The Season of Change
At the conclusion of the 1987-88 campaign, the team was purchased by (current owner) Paul Allen. The team quickly fell apart during the year, as the issue of who should start became paramount. In addition, many veterans were unhappy with Mike Schuler's coaching style; as a result the team limped to a 39–43 record and barely made the playoffs (where it was ousted by the Lakers 3–0 in the first round). Schuler was fired; assistant Rick Adelman was given the head coaching job on an interim basis.
That summer, Sam Bowie and a draft pick were traded to the New Jersey Nets for veteran forward Buck Williams, a respectable defensive and rebounding power forward. Vandeweghe was sent to the New York Knicks for a draft pick, and Johnson was taken by the expansion Minnesota Timberwolves in the expansion draft. DraÏen Petroviç was permitted by the Yugoslav authorities to come to Portland and join the team. For the second round of the draft, Portland selected a young forward from UConn, Clifford Robinson.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Portland Trail Blazers
Famous quotes containing the words season and/or change:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The incessant repetition of the same hand-work dwarfs the man, robs him of his strength, wit, and versatility, to make a pin- polisher, and buckle-maker, or any other specialty; and presently, in a change of industry, whole towns are sacrificed like ant-hills, when cotton takes the place of linen, or railways of turnpikes, or when commons are inclosed by landlords.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)