How long of a leash should Chauncey have?

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What should we do with Chauncey?

  • Fire him - even young players deserve a good coach

    Votes: 23 32.4%

  • He should be on a short leash - if we look like we're not progressing, he should go in season

    Votes: 31 43.7%

  • The worse we are the better - let's re-evaluate next Summer

    Votes: 15 21.1%

  • He's a good coach! Prove he isn't!

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • Total voters
    71
kjironman1 said:
So you all want to give him another year to suck so he can get another draft pick so he can blame sucking next year on being young so he can have another year where he can get another draft pick and then you can see if he is going to start coaching?
Ah No.
Fire Stotts!
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Yep. We fired Stotts and got a worse coach. Funny how that worked out.
 
Tince said:
Here are the assumptions I'm working off of:
  1. Jody isn't operating the team without a budget. Therefore any dollar she's spending on Billups, will go against what she's willing to pay the next coach.
  2. I agree we need a better coach. I'm not confident in the organization to find a significantly better coach, just as I wasn't when people wanted Stotts fired and I was pushing back saying it was unlikely we'd find a significantly better coach
  3. Instability if off-putting to future GMs, coaches, and players.
We agree Billups is not a great coach though.
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Fair enough.
 
Bingo Bango said:
Yep. We fired Stotts and got a worse coach. Funny how that worked out.
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Not certain he’s worse? You might be right that he is?
He was a rookie coach and to this point still hasn’t been asked to really coach?
Just wondering how long we will ask him to lead the team but still let him tread water?
 
kjironman1 said:
Not certain he’s worse? You might be right that he is?
He was a rookie coach and to this point still hasn’t been asked to really coach?
Just wondering how long we will ask him to lead the team but still let him tread water?
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Pretty hard to make a case he hasn't been worse. Even in the first couple months where we ran back the same roster that Stotts ended with, things weren't better. That's the closest apples to apples comparison we'll have.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Billups is far worse than Stotts. Let's be real.
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Certainly in my view. The only issue I have with that is he was a rookie and I figured he would need a couple years. Those years though have not been a team that was trying to win.
 
kjironman1 said:
Certainly in my view. The only issue I have with that is he was a rookie and I figured he would need a couple years. Those years though have not been a team that was trying to win.
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If he were a good coach they wouldn't have had to tank last season, IMO.

They looked bad. What has Billups done well?

Either way, I'm fine with him being here until we find someone really good.
 
Brogdon fits in just fine for now. Injuries can always be counted on.
 
Chauncey in interviews sounds like a player when he talks not a coach. He doesn't come across as a leader, more like he's just one of the boys. It's all cliche nothing answers to questions.

For me it comes down to defense. The whole reason he was brought in was to improve the defense. That's what all the talk was about and it sounded great, but two years in and our defense is still garbage. To be fair he didn't have much to work with, but now he does. So IMO if we haven't at the very least moved up to middle-of-the-pack in terms of defensive rating by midseason then Chauncey need to go.
 
Trailblazers76 said:
So IMO if we haven't at the very least moved up to middle-of-the-pack in terms of defensive rating by midseason then Chauncey need to go.
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Agree.
Also to back that up a bit. Doesn't really help win games when they are mediocre at defense and even worse on offense. We all figured the team would score less but not sure he has implemented much on the way of offense that will keep them in close games.
Maybe they will be able to score this year as well? Not sure at this point?
 
Mr. Robot said:
it depends on what the goal is, if its another season of tanking for a top pick, then obviously we need to lose a lot of games

if were done with tanking, then obviously both players and the team need to show an improvement from season to season (like okc did, they will likely be a playoff team this season)

its crucial that we have a right head coach for young players so they can develop and reach their potential, because were talking about this franchise future and we cannot fuck up with scoot & shae first and foremost, but also other young players

scoot & shae should be priorities, but mostly im afraid about shae, we need that kid to develop killer instinct, we need him to be aggressive and im thinking ant, grant & ayton might get in his way, because all of them want to shoot the ball
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There are plenty of shots if it's Scoot, Sharpe and Ayton plus role players like Toumani and player X at the forwards. Sharpe should eventually be the 1st option IMO, and/or the target out of the Scoot/Ayton P&R. It's Grant and especially Ant who are taking shots from Sharpe. I suspect that Cronin knows this and will act accordingly. Also, Ant is the last holdover from the Olshey era. I don't think we need to rush to trade him. The Trade Deadline, or even next off-season should be ideal to trade Ant. He will likely be averaging 22+PPG on good efficiency and we can trade him, OR we can even look for a coach and let him know Ant has to be the 6th man as a shoot first combo guard.

