page_title: History of the Portland Trail Blazers
section_title: 1996–2000: Whitsitt makes his mark
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Portland Trail Blazers / 1996–2000: Whitsitt makes his mark
caption_attribution_description: The Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. A 3x4 segment stitched panorama.
context_page_description: The Portland Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team in the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association. The Trail Blazers are currently celebrating their 50th NBA season. The franchise owner is Jody Allen, who assumed ownership upon the death of her brother Microsoft co-founder and Vulcan Inc. chairman Paul Allen, in 2018.
  The Trail Blazers' rallying cry is "Rip City", coined by play-by-play announcer Bill Schonely during their inaugural season. The team holds the NBA record for most consecutive sell-out games - set between April 9, 1977, and November 16, 1995.
  The Trail Blazers have retired several players jerseys, including Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members Clyde Drexler and Bill Walton. Jack Ramsay, who was the Trail Blazers head coach from 1976 to 1986, had the number 77 retired in honor of Portland's only NBA Finals victory in 1977. Portland has had four NBA Rookies of the Year; Geoff Petrie, Sidney Wicks, Brandon Roy and Damian Lillard. The only NBA Most Valuable Player that earned the award as a member of the Trail Blazers was Bill Walton in 1978.
context_section_description: The 1996 off-season was yet another eventful one for the Trail Blazers.  Strickland demanded a trade, and got one, being sent to Washington (along with Harvey Grant) for forward Rasheed Wallace. A second trade brought guard Isaiah Rider from Minnesota. To replace Strickland, the Blazers signed playground legend Kenny Anderson to a free-agent contract. In the draft that year, the team selected a high school player, Jermaine O'Neal. Initially, this approach worked, as the team returned to the Western Conference finals in 1999 under head coach Mike Dunleavy. After being swept by the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs, Whitsitt sent Rider and guard Jim Jackson to the Atlanta Hawks for guard Steve Smith and acquired former All-Star forward Scottie Pippen from the Houston Rockets. The team again advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced a Los Angeles Lakers team led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. In that series, the Trail Blazers dropped three out of the first four games before winning the next two, forcing a pivotal Game 7. The Blazers had a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter, but lost the game and the series to the Lakers, who went on to win the first of three consecutive titles.
  To some, this represented the influx of young talent the Blazers, who had been a rather ordinary team in previous years, needed to return to the ranks of the league powers. To others, the moves represented a disturbing new trend of placing talent above character.
  Rider got arrested two days prior to his debut game, and Wallace had a well-established reputation as a hothead. In addition, the drafting of high schooler O'Neal was a controversial move. However, the moves worked initially, as the Blazers improved on their prior record, winning 49 games.  The playoff results were the same, however: a first round loss, this time to the Lakers. Carlesimo was fired and replaced with Mike Dunleavy.
  One other long-time fixture with the Blazers left the team as well. Clifford Robinson, widely blamed for recent playoff failures (in part due to a noticeable decline in his performance in the playoffs) was allowed to leave as a free agent during the 1997 off-season.
  In addition to Dunleavy, the 1997–98 campaign saw two other important new faces: forward Brian Grant who was signed as a free agent in the off-season, and guard Damon Stoudamire, who was acquired in a mid-season trade with the Toronto Raptors for Anderson. In his first NBA seasons with Toronto, the Portland native won Rookie of the Year honors and posted All-Star quality numbers for the Raptors, and reminded many of a young Isiah Thomas.  Many expected that "Mighty Mouse" would become the franchise player the team had lacked since Drexler left.
  In the abbreviated 1999 season, the Blazers advanced to their third conference final of the decade, only to be swept by the Spurs. The tone was punctuated in Game 2 of the series, when Spurs forward Sean Elliott hit a game-winning 3-pointer in what was referred to as the "Memorial Day Miracle." That off-season, the Blazers made one of the franchise's most notable acquisitions, making a blockbuster (six-for-one) trade for six-time NBA champion Pippen after Pippen's dysfunctional Houston Rockets stint. As mentioned above, Whitsitt brought in Smith while trading away Rider.
  Led by Stoudamire, Smith, Pippen, Wallace, Sabonis and sixth man Grant, the 2000 Blazers finished with the second-best record in the league, behind only the Lakers.  They returned to the Western Conference finals, where they played against the Lakers. The Lakers, led on the floor by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal and coached by Phil Jackson, split the first two games in Los Angeles with the Blazers. The Lakers then took two straight from the Blazers in Portland. The Blazers then came back to win Games 5 and 6. The Blazers were leading by 15 points in the fourth quarter of Game 7 at Los Angeles, before the Lakers came back and won the series in a 4th-quarter rally reminiscent of Game 6 against the Bulls almost ten years ago. The Lakers went on to win the first of three 
caption: The Rose Garden, now known as the Moda Center, opened in 1995.
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