Portland's Historic Rise

About a month ago, Dave finished his assessment of the Blazers by saying: "We have not seen a sense of wonder like this since the late-80's Drexler-led teams started to emerge.  That's quite an accomplishment.  This was quite a season." That final statement got me thinking about more than just this season. I wanted to know if, from both a franchise and an NBA perspective, a team like Portland had ever "risen" (as defined by three straight years of win percentage improvement) like this before. I found the following: 

From a franchise perspective:

Only one time before in the history of the franchise has Portland increased its win percentage for three consecutive seasons. Those '71-‘72 to '74-'75 teams were lead by Sidney Wicks and Geoff Petrie. They help bring Portland from winning only 18 games in 1971 to winning 38 games in 1974. Nevertheless, Portland was not able to keep that momentum going and dropped to 37 wins in 1975 - which happened to be Bill Walton's rookie year. For comparison purposes, I stacked the win percentage increase of the two teams:

As you can see, the disco Blazers (much easier to say than the '71 to '74 Blazers) did not improve their record nearly as much as the current squad and were never able to win more than half of their games. From a franchise perspective, the city of Portland has never seen a "rise" like this before. I should also note that if Portland can win more than 54 games, they will be the first Blazer squad ever to improve their record for four consecutive years.

From a league perspective:

Using a slightly more stringent test (a team must have improved its record by at least 10% for three years in a row), I found that Portland is in some seriously rare air. In fact, only 3 other teams in the history of the NBA have ever the same type of record improvement.

Team 1: ’70-’71 to ’72-’73 Celtics. This team was led by John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and Jojo White, who combined went to a whopping 27 all-star games. They won 44, 56 and 68 games for those three seasons and followed that up by averaging 49 wins for the next 5 seasons. Most importantly, their success culminated in two championships during the '73-'74 and '75-'76 seasons.

Team 2: ’72-’73 to ’74-’75 Sixers. This team seems to be the most different one compared to the other three because their best players seemed to change every year. Fred Carter led them for all three years followed up by Tom Vanarsdale for two and Billy Cunningham and Doug Collins for one year. In total, those players accounted for 12 all-star games in their careers. The Sixers won 25, 34 and 46 games for those three seasons and followed up that run by averaging 55 wins for the next 5 seasons. They did make it to the Finals in '77 but were snuffed out by your Portland Trailblazers!

Team 3: '98-'99 to '00-'01 Mavericks. I almost missed including the Mavs because their first year of improvement came during the strike shortened '98-'99 season. They were led by Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Steve Nash, who have accounted for 14 all-star games. The Mavs won 19, 40 and 53 games for those three seasons and followed that up by averaging 57 wins for the next 5 seasons. They made it to the Finals in '06, but lost the battle of the whistles to the Heat.

These three teams are good examples of the possibilities that are in store for the Blazers. It is very doubtful that this Portland team as currently comprised will have any sub .500 seasons. In fact, 50 wins a season seems to be the minimum that should be expected. Adding to the first point, all of those teams played in the NBA finals within 6 years of their improvement. Portland stacks up pretty favorably with all three of these teams, as the graph illustrates below:

In the end, history backs up the fact that Portland's three-year rise has been something that is rarely ever seen. With some good luck, Portland will use this momentum to propel themselves into the upper echelon of NBA teams and start collecting those championship rings as early as next year.