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Paxson, Cliffy, Mychal Thompson, and Geoff Petrie have gotten votes recently. Will one of these guys get the nod, or will someone else come in at #12?

Strongly considering either Paxson or Mychal Thompson here. Duckworth has a chance for me as well. Maybe someone can convince me to put in somebody like Petrie or Wicks.

Mychal Thompson

I'm going to vote for Mychal Thompson here. Seven seasons as a Blazer, six playoff appearances. Thompson generally showed well in the playoffs. I would argue that he was the most important player on the early 80s Blazer teams. Paxton had the all-star appearances, but Thompson was a center competing with Kareem, Gilmore, Sikma, and later Ralph Sampson, Akeem. Moonbeam pointed out in the last thread that the Blazers actually played better in games that Paxson did not play.

I'm going to ride Clifford Robinson all the way down to #45 if that's what it takes. See my reasoning in one of the other threads I have voted for him.

Jim Paxson-10,000 career points as a Blazer, 2 time all star and one time all NBA 2nd team

Brandon-Clyde wrote:Jim Paxson-10,000 career points as a Blazer, 2 time all star and one time all NBA 2nd team

Yeah well Clifford has dozens more points than Paxson. And he once won player of the week.

We're now down to the above average players who put up solid numbers or guys like Petrie
who likely most of this board has not seen play.

Here is an article on the B/R on the top 25 players

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1755418-ranking-the-top-25-players-in-portland-trail-blazers-history/page/26

At this point, I'll vote for Petrie who was the best Blazer prior to the championship team. Portland
had to trade him in 1977 to Atlanta to secure the rights to Maurice Lucas

Cliff Robinson. Key player throughout the 90s, 8 years with the Blazers, and had a very long career at a fairly high level. Uncle Cliffy with his headband is still an iconic image from that era.

Im gonna go with Zach Randolph here. Yes his basketball IQ was suspect at time and he certainly wasn't on the best Blazer teams but that was hardly his fault - he played alongside starting guards such as Juan Dixon, Steve Blake, Martell Webster, Sergia Monia, etc for much of his career before he finally had Roy playing next to him in his final season as a Blazer. Even with his flaws I think he's one of the top 15 Blazers of all time and deserves a mention here.

It really is a damn shame that Geoff Petrie hasn't been voted in yet.

PETRIE

vote: Jim Paxson for reasons mentioned in the previous two threads.

Petrie is equally deserving, and possibly more deserving if you factor in his post-playing career. but he played in a weaker era of basketball, so the Paxson gets the nod.

Cliff Robinson's time is coming, but not before Paxson and Petrie. honestly, the love for the early 90s Blazers clouds most people's judgement, as we will likely see when people start rationalizing that "sure, Danny Ainge didn't win a championship and was a bench player, but he was still better than former Blazer NBA All-stars"...

in fact, if a runoff occurs, I'll go ahead and save a post by voting:
1) Paxson
2) Petrie
3) Robinson

despite being a #1 pick, Thompson wasn't even the #1 option on those Blazers teams. and crediting him with making the playoffs in 1979-80 shows how flawed the voting is on this board, as he played a whopping zero games for the Blazers that season.

Zach Randolph also has a place in the top 20, but he has 2 less all-star appearances as a Blazer than Duckworth. and that's without even getting into the off the court drama.

JasonStern wrote:honestly, the love for the early 90s Blazers clouds most people's judgement, as we will likely see when people start rationalizing that "sure, Danny Ainge didn't win a championship and was a bench player, but he was still better than former Blazer NBA All-stars"...

I take issue with that. I believe Robinson was 3a or 3b on what was the best extended run in team history. He was an all star at one point. Players that put up ~30ppg on a mediocre teams have never moved my needle.

JasonStern wrote:despite being a #1 pick, Thompson wasn't even the #1 option on those Blazers teams. and crediting him with making the playoffs in 1979-80 shows how flawed the voting is on this board, as he played a whopping zero games for the Blazers that season.

Who is crediting Thompson for making the playoffs in 1979-80? I'm the only one who has voted for him and I said Thompson made the playoffs in 6 out of the 7 years he played for the Blazers. 1978-79, 80-81, 82-83, 83-84, 84-85, 85-86.

