The 80s Begin

The early 80s may not have been significant for the Blazers in terms of wins or accomplishments, but it includes some of my favorite card sets, if for no other reason because they weren't especially prevalent and they include some of my favorite players.

The Blazers made Bahaman born Mychal Thompson the first pick in the 1978 draft.  Thompson averaged 20 points and 11 boards in the 81-82 season.

No player sported a cooler looking game necklace either...at least not until the 2000s when MLB pitchers started wearing them.

The early 80s also featured these 3 paneled basketball cards.  Were kids supposed to separate these and have miniature cards?  It's the polar opposite of the oversized cards of 1970.  In a decade, Topps has come full circle.  They still like their pink though.

The 1981-82 set included this nice team leader card though.  This may be my favorite Blazers uniform set as well, minus the short shorts.

The police cards continue.  Kermit Washington was a member of the team at this time, having joined the team following his release from the Los Angeles Lakers amid the punch scandal (google Kermit Washington punch...it's famous enough to not require repeating).

I included Kevin Kunnert for no reason other than because I played basketball with his daughter in the early 1990s.  Portland's a small community.

This 1983-84 Trail Blazer police card of Clyde Drexler is my earliest Drexler card.

Clyde...the best player in Trail Blazers history.  To watch him play, the guy could fly.  His jump shot always looked flat but it sure seemed to find the bottom of the net.

In the early 80s, the Star company came out with their series of basketball cards.  They were the only licensed NBA cards during the mid-80s.  This Jim Paxson was part of Star's 32 card set of star player cards, the only Blazer included in the inaugural set.  There were limited number of these cards, generally print runs of of less than 5,000.  Quality issues also caused less cards to be produced for Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks due to ink saturation.

Star cards were sold in hobby shops in team poly bags.  They were also distributed regionally, making collecting them difficult at the time.  Due to their limited production and distribution methods, most player cards from this era are not considered "true" rookie cards.

I never owned a Star card until I was an adult and the internet made acquisition of these cards more possible.  There is also something about their simplicity that is attractive.

The Franz baking company of Portland, Oregon also teamed up with the Star company for many years to produce Franz basketball cards which were included in loaves of bread.  During the time of year Franz basketball cards were coming out, I remember going to the grocery store with my mom every Sunday peering through the wrappers of Franz white bread sacks to see if there was a card I needed in there.

Oh yeah, also around that time the Blazers drafted Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan.  At the time, Portland had Drexler and didn't feel they needed another similar player.  Had Bowie lived up to his potential, this may not have seemed like such a monumental drafting error but Bowie (like Walton before him) was oft injured and seemed to keep breaking his legs.

At least we had these guys.  Jerome Kersey came out of small college Longwood and is to this day a Blazer fan favorite.  Hustle and a sweet mid range jumper.  Plus, is was so good looking in those black 80s shades.

Around this time, Portland also had Steve Colter as point guard.  He was never a great player but had an awesome 80s fro.  And Drexler was a slam dunking dream.

In the summer of 1984, Portland traded Fat Lever, Wayne Cooper, and Calvin Natt (3 solid players) and two draft picks to the Denver Nuggets for the jab-stepping Kiki Vandeweghe.  Kiki was a big time scorer for Portland along with Drexler for a few years, each averaging over 20 ppg.

This was no championship winning team but they had some great personalities and were exciting to watch.  Plus, it looked like things were headed in the right direction.