Wizenheimer wrote:DusterBuster wrote:I really hope, that if Splitter proves to be a good coach, Dundon keeps him and doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water in a cleaning of the house. He seems smart enough that I think he could compartmentalize that - especially if Splitter has proved to be a great coach.
That said, the more thats come out around this - especially with a podcast literally calling these gambling games AND Billups out by name multiple years ago - how did literally no one in the front office know about it? If I were Dundon, that would be my first question to Cronin. I get that employers can't really track on social media the names of every employee on social media (I mean, they CAN, but it would probably be a moral gray area that could get messy and infringe on privacy rights...), but for it to go completely under the radar... There's a billion podcasts out there, so I don't want to undersell how hard (if not next to impossible) that is to monitor if you don't have actual automated systems set up to flag it... but we're talking billion dollar businesses here as well where I don't believe increased employee scrutiny would be completely out of line to protect the brand.
The Cronin angle with Dundon sure just got a lot more interesting...
Likely, Splitter will have a pretty substantial audition for the permanent job. Sounded like the earliest the transfer could take place, or at least enough of the transfer to make Dundon the majority owner, was going to be March. I'm not sure if the RAJ/Cherngs kerfuffle kicked that can down the road any distance.
in any event, most of the season will be water under the bridge before the earliest date Dundon takes over. I'd be surprised if Splitter isn't allowed to take the team to the end of the season.
my guess is that Dundon may be a little more normal of an owner that the PA Trust was. Meaning his first decision mat be about the GM, and then the GM and he would decide on the coach
now, I'm certainly more 'forgiving' of mistakes I think Cronin has made that I was for Olshey....I hated Olshey. But I do remember reading that when Olshey hired Chauncey, Cronin had 'positive' input on Billups because of their shared Colorado roots. And Cronin was GM when Chauncey got that recent contract extension. I'd think there is a decent chance that Dundon will draw several lines between Cronin and Billups and that may be bad news for Cronin. Personally I'd like Dundon to kind of clean house from the
Olshey/Jody/Kolde/Chauncey/Cronin connections. Maybe making those connections is a bit unfair, especially with Cronin, but he has made enough bad and questionable decisions as a GM to make it reasonable to give him walking papers.
He's certainly better than Olshey, but if the Blazers are just struggling to remain in the play-in race in March (likely?), that would mean that Cronin has had 4 off-seasons and FIVE trade deadlines to build a playoff team and failed
You make some great points. My worries are probably unfounded for multiple multiple reasons. Mid-late March is indeed what everyone has earmarked for Dundon's first payment and when he officially has the reigns (tho according to some in the know like Mike Richman, he already has a good amount of input of what's going to happen pre-March). For example, the team doesn't sign the contracts of Camara and Sharpe without Dundon giving the green light.
My hope is what you said, by March when he really can just unilaterally do what he wants as owner and governor of the team, he will (as will we all) have a good amount of evidence on what Splitter is as a coach. I'm hyped on his potential because he's the prototypical coach I want. Proven track record of experience, first time as NBA HC (i.e. not a retread) so will come in with fresh eyes, and he comes from a proven coaching tree via Pop and the Spurs. If you crafted a coach in a lab, he's exactly what I would want for this Blazers team at this time.
All indications are Dundon is a smart dude, and he's going to make smart choices. If Splitter is killing it as coach, I don't see why he would fire and replace him just because of the optics of how we got here. If things are going swimmingly, this whole mess has largely died down and fans will have moved on from this black eye.
Now, as for Cronin, I think you and I are in pretty much lockstep here. I can absolutely see Dundon keeping Splitter but getting a new GM. I can also see him giving Cronin some grace... but not before some really hard conversations of the "what did you know and when did you know it" type. It's easy to go "well you gave the guy an extension when this was actively going on", but ignorance could be a silver lining here for Cronin (at least I'm not willing to discount that).
Literally EVERYONE who has ever met Billups has had nothing but glowing things to say about it, so Cronin saying that isn't in any way out of the norm where you can automatically assume he was just turning a blind eye to something... he genuinely may have not known what Billups was doing. I have work associates who I would absolutely speak glowingly of with my knowledge of them - but I also don't know their lives outside of work. Yes, there were those podcasts out there, but it was literally a 1min clip on a single poker pod that got zero attention until AFTER this happened, so I would question how any of us could realistically expect Cronin to come across that in a ocean of podcast slop that gets released every day.
Allllll that said, Cronin was still the one who extended him and kept him as coach. If you're looking at this like a cop for instance, just because you don't know the law doesn't mean you didn't break it. We don't know Dundon enough to know if that's how he operates. I don't know if he's just going to be a "guilty by association" guy and just want to turn a whole new page on this era after this embarrassing episode or if he'll be more judicial about it and take everything on a case by case basis. My gut says the latter, but I just don't know for sure. I certainly couldn't blame him if he did, but my personal opinion is to be more surgical about it.
As with anything in sports, winning will cure all. If the team ends up still having a good season even after all this mess - lets play best case scenario - the team wins their 40+ games to get into the play-in or playoffs, doesn't go far but shows great improvement. I would assume Splitter is a lock to drop the interim tag and if Cronin is still here by the summer, I would give him a better than 50/50 shot to keep his job. If this team is already out of the playoff and play-in race by March - even if it's injury caused - I think Cronin is 100% and likely the whole management staff is out. If the season is going south in Dec-March, Dundon and his team are likely already looking for Cronin's replacement at that point behind the scenes. At that point too, if the season is bad, I assume Splitter's chances at retaining the job are a tossup... Likely it will come down to WHY the season has gone to ****.
Get ready to learn Chinese buddy... #YangBang
