PORTLAND — The Trail Blazers have chosen continuity.
That is no small thing for a team about to miss out on the postseason, especially in an NBA where two teams in the top four of the league (at least at the time) fired their coach in recent weeks (and Denver threw out the GM as well).
Portland has signed coach Chauncey Billups to a multi-year contract extension, just days after GM Joe Cronin got an extension as well. This move is a vote of confidence in the team's improvement in recent months.
"For us to be sitting here and saying, 'All right, we're moving on. Let's keep going.' It just literally means to me that Jody [Allen, team Chair] and Bert [Kolde, Vice Chair] see a lot of promise in us,” Billups said. “The rest of the league, and most of the league, is moving and shaking and going where they're going, we're sitting here saying, 'All right, we're in this spot. Let's just kind of keep going on this, on this progress.'"
Billups took over a very different job when he was first hired — he was brought into a win-now situation with Damian Lillard. After Lillard was traded to Milwaukee, the job shifted into a rebuild and Billups has been open about that being a transition for him, and that he had a lot to learn about building a team and a culture.
That has started to pay off of late. The Trail Blazers are 21-22 in 2025 and have the fourth-ranked defense in the NBA since the All-Star break. Cronin and Billups said that what matters as much as the wins is how they are winning, how they are building a defense-first roster. How did that turnaround happen?
“I kind of got to a point with our squad where I just told them all, I didn't really care who it was, the name on the back of the jersey and salary and whatever, I didn't care. We were sinking. We were sinking pretty bad. I'm gonna play the guys that are gonna compete, play defense,” Billups said of a ‘come-to-Jesus” meeting with the players. “If you don't do that, I don't care. You’re not playing. And I meant that, and they felt that, and they really brought us together to be honest with you.”
“For us to be the third best defense in the league this second half of the season, that's meaningful, substantive, and that's what we've been trying to do,” Cronin said.
This team is not complete. Portland does have promising young players on its roster, including Toumani Camara, Deni Avdija, Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, and Donovan Clingan. However, the team lacks a natural No. 1 option, but Cronin and Billups feel good about what is being built.
“You gotta have top-flight guys. But to me, I think we're raising that,” Billups said. “I think we're growing that. I look at, like, OKC traded for Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander]. He wasn't a star yet. Now he's probably going to be the MVP of the league. Joker [Nikola Jokic] wasn't a star when he got to Denver, they raised him into that. Giannis [Antetokounmpo] wasn't a star when he got to Milwaukee, they raised him into that.”
Whether Portland has a guy they can raise to that level is up for debate, but Cronin and Billups will get the chance to show they can take this team to the next level.
Cronin called making the postseason next year a reasonable goal. That becomes the benchmark, and not an easy one to reach in the West (ask Phoenix).
But the Blazers like the path they are on, so they bet on continuity.
