📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — I’ve covered enough NBA media days and training camps to be able to decode these press conferences. This will be No. 11—five in Chicago and six in Portland, not counting virtual stuff in 2020 due to COVID. You have to take most things that are said by coaches, players and decision-makers with a big grain of salt this time of year.
Every coach wants to play faster. Every player worked on their game all summer. You know the drill.
The last few Trail Blazers media days have had a theme. Two years ago, it was returning to playoff status with Damian Lillard newly healthy and the addition of Jerami Grant. Last year, it was the first time general manager Joe Cronin spoke to reporters since the Lillard trade, which happened less than a week beforehand, so that dominated the conversation.
This year? It’s tough to say what the theme was, but some important questions were addressed. The team is largely the same as it was last year, with the exception of one lottery pick (Donovan Clingan) and a trade addition (Deni Avdija). Everyone knows this isn’t a playoff team. Chauncey Billups is going into the final year of his contract as head coach.
Here’s what I found notable as Cronin, Billups and 10 players spoke on Monday morning:
Cronin on continuity and his approach to trades this summer
Outside of drafting Clingan No. 7 overall, the Blazers only made one significant roster move this summer, trading Malcolm Brogdon for Avdija.
Jerami Grant was not traded. Neither were Anfernee Simons or Robert Williams III. Cronin was asked about this, as well as the likelihood of any major moves being made during the season, ahead of the Feb. 6 trade deadline.
“Part of our goal, and something we were happy about this offseason, is there wasn’t too much turnover,” Cronin said. “We like that we’ve had at least a year with this current group. I think we saw last year that when we made all those trades, early on in the season we were really disjointed. I like the fact that we won’t be as disjointed this year. But at the same time, we’re not at a place with our roster where we can be content or comfortable with what we have.”
After trading Brogdon, who was going into the final year of his contract, the Blazers had the ability to wait out the market. They listened to offers on Grant, Simons, Williams and others. Nothing materialized or even got close, and in all three cases, there’s a reasonable explanation for the decision not to trade them.
It would be easier to move Simons if the Blazers had more data on how Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe are going to develop. If those two had firmly established themselves by now as Portland’s backcourt of the future, it would make Simons, who has two years left on his contract, more expendable. If Henderson and Sharpe take big leaps in the first half of this season, it could make sense to revisit Simons talks around the deadline.
Williams’ value right now, coming off missing essentially the entire season with a knee injury, isn’t as high right now as it could be if he proves he can stay healthy in the coming months (more on that below).
And Grant the Blazers simply value too highly to trade just for the sake of trading. The most substantive talks they had with anybody this summer, to my knowledge, were with the Lakers over Grant, and those discussions didn’t get very far because the Lakers weren’t willing to include both of their tradable future first-round picks. Maybe that changes by the deadline, or another team meets that price. The Blazers will keep hearing teams out in the meantime.
“We always try to be active,” Cronin said. “We’re constantly talking to teams, kicking ideas around and looking for ways to get better. We’re not good enough yet, we need to get better. We had plenty of conversations, just none that were too substantive or got ultra-close to getting done. We’ll go into the season with the same approach. We have the luxury to be patient and wait for the right deals, but we don’t have a sense of contentment.”
I would bet on at least one move being made before the deadline, but it’s not a guarantee. Brogdon was widely presumed to be gone by last year’s deadline, but was not traded until draft night.
“Time will tell,” Cronin said. “I want to hit the ground running with these guys this year. The trade deadline is quite a ways away. But we’re always going to be open-minded.”
Billups ‘not really concerned’ with unsettled contract status
Since the end of the season, it’s been common knowledge that Billups is heading into this season as a lame duck. The Blazers hold a team option for the 2025-26 season that they have not picked up yet, and this spring, Billups’ name came up in connection with a few open jobs, including Phoenix.
Nothing came of it, and Billups is still here at the start of training camp. We’ve covered it extensively since April—he’s been open about wanting to win, while the Blazers are still in rebuild mode, and the most logical resolution is for them go their separate ways at the end of the season.
Right now, Billups isn’t thinking about that.
“I don’t think it matters what year you’re in anymore,” he said when asked directly about his contract status. “You can be in the first year of your deal, you can be in the last year of your deal. It’s all the same. You’ve got to go do a good job. And if not, we see it all the time. Coaches get fired and don’t even get to finish their first year. I don’t think about that, I don’t worry about that. What I’m most proud of is, I’m light-years ahead of where I was when I took this microphone three years ago.”
