He woulda put up close to thirty a game back then if he had been on nearly any other team in the league, because they were just so stacked wiith so many great players. The 89 through 92 Blazers were one of if not the deepest and most complete teams in league history. With him, Porter, Kersey, Buck, and Duck, while than bringing the likes of Cliff Robinson, Drazen Petrovic, Danny Ainge, and old but still decent Walter Davis, and Mark Bryant off the bench. The 91 team, (the one that didn't even make it outa the western conference finals), was and still is widely considered one of the greatest - if not THE greatest team to not win the championship. Sadly, this would go on to be a running theme for the Trail Blazers for the next little over 2 decades. Like the 99 Blazers for example: they had Isiah Rider, Rasheed Wallace, Staudameir, Walt Williams, Sabonis, Brian Grant, Jimmy Jackson, Stacy Augmon, Jermaine O'Neal, and Greg Anthony, (though they my not have had quite the star power that the Drexler era Blazers had, they were however - as demonstrated, somehow even deeper than those early 90's teams though). Unfortunately they ruined that team by trading Rider and Jackson for a one-dimensional over-the-hill Steve Smith, Jermaine O'Neal for Dale Davis, and then Walt, Augmon, Cato, and Anthony for a washed up Pippen. Then in the early 2010's the Blazers had Lamarcus Aldridge, young Dame, Wes Matthews, ridiculously underrated - Nic Batum, Lopez, Afflolo, Dorrell Wright, Crabbe, CJ McCullom, Kaiman, Leonard, and Steve Blake. That team in 2015, )( if i remember correctly), would've gotten at least to the conference finals if not for being possibly the most injury-plagued team over the course of a season that I can ever remember. It's sad how damn great those three era's were for Portland, and yet not any of them managed to produce a championship. Oh well, thanks for the upload!
Great comment my friend I agree with a lot said.Dont forget B.Roy he was a killer.One day they will get it again but gonna take some time right now.Dame was the man.
@@bdgzent Don't remind me about Roy. That team, i think like 09 or 2010, also coulda been contenders but even early in Roy's career he was constantly getting hurt. Then add that to Greg Oden barely playing much at all due to being constantly injured, (which really sucked cuz when he did play he demonstrated he had a decent post game and was both a great rim-protector and rebounder, not a major scoring threat for sure - but we had LA, Roy, Batum, Rudy Fernandez, and Andre Miller for that. The other problem in those years was Nate McMillan, he single-handedly ruined Rudy Fernandez as a pro in the NBA, he was a freak athlete with a deadly shot, but after coming back from a minor injury in his second or third year, Nate almost never played him, and when he did he was on a ridiculously short leash. It killed the guy's confidence. Not to mention he also under-utilized the shit outa Batum, (though Stott did as well). Batum was one of the best on-ball defenders at the wing that Portland has ever had. He was so good we stuck him on prime Steve Nash the one year in the playoffs and Nic held him to a good 5 or more points less than his average in that series. But more importantly - Batum was an extremely versatile scorer: he had a deadly outside and mid-range jump-shot, great at driving to the hoop and athletic enough to finish at the rim, good in the post due to great moves and his Durant-like length, all while also being a phenomenal passer! Nic shoulda been averaging 20 or more a game, but instead we stupidly turned him into nothing more than a third, (at best), or fourth, maybe even sometimes a 5th option.
@UNOVERSEWWOS-KDj777 Dame? Lemarcus Aldridge deserves some credit on that Blazer team. Yall rode overrated dame into the top 75. Now people are asking why he's even in the top 75. Hahaha!!! I'll the Brandon Roy over Dame all day.
@UNOVERSEWWOS-KDj777 The real question is how overrated is dame and giannis. Look at giannis weak champ. Imagine if Hakeem missed games in the playoff while his team advanced without him to the next round in 1994 and 1995. Yet that's exactly what happened to giannis in 2021. The 1971 Bucks played against an injured Lakers and Baltimore team ans you can still debate it was mlee competitive than 2021. Which do you prefer? 1971 Bucks or 2021? Please enlighten. Dame giannis games is overrated.
@@JamesHardenoverKobe13 He's also starting to get a but older now, so i gotta think that's a bit of a factor. But Dame's problem is/was he's a scoring shoot-first PG, when he's one of only two or three guys who can reliably be counted on to put up more than 15 a night - that's when he flourishes. Unfortunately back when LA was the go to guy, to go along with a number of other guys who coulda been all-stars if they weren't on a team as deep as those early to mid 2010's Blazers teams were, (Wes Matthews and Nic Batum specifically), along with tons of scorers off the bench, that team really needed more of an Andre Miller, Rod Strickland, or Terry Porter type traditional pass-first PG, guys who will give 15 or 16 points a night on average, while then if the need arises still have the skills and scoring ability to step up and and drop well over 20 or 25. But are normally looking to get the ball to the wide array of offensive talent that those teams did back then. Regardless of what his stats say, back then - even when factoring is how ridiculously injury plagued those last few LA years in Portland, I think Lillard's style of PG really held that team back a bit because Dame was looking for his own shot so much, that he really screwed up the flow of the offense. I know since then the shoot-first scoring PG is now the norm, along with the inability for defenders to play with any physicality whatsoever, allowed Dame to dominate, along with all scoring PG's. But back then, though he did his best, his constant looking for his own shot as opposed to being the floor general and chief-distributor definitely was hinderance to that teams success unfortunately. Oh, plus he's a poor defender - but then again... everybody is now.
