1970–71 Portland Trail Blazers season
The Portland Trail Blazers were one of three new teams to join the NBA for the 1970–71 season. The franchise played its inaugural regular season game on a Friday night in Portland, beating the fellow expansion Cleveland Cavaliers 115–112 on October 16, with 4,273 in attendance.
The inaugural Portland Trail Blazers
Home games were at Veterans Memorial Coliseum
The Portland Trail 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 Northwest Division of the Western Conference. The team played its home games in the Memorial Coliseum before moving to the Moda Center in 1995. 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 which has only since been surpassed by the Boston Red Sox and the Dallas Mavericks. 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.
Sidney Wicks, who played in four NBA All-Star Games while with the Trail Blazers, won the 1971–72 NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 24.5 points per game and 11.5 rebounds per game.
In his first season as the Trail Blazers head coach, Jack Ramsay led the team to their first playoff berth and eventually the championship. Bill Walton was the NBA Finals MVP.
Clyde Drexler played in Portland from 1983 to 1995.
After being drafted by the Trail Blazers several years prior, Arvydas Sabonis made his NBA debut during the 1995–96 season.
