MAILBAG (PART 1): Has Chauncey Billups Made Strides as a Head Coach?
MAILBAG (PART 1): Has Chauncey Billups Made Strides as a Head Coach?
Plus: What will the Trail Blazers' rotation look like when Anfernee Simons returns?
If you were following at all the online discourse in the sports-media world yesterday, you undoubtedly saw the report that Sports Illustrated has started running A.I.-written stories under nonexistent bylines with computer-generated author images.
My first thought was the same as everyone else’s: it’s a pretty bleak sign for the state of the industry, and a world in which media literacy and public trust in the press are at an all-time low in all realms of society, in ways that are far more important than covering a basketball team.
But my second reaction was that I wasn’t surprised at all.
Let me tell you a story, before we get into the Trail Blazers mailbag:
About four years ago, the fall before the pandemic started, an editor at SI reached out to me because the magazine’s new owners were going to hire beat writers for every NBA team, and wanted to see if I was interested in covering the Blazers for them.
Of course, I was. At least, at first.
But five minutes into the pitch meeting with a couple of their executives, it became obvious that they weren’t interested in hiring me to write for the prestigious Sports Illustrated magazine and website. Their new owners wanted to leverage the SI name value to create a network of local content farms to game the SEO system for very little money. They required writers (or, “site entrepreneurs”) to register as an LLC, presumably to duck legal responsibility for this kind of work not meeting SI’s high standards. They suggested hiring college kids to write for free if you needed help meeting your site’s content volume quota. They touted their company’s “Blue Lives Matter” site as a model of their success. For a lot of reasons, it was a pretty easy “no” on my end after that initial call.
I tell you this to say that every time I see a story like the one from yesterday, and others like it, about what’s happened to a lot of the most respected establishment media outlets at both the local and national level, it makes me feel like I made the right choice 18 months ago in getting out of that ecosystem entirely and seeing if I could do things better on my own. And as the legacy outlets go further down this path, chasing raw numbers (in a lot of cases completely made up) at the expense of any kind of added value, writing and reporting done by real people is more important than ever.
A month into my second season, I’m more convinced than ever that what I’m doing here is the future, and enough of you are responding to it that it feels viable.
When I moved to Substack at the beginning of the month, one of the things that was appealing to me was an increased level of direct interaction with my readers. You may have seen that I’ve been using the Substack app to host live chats during most Blazers road games, and those have gotten great response. A few of them have been open to all subscribers, but for the most part, they’ve been a perk of a paid subscription, and I’m going to keep it that way, along with other added-value things that will be announced soon.
The mailbags, which have been a staple from the beginning, have also continued to get great response. This time around, I got enough good questions to once again make it a two-part column. The first one, which you’re reading now, is free for everyone. The second part, which is posting later in the week, will be for paid subscribers only. This is as good a time as any to get on board—or, if you’re looking for a gift idea, get a subscription for someone else.
My question is have you gotten a sense of Malcolm's, Jerami's, and especially Ayton's feelings towards Scoot (past the standard praise)? Do they see him as the future of the Blazers and what’s the locker room look like with them (body language towards Scoot)?
- Tayler
It's tough to fully gauge that because a) the Blazers haven't been home much to start the season, so I haven't been around them as much as I will be in the next month, and b) for a lot of the time that they have been home, Scoot was injured and thus not in the locker room a ton when we're allowed in. But I have yet to come across anyone in the organization who doesn't like the kid. He has an infectious personality and while he was out injured was very active on the bench hyping guys up.
I think all of the players you mentioned (the veterans) recognize that 19-year-old point guards are rarely good right away and it's going to take time for him to become a star. But as far as I can tell, everyone is all-in on what he could eventually be.
Do you think Chauncey is coaching himself into another year as a head coach? I've noticed a pretty drastic improvement this year. In the past seasons there hasn't been anything that stood out as that showed he can coach or has any idea what he's doing. This year he and his staff are literally trying everything, even if things don't work, you can see the effort. The thing I'm most impressed with is the intensity he has the team playing with. It makes me wonder if we had the previous seasons teams playing that way where this team would be at.
- Keenan M.
Is Chauncey improving as a coach/how do you like him in the role of a teacher and mentor?
- Keely H.
Grouping these two together because they both hit on the same thing. To address Keenan's specific question about whether he's coaching himself "into another year"—I haven't heard anything to suggest they're even thinking about making a change, barring something drastic.
