Some trails were made with promise, but led to utter despair.
The most infamous trail in recent NBA history started in Portland, Oregon and end at 1111 S. Figueroa St. in Los Angeles, California on June 4, 2000.
There, the Portland Trail Blazers and their 59 regular season wins, two playoff series victories and two game comeback in Western Conference Finals were stymied when a 15 point lead with ten minutes left dissipated amidst one of the most inexplicable poor shooting stretches in NBA history.
The Rosters
Gleaming in a recent video post on social media, LeBron James noted a forgotten fact about teams in the Western Conference not named the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs after the 1999 NBA Lockout: Portland was loaded.
Upon the break up of the Bulls, Scottie Pippen spent the lockout season with the Houston Rockets.
Winding down to til the clock hit zero on his career, fans wanted to see if he could prolong his prime without Jordan again.
But after one year, Pippen then moved on to Portland the next season who finished 35-15 the season before.
Star vets along with budding superstar talent made the Portland a tough out.
Pippen joined Steve Smith, Arvydas Sibonas, Rasheed Wallace and Damon Stoudemire on the floor with key reserves Greg Anthony, Brian Grant, Bonzi Wells and Detlef Shrempf for a title run.
Showtime’s New Cast
A.C. Green started in the year 2000. For a playoff team. Let that sink in.
Like Tinseltown, some characters on t.v. needed to be killed off a lot sooner.
Young and on the cusp, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant had they share of playoff loses, but were not pushovers.
They were dominant all stars and the focal points of everything the Lakers did.
Glen Rice was an angler fish third option that could surprise opponents more caught in the lure of what Shaq and Kobe did nightly.
The rest of the team was made up of clutch role players in Derek Fisher, Brian Shaw, Rick Fox and the great Robert Horry.
Looking for a Hero
Being eliminated without sniffing a win isn’t fun right Portland? San Antonio wanted to ask you that about last year after winning 4-0.
Now some may think this is just a step in the progression in the making of a champion; improving upon last year and learning from mistakes.
So adding a six time champion and one of the 50 Greatest Players of All-Time like Pippen should have help Portland over the hump of mediocrity.
In the post Jordan, pre-Rodman era for the Bulls (’93-94 and all but 17 games of the ’94-’95 season) there was no other player on that list that could keep the Bulls as dominant from a wing position without Jordan.
In their final championship year, a Michael Jordan lead Bulls team won 57 games.
The next year, Pippen’s team won 55.
According to Probasketballreference.com, in the final year during the first Bulls three-peat, Jordan was worth 17.2 win shares. Pippen was second on the team at 8.6.
The team ranked in the top six in most defensive categories.
The following year and Jordan-less Pippen’s win shares increased to 11.2, Grant increased to 10 and Armstrong stayed at 7.5.
Still baffled at how the team and their new leader did it?
Well, defensively, they stayed in the top six defensively.
The best explanation on how the Bulls stayed consistent offensively and defensively despite losing Jordan and his 30+ ppg was the fact that their leader had to be their best defensive player.
Jordan and Pippen were dynamic together and similarly effective without one another.
The Bulls relied on Jordan to increase the margin of victory offensively, while Pippen created the margin defensively; and in the East with Charlotte, New York, Indiana and Orlando coming, maintaining a victory was more impressive than widening the final score.
Fast forward Pippen’s VHS tape to 1999, add three more titles, wear and tear and the break up amongst dynastic figures, compare the his win shares for the ’98-’99 Houston Rockets to the ’99-’00 Trail Blazers.
Pippen was third on the team with 4.9 averaging 14.5 ppg trailing Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon respectively (Barkley: 6.5, Olajuwon 6.8) in the regular season.
The playoffs barely mattered because the Rockets barely mattered to San Antonio.
Pip in Portland was effective for his role averaging 7.8 win shares and 12.5ppg in the regular season and was worth almost two wins in the playoffs.
Portland’s defense also was top 10 in all major statistical categories.
Just like the glory days, yet in his new role, his fading talents were only needed in spurts occasionally with so much talent on his new teams.
Greatness supporting allowed him to be another solid veteran and masked many of the deficiencies that come with age critics seemingly dismiss in the final game of this series when they blame Pippen for being on that team.
He just did not have it like he used to.
Coaches on The Court
Here and now and 2016 we can see some of highest basketball I.Q. also was the reason the Lakers over came the Blazers.
Though so far unsuccessful in their stints as head men so far, the Lakers bench consisted of Current Knicks head coach Derek Fisher, former Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw and the ma who save Cleveland from David Blatt’s playoff blunder last year, Cavalier’s assistant head coach Tyron Lue.
With the starters struggling, future head coaches realized the weakness of Portland’s team was backcourt ball handling and screen and roll defensive pressure in the third quarter as they brought Los Angeles back one steal and one three at a time as Portland built a house the Big Bad Wolf couldnt blow down.
This parlayed into the fourth quarter giving Shaq and Kobe timely rest and new life to create one of the greatest endings to a series in NBA history.
Dysentery
From playing and dying on the Oregon Trail many times, my quest to reach the riches of the West ended with starvation followed by dysentery.
So as in virtual reality, the trail to the promise land ended with the most iconic dunk in playoff history from Kobe to Shaq.
Let us not forget Portland was still in arms reach of stealing the game in the final minute.
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