Portland Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team played its home games in the Memorial Coliseum before moving to the 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: from 1977 through 1995, the team sold out 814 consecutive home games, the longest such streak in American major professional sports at the time, and only since surpassed by the Boston Red Sox. The Trail Blazers are the only NBA team based in the Pacific Northwest, after the Vancouver Grizzlies relocated to Memphis and became the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001 and the Seattle SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008. The team has advanced to t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western Conference (NBA)
The Western Conference is one of two Athletic conference, conferences that make up the National Basketball Association (NBA), the other being the Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern Conference. Both conferences consist of 15 teams organized into three Division (sport), divisions. The current divisional alignment was adopted at the start of the 2004–05 NBA season, 2004–05 season, when the now Charlotte Hornets began play as the NBA's 30th franchise. This necessitated the move of the New Orleans Pelicans from the Eastern Conference's Central Division (NBA), Central Division to the newly created Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Division of the Western Conference. The NBA first started awarding a Western Conference championship trophy during the 2000–01 NBA season, 2000–01 season, renaming it after Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson in the 2021–22 NBA season, 2021–22 season. Also in 2021–22, the league began awarding the Earvin "Magic" Johnson Trophy to the NBA Conference ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dave Twardzik
David John Twardzik (born September 20, 1950) is an American former professional basketball player. He was a point guard in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is best known for being a key starting guard on the Portland Trail Blazers team that won the 1977 NBA Finals. Twardzik grew up in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and played collegiately at Old Dominion University, where he was a two-time All-American and led the Monarchs to the 1971 NCAA Division II title game. He was drafted by the Trail Blazers in 1972, but elected to play for the Virginia Squires of the ABA. Twardzik played for the Squires for four seasons until the team (and the ABA) came to an end, folding just prior to the ABA-NBA merger in June 1976. After the ABA-NBA merger Twardzik signed with the Blazers (who held his NBA rights). He would be the starting two-guard of the Blazers team which won the NBA title in 1977. He played for four seasons total in P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expansion Team
An expansion team is a new team in a sports league, usually from a city that has not hosted a team in that league before, formed with the intention of satisfying the demand for a local team from a population in a new area. Sporting leagues also hope that the expansion of their competition will grow the popularity of the sport generally. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues but is applied to sports leagues in other countries with a closed franchise system of league membership. The term refers to the expansion of the sport into new areas. The addition of an expansion team sometimes results in the payment of an expansion fee to the league by the new team and an expansion draft to populate the new roster. Reasons for expansion In North America, expansion often takes place in response to population growth and geographic shifts of population. Such demographic change results in financial opportunities to engage with the n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Portland, Oregon)
The Veterans Memorial Coliseum (originally known as the Memorial Coliseum) is an indoor arena located in the oldest part of the Rose Quarter area in Portland, Oregon. The arena is the home of the Portland Winterhawks, a major junior ice hockey team, and was the original home of the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association. It has been included on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its Architecture, architectural significance. Tenants From 1960 to 1974 the Memorial Coliseum was the home of the Portland Buckaroos of the Western Hockey League (1952–74), Western Hockey League, and it was the venue for the Final Four of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA basketball tournament in March 1965 NCAA University Division basketball tournament, 1965, where 1964–65 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team, UCLA won its second of ten such championships in the 1960s and 1970s. Portland Trail Blazers When the Portland Trail Blazers f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. It is the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). It changed its name to the National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League (NBL). In 1976, the NBA and the American Basketball Association (ABA) merged, adding four franchises to the NBA. The NBA's regular season runs from October to April, with each team playing 82 games. The league's playoff tournament extends into June. , NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player. The NBA is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jack Ramsay
John Travilla Ramsay (February 21, 1925 – April 28, 2014) was an American basketball coach, commonly known as "Dr. Jack" (as he held an earned doctorate). He was best known for leading the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA championship, and for his broadcasting work with the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat, and for ESPN TV and ESPN Radio. Ramsay was among the most respected coaches in NBA history and a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the winner of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award for the 2009–10 NBA season. Early life Growing up in Milford, Connecticut, Ramsay was encouraged to participate in sports in grade school by his parents, Anne and John. The family moved outside Philadelphia and Ramsay graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1942. Years after playing basketball, baseball and soccer in high school, he was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1979. Strongly encouraged by his mother to attend college, Ramsay entered ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Geoff Petrie
