The History of the Portland Trail Blazers: The Championship Era Part 1

What a delightful treat!

I miss being in Portland so much right now.

Thank you.

Was it the last time a major professional sports team was down 0-2 in a series, only to sweep the next four games to win 4-2?

Were there other historical firsts, bests, lasts of the ’77 playoff run?

I remember two things from his opening press conference.

1. He said he came from Buffalo where Bob McAdoo was a ball stopper who, once he got the ball was going to shoot it.

2. He had studied the Blazer roster and the conference and he said he believed we could make the playoffs. It would take 45 wins and he had plotted the schedule and believed we could do that.

Listening to him that first time, I found confidence that, indeed, this man would lead the Blazers to the playoffs. He was compelling in the way he slowly spoke and the air he carried that he knew what he was doing.

Of course if someone had said we would sweep the Lakers in the playoffs I would have shared their joke with a laugh. As Dave said, as the playoffs progressed it became a whole city team and then we believed we would beat the Lakers and the 76ers and everyone that got in our way/

This is the era when I first became a fan. The main reason I became a fan? Bill Schonley. I was in the habit of sneaking a transistor radio into bed, hiding it under the covers and listening to the evil music my parents didn’t want me to listen to, using the old one ear headphone. One night in January, 1977, I was dialing through the stations, looking for anything interesting to listen to, and came across Bill Schonley. It was a home game against the Lakers, and it was a very tight game. The score went back and forth, and Bill was getting more and more excited as the game went on. Although we lost that game in overtime, I was hooked. Soon I was listening to every game, and eventually passed on the bug to the rest of the family as well. I even talked my dad into taking us to the airport after game 5 in Philly, where we joined thousands of other fans in staying up all night to welcome the team home. It was the beginning of what is now going on 35 years of follwing the team, through thick and thin. Although I love listening to Brian Wheeler, I can truly say that it’s thanks to Bill Schonley for introducing the Blazers to me!

Tonight I’ll write about the parallels between the 1976-77 championship team and the current Blazers.

…

Ok, now that’s over with.

That’s right, there are ZERO similarities between the 76-77 championship team and our current team.

The 76-77 team was an exceptional fast break team built around the strength of Walton’s rebounding and outlet passes. I believe Walton was the greatest outlet passer in the history of basketball (and one of, if not the best, passing centers in the half court as well – Sabas was good – fancier, but not as effective as Walton despite Walton’s self depreciating comments as a broadcaster). He had an almost magical way of grabbing rebounds high above his head and then without bringing the ball down below his head he would rocket outlet passes to the Blazer wings near half court. I’m sure there is video somewhere that showed his technique. He would begin his passing motion as he dropped back to the court after snaring the rebound, and just as his feet touched the court he would push off his feet to get his legs behind the pass. It was so quick and perfectly timed it almost appeared as if he was passing the ball while still in the air, but instead he was spotting his target while in the air and then getting the leverage from his legs into the pass the instant he touched the court.

But the 76-77 Blazers weren’t just a fast break team, or even predominately a fast break team. They were a great half court team with Walton running the offense as the high-post point-center. His ability to find the open man and often pass the ball downward from his arm extended high over his head to the open man under the basket was an amazing weapon coupled with Jack Ramsay’s cutting offense that perfectly matched the abilities of Bobby Gross and Dave Twardzik. When the other team successfully chased them around, there was usually Lionel Hollins (the real Blazer L-Train) or Larry Steele (the Kentucky Rifle) left wide open to hit a jumper.

And if that wasn’t working, they just got the ball to the toughest guy in the NBA, Mo Lucas, who was a great scorer and excellent rebounder. People tend to forget it was Lucas, not Walton that led the team in scoring. And behind Lucas was Lloyd Neal (nick named “Bottom” – cut from the Wes Unsold mold) to provide even more muscle off the bench.

To meld together their running games and half court offense the 76-77 Blazers were a team with a superb basketball IQ with Walton leading the way (John Wooden said that Walton had the best basketball fundamentals of any player to ever play the game), the cerebral Enforcer Mo Lucas, future coaches and GMs on the court (as Dave said) in Hollins, Davis, Twardzik, and (add) Larry Steele at the college level. Then top that off with one of the best X’s and O’s coaches ever in Prof. Jack.

So that team had it all. A fast breaking quick outlet-passing running game, a half-court motion offense with one of the greatest passing big men to ever play the game, incredibly high basketball IQ in players and coach, and amazing toughness.

But also what I think a lot of people forget is that the 76-77 team took us by surprise and wasn’t nearly as good as the 77-78 team (which everyone expected to win back to back championships). Everything that had developed over the course of the championship year was in place and the Blazers took off Red Hot and Rolling in 77-78 from training camp until injuries destroyed them after they had reached a 50-10 record (and I have no idea how they lost even 10 games at that point). But Dave will get into that tomorrow.

It was the first time I actually got to see the Blazers on TV. Once in a while I would see them if they were playing against a power team on game of the week.

My first TV experience was one announcer laughing at the new hype Portland was getting for making the play-offs, and the other announcer saying laugh if you want, but this Portland team with Bill Walton healthy is looking awfully good so beware of what might happen. Showing uninformed mouthy announcers up is one of my favorite things as a Blazer fan, which happens often.

Remember the announcer that laughed at Portland’s picks of BRoy and LMA, and saying it was so ridiculous that he couldn’t stand to watch it. then a year later had to eat his words on national TV. I LOVED IT.

