https://bleacherreport.com/articles...t-more-changes-after-portland-execs-dismissal Awesome inside from an A+ reporter. There is SO much good information in here that NO ONE else has reported before. Who knew Barry was actually third behind Billups and ahead of one of Hammon/D'Antoni?
some contradictions here. Whenever Lillard returns, the Blazers have a vested interest in surrounding him with playoff-caliber talent. It would appear that any Portland trades would primarily be geared toward shedding $3 million in salary to avoid paying the luxury tax—for a roster on the borderline of the play-in tournament—while also improving the league's 30th-ranked defense.
Confirmations of Neil’s delusion: “Olshey believed the Blazers were constructed well enough to compete in the Western Conference and had little interest in parting ways with McCollum” Great. His final FU to the franchise was not making a move for Simmons, which was possible over the summer, and is now much harder and/or impossible because now: cj looks horrible Roco looks washed Maxey and curry look great All things we could have avoided this summer.
thanks for the link. It is a good article I found this kind of interesting: "League personnel far and wide have taken note of the first-year head coach's penchant for blasting players' lack of effort and heart during postgame media sessions. It's a tactic often reserved for veteran coaches like Gregg Popovich. Portland has now dropped six of its last seven games. Multiple league sources with knowledge of the situation cited player frustration with Billups' coaching demeanor and the team's offensive system." using the media to try and message-motivate players is a risky tactic for a new coach. I think the backfire potential is high. Doesn't matter how warranted the criticism is, that's still messaging that can rankle players, especially if it isn't 'lack of effort' but confusion with new schemes. And I think that's definitely a big factor
And those who expect new ownership? Franchises are worth such an incredible amount and yet continue to escalate in value better than virtually any other investment.
i don't think anyone can watch that abomination on defense in the utah game or the boston game and say it was anything but a lack of effort. billups' scheme is not that confusing. it's actually quite simple-- just requires players to be aware of what's going on. there are very few things to actually process in the middle of possessions. and again, i don't think billups is necessarily playing games through the media to motivate the players. he's just speaking his mind out loud. it's definitely nuanced on how much he should and shouldn't call them out publicly, but he has said since day 1 that he's going to be transparent.
we're talking about a veteran team. Yes, a flawed veteran team, but still. And I think all the players knew what Billups resume was...as a player. They also knew he had very little experience as a coach. I do not believe he had enough credibility as a coach to use the media tactic more than once. And even then there was a risk now, part of this is welded to his message in practice, behind closed doors. But the bottom line is the defense is failing. Everybody knows it's failing. It's failing worse than last year's defense and this roster was supposed to be a lot better defensively than last year's defense. Billups has some significant responsibility for this, but if his players think he's putting it all on them, there might be some real issues developing
You can do all of that in house and not expose it to the outside. While I appreciate the transparency as a fan, and it's good to validate that what we are seeing is not lost on the coach, it's not necessarily the greatest look when you see your boss complaining about you publicly, no matter how justified it is. Players also got frustrated under Terry and I'm sure there were issues but they never got out. The only ones that got out from my memory were Harkless being frustrated with his role and Afflalo hating it here. But there were other issues that never got out at the time, like Seth Curry being angry at his role. This is over Terry's 8+ year tenure. But not even a third of the way through his first season we already hear grumbles about players being unhappy with Chauncey's coaching style and an actual player's name (RoCo) frustrations have already been very well publicized. Not sure if this can be attributed to inexperience but it's definitely not a good look for a 1st time head coach, IMO.
and yet again, I don't think that was his intent to try to motivate through the media as if he were phil jackson. he's simply answering questions, and he has repeatedly said that he too needs to be better and learn quicker every time he calls them out.
After 10 yrs of dealing with a coach repeating over and over again that the other team simply made shots, i find this refreshing. i can see how it could wear on the players, but these schemes make it clear as day who the culprits are. the strategy is not that complicated and the players don't need to be coddled like they were before.
Really, you think the scheme is not part of the problem? Blitzing every screen with slow centers like Nurkic and Zeller? And with the one guy that could maybe make a blitzing scheme work (Nance), we end up switching instead of blizing. I never agree with the all or nothing approach. I thought Billups would cater the defense to our personnel and the opponents personnel. But so far he's just resorted to the same defense regardless of who is playing. That was my frustration with Terry. We dropped everything. Now under Billups with blitz everything. Just makes no sense unless the coach thinks the players are too dumb to remember more than one coverage (which may be true, given our personnel). But either way, all of this could be kept in house and not ragged about to the media. That part is just unnecessary. You think Terry really "believed" that it was just the other team "making shots", or was that just what he said to the media?
The only players who will get annoyed by it are players who shouldn’t be here in the first place. Which, might I add, I doubt any players are that annoyed by it. And if they are, it’s probably because they played for Mr. Do Whatever You Want in Stotts. And I’m not sure how you can watch a couple players and not blame effort. Or, if they are “confused” they should be making mistakes going full speed. Roco is a better athlete than me and it looks like my 105 year old grandpa moves better than him. It’s pathetic.
I know its mostly effort when it comes to RoCo because last night he had multiple possessions where he actually put some effort in and stood up George. I hate players like that. I also get the sense that most of Billups frustrations are aimed at him. He almost never mentions his name. CJ is hopeless defensively, we all know that, but there's no excuse for RoCo
Contradiction to those of us living in the real world. Allen/Vulcan probably think that that's a reasonable ask, like it's not a trade off. It reminds me of McMillan constantly saying he wanted to run more, play at greater pace--sure he did, he just wanted to do it with no turnovers, which was impossible. So it was a "contradiction" of sorts, but really he just placed a higher priority on one that ended up precluding the other. I suspect the same is true here.
