I can’t help wondering what former Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen would have thought about the basketball disaster on Tuesday night. His beloved NBA team was outdone, planned and played by the Chicago Bulls.
Portland dropped below 0.500 for the season.
Does anyone think Paul would be satisfied?
I’m thinking that Allen may have woken up today frustrated like any fan, ready to do something about it. Neil Olshey, the general manager, presented a tiring list for this season. Terry Stotts, the coach, feels like a nice guy who needs to change the scene. Together, they have become an obsolete act, adequate enough for the past eight years, but far from what this franchise needs for its future.
Olshey’s new contract runs until 2024. Stotts, the league’s oldest senior coach, is in jail during the summer of 2022. Make sure the two worked together to bond with Trail Blazers, Inc. after Allen’s death . They sold the notion that the franchise needed stability, and probably did, but now the operation looks like it needs a lot of new ideas and new energy.
The food is spoiled. The fuel degrades. Basketball too. Stotts may be suitable for some other entry-level franchise, one that needs an offensive spark. Olshey may be perfect for some other NBA city, perhaps one with more valet parking. But the pair currently feel they have no good answers.
Since Christmas, Portland has defeated three most valuable former players – LeBron James, Steph Curry and James Harden. But that happened with a 25 point loss to the Warriors (Curry scored 62 points). Then came the Bulls short-handed, who lost on Tuesday night by 20, but came back to win.
This kind of disappointing swing sums up the current era of Blazers’ basketball. Portland is sometimes fun, but it is nothing like a competitor. Damian Lillard’s early years are being wasted. CJ McCollum also deserves better. I would like to see what this franchise can become with a new trainer and GM. I’m just not sure, amid the financial uncertainty of a pandemic, whether Jody Allen will do what his brother could have done – clean the house and give someone else a chance.
I was alarmed on Tuesday at Stotts’ post-game comments, who said: “Chicago has outgrown us. They played heavier than us. “
A big part of that is yours, coach. The metrics for this team, in season 9 for Stotts, suggest that defense is still not a high priority. Also, for a while I wondered if Olshey’s main focus is not so much about winning games, but rather elaborating the narrative about her own performance at work. He desperately wants to be known as a recruiting day guru. He did a home run on Lillard, which the franchise had already discovered and identified even before Olshey was hired. But your marginal choices and shooting errors usually require a lot of patience, many minutes and a lot of money. Olshey’s vanity hampered the general effort.
Team president Chris McGowan is a goalkeeper. He’s cunning, smart and respected. The fact that he was promoted to CEO of Vulcan Sports came as no surprise to anyone who worked closely with him. But the commercial side of the Blazers has better energy and ideas than the side of basketball.
Where is the Blazers franchise going?
This became a fair question for fans to raise. Lillard turns 31 this summer. His salary jumps from $ 31.6 million this season to $ 43.8 million next season. McCollum will earn $ 30.8 million next season. There is a heavy bill coming and just qualifying for the playoffs is no longer enough.
When Olshey ran back with Enes Kanter, Jusuf Nurkic and Carmelo Anthony this season, it looked like he was stuck in the replay. Stotts has a good offensive mind, but the Blazers allowed the Bulls to score 66 points in the second half on Tuesday. Worst of all, no one was shocked by this.
I hope Portland still wins outbreak games this season. Blazers will not be boring, but neither are they a real threat to win big. Any good GM could consider shaking the squad with a change of form, but that would mean Olshey admits he was wrong about some of his valuable draft choices and off-season signings. Any other coach wouldn’t first point a finger at the locker room, but that’s what Stotts essentially did.
Allen bought the Blazers in 1988 and stayed with coach Mike Dunleavy for 296 games. He gave Maurice Cheeks 301 before firing him. Nate McMillan has 535 games to try to win. Stotts is now in game 648 – and counting.
Record of Stotts playoff in Portland: 20-36. The same record for Olshey. I would like to see something else soon. Maybe it’s just me, but I left the game on Tuesday night thinking: “What Paul would do? “Because your old basketball franchise has become obsolete and it starts with the coach and the general manager.
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