While I have plenty of memories from that series—most memorably Luke taking care of business when Dawkins got feisty—I want to say a few words about what Bill Walton meant to at least one rebellious teenager.

Remember, this was the seventies, and those of us in high school had grown up watching our big brothers and sisters tune in, turn on, and reject the mainstream values and cultural standards of our childhood. Part of wanting to be like them meant assuming an attitude of apathy toward traditional status symbols. How many of us perfectly good athletes, I wonder, quit our teams in the seventies because it just wasn’t cool to represent any formal institution, to show the slightest sign of school spirit? There were plenty at my school (Reynolds), including some who couuld have been stars.

Then came Bill, riding to the rescue—a pony-tailed vegetarian who rode his bike everywhere, followed the Dead, and was followed in turn by the FBI for associating with political “subversives” (Talk about street cred!). He was a perfect fit in the Rose city, from our perspective, if not from his. As his game became dominant, it was impossible to ignore that being hip didn’t mean you had to give up on sports. You could just bring a different approach to the game, and maybe even help retrieve some of the best parts from the “straights.”

My last year of playing high school sports was 1976. By 1979, although I had already graduated, I was back on the court playing city league, church league, and playground ball (at Alberta, Laurelhurst, and Irving Parks), doing what I loved again. I wore my long red hair in a pony tail, tied back with a headband, and sported a scraggly beard. In a way, I thank Bill for giving me permission to combine a love of sport with a countercultural lifestyle.

…it took even less time for Bill to make organized sports acceptable again for young longhairs like me. I was back onto the Reynolds HS court for the Senior game against the faculty by the spring of ’78—less than a year after Bill brought us the championship.

It occurs to me now that Bill without a ring probably couldn’t have legitimized hippies playing organized sports: up till then he could be dismissed as a young man with amazing potential who never lived up to it. In fact, when his injuries ended his career in Portland, there were plenty of people arguing that it was his “lifesyle” (especially the vegetraian diet) that was to blame.

By the way, does anyone else remember his bike-ride from Portland to Cannon Beach? Compare his “lifestyle” to someone like George McGinnis, who (if I remember right) was one of the last pack-a-day NBA players.

I was 20 in ‘76, and I didn’t think much of the NBA – it had the best players, but they didn’t play the best ball. It was a lot of one-on-one, and any good team had one or more players you couldn’t stop one-on-one, so it came down to a shootin’ match between the opposing stars. High school ball was more exciting. Only during the playoffs did the NBA even get interesting.

Then I started hearing how this Trail Blazers team was pretty good, which was a surprise, so I tuned in a game on TV. It was amazing; they ran the most beautiful offense I’d ever seen, like a ballet that ended with a layup. At least, when it was working – when they got out of synch, stood around, went one-on-one, then they sucked. But when they ran their cuts, nobody could stop them. And they played real defense! In the NBA, only defensive specialists did that – but these guys all did! Switching and double-teaming and rotating – this Coach Ramsey had a defensive system, too! A damn good one!

Their fast break was incredible as well – instead of dribbling the ball up the court, they’d pass it back and forth as they ran up the floor. Sometimes they didn’t dribble it at all. It was nothing like the usual NBA ball, and I was hooked.

The playoffs were great, but there was one sequence that really stuck in my mind; it’s when I knew for sure they were gonna beat the Lakers, and it came early in the first game of the series. One Blazer possession, Walton got the ball in the high post with Kareem guarding him, and just turned and drilled a jumper like there was no defense at all. Smart move, I thought – establish that Jabbar can’t block your shot, break their confidence.

But it’s what happened at the other end that really did it.. On the other end, Kareem posted up in the exact same position as Walton had, and tried to do the same thing back at him. Walton swatted the shot clear to the other end of the floor.

That’s when I knew they were going all the way.

….. Thank you.

Living in Newport at the time, I caught very few regular season games on TV. They did pick up the playoffs (the heavens broke and the sun poured in). But from the first game the Blazers played, Schonz was there.

I realize I am a bit partial but I think of him as the best sports announcer EVER. He had a way with words that made me see the game in action even if it was just radio. I would catch myself moving my head as if I was watching the game being played. When he said Mo, Dave, Walton or whomever’s name, I saw them with the ball. When he said Jack, I could see Ramsey’s outlandish pants. He was the Blazers to me.

The Vietnam War was not long over. It had divided the country quite badly. I found this Blazer season to be a uniting force. The Blazers brought many of us together who had nothing in common except for them. It brought out our (continuing through today) feeling of us little guys against the world. It was David and Goliath all over. We wanted to believe but had doubts. They replaced those doubts with a feeling that anything could happen if you wanted it bad enough and were willing to sacrifice self for team.

It was a tiny slice of heaven that I will remember my remaining days. Another championship would taste oh, so sweet. I wish all Blazer fans who missed it the first time could taste the sweetness.

Thanks for the great memory dredge, Dave.

I know there were at least 12,666 people at the MC that day. There must have been other BEdger’s there too. Speak up friends!

whats up with that

and I was one of them ….14 years old…not much of a sports fan but my dad glommed onto the Blazers and i followed right along. At the time we all thought that this might be the first of many championships…alas that was not to be. This team was more my dad’s team than it was mine. My team was that 90-92 squad….I had invested so much into the team by then that is was the payoff for all the years of dedication. Soooo close….but I still love that team…my team

Star Wars premiered 3 days after our series with the Sixers started. May 25