I am at a loss for words. Well, not really. I am afraid nobody on the organization knows where this team is heading. Chauncey instills in the fans anything but confidence. What is the team's identity? Shit? That would seem to be accurate. Wish they would just sell the team and clean house. Everyone should just be let go. Not a single reason to keep GM, coaches etc. Why? Could a team look any worse? It wouldn't be so bad if there was something to give you a bit of hope to say "yeah moving in the right direction". I daresay if they landed Flagg they would ruin him and/or not know what to do with him. For example: Scoot, a mediocre at best shooter, playing off the ball? Check. Ayton taking 3s? Check. Starting two guards that are allergic to defense? Check. Playing vets over young guys on a tanking team? Check.
It all starts with the franchise not having a clear strategic direction. We should have committed 100% to a long term rebuild the day we traded Dame, and that meant trading all vets for whatever value they can have and only have vets like Timelord that provide good defense/work ethic/intangibles/etc - or vets that were sent here with picks. I blame Cronin for this since he is the GM role, although technically I don't know what input Jody/Kolde/Vulcan/etc have so the proper blame should probably be elaborated from Cronin to be "Blazer management". I'll just continue to say the GM/Cronin as thats simpler and I assume people all know that Cronin might be limited in his authority. It's common with bad NBA franchises that the GM is micromanaged. The problem with not having a clear strategic direction is the Blazers end up in these lose/lose scenarios. Do we play our vets to win now - if they get wins it hurts our desperately needed draft pick. If the vets don't win they hurt their trade value. The Blazers positioned themselves so whatever results the team had the Blazers would suffer. The team is currently projected to have the 2nd fewest wins in the league by current betting odds, so good for the pick. But now the vets have lost trade value. Yet the youth isn't at a level to warrant playing over those vets yet either, so its just a terrible situation for Billups to have to coach these entitled veterans that totally suck. Not to say Billups is doing anything well. I've seen more games with questionable effort this season than I think we had all of last year so perhaps he has checked out completely. There is a reason NBA teams don't normally have lame duck coaches and we're seeing those results. Along with lame duck coach all the rumors are that Cronin was very transparent with our vets that they are being shopped. On the one hand that is good to not mislead them. But I wonder if they have checked out as well this season knowing they aren't valued by the franchise? Ayton has his replacement drafted. Ant hears Cronin state the team is being build around "Sharpe & Scoot". Grant hears all the talk of trades and teams offering a pick but Cronin wants two. I can see where it would be very hard to be motivated to give 100% for a team that is first trying to lose, and second wants to push you out the door. I can handle plenty of losses this season, but I want to see the team play with effort and work on both offensive/defensive game plans. If we're winning I want it to be from youth with upside and a future here. We're seeing none of that. The best possibility of this improving is trading away our vets, but with their declining value that seems unlikely. Maybe changing the coach could change something but I'd expect that will be pretty irrelevant. What a horrible season to be a Blazers fan.
It's a real dilemma as to whether to keep Billups for the rest of the season. He definitely helps the tank but is he hurting player growth?
Outside of the Blazers netting a top 4 pick in this draft I don’t see a very bright future for the franchise.
The concerning part is even with a pick at the top of this lottery I'm not confident the Blazers will be able to put a good team around that player over the next 5+ years. For most of my history as a Blazers fan back to the late 80s I would've thought very differently.
He’s been nice. But I’ve always been afraid of injury with someone that long. He’s already missing time.
Hopefully by the time POR gets all 4 2028 and 2029 FRPs they will have some direction. They don't have a franchise player. No sane NBA fan would want to keep Cronin or Billups for any other reason than to save money. Billups will ride out his contract here you can be sure then become an assistant somewhere or a college coach. He will never lead an NBA team after POR.
No sane fan cares about saving their franchise money. Yeah those sane fans might worry about overspending on player salaries because of cap ramifications but no one should ever worry about saving the franchise money overall.
I feel the same about you and your posts here. Have low expectations, yet am pleasantly surprised by you daily.
from nba.com power rankings; "Over the last five seasons (since 2020-21), the Blazers have now lost 10 games by at least 40 points, with no other team having more than four losses by 40-plus over that stretch." "This season’s Blazers are now 8-16 with the point differential (minus-9.6 per game, third worst) of a team that’s 5-19"
10 losses by over 40 points.... thats some quality tanking. I wonder how many there are in franchise history. I'd think this might be more than all the other years combine. Also scoring used to be lower.
Looks like it might be 19 losses all time by 40 or more https://www.landofbasketball.com/teams/stats/worst_losses_trail_blazers.htm 10 losses of 40 or more in the last 5 years 9 losses of 40 or more in the other 50 years
Seasons of 40+ point Blazers losses; Two 2024-25 (45, 42 points) Three 2023-24 (62, 60, 43) Two 2022-23 Two 2021-22 2020-21 2018-19 2016-17 2011-12 2005-06 1997-98 (65 points) 1983-84 1978-79 1975-76 1970-71