It will be fascinating to see how Billups maneuvers through this year. For his own sanity and future coaching prospects, be it in Portland or elsewhere, he’d like to do something about his .329 career winning percentage in three seasons as a head coach. But winning more games isn’t in the best interests of the organization this season as they chase Cooper Flagg or one of the other prospects at the top of next year’s lottery.
“Chauncey and I have a great relationship,” Cronin said. “We talk a lot, we spend a lot of time together. He values my input, but I also value his expertise. I don’t meddle in the day-to-day, game-to-game or even month-to-month stuff with Chauncey. I’m always there for him if he needs me, but I trust him and his decisions as far as style of play, rotations, how to open or close games. That’s up to Chauncey.”
In an ideal world for both sides, the Blazers will stay healthy enough for some of their young players to develop, whether that leads to wins or not (and, spoiler alert, there won’t be a lot of those). I have a hard time seeing them making an in-season coaching change, unless this season truly goes off the rails to the degree it nearly did in early January of last season. The conversation about their future together, or lack thereof, will happen between Cronin and Billups, but it’s for the end of the season.
“I’m not really concerned with being in the last year of my deal or what could happen,” Billups said. “I just want to go do a good job. I’m really happy with where I’m at, I’m happy with where my staff is at, I’m happy that our team is healthy. I know what we’re up against, so I’m not unrealistic. Joe’s not unrealistic. Jody’s not unrealistic. They’re not asking me to go out and find lightning in a bottle in the position that we’re in.”
Ayton and Clingan developing a bond
Much was made when the Blazers drafted Clingan in June about what it would mean for starting center Deandre Ayton, and whether that would create any tension.
By all indications, the two are hitting it off so far.
“We’re getting there,” Ayton said Monday. “Just got to build that trust with him. Show that I’ve got his back and just help him. When I can tell he’s thinking of a bunch of questions to ask me, just going up and talk to him.
“I can tell you this: He’s a true competitor. You can tell he’s a winner. He doesn’t back down at all. He just wants to learn so much. There’s a thing or two I’m learning from him as well. For him being such a big kid, he knows how to use his body so well. He sacrifices his body for his teammates. That’s how he plays. He doesn’t even know how important that is in this league.”
The Blazers’ frontcourt is crowded. Besides Ayton and Clingan, Williams is healthy again and Duop Reath is still here. Clingan doesn’t know how many minutes he’ll play right away.
“It’s hard for me to say [how many] minutes,” Clingan said. “With D.A., Rob, whoever needs a break, I just want to go in and have there be no fall-off.”
Clingan said he’s enjoyed going up against Ayton in pickup games.
“D.A. is awesome,” he said. “He’s got a lot of energy. He knows the game very well. A lot of skill. To have someone to look up to like that is special. It means a lot to me.”
The minutes crunch might be lessened by Billups’ willingness to experiment. One of the positives of a season where wins are secondary is the ability to play around with different lineups. Don’t be surprised if there are some two-big lineups at different points in the season.
“We have the luxury of having a lot of good big men,” Billups said. “With so many guys, Donovan and D.A. and Rob and Wop, there are going to be times where I’ll be trying some things and playing two bigs at times. There’s some teams in the league that play two bigs. That’s the beautiful thing about where we’re at. We can try some things and see if it works.”
Robert Williams III excited to return
Speaking of Williams, he’s back.
After missing all but six games of last season with a knee injury, Williams has spent the summer ramping up towards a return. He’s been participating in full-contact five-on-five scrimmaging in recent weeks, and should be mostly good to go when practices start this week.
His excitement was palpable when he sat down at the podium.
“I’m in a great space right now,” Williams said. “Trying to stay on top of everything physically and mentally. It’s been a long seven months. A long fight back. But I’m just ready to get back on the court, man. You saw me smiling when I came in here. At one point, I couldn’t even walk, you feel what I’m saying? So I’m just ready to get back out there and show what I can do.”
Williams probably won’t do everything in the preseason. Cronin hinted that they’ll likely hold him out of some activities, just to be safe. Last season, even before he got hurt, they were already holding him out of back-to-backs and limiting his activity in some practices. Another knee surgery later, that’s going to continue. But Williams is jumping out of his skin to get back out on the court.
“It’s an anxiety, but it’s not a nervous one,” Williams said. “It’s more like, ‘OK, let’s stop all this talking shit and get back out there. Get with it.”
In his brief time on the court in Portland last season after coming over on the eve of training camp in the Jrue Holiday trade, Williams’ impact was obvious. He thinks it won’t take long to get back to that level once he starts playing.
