Game 61: Portland vs Golden State 7:00pm Root+

[BNM]

For the second year in a row, he finished as the 29th best coach in the General Board poll. I'm not sure I'd go that low, but he certainly has not been anything resembling good. The way Golden State is just demolishing Portland in the second half here is pretty disheartening, and Chauncey doesn't seem to have any answers. Some of it is player personnel, but there haven't seemed to be any attempts to try something different to stop the bleeding.

The General Board is pretty great at grasping the obvious. Chauncey sucks. He got a free pass last year due to the injury to Dame, but this year his ineptitude has caused the Blazers to piss away another year of Dame's career.

This team is clearly underperforming. They had the talent to start the season 10-4, but are 19-28 since. Grant and Hart were the best pair of forwards Dame has played with since Aldridge and Batum (although the team would have been better had Chauncey started Hart at the 2 and brought Simons off the bench). They still have the talent to build a 23-point lead against GSW, but then somehow got outscored by 40 points over the last 26 minutes.

That's just the latest of the ridiculous blown leads Chauncey has piloted this season. Other "highlights" include the blown 25-point lead against the Lakers with POR outscored by 34 points over the final 22 minutes and going scoreless over the final 3 minutes against IND. Those are just a few of the blown 4th quarter leads. It's mind boggling that the team with the best clutch time performer in NBA history, having the best season of his career, can be absolutely incompetent in the 4th quarter.

This should not have been another wasted season, but it is. POR had a stretch where they lost 10 clutch time games in a row, 9 of them against teams with losing records. That was what turned POR's season for the worse. Chauncey should have been fired then. Instead, he will get the excuse that POR was tanking. They weren't then, but thanks to Chauncey's incompetence, they are now.

The worst part is, he will get to use the tanking excuse for the second consecutive season. A great coach (Quin Snyder) was available, but POR decided to roll with Chauncey and we will go into a third season with a clueless head coach. Chauncey was a terrible hire and giving him a 5-year contract was beyond stupid, but this is an organization that doesn't like to admit their mistakes. They would rather piss away Dame's career than fire Chauncey with 3 years left on his contract. What a waste.

I think any coach that can't hit 41 wins with Dame playing at this level deserves to be 29th. The roster isn't great but it isn't 36 wins bad with any other coach but it looks like we are headed just there

Or maybe 30th. In Dame alone, Chauncey has way more talent to work with than 30th place Stephen Silas. We saw that first hand a couple days ago. Given the lack of talent, it's really hard to tell how bad Silas is. By comparison, it's blatantly obvious how bad Chauncey is.

[Case2012]

Can’t remember what i predicated for our record before the season but i think it was 36 wins. That would suck to be right but it’s looking likely.

We need to fire Chauncey and end the Olshey era once and for all.

[BNM]

Can’t remember what i predicated for our record before the season but i think it was 36 wins. That would suck to be right but it’s looking likely.

We need to fire Chauncey and end the Olshey era once and for all.

Old Neil saw the writing on the wall and decided to **** the team over on his way out the door.

Jody: Hey Neil, Dame is the greatest player in franchise history, in his prime and doesn't have that many years left. We need a 5-year plan to build the best team around Dame that we can for the remainder of his career.

Neil: OK, no problem.

Neil's 5-year plan: Offer a 5-year contract to someone who hasn't coached a single game of basketball at any level and blocks the team from trading any 1st round picks for 5 years. Absolutely insures the team can't possibly have any success for the 5 years after he's fired.

[PDXKnight]

Can’t remember what i predicated for our record before the season but i think it was 36 wins. That would suck to be right but it’s looking likely.

We need to fire Chauncey and end the Olshey era once and for all.

Old Neil saw the writing on the wall and decided to **** the team over on his way out the door.

Jody: Hey Neil, Dame is the greatest player in franchise history, in his prime and doesn't have that many years left. We need a 5-year plan to build the best team around Dame that we can for the remainder of his career.

Neil: OK, no problem.

Neil's 5-year plan: Offer a 5-year contract to someone who hasn't coached a single game of basketball at any level and blocks the team from trading any 1st round picks for 5 years. Absolutely insures the team can't possibly have any success for the 5 years after he's fired.

The worst part about that trade isnt the pick but rather the fact that olshey opted for one time against the 3 point shooting big (a 3 team deal for lnj giving up the best asset in that 3 team trade and not getting the best asset back) and that one time it turned out to be a phenomenal player in Lauri markennen than many of us would've preferred. Fine nurkic and plumlee were good value plays but not all stars as lauri became this year. If missing on big men won titles we'd be a dynasty under olshey.

[BlazersBroncos]

Dumping Billups for Snyder would have been the type of bold move this team needs to make to take a step in the right direction. But we would never be that bold. We are fodder with a ticket selling superstar. Balance sheet stays green, why make change?

[BNM]

Dumping Billups for Snyder would have been the type of bold move this team needs to make to take a step in the right direction. But we would never be that bold. We are fodder with a ticket selling superstar. Balance sheet stays green, why make change?

One would think they could make even more money if that ticket selling superstar was winning more games and making the playoffs and maybe even advancing past the 1st round.

Still, firing Chauncey and replacing him with Snyder would have cost them $55 million over the next five years (5 years at $8 million for Snyder and $5 million a year for the three seasons left on Chauncey's contract).

[PDXKnight]

Dumping Billups for Snyder would have been the type of bold move this team needs to make to take a step in the right direction. But we would never be that bold. We are fodder with a ticket selling superstar. Balance sheet stays green, why make change?

One would think they could make even more money if that ticket selling superstar was winning more games and making the playoffs and maybe even advancing past the 1st round.

Still, firing Chauncey and replacing him with Snyder would have cost them $55 million over the next five years (5 years at $8 million for Snyder and $5 million a year for the three seasons left on Chauncey's contract).

Professional teams can afford to fire coaches. It always amazes me how much people worry about a coach contract given how little it is in comparison to a roster