Clyde Drexler
Teams
Portland Trail Blazers - 1983-95
Houston Rockets - 1995-98
Playoffs
Appearances - 15 (1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998)
Conference Finals - 5 (1990,1991,1992,1995,1997)
NBA Finals - 3 (1990,1992,1995)
Championships - 1 (1995)
Awards and Honors
All-NBA First Team - 1 (1992)
All-NBA Second Team - 2 (1988,1989,1991)
All-NBA Third Team - 2 (1990,1991,1995)
Hall of Fame - 2004
*(actual in bold, deserved in italics)
All-Time Ranks
Total Steals - #9
Steals Per Game - #14
Total Assists - #34
Total Points - #37
Points Per Game - #57
Assists Per Game - #78
League Leads
Steals Per Game (#3-1986, #5-1987,1988,1989)
Total Steals (#3-1986,1989, #4-1987)
Points Per Game (#4-1989,1992)
Total Points (#5-1992)
After leading Houston to consecutive Final Four appearances as a sophomore and junior as part of the Phi Slama Jama team, Clyde Drexler left school a year early to enter the NBA Draft, where he was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers at #14 overall.
After averaging only 7.7 points during his rookie season, Drexler would never again average less than 17 per game, and he would also average at least 5 rebounds and 5 assists per game in 11 of those 14 seasons as well.
Early in his career, Drexler was regularly one of the league leaders in steals, averaging at least 2 per game for 6 straight seasons, finishing among the top 5 in the league in 4 of those years, but he was somehow never voted to a single All-Defensive Team in his career. His career high in steals came in 1988-89, when he had 2.7 per game.
Drexler also increased his scoring in every season through the end of the 1980s, peaking at 27.2 per game in 1989, when he finished 4th in the league in scoring, but despite leading Portland to the playoffs every season up to that point, they had only won a playoff series once, and had lost in the first round 4 consecutive times.
1990 is when the team success finally started to come as well. Drexler and the Blazers were able to advance through the first 3 rounds of the playoffs somewhat easily, but ran into the defending champion Detroit Pistons in the Finals. He averaged 26.4 points per game in the Finals, but it wasn't enough and the Blazers fell in 5 games.
The next year, the Blazers finished with the best record in the league and were favored to return to the Finals, but they were upset in the Conference Finals by the Lakers. Drexler had been named to the All-NBA Second Team that year for the second time, but his team continued to come up short.
He had his best individual season the next year. He scored 25 points per game, grabbed 6.6 rebounds and dished out 6.7 assists while earning a spot on the All-NBA First Team for the only time in his career, and was the runner-up in the MVP voting. He averaged 26.3 points per game during their playoff run, and they were able to return to the NBA Finals after a year away, but still didn't quite earn a title, falling to the defending-champion Bulls in 6 games.
Drexler missed over 30 games the next season due to injury, and his production started to slip, with his scoring hovering around 20 per game instead of the 25 he had averaged the year before. After 2 straight first round playoff exits, Drexler requested to be traded to a contending team, and he was sent home to Houston midway through the 1994-95 season, reuniting him with Hakeem Olajuwon, his college teammate.
Houston ended that season as the #6 seed in the West, but behind Olajuwon and Drexler, they were able to pull off upsets all the way through the playoffs, knocking off the top 3 seeds in the West in a row before upsetting the Orlando Magic, the top seed in the East, in a 4-game sweep. Drexler was a big part of the title, averaging 21.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in the Finals as he finally won a championship.
He played 3 more seasons with the Rockets, and he continued to average around 18 points per game in each of those seasons, but Houston was not able to get back to the Finals. They reached the Conference Finals in 1997, but were knocked out by the Jazz in 6 games, and after the 1998 season, Drexler decided to call it a career.
Drexler was a very good all-around player for a long time, and had 14 straight seasons where he scored at least 17 points per game after his rookie season. He led the Blazers to 3 straight Conference Finals during his prime, including 2 NBA Finals, then won a championship as a star sidekick to Hakeem Olajuwon a few years later. He is often overlooked because he played the same position as Michael Jordan at the same time, but there is no doubt that Drexler is one of the greatest to ever play the game.
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