As to the OP's question, I think we should look to move on from Chauncey after this season, once we have his superior replacement ready to slot in.
 
I think they will let him have the entire season, and that's probably the right decision. I think Joe should have insisted that they hire a defensive specialist in the off season. Maybe somebody who is kind of a hardass. and/or who is experienced at using drills that actually require the players to think and use the skills that Billups is teaching in game type situations. Maybe accompanied with some kind of rewards/punishment system?
I think he now needs to improve the defense, especially the problem of not covering corner three shooters. Needs to show that he can motivate Simons to consistently play tough defense. Needs to show he can make good use of Ayton's offensive skills and integrate into a team concept. Needs to show steady progress in play of Sharpe and Scoot and to a lesser degree other young guys.
 
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If this team's first concern is winning and if management wants to see what Chauncey can get out of them then we'll be starting Brogdon, Ant, Matisse, Jerami and Ayton, with Scoot, Shae, Toumani and Time Lord off the bench being the regular rotation and other guys picking up minutes where they can.

I don't think that's what we'll see. If Scoot is starting day one it won't be because he gives us a better chance to win than Malcolm does in his place.

Right now I'm sure what Chauncey is concerned with is effort and how the guys that will be on this team when the dust settles are picking up what Chauncey is putting down. I think it will be two years before it would be wise to judge Chauncey on wins and losses.
 
Judging the progression or improvement will have to be done without measuring those in terms of wins. Are individual players making progress and improving with the court time they are given or not? Are they gelling as a team on both the offensive and defensive ends regardless of win total?

It is very early with an extremely small sample size, but I'm seeing some of the same things that I saw with a more veteran team the last couple of years. So almost all of the players have changed, but the same things are happening. That seems more like coaching than personnel, even though it is so young.
 
TBpup said:
Judging the progression or improvement will have to be done without measuring those in terms of wins. Are individual players making progress and improving with the court time they are given or not? Are they gelling as a team on both the offensive and defensive ends regardless of win total?

It is very early with an extremely small sample size, but I'm seeing some of the same things that I saw with a more veteran team the last couple of years. So almost all of the players have changed, but the same things are happening. That seems more like coaching than personnel, even though it is so young.
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I think it's much more nuanced than the new kids are screwing up the same way our old vets did. Chauncey has never had a full season where the team was trying to win. It's going to be really hard to judge this team at all this season. I think middle of next season you could look at a collective of players that Chauncey has coached and start to really be able to see something discernible.

I also think it's important to take it in the context of this article:
https://www.si.com/nba/2021/06/28/chauncey-billups-hire-trail-blazers-head-coach-five-year-contract

Chauncey's salary sounds like it's guaranteed through his fourth year here. So the soonest ownership would even want to get into firing him is the middle of next season. Ideally for ownership they would decide in the offseason of 2025 if they want to bring Chauncey back or move on from him so they don't have to pay two head coaches at the same time.
 
blazerkor said:
I think it's much more nuanced than the new kids are screwing up the same way our old vets did. Chauncey has never had a full season where the team was trying to win. It's going to be really hard to judge this team at all this season. I think middle of next season you could look at a collective of players that Chauncey has coached and start to really be able to see something discernible.

I also think it's important to take it in the context of this article:
https://www.si.com/nba/2021/06/28/chauncey-billups-hire-trail-blazers-head-coach-five-year-contract

Chauncey's salary sounds like it's guaranteed through his fourth year here. So the soonest ownership would even want to get into firing him is the middle of next season. Ideally for ownership they would decide in the offseason of 2025 if they want to bring Chauncey back or move on from him so they don't have to pay two head coaches at the same time.
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If they find the right coach they should hire them regardless of the time left on Chauncey's contract .
 
Phatguysrule said:
If they find the right coach they should hire them regardless of the time left on Chauncey's contract .
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Yes! If they can do a back-channel interview and know there is some great coach out there, dying to come to Portland, then pull the trigger.

Let's not fire Billups and hope we can find someone good to replace him.
 
Tince said:
Yes! If they can do a back-channel interview and know there is some great coach out there, dying to come to Portland, then pull the trigger.

Let's not fire Billups and hope we can find someone good to replace him.
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Hire them into the staff like Chicago did with Phil Jackson and Tex Winters.
 
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