It’s been a wild few weeks for the Portland Trail Blazers and the team’s fans.
First, team owner Tom Dundon, through a few willing media proxies, once again raised the specter of relocation if the City of Portland doesn’t cough up money for upgrades to the Moda Center.
Next, Dundon was a guest on the Game Over podcast, where he used the opportunity to deflect criticism of early cost-cutting moves, such as leaving the team’s two-way players at home in the playoffs, and replacing traditional playoff shirts with mini-towels for home fans.
Finally, the team laid off around 70 members of its staff last week, including team reporter Casey Holdohl, several scouts, and numerous staffers on the team business side.
The layoffs came as a shock to Portland fans who have become accustomed to seeing the team run as a passion project under two ownership groups of the first 56 years of its existence. The Dundon era is certainly different; whether it leads the team to its first championship in 50 years or out of Portland altogether remains to be seen.
As the team enters this new era, it’s time to sort out what’s fact and what’s fiction.
Will the Blazers move?
As much as some seem to think this is a foregone conclusion, it is, in fact, an extremely unlikely scenario. Dundon is a far different sort of owner from what Portland fans are used to. He’s part of the modern crop of private-equity sports owners, not the old-school ones who liked to use the fact that they owned a team as a bragging point at parties. The Dundon-led Trail Blazers will have to be profitable.
Moving a team is not a profitable venture. An owner must endure a brutal stretch of an empty arena and low ratings before relocation becomes a reality. While no fellow owner would stand in the way of another moving a team, there are not that many markets that are not already spoken for that are hungering for a team. Commissioner Adam Silver has made stability the hallmark of his tenure.
The farthest teams have moved during his tenure have been across a bay (Warriors from Oakland to San Francisco) and across a river (Nets from Newark, New Jersey to Brooklyn, New York). The league is expecting record-setting expansion fees from Las Vegas and Seattle. The league also has occasional grumblings about relocation around Memphis and New Orleans. If any relocation was imminent, you can bet the league would not have opened the expansion process earlier this year. Even if Dundon doesn’t get 100% of what he wants from the City of Portland, the fact that he’s going to receive a lot of money from both Portland and Multnomah County is all but a foregone conclusion. The State of Oregon has already committed its portion. While Portland and the county may haggle over some items or the exact terms, both will eventually pony up a significant contribution. In the end, the Blazers will be playing in Portland for years to come.
Does Dundon hate Blazers fans?
The new owner has certainly not made the best first impression on fans of his new team. However, it would be a significant stretch to say he doesn’t like them. That implies he cares enough about them not to like them. To men like Dundon, fans are a transaction. He wants them to make his team as profitable as possible so that he can make as much money as possible. To do that, he’ll be cutting as many expenses as he can while trying to charge as much as he can for the right to see his team play in its publicly funded arena. It’s not personal, Trail Blazers fans; it’s just business. Unfortunately, this is the modern sports business landscape. Many owners and ownership groups follow the private equity model, of slashing expenditures and trying to maximize asset value. The employees cut, the cheap playoff towels, and the two-way players left at home in the playoffs were simply the result of being owned by a person who valued profits, not basketball, above all else.
Does this mean Dundon won’t spend on free agents or player contracts?
This one really depends. Portland has never exactly been a hotbed of free agent acquisition. Most NBA players, when given the choice, don’t tend to rate a rainy, cold, mid-market city high on their list of preferred destinations. The odds of the Trail Blazers bringing in a high-profile free agent have never been high to begin with. Could the team swing a trade for a big-name player? That’s certainly a possibility. Portland certainly has the assets to bring a player like Giannis Antetokounmpo, or be a third team in a Giannis trade and bring in a player like Jaylen Brown. That would give the team another star to pair with Deni Avdija and a healthy Damian Lillard. Would Dundon sign off on a deal like that? Maybe. It depends on whether the acquisition can be made in a way that increases profits while holding down costs.
Will Dundon cheap out on a coaching hire?
By all accounts, Dundon does seem to be trying to bring in a new coach as close to the bottom of the league’s salary range as possible. This is one area where his lack of understanding of how the NBA operates may be a significant hindrance. The NBA is a player’s league; a good coach either needs reputational cachet or the ability to manage the personalities of a small locker room. Simply hiring the person who will take the least amount of money could blow up in the team’s face no matter how much talent it stockpiles. Who the team hires as coach will be a significant test of determining how devoted Dundon is to the bottom line versus basketball results.
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