In the waning hours before the NBA season opened, Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin put the capper on a dramatic offseason for the team by locking up core contributors Shaedon Sharpe and Toumani Camara to long-term extensions.
Little did the team know that wasn’t the final dramatic act to unfold around the team that week. Following the team’s season opener, head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested by the FBI as part of a long-running investigation into an illegal gambling ring tied to the mafia.
Before their opening game, the team had already seen Billups and Cronin reach contract extensions, a new ownership group buy the team, franchise icon Damian Lillard return in free agency, the surprise draft pick of Yang Hansen, and the re-acquisition of veteran point guard Jrue Holiday.
After 4 years of coaching through a roster reconstruction, it appeared Billups would finally be coaching “his” team, with a core mentored by him and built by Cronin. That era lasted all of one game. Barring some crazy happenstance, Billups has probably coached his final NBA game, at least for a long while. Instead, Thiago Splitter, in what figures to be the longest tenure ever granted to an interim coach, will be in charge for the final 81 games of the season. Professional athletes and coaches can get away with a slap on the wrist for a great many crimes short of murder, but financial crimes that put the integrity of their sport at risk are not among them.
It’s a strange position for the team to be in. Billups and Cronin both received three-year extensions to provide a bridge from one ownership era to the next. The new ownership group is expected to be approved by the NBA Board of Governors at some point during the season. That would have allowed Billups to continue molding his team, then, barring some complete disaster, head into next season under the eye of new ownership and with Lillard back on the court, either to receive a longer extension or be shown the door.
No one could have predicted “complete disaster” being marked on the bingo card one game into the 2025 season. Now Splitter, an NBA champion as a player with the Spurs in 2014, who spent several seasons on the sidelines as an assistant coach with three teams before serving as a head coach in Paris in the Euroleague last season, will have a chance to prove he deserves a longer shot at the job.
Early results have been promising, with the team going 3-1 so far under Spitter’s leadership. They appear to be a team that could very well make a run at a playoff spot this season. Donavan Clingan has grown into a defensive force, Jerami Grant has adapted well to being first man off the bench, Camara has picked up right where he left off last season, and Holliday has proven to be a steadying presence at point guard, providing the reliable ball handling the team has lacked for the last several years. It’s a strange position for the team to find itself in. A roster and coaching staff that Billups helped assemble is now being tasked to grow beyond him with a coach who may not be with the team beyond the current season. It’s a bizarre and abrupt change of trajectory for a team that was following a well-plotted course.
If the Blazers do well, the new ownership group will face a tough decision: make the sentimental choice and extend Splitter or punt the coach who kept the team on track through difficult circumstances.
However, that will be a decision for a later date.
Currently, the team needs to continue showing growth.
The team showed its resilience in Wednesday’s win over the Utah Jazz, in which they saw a 22-point lead nearly evaporate late in the 4th quarter, and only held on thanks to some late free throws and clutch play from Holliday. To be sure, there is still plenty of room for improvement over the rest of the season and for Splitter to make his mark. Sharpe still needs to get untracked and find his touch, and the entire team needs to figure out how to close out opponents after seeing the Jazz nearly pull off the upset and what amounted to the Lakers’ JV team hanging around for far too long in a win in LA earlier in the week.
However, holding off a determined opponent and winning trap games against overmatched teams are what the Trail Blazers will have to do if they are to become a playoff contender. And with nothing left to lose, there’s no time like the present to turn the corner and start contending.
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