Portland Trail Blazers history stretches across more than five decades, encompassing several generations. The franchise has had plenty of highs: winning the NBA Championship in 1977, returning to the NBA Finals in 1990, a Perfect First Quarter against the San Antonio Spurs in 1990-91, winning the 2007 NBA Draft Lottery, selecting Clyde Drexler in 1983 and Damian Lillard in 2012. But low points have abounded as well.
This week we got a question from a discouraged fan named Mark in the Blazer’s Edge
Mailbag. I’m not going to reprint it here. I’ve actually taken the somewhat-rare step of responding to Mark personally. But the essence of his inquiry was simply, “Is this the lowest the franchise has ever been?”
I thought about that as I wrote Mark’s reply. Instinctively I want to say, “No.” I can think of other eras in which the team, and even their fans, struggled. But it brought up a corresponding question in my own head:
What was the lowest, saddest, or most difficult event in franchise history?
I want to throw out that question to our audience today.
Here’s ONE IMPORTANT RULE, though. We’re about to see all the people who only read headlines and not my actual words, as they’re going to break it. For purposes of this discussion, we’re going to regard human lives as more weighty and important than anything that happens in sports. Every Trail Blazers player or staff member we’ve lost over the years—Jerome Kersey, Drazen Petrovic, Kevin Duckworth, and more—has been a sadder and weightier moment than our basketball-related memories. Those losses come first. We lift them up and the grief surrounding them.
When we talk “worst event” here, we’re talking about BASKETBALL-RELATED EVENTS ONLY. Not deaths or other human tragedies. Also please try to name a specific event rather than a general era in which several events cumulated. We’re looking for one, particular moment where we go, “THAT was it!” What was the bungle, wonky turn, or heartbreak that makes you say, “It’s never gotten lower than this for me?”
Share your thoughts and the events that spurred them in the comments section below! If you’d like to submit your own Mailbag question (can’t promise to personally respond to them all though!) you can send it to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!