Geoffrey Michael Petrie (born April 17, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player. A native of Pennsylvania, he played professional basketball in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Portland Trail Blazers where he won NBA Rookie of the Year in 1971. After retirement as a player he entered management, and was the President of Basketball Operations for the Sacramento Kings in the NBA until June 2013. Early life Geoff Petrie was born in Darby, Pennsylvania, on April 17, 1948. He attended Springfield High School, in Springfield, Pennsylvania, and played collegiate ball at Princeton University. In Petrie's sophomore season at Princeton, the team was co-champion of the Ivy League with a 20–6 (12-3 Ivy) record. Despite the fact that Princeton had three of the five first-team All-Ivy team members, including Petrie plus second-team member John Hummer, they lost the one-game league playoff to the Jim McMillian–led 1968 Columbia Lions men's basketball ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lloyd Neal
Lloyd Neal (born December 10, 1950) is an American former professional basketball player born in Talbotton, Georgia. A 6'7" center/forward from Tennessee State University, Neal spent his entire professional career (1972–1979) with the National Basketball Association's Portland Trail Blazers. Though undersized for his position, he endeared himself to fans with his hard work and tenacity, and he averaged a double-double (13.4 points, 11.8 rebounds) during the 1972–73 NBA season. After his career was cut short by a knee injury in 1979, the Blazers retired his #36 jersey. He finished college in 1980 and moved on to a long career with the Internal Revenue Service in Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ..., where he's worked since 1985. References Exter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bill Walton
William Theodore Walton III (born November 5, 1952) is an American television sportscaster and former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for coach John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins, winning three consecutive national college player of the year awards (1972–1974), while leading UCLA to NCAA championships in 1972 and 1973 and an 88-game winning streak. After being selected as the first overall pick in the 1974 NBA draft, Walton led the Portland Trail Blazers to an NBA championship in 1977, earning the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award that season. He won another NBA title in 1986 as a member of the Boston Celtics. Walton was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. He was named to the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Walton's early career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) was very successful, winning the 1978 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) and an NBA championship with the Portland Trail Blazers, fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Terry Porter
Terry Porter (born April 8, 1963) is an American former college basketball coach and former player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was most recently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Portland. A native of Wisconsin, he played college basketball at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point before being drafted 24th by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1985 NBA draft. In Portland, he played ten seasons with two All-Star Game appearances. Porter spent 17 years in the NBA as a player. Following his retirement as a player in 2002, he began coaching in the league. Porter has twice been a head coach, first with his hometown Milwaukee Bucks and then with the Phoenix Suns. Early life Porter was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 8, 1963. Porter played prep basketball, as a forward, at Milwaukee's South Division High School. College career Porter attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point (the Pointers), at the time an NAIA ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bob Gross
Robert Edwin Gross (born August 3, 1953) is an American retired professional basketball player. A 6'6" (1.98 m) 200 lb (91 kg) forward, he attended Seattle University and California State University, Long Beach, and was selected in the 1975 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. He was also selected in the 1975 ABA Draft by the San Diego Sails. Gross was the starting small forward for the Blazers during their only championship season ( 1976–77). He left the NBA in 1983 with career averages of 8.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.12 steals a game. Currently living in the Portland area, Gross' number 30 jersey was retired on December 18, 2008 during the Trail Blazers' home game against the Phoenix Suns The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Suns are the only team in t .... Since h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Clyde Drexler
Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player and the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed "Clyde the Glide", he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), spending a majority of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers before finishing with the Houston Rockets. He was a ten-time NBA All-Star and named to the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Drexler won an NBA championship with Houston in 1995, and earned a gold medal on the 1992 United States Olympic team known as "The Dream Team". He was inducted twice into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2004 for his individual career and in 2010 as a member of the "Dream Team". Drexler is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players and greatest shooting guards of all time. Early years Drexler was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and lived in the South Park area in Houston, Texas.Shilcutt, Katharine. "Still S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |