Will Chauncey Billups Thrive With Defense-First Portland Trail Blazers?

Brandon: We had a good friend of ours at Blazer’s Edge, Paul Navarre. He put together a piece yesterday that was three somewhat unpopular Blazers opinions… one of the opinions was that Chauncey Billups begrudgingly is an above average coach. That’s what he said. He’s staking his claim. And he again, he says, “I’ve had a lot of hesitations about Chauncey Billups.” Part of what Paul said to Conor’s point was that the team finally has a cohesive identity that matches what the coach wants to do, which is to play hard defensively. The Blazers have plenty of players who are able and willing to play hard defensively. Ryan, I ask you.. are you any higher or are you willing to be higher on Chauncey Billups as a coach now that the team seems to have more defensive-minded players and can play more of the style that Chauncey Billups wants to play.

Ryan: The ironic part, and it goes back to my last point if now hopefully me and the other the rest of the fans can have a similar rooting interest, is I was pro-Chauncey when everybody was against him during the hiring, and then as I as as more fans tended to warm up to him, and I feel as though that he’s kind of accepted now, I’m finding myself on the outs, and I’m like he needs to go.

Conor: Can’t be pleased!

Ryan: So, and and this does tie back into like that Anfernee Simons… that little off-hand comment he gave about defense and reading through that, and I’m like, didn’t he just have a guy for three or four years who’s considered a defensive specialist and a point guard? And he’s like, ‘I’ve never been shown how to poke a basketball.’ Like what the heck, dude… so now I’m supposed to buy into this defensive identity. I mean I guess if they start winning games like winning them going back to the 80s style like 78 to 72, sure.

Conor: I think I’m much more prone to to look at the the second half of last season and and the strides they made defensively as a telling sign of what’s going to happen versus a kind of strange Media Day comment from Anfernee Simons when he’s now on a different team.