Blazers name Tiago Splitter as interim HC, replacing Jail Bird Billups

JujitsuFlip · Post #21 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 6:50 pm

Congrats!

-Luke- · Post #22 » by **-Luke-** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:18 pm

HMFFL wrote:I will have to smoke one of his Luciano Cigars.

Tiago Splitter and Dominique Wilkins co-founded the cigar company

Bring the victory cigar back!

Congrats to Splitter. I will be very interested to see how he does.

PhilBlackson · Post #23 » by **PhilBlackson** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:24 pm

I hope Chauncey bet on him as his replacement.

chilluminati · Post #24 » by **chilluminati** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:32 pm

This could have been the year Chauncey turns heads as a coach, but unfortunately ...

Splitter will do well, he strikes me as a better coach anyway.

Bornstellar · Post #25 » by **Bornstellar** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:41 pm

Good for Tiago. Great dude and an underrated part of that magical 2014 Spurs team. I'm sure he will be a big improvement over Billups honestly

Effigy · Post #26 » by **Effigy** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:48 pm

chilluminati wrote:This could have been the year Chauncey turns heads as a coach, but unfortunately ...

Splitter will do well, he strikes me as a better coach anyway.

What do you mean? He's on the front page of CNN and Fox! How many more heads can he turn?!

chilluminati · Post #27 » by **chilluminati** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:50 pm

Effigy wrote:
chilluminati wrote:This could have been the year Chauncey turns heads as a coach, but unfortunately ...

Splitter will do well, he strikes me as a better coach anyway.

What do you mean? He's on the front page of CNN and Fox! How many more heads can he turn?!

really man this sucks, he's a local legend around here.

PistolPeteJR · Post #28 » by **PistolPeteJR** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 7:59 pm

HMFFL wrote:I will have to smoke one of his Luciano Cigars.

Tiago Splitter and Dominique Wilkins co-founded the cigar company

What an odd pairing. How did they even get involved with each other?

RookieStar · Post #29 » by **RookieStar** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 9:22 pm

Tiago was that unfortunate Spurs C that LBJ dunked on in the finals right?

Anyway congrats. I always am rooting for a former C becoming HC. I always thought that job was taken usually from former PGs so former C are who I root for.

Blame Rasho · Post #30 » by **Blame Rasho** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 9:51 pm

Good for him.

The one thing I look for coaches who used to be nba players is their ability to play within their own physical ability and not play stupidly. He was always solid as a center until injuries got to him.

I didn’t realize what he had done in France, so kudos to him. He is coming into a situation with no expectations, so if he beats the bare minimum, he can be a long term coach after this year.

Post #31 » by **NO-KG-AI** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 10:09 pm

A lot of younger guys won’t remember, but Splitter was like a super hyped prospect in draft circles for years. I feel like I remember hearing about him as far back as like 2002 as a potential first overall pick, and it sort of became a meme about him ever actually playing. Felt like it had gone on for decades by the time he finally made his NBA debut :lol:

Dominator83 · Post #32 » by **Dominator83** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 11:40 pm

NO-KG-AI wrote:A lot of younger guys won’t remember, but Splitter was like a super hyped prospect in draft circles for years. I feel like I remember hearing about him as far back as like 2002 as a potential first overall pick, and it sort of became a meme about him ever actually playing. Felt like it had gone on for decades by the time he finally made his NBA debut

Another big hyped one for a long time was Luis Scola. He was pretty much JAG

Post #33 » by **Capn'O** » Thu Oct 23, 2025 11:50 pm

DusterBuster wrote:

Read on Twitter

If they had just said they were doing that to begin with...

Optimus_Steel · Post #34 » by **Optimus_Steel** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:27 am

I don’t understand why Portland hired Billups to begin with. No coaching experience and he seems to not have a good demeanor for a coach. He comes across as the angry uncle whom lets the kids do whatever because he is lazy to keep tabs, then yells at the kids for getting too wild.

