Favorite Blazers Moments: Clingan’s Block Party and Memphis Misery

Welcome back to the countdown of my favorite reporting moments from the Portland Trail Blazers season, a digital scrapbook of my first season on the job as the Blazer’s Edge beat writer.

As a reminder, “favorite” doesn’t necessarily mean “positive” for the Blazers or even for me (as you’ll see, today’s inclusions feature one of the season’s lowest points). Rather, the countdown is a list of the most interesting or memorable moments to be a part of over the 2024-25 campaign, spanning from September’s Media Day to the Blazers’ regular-season finale in April.

We’re almost to the end of the list, with just one installment left after this one. Today’s episode will cover Nos. 4-3 on the list. Let’s jump in!

No. 4: Clingan’s Block Party

Watching roster rebuilds can be tough, even painful. The process comes with terrible losses, losing seasons, no playoffs and other less shiny attributes. But the rewarding part is the novelty of the journey — the flashes of a team coming into its own, the pleasant surprise of watching guys pop, the joy of discovering something new. Blazers fans got to experience the high of that process when rookie center Donovan Clingan burst onto the scene on Nov. 13 in a spirited 106-98 home win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

On that date, Clingan was enjoying a fine game in his second career start, filling in for an injured Deandre Ayton. Then he dominated the show in the fourth quarter with a heater of hustle and defensive paint dominance. The rookie recorded four blocks in the fourth. He dove on the floor for loose balls. He glared to the crowd after each denial. He stood up the bull-rushing Julius Randle multiple times. On one play, he didn’t need to jump to block NBA skyscraper Rudy Gobert. On another, he comfortably swatted Donte DiVincenzo’s shot off the backboard, sparking a fast break layup and a Minnesota timeout. Then he yelled to the crowd on his walk back to the bench.

Clingan was a 7-foot-2 defensive terror, and the momentum from his play pulled the Blazers away and across the finish line for the win. In the end, he finished with 17 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks, just two shy of a triple-double.

Grid View

My favorite part about the game was the crowd. The defensive hot streak unleashed a euphoria in the arena similar to a hot streak of 3-pointers. With each play, the building got louder. Fans were delighted by the performance. They were delighted to discover what they had in their newest rookie. It brought proof to the potential that followed Clingan to Portland with the No. 7 overall pick last summer. No speculation. No in theory. It was right there in front of everybody. This is a dude who blocks shots and protects the rim, and he does those things very well.

Typical for rookies, Clingan’s season consisted of ebbs and flows as he dealt with the learning curve and injuries that broke up his rhythm. The louder performances were separated by lots of quieter ones. But those loud ones — like this night back in November — were impressive. At age 20, it was the type of performance that made you think Clingan could be a perennial All-Defensive guy, or at the very least a valuable player in this league.

No. 3: The Infamous Memphis Press Conference

On Nov. 10, just three days before the excitement of that Clingan performance, the Blazers crashed and saw the opposite side of the rebuild process. Portland got embarrassed on its home floor by the Memphis Grizzlies, losing 134-89. It was the type of end-to-end beatdown that sucked the soul out of the building, and it was only Game 11. To make it much worse, Memphis didn’t even have Ja Morant, Desmond Bane or Marcus Smart that night.

Following the loss, as I walked from press row to the press conference room, I was eager to see what that night’s postgame presser would bring. I figured it would include some sort of edge, but to what extent, I wasn’t sure. Then the first question from a reporter included the word “abomination” and head coach Chauncey Billups’ first answer included the F-bomb. And away we went.

Billups lit into the team for their performance and effort. He dropped so many fiery soundbites that I struggled to fit all of them into my postgame recap. Looking back, maybe just copy and pasting the transcript would’ve got the job done.

“It was just f— embarrassing, to be honest with you,” he said to the first question. “We were soft as hell the whole game. Nobody really fought. It was just embarrassing for everybody. That’s just not who we are. It really isn’t. There’s no excuse for that.”

“I told them that anybody that sleeps well tonight, you’re a loser,” he said at another point. “It’s just that simple. … You sleep well after this one, you’re a loser.”

While Billups called out his players, he said he’s also looking in the mirror and taking accountability. As head coach, he said he has to have his team more prepared.

“At the end of the day, that’s on me. I’m the leader of this,” Billups said. “This is our team but I’m the head of this. So to me, I take that very personal because I don’t have none of that, not one bone of that in my body, to just lay down, so that’s on me. I got to be better.”

As my time at Blazer’s Edge has plunged me deeper into the community and history surrounding the Blazers, I’ve become more enamored with the lore of the franchise: The different eras and characters; the good and the bad; the bigger and smaller moments that all add up to create the never-ending story of Portland’s NBA club.

This fiery press conference felt like one of those moments that could be remembered in the lore. And not the good kind. It felt like a moment I would be reading about in a Kerry Eggers book some day. The bad loss, combined with the sour postgame, made me wonder if Billups’ days on the Blazers sideline were dwindling.

Then the Blazers surged out of the drama by ripping off three straight wins, including two rousing victories over Minnesota, one of which featured that great Clingan performance. The wins got the season back on a calmer track. Then the vibes really swung upward in late January when the Blazers unexpectedly won 10 of 11 games, helping to change the outlook on the season. On the heels of that second-half turnaround and improvements to the defense, Billups got a contract extension, and the drama of that bad Memphis loss faded away in the faraway archives of November.

Depending on how the remainder of Billups’ tenure goes, Blazers history could still look back on that Memphis loss and presser in very different ways. If a lack of success follows, the hindsight trial might point to this moment unkindly as Exhibit A. Or, it could amount to little more than a jagged dip on the path to much better days. A memory that makes you say: “Can you believe they got from there to here?”

Regardless of what the future brings, the night made for a fascinating chapter in the story of the 2024-25 Trail Blazers.