Why Stotts brought Boylen to Blazers during training camp

Share

Terry Stotts and Jim Boylen go way back.

"We came into the league together," the Portland Trail Blazers head coach said of Boylen, who was fired from that position by the Bulls in August. "He was in Houston, I was in Seattle. I think he's a great basketball guy."

Indeed, Boylen's break into the NBA on Rudy Tomjanovich's Houston Rockets staff in 1992 nearly coincided with Stotts' first year as an assistant on George Karl's bench with the Seattle SuperSonics in 1994. Each man's professional path has featured NBA titles -- Boylen three between Houston (1994, 1995) and the San Antonio Spurs (2014); Stotts once as an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011.

The two, who share an agent in Warren LeGarie, reunited in the run-up to the 2020-21 campaign, when, as first reported by The Athletic, Stotts invited Boylen to work as a defensive consultant for the Blazers for a multi-week stretch that spanned training camp and the beginning of the preseason.

"We brought Jim in the week before camp started. He was in our coach's meetings and then he stayed for another week for the first week of camp," Stotts said. "He stayed for our first two preseason games and then we went on the road."

Stotts' motivation for bringing Boylen was multi-fold. 

"Obviously our defensive deficiencies have been well-chronicled from last year and he did a really good job with the Bulls with their defense last year. They made big strides and I respected the job that he did in Chicago," Stotts said. "The other part of it, and I've been out of coaching before and I know other coaches have been out of coaching, I think it's something George (Karl) used to do, bring in a coach who didn't have a job and kind of incorporating him in the program."

He added that Boylen's primary areas of consulting were on the Trail Blazers' help-side defense.

"He had his Bulls team really being aggressive last year, I think they trapped and blitzed more than any team in the league," Stotts said. "I don't know if that's necessarily for us. But I think he was really helpful in us trying to improve our weakside defense, our help defense and still being able to close out and staying in our rotations."

For all the derision that came with Boylen's tenure in Chicago, it's not as if he's unqualified to take such a call. He served on the staffs of multiple vaunted defenses with the Rockets, Indiana Pacers and Spurs. Though he deployed unconventional -- and, at times, overly rigid -- methods, the Bulls finished last season ninth in defensive rating (13th before the bubble brought offensive outbursts by the bushel) and forced turnovers at a mind-bending rate.

"I think it serves both purposes," Stotts said. "One is, Jim's a great basketball guy. But secondly, I know how it feels to be out of work and be sitting at home and not being involved. So it was good for him and it was certainly good for us."

Positive returns haven't manifested for the Trail Blazers. In those first two preseason games Stotts alluded to, they gave up 129 and 126 points respectively to the Denver Nuggets. Through six regular season games, Portland ranks 28th in defensive rating despite the widely-lauded offseason additions of Robert Covington and Derrick Jones Jr. Per Cleaning the Glass, which factors out last-second heaves and garbage time possessions, they're allowing 69.9 percent shooting at the rim (26th in the NBA) and 108 points per play on half court possessions (30th).

"Overall I'd say we're inconsistent," Stotts said of the 3-3 team's performance to this point.

Facing the 3-4 Bulls, who Stotts pointed out had won three of four games at his time of speaking, they're looking to find their footing. And Boylen's old squad will look to build on momentum of their own.

 

Contact Us