Chauncey

Billups

This is not surprising after both were named in separate federal indictments on Thursday. The NBA “will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities” as they work to figure out how accurate the allegations are and what potential sanctions might result from this. Both Billups and Rozier face an uphill battle to return this season.

Heat guard Terry Rozier was also arrested in connection to the same investigation this morning. Two senior law enforcement officials did say that Billups’ arrest was not connected to any games that he coached, but there is no other information regarding his role or potential consequences. The Department of Justice will hold a press conference on Thursday at 10 AM ET to provide more information.

While the Trail Blazers have not reached the postseason in Billups’ four seasons as head coach, the team made strides during the 2024-25 campaign. A six-game winning streak that began in late January provided some optimism that the team could remain in the play-in tournament conversation, but injuries short-circuited those hopes. Billups’ contract for the 2025-26 season was not guaranteed, which changes with Sunday’s reported decision by team management.

Billups has missed the past three games in league protocols. In his absence, Portland lost by an average of 21 points per game. The team is looking forward to his return.

Billups joins the Covid party and it looks like the earliest he can return will be January the 5th against Miami, but it could be longer. Scott Brooks will act as the Blazers head coach in Billups’ absence. Brooks has extensive head coaching experience including most recently with the Washington Wizards.

Even though other teams “smell blood in the water,” according to Cronin, "[the Blazers] haven’t discussed one time about taking a step back.” Portland received some good news recently with Damian Lillard (abdomen) possibly returning as soon as Sunday, but with an 11-15 record they’ll need to turn things around to stay in the playoff hunt. If they do fall out of the playoff picture, it’s almost a given that Blazers chair Jody Allen would direct Cronin to shave off $3 million in salary to avoid the luxury tax.

Portland ranked 29th in defensive efficiency last season, ahead of only Sacramento, and it is clear that Billups wants to change that this season. The first way that he is attacking this issue is in Portland’s ball screen defense, which will be a lot more aggressive this season. Billups’ plan this year is for Jusuf Nurkic, and other Portland bigs to be up to the level of the screen, not allowing the ball handler space to come off for an open jump shot off the screen. Both Nurkic and Damian Lillard are on board with the changes thus far. “I like it,” Lillard said. “I like it a lot.” “I actually love it”, said Jusuf Nurkic. “We don’t want to give nobody space, that’s really what it is,” Lillard said. “We are not going to allow people to come off and shoot and give them the opportunity to just play comfortable.”

According to Quick, witnesses were re-interviewed, tapes of past interviews were watched, and in the end, Neil Olshey, the Blazers’ top executive said that “nothing non-consensual happened and nothing would disqualify [Billups] from employment.” Billups has been in the headlines a ton recently, and the vast majority of it has nothing to do with basketball or things that will pertain to his ability to coach the Blazers. He will not only have to deal with these off-court issues but will also be tasked with coming up with a way to keep Superstar Damian Lillard happy, as it has been reported that Lillard has grown frustrated with the way that the franchise has handled business in the last few weeks. All in all, Billups surely will have his work cut out for him in Portland.

He was already set as the new head honcho in Portland, but the deal has officially been finalized and assigned a timeframe as well. The big thing here, however, is that Damian Lillard was reportedly not all too happy with the new hiring given Billups’ past, so the chances of Dame staying in Portland have dwindled quite rapidly since he first got word of who his new coach would be. All we can do is speculate for right now, but this will be one of the many fun offseason topics to get into Twitter wars about.

He emerged as the “frontrunner” just a few hours ago and finalized the deal late Friday night. Damian Lillard had a lot of input on the decision, and that’s understandable since keeping their franchise star content is their top priority right now.