The Portland Trail Blazers officially hit the reset button before last season began when they traded Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. Moving on from their longtime franchise cornerstone signaled the organization's intention to retool the roster around younger players. When the Blazers hired current head coach Chauncey Billups though, the expectation was to have a winning team. That's been far from reality though and Billups could be on the way out as per Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated.
Mannix reports that should the Blazers decided to move on from Billups this offseason, that he would be high demand by other teams around the league. While there has been no official confirmation that the Blazers are considering making a coaching change, the team did recently let go two of Billups' assistants in longtime NBA coach Scott Brooks and Billups' brother Rodney Billups who had previous NCAA coaching experience.
Chauncey Billups is heading into the final guaranteed year of his contract with the Blazers and there has also been no indication yet of the Blazers being inclined to pick up his option for next season or to get a contract extension done.
The Blazers first hired Billups ahead of the 2021-22 season. Billups has been at the helm for three seasons now and each of those seasons the Blazers have failed to make the playoffs. Over the course of those three seasons, Billups has complied a record of 81-165. Prior to joining the Blazers, Billups was an assistant coach under Tyronn Lue with the Los Angeles Clippers for one season.
While Billups certainly has not had much success record-wise, it could be argued that the rosters he's been given have been set up for that outcome.
Blazers youth movement in full stride
The Blazers have had back to back lottery picks in the NBA Draft resulting in Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson, respectively. They will have another lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
The team is in full blown rebuild mode and they have some quality young talent to help accelerate that rebuild. But aside from the aforementioned Sharpe and Henderson, the only other players on the roster that have shown without a doubt they could be apart of the future are Anfernee Simons and Toumani Camara.
The rest are fairly unknowns. Rayan Rupert and Kris Murray could conceivably be a part of the rebuild. The Blazers have found something solid in Duop Reath, albeit his age. Jabari Walker seems to fit in well. But by far the biggest disappointment of the Blazers roster was Deandre Ayton.
When the Blazers traded Damian Lillard, Ayton was one of the players the got in return as the trade ended up involving multiple teams. Ayton had shown strides with the Phoenix Suns and was viewed as one of the NBA's top up and coming centers.
But despite his numbers, Ayton kind of regressed from the season prior with the Suns. In 55 games, he averaged 16.7 points per game, 11.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.0 steals with splits of 57 percent shooting from the field and 82.3 percent shooting from the free throw line.
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