I wrote at the start of camp that this was the year Billups wouldn't be able to point to organizational chaos and roster uncertainty anymore. This roster was built specifically for him and if things didn't work, it would be on him.
Well, despite the record, the feeling within the organization is that it is in fact working. They're happy with the level of competitiveness every night and he seems to be pushing all the right buttons as far as keeping everyone bought-in despite changing roles. Matisse Thybulle hasn't reacted negatively to being benched, Deandre Ayton has gone along with being worked into the offense slowly. I haven't gotten the sense that anyone is even with their record being what it is, which everyone knew going in.
When Ant returns, what do you think the rotation looks like? I assumed Shaedon Sharpe would play the 3 more but with Toumani Camara’s emergence that may be difficult.
- Jon B.
That's a good question. I think you have to keep Camara in the starting lineup for defensive purposes. Sharpe is too inconsistent on that end to start alongside two other guards. Simons has to start when he's back, too—he's the most consistent and reliable scorer out of that group and they aren't paying him $25 million a year to come off the bench.
So the question then becomes, does Brogdon stay in the starting lineup alongside Simons, with Henderson and Sharpe coming off the bench together, or does Simons move to point guard and start alongside Sharpe?
My guess right now is that the latter scenario is where it will land, at least at first. Before Simons got hurt on opening night, he started with Henderson while Brogdon and Sharpe came off the bench. The idea there was to give each one of the young guards a more experienced backcourt-mate. Simons' injury was followed by a few games of Henderson and Sharpe starting together, and it didn't go very well, as you'd expect with two guys that inexperienced. Then Henderson got hurt.
Once everyone is back healthy, I think Billups will go back to the "one kid and one vet in each unit" backcourt rotation, but the names will be shuffled. Sharpe has certainly done more to be worthy of starting this season than Henderson has, and it sends the wrong message to put the rookie back in the starting lineup when he hasn't earned it. I also think coming off the bench since he returned from the ankle injury has been good for Henderson. Brogdon seems fine either way—he was supportive of the decision to start Henderson over him at the beginning of the year—so that's how I think it will go for the time being.
Question 1: At what point this season is it fair to start reevaluating whether Scoot really is the future of the franchise? I’m feeling right now like he is nowhere near our high expectations.
Question 2: What is your take on Kris Murray? He can’t buy a bucket and he is supposed to be pretty good on offense. Is it nerves?
Question 3: With Robert Williams knee injury and surgery, did we lose our chance to trade him for a first round pick or other asset of real value?
- Jonathan M.
Taking these one at a time.
On the first question: I don’t think you’ll be able to definitively answer whether or not Henderson is “the future of the franchise” before the season is over, and even then it’s probably early. The list of high lottery picks at the point guard position who were underwhelming or even flat-out bad their rookie year and became All-Stars is long. De’Aaron Fox and Darius Garland immediately come to mind in recent years.
The good thing is there are no expectations on the season as far as record or playoff finish, so they can bring him along as slowly as they need to. Everyone has to be encouraged by how much more comfortable he’s looked in the last three games since coming back from the ankle injury—it hasn’t been perfect, but things are starting to come together for him.
If there isn’t significant growth by, say, the middle of next season, it might be time to worry. Before then, it’s too early to make that judgment call.
On Murray: It can be hard for young guys to crack a rotation, and he has a lot of competition. Camara’s emergence has come at his expense, as has Jabari Walker’s play. Grant and Thybulle obviously need a lot of minutes. So, there isn’t much room for Murray to play. He’s gotten in here and there when they were shorthanded and didn’t do much. He’s looked better in the handful of Remix games I’ve been able to watch, and playing consistent minutes in the G League will be good for him.
As far as Williams’ trade value, that ship has almost definitely sailed until summer at the earliest. I think he’ll still have some value—maybe not a first-round pick, but some value. His injury history is what it is, and that was always a possibility when they brought him in. But for the same reason he would have value on the trade market for a contender, the Blazers traded for him to keep him, not just to flip at the first opportunity for another draft pick. He was productive and impactful in the six games he played before the injury. His contract is small enough that it’s not killing their ability to make other moves if he’s on the books, and he has two years left after this one. I’ll bet he enters next training camp still in Portland unless his salary is needed for a bigger trade.