There are “murmurs” that Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts may be fired after being swept by the Pelicans, tweets Marc Stein of The New York Times.
Stotts has five straight postseason appearances and a 272-220 record in his six years in Portland. However, this is the second consecutive season that the Blazers have been swept out of the playoffs in the first round.
If Stotts is dismissed, Stein says the Magic would have “immediate interest” in hiring him. Orlando fired coach Frank Vogel after the end of the regular season, but hasn’t been in a rush to find a replacement, with Jerry Stackhouse as the only scheduled interview.
Stotts, 60, had head coaching jobs in Atlanta and Milwaukee before joining the Blazers. He was also a longtime assistant, working with the SuperSonics, Bucks, Warriors and Mavericks.
Lol, as if he’s the problem. Lillard was shut down by Holiday, plain and simple. Nothing Stotts could do about that.
That’s when a coach needs to make in game adjustments.
Because someone on the bench was a better option than Lillard?
Wade Baldwin
You’ve got to go home with the girl you brought to the dance. You’ve got to ride the horse that you brought to the show.
You’ve got to stay with Lillard your 25 point, 25 million-dollar guy. You don’t give up on him now. You’ve ridden him all season to the third seed. If doesn’t work change it in the summer not in the 4th quarter of game 4.
I completely agree I was just being sarcastic. Though Wade Baldwin did show a lot at the end of the regular season that the Blazers could’ve used in that series. Size, defense, ability to pressure full court, and just a change of pace from CJ and Dame’s score first mentality. Not to mention he could’ve taken the ball out of Evan Turner’s hands, another plus.
Lol, I know bro. I read your stuff all the time I know you’re a bigger fan than that. You made me laugh when I read that and I know you were joking.
Haha for sure I feel you. Nothing left to do but make jokes now that the Portland season is over lol
Well it’s easy to guard an offense when all it calls for is for Lillard and McCollum to score; it’s predictable.
Well it’s easy to guard an offense when all it calls for is for Lillard and McCollum to score; it’s predictable.
Nurkic should not be re-signed. Focus on developing Zach Collins and bring Aldridge back to Portland and move McCollum.
Yes! Yes! Please no. No.
They can’t fire this coach. He did a nice job. How about some continuity in this league stead of firing guys just for the sake of firing guys. Asinine.
Need to build around that back court, let the big fella walk because Collins is a player.
Did he give 70M to Evan Turner? Or 40M to Harkless or 41M to Leonard two guys who showed nothing before or after signing? Or match that dumb contract for Crabbe? Some pretty terrible trades too.
I think that was the GM not the coach. I hope that was the GM and not the coach LOL
Stotts did a great job with a weak roster. The problem was they wanted to keep their players because the cap was supposed to go up way more than it did, to have a good baseline to add star players to. The blame starts with the NBA for so poorly predicting that. Paul Allen and Neil Olshey are also to blame. Olshey for his terrible talent evaluation that offseason, signing Meyers Leonard for 4 years (FOR NO REASON, nobody else was going to offer him anything close), Evan Turner, Maurice Harkless, and Allen Crabbe, and Paul Allen for green lighting that spending. They went for it too soon and now they’re gonna have to rebuild, with terrible contracts that nobody wants, a team that’s too good to be in the lottery, no space for free agents, etc. It’s NBA purgatory and nobody knows that better than the Blazers.
That said Stotts’ rotations were questionable to say the least, but that goes back to Olshey. Gotta give Leonard some minutes when he’s making $10m right??
This guy did a good job after losing Aldridge. Basically not missing a beat, and maybe even got better. He needs to stay. Coaches can learn and develop as well. He has probably learned from consecutive sweeps. But the GM should have a better offseason.
Yep I would give it one more try with that amazing backcourt and try to find some wings. Collins is a nice big man so you can let nurkic walk.
We don’t have money to find wings :( They’re rolling with Turner, Harkless, and Aminu until the end of next year. Unless they can somehow get rid of Turner and Harkless contracts. That’s the whole thing about trading Dame or CJ, if we could trade away the bad contracts we wouldn’t need to trade either of those guys. They definitely have to let Nurk leave, but Shabazz Napier and Ed Davis are probably leaving too. There’s way too many questions to just retool this roster, and they can’t afford to bring it back either