Front-Office Executive Gives Interview to Local Radio Station
Some thoughts on Joe Cronin's Wednesday appearance on 1080 The Fan
Here's a new one: the general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers gave an interview to one of the local radio stations on Wednesday.
Joe Cronin appeared with my good friends Dirt & Sprague at 1080 The Fan, which in and of itself is unbelievable in this market. Even more refreshingly different: Cronin actually had some interesting things to say in this format.
It was a 20-minute spot, and about half of it was the same stuff Cronin has said in various press conferences since he took the job. That's to be expected—someone in his position has their talking points, and isn't going to spill state secrets in a morning-radio interview.
But it was a nice change from the last nine-plus years, when the Blazers' president of basketball operations only begrudgingly gave press conferences when absolutely necessary, and never did sit-down interviews except with state-approved local TV and radio stations and one sympathetic national podcast platform.
It wasn't as bad as Knicks president Leon Rose, who still hasn't made himself available to reporters one time since taking the job almost three years ago, but it wasn't far off. And my own selfish complaints about the ease of doing my job aside, lack of availability really just does a disservice to fans, who fork over money for tickets and jerseys and deserve to hear from the people responsible for putting together the team they're going to see.
In general since early December, the Blazers have become much more media-friendly across the board. I'm still in the process of getting to know Cronin on a personal level, but it's obvious even from our limited interactions that he genuinely cares about the people he works with and isn't obsessed with being the smartest guy in the room at all times. All of his new front-office hires are similar. And the new PR staff has been incredibly accommodating to me since I made this move to go independent.
Even on a day-to-day level as a beat writer, I appreciated last season that Chauncey Billups had no qualms about telling us what his starting lineup was and how many minutes certain players would get. It's always been silly to me when coaches treat that kind of stuff like classified information.
All of that to say, it's nice that Cronin was willing to go on a non-team-affiliated radio station and answer some questions about the roster he's put together in his first full offseason as general manager.
You can listen to the entire interview below, but I've transcribed a few things that stood out to me, topics Cronin hasn't discussed in public before that are worth calling attention to.
https://omny.fm/shows/dirt-sprague/joe-cronin-7-20-22
On the hiring of Mike Schmitz as assistant GM:
"Mike's someone I've always respected, just from afar. I didn't really know him that well, just in passing to say hello, but I always followed his work and thought he did a terrific job. Once I got hired on as the full-time GM and Jody [Allen] told me I could hire two assistant GMs, Mike came to mind right away. I started talking to him and really started recruiting him at the combine in May and had a bunch of sit-downs with him. For him, it was a big step. He didn't know if he wanted to leave ESPN and what he was doing, and he wanted to make sure he was going not just to the right organization but the right situation. Just a lot of back-and-forth. Chauncey met with Mike, Bert Kolde met with Mike, almost trying to inform him as much as we were learning about him. We wanted to make sure this was the right fit for him. ... When he chose to join us, we were obviously really excited. He's so talented and he's got such a breadth of knowledge and his energy and his motor is so good. He's going to be a star in this league and I'm really thrilled that he's with us."
Thoughts: In the days before the draft, when the buzz was that the Blazers were targeting Shaedon Sharpe if they kept the No. 7 overall pick, I pointed to a podcast Schmitz recorded with his then-ESPN colleague Adrian Wojnarowski the day after the lottery as a clue that he may be a driver in their interest in Sharpe. Given that he took the job less than two weeks after the lottery, I had assumed that he was already talking to the Blazers when that podcast was recorded. Cronin saying Wednesday that he only started seriously recruiting Schmitz to join his revamped front office at the combine later that week was clarifying. That leads us to the next thing I thought was interesting in Cronin's interview...
On the importance of international scouting:
"When your top players are international, and about a quarter of the league as a whole are international, it's such an important part of team-building. So that was one of our points of emphasis, to really ramp up that portion of it. And Mike is arguably as good as anyone at it. He's been everywhere, he's seen most of these players for a long time already, he has a massive network. And he also knows who we need to hire as far as, who are the emerging international scouts, what are the services that are best to utilize, what are the emerging countries or continents? Wanting to be ahead of it."
Thoughts: It absolutely blew me away when Cronin revealed at his end-of-season press conference in April that he had recently hired a second international scout. With MVP finalists Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid as well as Luka Doncic, there's a strong case to make that four of the top five players in the NBA currently are non-Americans. And while Doncic was a can't-miss prospect who won MVP of EuroLeague as a teenager, Antetokounmpo was a non-lottery pick and Jokic was a second-rounder. Clearly, not every team was up on them. That the Blazers, under the previous team president, only had one scout to cover the entire rest of the world outside of the U.S. explained a lot. This is also why Schmitz was such a smart, forward-thinking hire by Cronin. Not only does he have 15 years' worth of scouting data and relationships all over the world, but hiring him to work under you takes access to that information away from the other 29 teams. They helped themselves and hurt their competition at the same time by bringing him into the fold.
On the roles Shaedon Sharpe and Jabari Walker will have in their rookie seasons:
"Dream scenario across the roster is, we would love to have competition at each position. We feel like we have enough depth to where this can happen. 'Hey, you want a spot in the rotation? Come in and earn it.' And I think Chauncey's shown a big willingness to do that. He inherited Anfernee [Simons] and Nassir [Little] and immediately embraced them and immediately empowered them and put them on the floor and didn't care what their experience level or their age was. He cared more about what they could bring to this team. So I know Chauncey is extremely open-minded towards young players. If Shaedon or Jabari or one of the other young players comes in and earns it, they'll get a spot."
Thoughts: Realistically, only one starting spot is truly up for grabs barring injury. Damian Lillard and Anfernee Simons will be the two starting guards and Jerami Grant and Jusuf Nurkic will be the starting frontcourt. Small forward is undetermined—my educated guess is that the favorite as of now would be Nassir Little. Josh Hart, the other likely option, makes the most sense as the lead ballhandler in the second unit. But there are plenty of minutes to fight for between Hart, Little, Gary Payton II, Justise Winslow, Trendon Watford and the two rookies. Based just on Summer League, it wouldn't be a complete shock to see Jabari Walker force Billups' hand in putting him on the floor. With Sharpe, I just have no idea what to expect because nobody's seen him play in so long. Maybe he also forces the issue with a strong training camp. Until further notice, expect his rookie year to go the way Simons' did in 2018-19, with lots of behind-the-scenes development but not a ton of playing time on a team competing for the playoffs.
On future plans for a G League franchise:
"We were actually talking about it just yesterday. It's something that we're definitely interested in. It's just got to make sense for us as far as location, financials, all those different things. It's something we believe in and think is an important part of player development and also staff development. It's something we want to explore further."
Thoughts: This is something I'm going to be doing a lot more writing and reporting about as the summer continues and into next season. Much like their deficiency in international-scouting presence under the last regime, the Blazers being the only NBA team without their own G League affiliate puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to player development. Don't be surprised if the resolution of this matter is tied to the resolution of other franchise-level matters that are currently up in the air.