As far as Mychal Thompson being the number one option, it's debatable. He led the team in field goal and free throw attempts in 80-81 and 81-82. One thing that impresses me about Thompson is his assist numbers as the center. His peak was nearly 5 assists per game in 82-83.

Did Scottie Pippen not chosen yet? Hilarious to see that. One biggest talents ever played in Blazers uniform.

red_power wrote:Did Scottie Pippen not chosen yet? Hilarious to see that. One biggest talents ever played in Blazers uniform.

Remember we are only judging them on their time as a Blazer and not on their non-Blazer careers. If it were their entire careers Pippen would definitely be in the top three but his Blazer career was not in his prime or for an extended amount of time

I don't think its so much a love for the Drexler led teams but its likely most of this board
has never seen the older players prior to the Drexler led teams. You need to be an old
timer (like me) who remember seeing those guys like Larry Steele, Lloyd Neal and Dave
Twardzik play for these guys mostly are known today as numbers in the rafters at the MC.

I voted for Petrie but Paxson with his ball movement game would have fit like a glove with
the Walton led team. My only real problem with Paxson is that his presence on the roster
led to that decision in 1984 to pick Sam Bowie over MJ which led to one of the worst
Blazer trades in team history when they traded 5 players for Kiki Vandeweghe.

Norm2953 wrote:I don't think its so much a love for the Drexler led teams but its likely most of this board
has never seen the older players prior to the Drexler led teams. You need to be an old
timer (like me) who remember seeing those guys like Larry Steele, Lloyd Neal and Dave
Twardzik play for these guys mostly are known today as numbers in the rafters at the MC.

I voted for Petrie but Paxson with his ball movement game would have fit like a glove with
the Walton led team. My only real problem with Paxson is that his presence on the roster
led to that decision in 1984 to pick Sam Bowie over MJ which led to one of the worst
Blazer trades in team history when they traded 5 players for Kiki Vandeweghe.

While Paxson was part of the reason the Blazers passed on Jordan there was another player on the roster whose presence also played a role in the decision, the first round pick from the year before , Clyde Drexler

Clyde though could have played in a Scottie Pippen role at SF if Portland had opted
for Jordan, The curious thing with that draft is that had Bowie been considered an
injury risk, Portland would have opted for Sam Perkins over MJ and Charles Barkley.
The 1984-5 Blazers with Paxson, MJ at guard, Clyde, Calvin Natt and Mychal
Thompson would have been tough.

Paxson though in 1984 was an all-star level SG who was second team all NBA one year.
Going with either Paxson or Petrie at 12 would be a solid choice.

Norm2953 wrote:Clyde though could have played in a Scottie Pippen role at SF if Portland had opted
for Jordan, The curious thing with that draft is that had Bowie been considered an
injury risk, Portland would have opted for Sam Perkins over MJ and Charles Barkley.
The 1984-5 Blazers with Paxson, MJ at guard, Clyde, Calvin Natt and Mychal
Thompson would have been tough.

Paxson though in 1984 was an all-star level SG who was second team all NBA one year.
Going with either Paxson or Petrie at 12 would be a solid choice.

With an all-star sg and a top prospect at sg it is unlikely you select a 3rd sg with a top pick though. It is nice sometimes to dream about what might have been but in all honesty with what the Blazers had on the roster another guard just wasn't in the books. If you want to dream about what might have been dream that the Blazers had called heads instead of tails and selected Hakeem

Masterfully wrote:

JasonStern wrote:honestly, the love for the early 90s Blazers clouds most people's judgement, as we will likely see when people start rationalizing that "sure, Danny Ainge didn't win a championship and was a bench player, but he was still better than former Blazer NBA All-stars"...

I take issue with that. I believe Robinson was 3a or 3b on what was the best extended run in team history.

take issue. it doesn't change the fact that this supposed "3A or 3B" guy would be the fifth player selected in the top 12 from a team with zero championships and only three great runs.

I'm as sentimental as the next Blazer fan for that era, but that doesn't change the fact that the franchise existed outside of the 1990-1992 seasons.