The NBA sidekick Hall of Fame

Maurice Lucas

The tale of the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers begins and ends with Bill Walton. Very few other players have been hollowed out by injury in the way he has. Take Greg Oden, for example. No one really knows what Oden could have been. What was lost in the failing of Oden’s knees is a what-if, but everyone knows what Walton could have been. What was lost when his foot failed is a basketball Camelot — something realized and then gone. Perhaps this is all too existential. Perhaps this is all too far removed from Maurice Lucas.

Lucas averaged 20.2 points and 11.4 rebounds per game as Walton’s partner in the post the year they won a title. That made him the team’s leading scorer and second-leading rebounder. He also notched 2.9 assists per game and led the team in minutes played. He was only 24. Walton was only 24. No one else who played over 20 minutes per game for Portland that year was over the age of 26. This all should’ve gone on forever, but it didn’t.

Portland followed up its title with 58 wins in the 1977-78 regular season, but Walton was hurt and the team lost to Seattle in the first round. Lucas put up 17.2 points and 12.5 rebounds per game in that series.

During the 1978-79 season, with Walton no longer part of the Portland solar system, he produced 20.4 points, 10.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game. He was, for the most part, the exact same player without Walton as he had been with Walton. Gone, however, were the accolades and opportunities that place a name and its legacy within reach of future generations.

With the help of a young Mychal Thompson, Lucas would push Portland into the playoffs that year, but he wouldn’t see the postseason again until 1983. He would be playing in another city, wearing a different uniform, a long way from what might have been.