50 Years of NBA WAR — Day 5: Portland Trail Blazers Top 50
Continuing the 21-day series of ranking the Top 50 players by WAR for every franchise that has played in all 50 seasons covered by my dataset (1976-77 through 2025-26), coming in at #5 are the Portland Trail Blazers.
Helped by their most recent season to climb to 5th place, Portland has accumulated 1,614.1 total WAR over the last 50 seasons — 1,543.1 in the regular season and 71.0 in the playoffs. Unlike yesterday’s Phoenix Suns, the Trail Blazers do have a championship during this period, and it came in the very first season covered by the dataset, when Portland won the 1976-77 NBA championship.
One interesting consequence of the 50-year cutoff: Bill Walton only has two seasons represented here, but still makes the list. His 1976-77 championship season is included, while his first two seasons in Portland fall just outside the dataset.
For the full explanation of the methodology and Estimated RAPTOR/LAKER, see Day 1: San Antonio Spurs.
For a quick refresher: these rankings use total WAR = regular-season WAR + playoff WAR, and only WAR accumulated with that franchise counts. Since WAR is cumulative, longevity and playing time are naturally part of the metric — this is intended to measure total value accumulated for a franchise, rather than peak ability.
Here’s the Portland Trail Blazers Top 50:
Rank
Player
Seasons
RS WAR
Playoff WAR
Total WAR
1
Clyde Drexler
12
125.2
11.4
136.6
2
Damian Lillard
11
87.8
4.4
92.2
3
Terry Porter
10
64.4
7.1
71.5
4
Rasheed Wallace
8
59.2
4.9
64.1
5
LaMarcus Aldridge
9
62.6
1.3
63.9
6
Jerome Kersey
11
55.8
8.1
63.9
7
CJ McCollum
9
45.4
3.3
48.7
8
Arvydas Sabonis
7
43.3
3.4
46.7
9
Jim Paxson
9
43.2
1.2
44.4
10
Clifford Robinson
8
38.9
-0.5
38.4
11
Buck Williams
7
35.5
2.2
37.7
12
Brandon Roy
5
35.8
0.5
36.3
13
Nicolas Batum
7
35.1
0.7
35.8
14
Rod Strickland
5
32.9
1.6
34.5
15
Mychal Thompson
7
33.0
1.3
34.3
16
Wesley Matthews
5
31.4
0.0
31.4
17
Bob Gross
6
24.8
2.4
27.2
18
Scottie Pippen
4
23.7
2.5
26.2
19
Damon Stoudamire
8
25.4
0.7
26.1
20
Calvin Natt
5
23.5
0.8
24.3
21
Kiki Vandeweghe
5
19.6
0.3
19.9
22
Dave Twardzik
4
18.4
1.1
19.5
23
Bill Walton
2
16.4
2.0
18.4
24
Dale Davis
4
18.2
0.1
18.3
25
Jusuf Nurkić
7
17.4
0.5
17.9
26
Maurice Lucas
5
15.1
2.2
17.3
27
Bonzi Wells
6
16.2
0.5
16.7
28
Al-Farouq Aminu
4
16.1
0.6
16.7
29
Tom Owens
4
15.5
0.9
16.4
30
Kermit Washington
3
15.8
0.6
16.4
31
Ruben Patterson
5
14.2
0.1
14.3
32
Derek Anderson
4
14.4
-0.1
14.3
33
Andre Miller
2
14.2
0.0
14.2
34
Darnell Valentine
5
12.6
1.4
14.0
35
Kenny Anderson
2
13.4
0.3
13.7
36
Steve Smith
2
11.6
1.3
12.9
37
Steve Blake
5
12.0
0.1
12.1
38
Maurice Harkless
4
11.7
0.3
12.0
39
Lionel Hollins
4
10.6
1.1
11.7
40
Fat Lever
2
10.4
0.3
10.7
41
Zach Randolph
6
10.1
0.5
10.6
42
Brian Grant
3
9.1
1.4
10.5
43
Deni Avdija
2
10.5
-0.1
10.4
44
Rudy Fernández
3
10.2
-0.2
10.0
45
Kenny Carr
5
9.6
0.1
9.7
46
Larry Steele
4
9.0
0.6
9.6
47
Robin Lopez
2
9.4
0.0
9.4
48
Toumani Camara
3
9.5
-0.2
9.3
49
Anfernee Simons
7
8.8
0.2
9.0
50
Danny Ainge
2
8.7
0.2
8.9