Ever wonder about those jerseys hanging from the rafters in the Rose Garden? We're giving you an overview of all the special people who have had their jerseys retired in Portland.


Geoff Petrie
Jersey Number: 45

Selected in 1st round, 8th pick overall, in 1970 NBA Draft out of Princeton) The original Portland Trail Blazer. First college draft selection by the Blazers, on March 23, 1970, a little over a month after the NBA had granted a franchise to Portland. Petrie was twice All-Ivy League and All-East and Princeton’s top scorer for two years. He played for legendary Princeton coach Pete Carril, a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Petrie was a bright light during Portland’s first six seasons of professional basketball. He led the team in scoring his first year and was good enough to share NBA Rookie of the Year honors with Boston’s future Hall of Famer Dave Cowens. His 2,031 points in his first professional campaign placed him in a select group of eight players in the history of the NBA who scored 2,000 or more points in their rookie year. The others are Hall of Fame greats Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Walt Bellamy, Rick Barry, Elvin Hayes and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar plus Michael Jordan, with Robertson and Jordan the only other guards to accomplish the feat. The 2,031 points is the fourth highest single-season total ever by a Trail Blazer.

Currently sixth on the club’s all-time scoring list with 9,732 points, he set a team one-game scoring record of 51 points in a game at Houston on 1/23/73 then matched that effort less than two months later (on 3/16/73) in Memorial Coliseum against the same Rockets. During his six seasons in a Blazers uniform, he scored 40 or more points 13 times. An incredibly accurate long-range shooter with a quick release, experts ponder how much greater his point accumulation would have been had three-pointers been a part of the NBA game during his playing tenure.

Petrie placed seventh in league scoring in 1970-71 and 1972-73 with 24.8 and 24.9 ppg averages respectively and twice was a member of the West All-Star team. Even in an unpopular trade after the 1975-76 season, in which he and center Steve Hawes were delt to Atlanta, did Petrie have a role in Portland’s championship the very next year. The Blazers received in exchange the rights for the second choice in the ABA dispersal draft and used it to select Maurice Lucas, considered the final piece in putting together a title contender. Ironically, a knee injury suffered near the end of the 1975-76 season kept him from ever suiting up for the Hawks and put an end to his professional career. In his six NBA seasons, all with Portland, he averaged 21.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists while starting 427 of 446 games.

After a time in private business, Petrie rejoined the Trail Blazers taking on various front office roles before beginning in 1989 a five-year tenure as the team’s senior vice president for basketball operations. In that position, he was instrumental in building the Blazers’ title contenders of the early 1990s. He now is completing his eighth season as president of basketball operations for the Sacramento Kings where he has twice been named NBA Executive of the Year.

Number retired on Oct. 11, 1981.