Coaching Challenge Success Continues to Elude Trail Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers don’t have a fantastic record in the 2024-25 season but rays of hope still show through in day-to-day play. Portland supporters are able to point to the scoring prowess of Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara’s defense, and Scoot Henderson’s newfound proclivity for alley-oop passing as areas of development.

Compliments for Portland’s coaching staff have been much rarer, however. Plenty of people are questioning the schemes, substitution patterns, and habits of the guys on the bench. One of those habits is the subject of today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.

Hey Dave,

Who does the coach rely on when deciding to challenge a call or not? It seems that our track record of challenges is worse than our conference record. Are we really just going with what the players say? Please tell me we have a better process than that.

Randy

Your perception isn’t wrong. Through January 5th, 2025, 734 total calls had been challenged this NBA season. 429 of those were successfully overturned, a 58.4% rate.

The NBA publicly displays data for three kids of calls: Out of Bounds, Goaltending/Basket Interference, and Called Fouls. Out of Bounds has the highest overturn rate at 73.4%. Goaltending is next with 66.7%. Called Fouls trail significantly with a 51.4% overturn rate.

Challenges in the first three quarters of the game all succeed at a rate over 60%. In the fourth quarter that plummets to just 49%, with a mere 41% success rate on called fouls in the final frame.

Though the league-wide success rate is 58.4%, Portland’s record on challenges this year—including preseason games—is just 9-15, a 37.5% rate of success. Eliminate preseason and it rises a little to 40.9%. That’s still below league average by a wide margin.

Of those 24 challenges, 14 came on disputed fouls (as opposed to Goaltending or Out of Bounds). In those 14 tries, the Blazers have only had one foul call reversed, a 7.1% success rate.

For reference, 16 of the 24 challenges came in the fourth quarter, though that probably shouldn’t be held against the staff. I’m not sure why fourth quarter calls stand at a higher rate than in any other quarter. It also makes sense to hold the challenge until later in the game in case the team needs it on a critical call.

Add it all up and the Blazers are not very good at challenging calls.

I am not sure what process they use. Chances are it’s a mix of player input, assistant coach/sideline staff review, and the Head Coach’s gut instinct.

I have noticed, anecdotally, that not only do the Blazers challenge in judgment call situations—plays that tend towards subjective interpretation—they often seem to be agnostic with regard to effect. It’s not fair to paint the whole organization with this example, as I’m going by memory and haven’t compared it statistically, but I can recall them challenging a contested possession in the first quarter on a play where, even if the challenge was successful, it would have left them inbounding the ball with just a few seconds left on the clock, having to rush a possession. I don’t understand the benefit of that kind of challenge versus one that has greater potential to add or take away points on the scoreboard.

I’ve been trying to figure out the rhyme and reason of Blazers challenges since the season started. The best I can come up with as an observer is, “Because they thought the call was wrong.” That is, indeed, the root purpose of the game mechanism. The main goal in basketball is to get the orange round thing through the metal hoop too, but that doesn’t mean every shot is equally good or productive.

Let’s keep watching and see if the stats don’t get more positive for Coach Challenges in Portland. If not, this will be a minor mark in the debit ledger for the coaching staff at season’s end.

Thanks for the question! You all can send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!