zzaj wrote:DaVoiceMaster wrote:I dont know if anyone can touch the Coliseum. Someone got it listed as a historical site when there was talk about tearing it down and building a baseball stadium there.
My understanding is that although it is on the HR, it can still be demolished in certain situations.
Not going to overreact to TD…Seems a good thing that the group appears committed to keeping the team in PDX, with a history to back that up.
I don’t love how hands-on TD seems to be—I’m more a fan of the ‘surround yourself with good basketball people’ type…but there likely were much, much worse outcomes. I was a bit worried it was going to be sold to an overseas conglomerate.
I expect he’ll keep management things in place until the team underperforms, in which case his history suggests he’ll clean house if a winning product isn’t getting delivered.
The thing I’m pretty excited for…and fingers crossed it works out this way…is new ownership embracing former players in a way that Vulcan/Kolde seemed to never do. Not sure how that would look, and it may be wishful thinking…
Arena? Who knows. There isn’t an obvious solution that works for all parties. We’ll just have to wait and see. My best guess is that TD will push to have the MC demolished and use that land to build up businesses, while the Rose Garden undergoes a years long renovation during the summers. But again, who knows…cross that bridge when it comes, I guess.
I think this is a really fair all-around viewpoint. Cautious optimism is what I keep coming back to.
I think the net worth of owners is a bit overstated. Clay Bennett is only worth around 400mil by what I can find on Google. The Thunder, in their history under his ownership, have barely missed the playoffs and have a title now. He's been able to pay players when he needs to and lets his GM do his thing (helps he has a great GM, but I digress). An owner who knows how to get things done will get things done, regardless of the net worth.
The hands-on thing is a fair concern, I share it, I also wonder just how "hands on" he will be owning two franchises and both leagues running at roughly the same time. Paul owned two franchises, but realistically, he gave a disproportionate amount of this attention to the Blazers vs the Hawks according to more records of the situation. Will Tom focus his attention on the Blazers more of Hurricanes more? Only time will tell. For what it's worth, there is interviews out there of Tom saying almost the exact phrase of ‘surround yourself with good basketball people’ quote you made. Unfortunately I can't find that link rn to post it, saw it yesterday on X. Its him sitting in a room that looks like a Beer Fridge doing a zoom interview likely with a radio affiliate in NC. We just gotta take a wait and see on the "hands on" part of this, but from comments I heard him say to the media, he seems to want more of a collaborative approach to decision making - not like a Vivek (which is my personal nightmare... STAUSKAS!),
I definitely agree with you, I don't think he's going to come in and clean house on Day 1. Especially if the sale is approved mid-season or close to the deadline. I suspect - one the sale is finalized - he's going to get input from Cronin and Schmidtz about what the teams MO has been for roster building thus far. Because of likely the operating status quo under the Vulcans being DRASTICALLY different than what he wants to do, I suspect he will want to give them time to see if the current staff can execute on it.
One thing Cronin really has going for him as far as buying time goes, he's got the team in a good financial spot AND they have assets to go out and do something. If Tom comes in and says, use these assets to get something to make us significantly better next season (26/27)... say the new-owner splashy move (that almost never works, but I digress)... if Cronin does his "OK, we're going all in it's gonna hurt" thing again but ends up doing nothing... I think he's gonna have a short leash there. Long way to say, I think Cronin gets a year roughly to show his worth.
Billups... I'm less sold getting that much leash. I think he the team is just another 30win team, Billups may be the first casualty at the end of the season - even with the extension. By its nature, the job of GM lends itself to needing more time to evaluate than coaching does. Tom is probably smart enough to understand what the teams previous operating philosophy was - but at the same time, not cracking 40 wins in almost 5 years of coaching shouldn't be acceptable.
And like you said, the arena things is just way to early to make any guesses at right now. The city and Tom's group is saying all the right things you would hope to hear. I think there's real desire to keep the team here. When rubber meets the road in negotiations - we'll see what happens. I think the city will do what is asked in the end. The economical impact of losing the only big 4 sports team in a city like Portland is just too great. Portland isn't Seattle. Seattle had MLB and NFL in addition to the NBA when the Sonics moved. So yes, they lost a lot of history in that move and a big fanbase, but they had other pro leagues to fall back on to blunt that loss a little (not to diminish the pain for any Sonic fans, but its true and probably why Seattle government acted like it did). Portland, OR doesn't have that luxury of having other pro leagues to fall back on (sorry Timber fans). So I don't give government much credit for anything in Portland or the state of Oregon (as no one should), but I do think when push comes to shove, they'll figure something out. Maybe foolish optimism on my part, but...
Overall, I still believe big reason why Dundon purchased the team is he's trying to just replicate what he did for the Hurricanes. The team and local area around the arena are very similar, almost 1:1 from when he purchased them. There will obviously be some differing local politics to juggle around to do what he wants to do, but overall enough similarities I think he feels he has the blueprint to almost fully copy-and-paste the model he did for them here.
Reality is, none of us are going to feel 100% safe and secure with the situation until after the fact. There's always going to be things to worry and clutch our pearls over in the unknown... such is life. Just gotta ride it out and see where it goes, and take encouragement where you can with what information we have - which at its current state - is all pointing in the direction we would want.
Get ready to learn Chinese buddy... #YangBang
