From draft-night heist to an agonizingly premature retirement, revisit the poised brilliance of a superstar who transformed Rip City before his knees betrayed his Hall of Fame trajectory.
There's a version in the multiverse of NBA history where Brandon Roy plays until he's deep into his 30s, has a couple of All-NBA First Team nods and Portland spends the 2010s as a consistent contender instead of reminiscing about what if.
That version never happened.
The six seasons Roy actually gave the Trail Blazers are still enough to make him one of the most beloved players in franchise history.
Portland didn't draft Roy to keep him long-term. On draft night in 2006, the Blazers selected him sixth overall, then flipped him to Minnesota in a deal that sent Randy Foye to the Timberwolves.
It's now remembered as one of the great draft-night trade heists in league history. Still, at the time it was barely considered controversial — Roy was viewed by scouts as a solid but unspectacular guard coming out of Washington.
He quickly changed the narrative in his rookie season. Roy averaged 16.8 points and won Rookie of the Year honors for the 2006-07 season. From there, his ascent to stardom was fast.
By his second season, he was an All-Star. He made the team three years in a row from 2008 through 2010 and earned All-NBA Second Team honors in 2009. He was the first Blazer to make an All-NBA team since Clyde Drexler.
What made Roy great wasn't just his scoring volume. While he could get you 20 a night with his smooth one-dribble leaners, Roy had poise at such a young age. Roy played like a 15-year veteran from the moment he stepped on the court — seemingly unhurried and always in balance.
The game that defines the Brandon Roy era in Portland is April 23, 2011 — Game 4 of the first-round series against Dallas. The Blazers had been down by 18 points in the fourth quarter.
Roy, already playing on bad knees, scored 18 points in the final period and hit the go-ahead bucket in the closing seconds to complete the comeback.
It happened at a point in his career when everyone sensed it was coming to an end.
Roy's knees weren't just bad; they were chronically bad. It was eventually diagnosed as a near-total absence of cartilage in both knees — forcing him to retire in December 2011, just five years into his career.
He attempted a comeback with Minnesota in 2012-13, but his body had already made his decision for him.
Roy averaged 18.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists for his career.
For Blazers fans, though, Roy's Portland tenure stays frozen at a specific time in the franchise's history. Rip City will remember Roy as a prolific scorer whose career was cut too short.
