In the 1989 NBA draft, Cliff Robinson Cliff Robinson was selected in the 2nd round by the Portland Trail Blazers.  He ended up playing for 18 seasons in the NBA, scoring nearly 20,000 points in that time.  For any player, that's one hell of a career!

Like many other summers as a kid, in the summer of 1989 I attended a couple of basketball camps.  Basically, you'd spend a 40-hour week doing nothing but working on your game and scrimmaging.  Usually, they're run by former professional players or coaches.  I attended one of the camps run by then-Blazers coach Rick Adelman.  One day, as we campers were straggling back in from lunch, one of the Blazers' assistant coaches was running a couple of ridiculously tall guys through one on one drills.  I quickly figured out that they were the Blazers' draft picks, Cliff Robinson (6'11") and Rolondo Ferreira (7'0").  For about half an hour or so, I got to quietly sit and watch a couple of NBA level players working drills before either had even seen one minute of playing time in a professional game.  It was a treat to get to see that.

Also, Cliff had the sweetest two-level flat-top I'd ever seen.

c.