Unless they turn things around quickly and drastically, the Trail Blazers will miss the playoffs and the play-in tournament for a second consecutive year since hiring Chauncey Billups as their head coach. However, a high-ranking source within the organization tells Jason Quick of The Athletic that the idea of firing Billups “hasn’t even crossed our minds.”
Billups has also received endorsements from several of Portland’s most important players, including Damian Lillard, Anfernee Simons, and Jerami Grant, according to Quick. Grant, who is eligible for free agency this summer, said that outsiders calling for Billups to be let go are “stupid,” adding that he’s “ready to run through a wall” for his coach.
For his part, Billups told Quick that he’s in frequent contact with Blazers general manager Joe Cronin and isn’t afraid of losing his job.
“I don’t worry about that, at all,” Billups said. “We have our talks and everything, and that will remain between us, but I don’t worry about that at all.”
Billups, who is in the second year of a five-year contract, has led the Blazers to a 58-94 (.382) record since taking the reins from Terry Stotts in 2021. Portland had hoped the first-time head coach could help stabilize a defense that had been one of the NBA’s worst during Stotts’ last two seasons, but there has been no improvement in that area — the Blazers ranked 29th in defensive rating in 2021/22 and currently sit at 27th in ’22/23.
Still, as Quick points out, Billups hasn’t been dealt an easy hand in Portland. The team underwent a front office overhaul just a few months after he was hired and saw its franchise player (Lillard) limited to just 29 games last season due to a major abdominal injury. Several key players, including CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Robert Covington, and Larry Nance Jr., were traded at the 2022 deadline, and others – Josh Hart and Gary Payton II – were on the move at this season’s deadline.
“It’s been unbelievable … crazy,” Billups said of the Blazers’ front office turmoil, injury woes, and roster turnover. “How is that my fault? Last year I had so many coaches who are either in the league or past coaches saying, ‘Bro, I’ve coached 15, 17 years and I didn’t go through that once.’
“… The sad part about this season is we never got to see our team play. We had Josh, GP, Justise (Winslow) … veterans we know who were really going to help you win. And early in the season, we had a lot of those guys playing, and we were kicking up some dust, playing well. But an injury here … and all the stuff that happened (trades of Hart and Payton) … it was just tough.”
Acknowledging that his win-loss record hasn’t been strong so far, Billups said that his performance should also be evaluated based on the culture he has cultivated in Portland, the buy-in he has gotten from his players, and the progress he has made in developing the Blazers’ youngsters, including Simons, Shaedon Sharpe, and Nassir Little. According to Quick, Billups rated himself “good” on the first point and “very good” on the other two.
IMO
The following 4 head coaches are not top ten best in the West
Mark D – Thunder
Billups
Ham
Silas
Mike Brown is the best coach in the nba
If Mike Brown is the best coach in the NBA, the league is in worse shape than I thought.
Of course the players run the league now. FO heads and HC’s are well paid babysitters except for a few teams.
Switch thinking
If Ham or Billups to coach the Kings, Kings would look like today’s Lakers or Blazers. (Result is everything)
I know you’re a bot/troll, but you have to be kidding that Mark Daigneault hasn’t done an impressive job in OKC this year. That team is playing much better than most people thought going into this season.
You are troll if you refuse to say who are the botton 5 head coaches in the West.
In the West, most head coaches are all time greats (World Best).
Clearly, the Warriors are missing Mike Brown. I’d even go as far as saying if Mike Brown were still with GS, that early Draymond/Poole situation wouldn’t have happened, certainly not to the extent it did.
Kerr absolutely misses Brown as his right hand guy AND lockerroom presence.
The Kings this year – and the Warriors this year – pretty much sums up Brown’s impact on both.
Mike Brown will win the COY this year.
But, the playoffs are where coaches earn their money.
Let’s see what Sac does in April.
Can’t blame Billups for everything that’s happened. As it states above they’ve gone from CJ McCollum, RoCo, Powell, Nance, Josh Hart and GP2 to kids like Simons and Sharpe and traded in for guys like Reddish, Thybulle, Knox and so on. Jerami Grant was a great pick up he’s been fantastic but because his deal is scoring they will now have to pay big in order to keep him.
I’d say the only good deal the front office has made is the Grant deal, which was Grant for a first and 2 seconds. Besides that deal everything they’ve done hasn’t been with the mindset of building a championship calibre roster around Dame.
They have terrible perimeter defence, allowing the 5th best 3 point percentage. They also are the 5th worst rebounding team. That’s been there problems for years dating back to the early days of Dame and CJ starting. Poor defence and bad rebounding. Simons has been great stepping in to replace CJ but all you’ve done is replace a player with the exact same player and still have the same problem.
Had you traded for OG, you’d slide Josh Hart to SG which would drastically improve your defence and also improve your team rebounding.
Then with the GP2 situation and him apparently wanting to leave, I’d have looked to cut Atlanta out of deal completely and got Saddiq Bey for myself. From there if you’d like do the Mattise trade aswell that only cost 2 second round picks. Then follow that up by adding some offence in the form of Melo returning and get a buy out guy like John Wall for nothing.
Dame Josh Hart OG Grant Nurkic
John Wall Thybulle Bey Melo Eubanks
Sharpe Winslow
That’s a team built for the playoffs and with championship aspirations. Dame surrounded by solid defenders, and complimentary scorers and ball handlers. Then off the bench a good mix of experience and youth but specialist that can give you something if you need it. Wall is a fantastic facilitator and can run an offence, Thybulle has terrific defence, Bey perfect 3 and D guy, Melo great iso scorer and will give you a bucket, and so on.
What Cronin has built is what looks like a rebuild on paper with all this young talent Mattise Reddish Simons Sharpe etc but they are all 2/3’s. Mattise and Reddish need new deals, there’s not much positional versatility it’s all just throw together garbage. Billups has actually done great getting the best out of Simons, Grant is having a career year and it’s not putting up empty stats on a tanking team. Hart was playing great before they traded him too.
Portland will continue to do nothing until they clean out the front office
Billups can’t coach, its been 2 consecutive years of underperformance. Even when he had Powell, Nurkic, Dame, and Covington all healthy in the first season, they still were losing
Supported by everyone except the fans
Nobody can effectively coach a roster that the FO resets every few months, even if those resets address the roster’s flaws; which POR’s most assuredly did not. There’s another reset planned by the same FO this summer.
I think Billups should welcome a parting of the ways, as long as he’s paid. Right now, the POR HC’ing job is a job for a veteran HC who’ll make a nice (and well paid) Fall Guy. Not a first time HC looking to make his bones.
As much I like Lillard, I think he is the problem. He is too focused on building his narrative that he is the 2nd best shooter in the history of the NBA. Either he needs to learn to be a real PG or they need to bring in a PG or someone to run the offense so Lillard can play the 2.
Blazers did Brandon Williams dirty.