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thru 2027-28

in 2019, after a 53 win season and a trip to the WCF, the Blazers gave extensions to Olshey and Stotts. Two years later they were both gone

I don’t know if this needed an exclamation point. Not what I wanted, (since when have the Blazers done that?) but what I expected.

Only in POR would a coach with this bad of a record be given a new contact

You can only laugh at the .550 winning percentage since Jan 15th they had put out there, because you know what other positives could they say?

Congrats on rewarding a bad coach with a new contract, all based on beating bad teams that were injured, resting star players or trying to lose

POR was 2-13 vs “good” teams and those 2 wins were DEN (w/o Jokic) & MEM ( w/o Ja)

Not unexpected, but still objectively nauseating.

I’m chalking this up to a number of factors, and is why I’ve largely expected this to happens…

The team is largely ignoring his overall win records as they’ve been mostly a tanking team over his entire career.

He’s never “lost” the lockerroom his entire tenure. That’s not something that gets fans super excited, but execs value that and is half the battle for a coach.

Billups and Cronin go bad wayyyyyyyyyyy long, Cronin was not going to have the stomach/balls to let Billups walk or fire him. The only way it was happening was if Billups wanted to leave and I think this year changed his mind after he saw the team letting him win if he could and wanted to. He also reportedly really bonded with the current group on young guys. So I think that tampered down his desire to look for another gig this summer.

I’ve also said it elsewhere, I just don’t believe Cronin wanted to do a coach search this summer. It’s one more thing to add to a plate that can take the FOs attention away from roster development/change. Cronin also loves the path of least resistance, so of course he was going to prefer an extension with Billups vs a coaching search.

This is SO ridiculous. The Blazers can't stop out bidding themselves. Why would they pull the rigger on this extension before the got a chance to interview superior options?

There are coaches on the market that have won play-off games, play-off series, AND championships.

The only reason to jump the gun is if the other candidates conveyed they are not interested in coaching in Portland.

This played out pretty much exactly how I thought it would...there's simply no way that Billups was going to except the TO. I think that they were wanting to announce the Cronin contract and Billups contract on the same day, but needed time to negotiate Billups' new deal.

I'll choose to focus on the bright side right now to mask my disappointment.

Billups is probably a good mentor for Scoot.

That's it. That's all I've got. Incredibly disappointing.

April Fools was weeks ago.
Wake me when we hire Mike Malone.

Perhaps now, the Blazers can just suit up the Remix for game 82 after Joe and Chauncey have job security
to clinch the ninth spot going into the lottery

Chauncey is our worst or second worst coach In our history, it's either him cheeks or nate, maybe carlisimo I don't know much about him.. But I'd say probably Chauncey as he is probably the least insightful coach I've seen at the pro level.

This move undermined and probably even rendered the entire rebuild useless. We will be mediocre until we inevitably need to blow this core up again. Or maybe we just treadmill 15 years at 40-48 wins maybe 52 once or twice but never hitting a contender. If we are lucky players want out and help stop the treadmill sooner than it could go..


This move was highly expected. But put me on the record as saying it is a monumental mistake as will be extending Ant which is likewise predictable

There may come a day, maybe not long from now, when Blazer fans look back on the win streak this year as the genesis of major long term problems.

JRoy wrote:There may come a day, maybe not long from now, when Blazer fans look back on the win streak this year as the genesis of major long term problems.

I'll be honest if we went 15-67 Chauncey would be returning anyhow so long as he's a yes man and they could justify the losing ie "robert and ayton were hurt as was grant". Stupid excuses that maybe 10 percent believe but enough to justify the move..

JasonStern wrote:April Fools was weeks ago.
Wake me when we hire Mike Malone.

That was NEVER going to happen. Malone will likely hold out for a job where that has a better core and bigger market.

People need to remind themselves that there's a reason why big name free agents don't come here and that includes coaches. There's a reason why Dame didn't get voted in to start his first all-star game until after he left Portland. Small market west coast teams have a major bias against them. It sucks, but that's a reality.

The only coaches Portland at this moment are ones that are looking for anyone to hire them. Experienced coaches with success had just as much of a chance coming here as Luka signing a free agent contract with us. It's just not going to happen.

Shem wrote:

JasonStern wrote:April Fools was weeks ago.
Wake me when we hire Mike Malone.

That was NEVER going to happen. Malone will likely hold out for a job where that has a better core and bigger market.

People need to remind themselves that there's a reason why big name free agents don't come here and that includes coaches. There's a reason why Dame didn't get voted in to start his first all-star game until after he left Portland. Small market west coast teams have a major bias against them. It sucks, but that's a reality.

The only coaches Portland at this moment are ones that are looking for anyone to hire them. Experienced coaches with success had just as much of a chance coming here as Luka signing a free agent contract with us. It's just not going to happen.

Maybe we couldn't get Malone but coaching any nba team is a small needle to thread and we should have and could have done better than extending Chauncey. This was an autopilot move and a stupid one at that.

PDXKnight wrote:

Shem wrote:

JasonStern wrote:April Fools was weeks ago.
Wake me when we hire Mike Malone.

That was NEVER going to happen. Malone will likely hold out for a job where that has a better core and bigger market.

People need to remind themselves that there's a reason why big name free agents don't come here and that includes coaches. There's a reason why Dame didn't get voted in to start his first all-star game until after he left Portland. Small market west coast teams have a major bias against them. It sucks, but that's a reality.

The only coaches Portland at this moment are ones that are looking for anyone to hire them. Experienced coaches with success had just as much of a chance coming here as Luka signing a free agent contract with us. It's just not going to happen.

Maybe we couldn't get Malone but coaching any nba team is a small needle to thread and we should have and could have done better than extending Chauncey. This was an autopilot move and a stupid one at that.

Exactly, this is my biggest gripe with Cronin. After his initial house cleaning trades to dump the NEO roster, he just seems to go path of least resistance.

I think somebody asked on these forums, and it's a valid question...

Has any team in NBA history retained a losing head coach after 4 years? Especially one with a 35% winning percentage?

Don't know if I'll watch next year. I can't stomach Chauncey + Ant + Grant. Or even a combination of two of them.

The Sebastian Express wrote:Don't know if I'll watch next year. I can't stomach Chauncey + Ant + Grant. Or even a combination of two of them.

At least it won't cost us anything to watch some of these games