The 2011 Portland Trailblazers.

[Sportal]

This team got beat 4-2 by eventual Champions, the Dallas Mavericks in the first round.

This team had the future star SG of the league in Brandon Roy, and tragically, his knee injuries COMPLETELY destroyed his career.

This team had all-star LaMarcus Aldridge, prime Gerrard Wallace, it had fresh faces of Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, Patty Mills, Wesley Matthews, each either in their 2nd or 3rd year in the league... And they had vets of the likes of Andre Miller(still serviceable player in 2011), and Marcus Camby(on his way out of the league). And they had Nate McMillan as coach...

It is a MASSIVE hypothetical, but if Roy's knees don't crumble on him... What do you think this team does in the space of 5 years? Bearing in mind they took the Mavs to 6 with like a 60% Roy?

[coastalmarker99]

This team got beat 4-2 by eventual Champions, the Dallas Mavericks in the first round.

This team had the future star SG of the league in Brandon Roy, and tragically, his knee injuries COMPLETELY destroyed his career.

This team had all-star LaMarcus Aldridge, prime Gerrard Wallace, it had fresh faces of Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, Patty Mills, Wesley Matthews, each either in their 2nd or 3rd year in the league... And they had vets of the likes of Andre Miller(still serviceable player in 2011), and Marcus Camby(on his way out of the league). And they had Nate McMillan as coach...

It is a MASSIVE hypothetical, but if Roy's knees don't crumble on him... What do you think this team does in the space of 5 years? Bearing in mind they took the Mavs to 6 with like a 60% Roy?


I could see Portland making it to one or two WCF's from 2012 to 2015 provided Roy keeps improving as a player.

[coastalmarker99]

Portland for its entire history has had terrible luck with injuries.


When it comes to Walton there wasn't an aspect of the game Walton didn't excel at....scoring, passing, defending, shot-blocking, rebounding, he did it all.


His career-altering injuries probably cost Portland a three-peat from 1977 to 1979.



It also in my eyes caused a massive decline in interest in the NBA in the late seventies because it prevented classic head to head matchups against Kareem which would have gone down in NBA lore much as the Russell-Chamberlain matchups in the 1960s did.

[coastalmarker99]

For me, the second biggest what if in Portland's history is if they got Sabonis in 1986 instead of getting a broken down version of him in 1996.


The 1991 Blazers won 2 games against the Bulls with Kevin Duckworth playing center and Arvydas was much better than him.



The Blazers in the early 1990s were contenders without him, they went to 2 finals in 3 years and lost in the conference finals the one year they didn't go.

Sabonis would have been in his prime during a time the Blazers were averaging 60 wins a season, they would have been the favourites to win those titles from 1990 to 1992 with a prime Sabonis.

As we all saw how good he was as an old broken down 32-38-year-old player, he didn't have half the mobility he used to have and he was still a factor.


He obviously couldn't log 35+ minutes at this stage of his career, because of the injuries.


But if you check his per 36 mins stats, you'd be surprised at how well he produced on the floor.

As a rookie at 31 years old, he put up: 22 ppg (61.7 TS%) , 12.2 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.6 bpg and 1.3 spg with a PER of 24.7.

That's insane. He was generally a player who didn't drop off much in the playoffs.


Not to mention that his defence was still spectacular at this point of his career, finishing top 10 in defensive rating in 5 of his 7 years in the NBA.

[ArbitraryWater]

It had a very nice team indeed, yeah...

going into the post-season the top teams kind of wanted to avoid Portland, if they had the choice anyway (they didnt tank around them *cough Clippers).

That team was ready for an upset.

[DJmicah]

Portland just has bad luck as a franchise man smh oden injury plus coulda had durant, sam bowie over jordan, walton injury, sabonis not in his prime, brandon roy injuries, and pretty soon losing dame to another franchise possibly. what makes it even worse is they generally have good teams but just not enough to get over the hump. its tough being a blazers fan i can imagine.

[SouBeachTalents]

They don’t win shit. Clear tier below the likes of the Thunder, Spurs & Warriors. I don’t even think they’d be better than the Clippers, and they couldn’t even get past the 2nd round

[rawimpact]

Late 90s Blazers were better

[Sportal]

They don’t win shit. Clear tier below the likes of the Thunder, Spurs & Warriors. I don’t even think they’d be better than the Clippers, and they couldn’t even get past the 2nd round

You don't think they develop the intangibles and the defense to stop a team like the Thunder? I think the fact that the team took Dallas to 6 with what it had, all the early career players and a broken down Roy+Aldridge... I think when your roster is Roy, Aldridge, Gerrard Wallace, Miller... Then Matthews, Batum, Fernandez... Idk... Do they struggle with the Thunder..? Roy had everything going for him, in which people were talking about him being the next star SG behind Kobe and Wade. He would have been that gap between when Wade and Kobe dropped off, till when Harden showed up. Would have been a multiple time all-star, might have been difficult for Harden to get in if they were just picking a starting SG for the all-star games then random favourites.