{"id":76362,"date":"2024-05-06T10:14:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T14:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=76362"},"modified":"2024-05-06T10:14:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T14:14:26","slug":"trail-blazers-shake-up-chauncey-billups-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/06\/trail-blazers-shake-up-chauncey-billups-coaching-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers Shake Up Chauncey Billups\u2019 Coaching Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/18\/portland-trail-blazers-starter-reveals-reason-for-slow-start-deandre-ayton\/\" target=\"_self\">Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/billuch01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chauncey Billups<\/a> hasn\u2019t had much success on his first try leading an NBA team\u2019s bench.<\/p>\n<p>Hired before the 2021-22 season, Billups owns just an 81-165 record in his first three seasons as head coach. While Portland hasn\u2019t done very well, the 47-year-old Billups at least received great news that he will be enshrined in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/06\/naismith-basketball-hall-of-fame-class-of-2024-announced\/\" target=\"_self\">Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2024<\/a> for his time as a player.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Chauncey Billups on making it to the Hall of Fame &#8211; or as he calls it, &#8220;basketball heaven&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be here now is unbelievable I played the right way. I never chased stats&#8230; I tried to play for my team&#8230; make everybody better. And everything good happened to me because of that&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qmGitHB7LY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/qmGitHB7LY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Romi Bean (@Romi_Bean) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Romi_Bean\/status\/1775660232477216830?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 3, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThe Trail Blazers made some decisions with their coaching staff that put into question how much more of a future Billups has with the team.<\/p>\n<h2>Trail Blazers Shake Up Chauncey Billups\u2019 Coaching Staff<\/h2>\n<h3>Assistant Coach Shake Up Including his Brother<\/h3>\n<p>After trading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Damian Lillard<\/a> last offseason, nobody was anticipating Portland to be a playoff team. The bottom fell out from the Trail Blazers though as they were one of the league\u2019s worst teams at 21-61. That was tied for the third-worst record in the NBA, only better than the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries to some of their young talent including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sharpsh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shaedon Sharpe<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/simonan01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anfernee Simons<\/a> didn\u2019t help matters. The third overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hendesc01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Scoot Henderson<\/a>, went through many growing pains in his first season.<\/p>\n<p>Per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oregonlive.com\/blazers\/2024\/05\/trail-blazers-wont-renew-contracts-for-assistant-coaches-scott-brooks-and-rodney-billups.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian\/Oregon Live<\/a>, two assistant coaches for Portland will not have their contracts renewed.<\/p>\n<p>One of those is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brooksc01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Scott Brooks<\/a> who has been the top assistant for Billups\u2019 staff for the last three seasons. Prior to joining Portland, Brooks gained plenty of experience as a head coach. The 2009-10 Coach of the Year spent seven seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder and five seasons with the Wizards as the head coach.<\/p>\n<p>Also not having his contract renewed is Rodney Billups, the younger brother of Chauncey. Rodney joined the team as an assistant coach a couple of months into Chauncey\u2019s first season with Portland.\u00a0The team had already lost assistant coach Steve Hetzel. He is joining Jordi Fernandez\u2019s staff with the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n<h3>Billups\u2019 Job is Safe (For Now)<\/h3>\n<p>The Trail Blazers have already announced that Chauncey Billups will begin his fourth season as head coach at the start of the 2024-25 season. How much longer of a leash will he have?<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Billups agreed to join Portland on a five-year deal. The last season on that deal is a team option.\u00a0That means the upcoming 2024-25 season is the last one where Billups has a guaranteed deal. It puts Portland\u2019s head coach in somewhat of a lame-duck situation.<\/p>\n<p>Not bringing back his brother is another sign that Billups&#8217; tenure with the Trail Blazers may be on thin ice. Portland has yet to taste playoff basketball with Billups at the helm. Their best season with him was a 33-49 record in 2022-23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups hasn\u2019t had much success on his first try leading an NBA team\u2019s bench. Hired before the 2021-22 season, Billups owns just an 81-165 record in his first three seasons as head coach. While Portland hasn\u2019t done very well, the 47-year-old Billups at least received great news that he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":76388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1608,62,3],"tags":[1559,115,4702,456,4600],"class_list":["post-76362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trailblazers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-chauncey-billups","tag-scoot-henderson","tag-scott-brooks","tag-shaedon-sharpe"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}