LaRue Martin is an American former professional basketball player. Martin was drafted first overall by the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Portland Trail Blazers in the controversy riddled 1972 NBA draft out of Loyola University Chicago. He was drafted ahead of future Hall of Famers Bob McAdoo and Julius Erving. Martin has been discussed as one of the worst first overall draft picks in NBA history, but he moved on to forge a successful corporate career.

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.