....next is Dame. Outside of that, some of those seem a little embarrassing. I might even consider one for Sabonis since he is in the Hall of Fame and played his entire NBA career here even though that is not why he is in. Internationally, he is a legend.
Yeah, I'd say Lillard is amassing a pretty good argument for retiring his number. All I ask is he add a championship to his Blazers resume.
That's the problem. Our franchise and our fanbase seems to want to retire numbers out of nostalgia. Roy is a perfect example. He was a good player, but give me a break... he only played here a few years and we didn't even make it out of the first round. People want to reward him for being a good player during a dark time in our franchise. But the funny thing to me is that we could have VERY easily had a dark time after LMA/Wes/Nic/Rolo left, and instead Dame has kept this team competitive. And when Dame leaves, he will arguably be the best blazer of all time. Plus, I don't think he'll leave Portland either. This is his home. He will be a part of this community for a long time. I remember Quick sharing a long time ago that Roy changed after he became a star. I don't think anyone would say that about Dame. Lillard is everything that Roy was not. Dame is a great teammate. A great leader. A better player. A better member of the community. I remember Roy struggling with having to share the spotlight and the offense with Oden. I have some very fond memories of Roy as a Blazer, but the rose colored glasses for some folks are a little absurd.
Petrie deserves to be there. On paper his credentials are very similar to Roy, but anybody who watched the Blazers in the very begining knows how important he was in giving the expansion Blazers credibility.
I see a lot of people like that on Twitter, and get the feeling they're younger and haven't been fans of the team for more than a decade or so and really overinflate Roy's impact and missed out on the 90s teams and the early 2000s ones and didn't realize how much better it really was back in those days. Yeah he was an amazing player, but he was just that, he's no Damian or Clyde.
Was Roy even really better than CJ? If you gave CJ the reins and let him be the #1 I would bet that he could easily put up Roy numbers over a season.
So the vote in here is overwhelming in support of Melo getting the #7. Why is Brian Noe saying Portland is up in arms against it? Hellooooo. I love B Roy, but he's not Dame. The Blazers should let him wear it. I know Melo said he will stay with 00, but give him the chance to turn 7 down.
Because...Brian Noe is a rust-belt-born outsider that knows nothing about how Blazer fans really feel?
I thought he went to LaSalle High? He is a schmuck though, and like Chad Doing, just says shit to get people to listen to his show/interact.
It's cool you are ignoring advanced stats, which almost all favor Roy. Even in CJ's best season he's never even approached Roy's 08-09 season. Raw stats are so misleading these days because of the scoring and pace of play are just so much higher. I remember when being a 20 point scorer was a big deal 12 years ago. There were 20 guys over 20 PPG in 08-09. There's was 31 in 18-19.
Do you think Roy could have put up those stats next to Dame? Roy was essentially filling the same role as Dame. The difference is that Dame does it better. So I guess we could compare Dame to Roy, because it's actually unfair to CJ when he's the second option and Roy was the clear first option on his team.
