It would appear the
Trail Blazers are crumbling.
Neil Olshey, the top executive on the basketball side,
is under investigation for creating a hostile work environment.
The top executive on the business side, Chris McGowan, revealed on Friday that he resigned on Nov. 1.
And the product on the court has been less than impressive. Attendance at home games is down, following a league-wide trend. Meanwhile, the Blazers are 5-7 and one of only two teams in the NBA that has yet to win on the road heading into Friday’s game at Houston.
But while it looks like the franchise is suddenly imploding, I would argue that it has been more of a slow deterioration. Ever since owner Paul Allen passed away in October 2018, things haven’t been the same. When he died, so too did much of the Blazers.
Paul Allen didn’t just love the Trail Blazers, he breathed them. He wanted to know the thought process behind every decision. And he had thoughts, ideas and visions of where the franchise could go.
It’s why Olshey would get 25 texts in a day during the NBA Draft process. And it’s why McGowan was given the promise of more power to expand the brand of both the Blazers and NFL’s Seattle Seahawks (which Allen also owned.)
When Allen died from complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, his sister, Jody, took over. She has been supportive of the Blazers from a monetary standpoint. She handed out lucrative contract extensions to guards
Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, awarded Olshey and then-coach
Terry Stotts extensions and gave first-year coach Chauncey Billups a five-year deal. Last season, the Blazers had the NBA’s highest payroll. This season, they have the seventh highest.
But by all accounts, she has not carried the same oversight and attention to the Blazers as her brother. She attends most home games and traveled to road games throughout the team’s run to the 2019 Western Conference finals. But she has largely been hands-off. And maybe that’s why some of the promises to McGowan were never fulfilled, and why some of Paul’s visions were never realized.
Not surprisingly, both McGowan and Olshey have always fawned over Jody and her commitment. But really, what are they supposed to say? She’s an absent owner? She doesn’t care?
The closest thing I would ever hear along those lines was a pause, followed by “things are different.”
So, what is really behind the McGowan resignation?
It wasn’t Olshey. And it wasn’t money. It was a larger role. McGowan wanted more, and Jody Allen wasn’t ready to give it.
As the Trail Blazers were enduring a tumultuous offseason this summer, sources say McGowan was biting his tongue behind the scenes.
Stotts was fired as coach. Franchise star Lillard was upset with the direction of the team after a first-round playoff defeat. And a candidate to replace Stotts, the eventually hired Billups, had a controversial past.
During this volatile time, the face and the voice of the franchise was Olshey. His messaging was not only falling flat, it was aggravating the fanbase and sponsors. Olshey was abrasive, combative and shuffled the blame to others besides himself.
In June, shortly after Olshey told reporters the team’s failings were not a result of the roster he constructed, sources say McGowan asked Allen to become the voice of the franchise. McGowan didn’t want to run the basketball operations, he wanted to control the messaging. He was rebuffed.
In July, McGowan asked Allen again to become the voice of the franchise after a disastrous introductory news conference for Billups in which the organization was less than transparent. He was again rebuffed.
With the Blazers, McGowan managed with a measured, soft-spoken approach. He trumpeted diversity, equity and inclusion and worried just as much about the working culture of his office as he did the bottom line.
But not being given the opportunity to handle the team’s messaging, particularly after an emotional summer of events, was not the only reason he left.
There were promises. And some of them weren’t kept.
Paul Allen was a man of vision. His autobiography was titled “Idea Man.”
And in McGowan, he saw a man to carry out his vision.
Allen wanted to be more than just a sports owner. He wanted to preserve art, amplify entertainment options and, to be honest, show off his various collections of airplanes, cars and paintings. It’s why in 2017 his company — Vulcan Inc. — created a division dedicated to that, called Arts + Entertainment.
The man chosen to run it? McGowan.
Allen awarded McGowan the honor of running such a passion project after he proved himself with the Blazers.
In October 2012, he lured the baby-faced McGowan away from Los Angeles, where he was the Chief Operating Officer of the LA Kings hockey team and the LA Galaxy soccer team. Allen said, “I am confident he will find ways to improve the Blazers’ business performance, which is key to the team’s overall success.”
After McGowan delivered — his crowning achievement was securing Moda Health as the arena sponsor — Allen began entrusting him with more responsibilities.
Shortly before his passing in 2018, Allen promoted McGowan to CEO of Vulcan Sports & Entertainment, the company that manages the financial and business operations of the two sports teams owned by Allen — the Blazers and the Seahawks — as well as Vulcan Arts + Entertainment.
There were hopes and plans, among them to expand the Blazers and Seahawks brands to become more regional. But first, Allen died. Then 17 months later, COVID-19 paralyzed life as we knew it.
Shortly after, Vulcan Arts + Entertainment was shut down, and with it many of Allen’s and McGowan’s passion projects.
McGowan, 48, wouldn’t get into specifics about his resignation, telling
The Athletic “there’s a lot of things that led to this.” He said 10 years is a long time to run an organization. And he pointed to his family — his oldest son Ryan (19) is at Boston University, and his second son Kyle (17) is nearing a Dec. 1 decision to choose a soccer scholarship — as reasons why this was a good time.
As for Olshey and the unfulfilled promises?
“My role has changed significantly over the last three or four years,” McGowan said. “It has kind of built toward this moment. I appreciated that Paul gave me a chance to work on things he was passionate about, but the nature of the job changed when Paul passed. And I just wasn’t super satisfied with that. But it was totally understandable, I don’t think it was anything against me. This was just the time to do it. I’m looking forward to pursuing other opportunities.”
McGowan on Friday insisted his resignation has nothing to do with the investigation into Olshey’s conduct. McGowan was in the last year of his contract, which expires in June 2022, but there was a Dec. 31 trigger in the contract where he and the franchise had to decide whether he would come back and be up for an extension.
“I know zero about the investigation,” McGowan said.
McGowan made the decision to resign on Nov. 1. He will stay on board until Nov. 26 to help with the transition of the promoted Dewayne Hankins, the team’s former Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Vice President.
“Part of the reason I could leave was because I know we will be in good hands with Dewayne,” McGowan said.
This is Hankins’ ninth season with the Blazers, so there will be a familiarity with the staff and how things operate. He will inherit a franchise that McGowan says is in good shape financially.
If the finances are as healthy as McGowan says, the same can’t be said for morale inside the franchise, or the public’s perception of how it is being operated. Hankins’ first order of business: connecting with Allen and making sure the details that her brother so diligently kept up on, and the vision he so ambitiously dreamed of, are once again addressed.
A crumbling franchise depends on it.