“I feel like I’m there,” he said. “I’ve been playing five-on-five a lot over the past month. But it’s been a nonstop grind since I hurt myself last year. Starting then, from the rehab process to getting back out on the court, everything I went through, it’s been a long grind. I feel like I’m ready.
Simons and Grant bought in to rebuilding process
Simons and Grant, the two longest-tenured Blazers, are also the two players whose names you can expect to come up the most often in trade talks. Simons said at his exit interview in April that he wants to win and doesn’t want to go through another year taking the kind of losses the Blazers took last season. But on Monday, he didn’t sound like he was eager to leave.
“I think everybody’s goal is to win,” Simons said. “However long that takes, that’s the question, but we want to win as soon as possible.”
Simons said he’s had productive conversations with Cronin over the summer and acknowledged that he still has room to improve.
Grant, too, is content for now being the old head on a young team.
“Conversations with Joe have been good,” he said. “He’s been transparent. We’re definitely on the same page. We’re both being honest with each other.”
Other notes:
Here’s a close-up of both of the Blazers’ new jersey patches: their new sponsor, Brightside Windows, and the Bill Walton tribute patch.
Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins and Brightside Windows CEO Christopher Hill spoke together on Monday to announce the jersey partnership. The Blazers haven’t had a sponsor patch in two years, since they abruptly ended their agreement with StormX one season into a five-year deal. Personally, I’ll take a local business that provides a legitimate service that people need, like window repair, over a crypto exchange when it comes to these things.
The other bit of news from Hankins’ press conference, which was mostly focused on the Blazers’ new broadcast deal with Sinclair/KATU, is that they’re planning on doing some work on the lower bowl in the summer of 2025. He didn’t have many details yet, and it may not count as one of the two full summers of renovations the building needs, but there will be some improvements made ahead of the WNBA team playing its first season in 2026.
Matisse Thybulle was asked how he handled Team Australia’s surprising decision to cut him from the Olympic roster this summer in Paris: “Well, I handled it by getting on a flight and sitting there for 15 hours just thinking about it. What do you learn from it? I guess that nothing’s guaranteed. I had gone in with an assumption that I’d be on the team, and I wasn’t. So I guess having to deal with that sense of entitlement I might have had going in. That’s a deeper one than just a simple answer, but plenty of stuff to think about and process.”
Based on his social media, Thybulle has been frequenting Portland-area skate parks. Asked for his favorite, he played dumb. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, with a big smile. “I’ve never skateboarded a day in my life. I have a contract to uphold, buddy.”
Despite a rough rookie season, Henderson on Monday morning was as confident as ever. “I don’t think it changed my outlook on who I want to be,” he said. “I want to be one of the greatest point guards ever, and I’m gonna stand by that and I’ve still got that confidence to go out and perform. When year two starts, I feel like I’m even more confident with the year I have under my belt.”
On what was by and large a low-energy media day, Ayton did what he usually does and provided enough enthusiasm for the whole building. “That’s me,” he said. “That’s DominAyton. You’ve got to be on these juices, go to bed early, water.” So you can check a “DominAyton” reference off the bingo card.
Asked a follow-up question about the specific types of juices that contributed to his good mood, Ayton said: “All types of stuff the chef got me drinking. Beet juice, orange juice with ginger in it, cleanses, stuff like that. I’m getting used to that stuff.”
Obligatory #MuscleWatch update: Ayton said Toumani Camara “looks like he gained about 20 pounds of muscle.” Camara pushed back a little bit on the number. “20 is a lot,” he said. “I’ve definitely added some muscle, some weight. But 20 is a lot.”
With Billups going into the final year of his contract, the Blazers made three changes on his staff. They didn’t renew the contracts of his brother, Rodney, or his lead assistant, Scott Brooks, and also lost well-regarded assistant Steve Hetzel to a job with the Brooklyn Nets. To replace them, they hired former Pacers head coach and longtime Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren, former Bulls lead assistant Chris Fleming and former Nets assistant and G League Coach of the Year Ronnie Burrell. Bjorkgren spent most of last season around the Blazers as an unofficial consultant and formally joined Billups’ staff this summer. His reputation around the NBA is that of a brilliant tactician, although his one season as head coach in Indiana ended badly amid reports of personality clashes with players and staff. “[He] pretty much can do everything,” Billups said. “He’s a wizard in my eyes.” Billups also pointed to Fleming’s role in developing Coby White in Chicago, which he feels will be helpful as the Blazers look to maximize Henderson and Sharpe.