Post #35 » by **cupcakesnake** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 11:44 am

Optimus_Steel wrote:I don’t understand why Portland hired Billups to begin with. No coaching experience and he seems to not have a good demeanor for a coach. He comes across as the angry uncle whom lets the kids do whatever because he is lazy to keep tabs, then yells at the kids for getting too wild.

Being an all-NBA floor general or mega high-IQ guy gets you into head coaching conversations pretty quickly after retirement. Jason Kidd, Larry Bird and Steve Nash both also got head coaching jobs with even less experience. Billups spent a year as an assistant for the Clippers. Teams begged Stockton for years to try coaching. CP3 will get coaching offers whenever he retires.

Post #36 » by **cupcakesnake** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 11:49 am

NO-KG-AI wrote:A lot of younger guys won’t remember, but Splitter was like a super hyped prospect in draft circles for years. I feel like I remember hearing about him as far back as like 2002 as a potential first overall pick, and it sort of became a meme about him ever actually playing. Felt like it had gone on for decades by the time he finally made his NBA debut

He was one of my favorite prospects. I love his defense and badly overrated his offense. By the time he was actually ready to be drafted, his reputation had cooled a bit. Checking my notes, I had him 13th on my big board in 2007.

He wasn't super long and couldn't shoot, so his upside was pretty limited offensively. He was more productive than most people realize, due his minutes being so low on those Spurs teams that loved to limit everyone's minutes. He probably would have been a 15 and 10 guy for a lot of teams. His foot speed and anticipation on defense was very good, and he never played outside himself offensively.

The man almost dunked on Lebron in the finals, but Lebron got his hand on the ball enough to make it his highlight instead of Tiago's. I remember watching that play live and was sure I was about to witness Lebron's annihilation!

FrodoBaggins · Post #37 » by **FrodoBaggins** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 11:58 am

cupcakesnake wrote:
NO-KG-AI wrote:A lot of younger guys won’t remember, but Splitter was like a super hyped prospect in draft circles for years. I feel like I remember hearing about him as far back as like 2002 as a potential first overall pick, and it sort of became a meme about him ever actually playing. Felt like it had gone on for decades by the time he finally made his NBA debut

He was one of my favorite prospects. I love his defense and badly overrated his offense. By the time he was actually ready to be drafted, his reputation had cooled a bit. Checking my notes, I had him 13th on my big board in 2007.

He wasn't super long and couldn't shoot, so his upside was pretty limited offensively. He was more productive than most people realize, due his minutes being so low on those Spurs teams that loved to limit everyone's minutes. He probably would have been a 15 and 10 guy for a lot of teams. His foot speed and anticipation on defense was very good, and he never played outside himself offensively.

The man almost dunked on Lebron in the finals, but Lebron got his hand on the ball enough to make it his highlight instead of Tiago's. I remember watching that play live and was sure I was about to witness Lebron's annihilation!

Poeltl?

djw · Post #38 » by **djw** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 12:11 pm

NO-KG-AI wrote:A lot of younger guys won’t remember, but Splitter was like a super hyped prospect in draft circles for years. I feel like I remember hearing about him as far back as like 2002 as a potential first overall pick, and it sort of became a meme about him ever actually playing. Felt like it had gone on for decades by the time he finally made his NBA debut

Just thought the very same thought and it hit me that I am indeed getting old. Slowly but steady.

Post #39 » by **Froob** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 12:17 pm

didn’t think i’d see that name ever again, he was hard to watch try to defend the Heat in the day

Mirotic12 · Post #40 » by **Mirotic12** » Fri Oct 24, 2025 3:03 pm

BadWolf wrote:2 league championships in one year is impressive.

He didn't win two league championships. That's an error.

The one league championship he won was also an asterisk title. As the other team only had 7 players available, and all of their centers and power forwards were injured.

Even with that being the case, they only won the 5 game series at home in game 5 in overtime.

So in reality, he got extremely lucky that he won any league championship last year.