Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts deserves praise, not a one-way ticket out of Rip City

Not long after the Portland Trail Blazers were swept out of the first round by the New Orleans Pelicans, Rip City and fellow NBA watchers became enmeshed in a debate over Terry Stotts’ job security.

Debates regarding the performance of Blazers head coach Terry Stotts are nothing new. But the discussion got a kick in the pants the way so many things do these days: With a vague, insider-y tweet.

That’s Marc Stein, a longtime chronicler of the NBA, posting shortly after Game 4 of the Pelicans-Blazers series. As Rip City is painfully aware, the Blazers lost that game — and the three playoff games that came before it; the Pelicans, in fact, put an emphatic stop to what had been a promising season for Portland with their four-game sweep.

So what about rumors in coaching circles? Who are the coaches? And where are these circles?

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I don’t mean to suggest that these conversations aren’t taking place; I’m sure they are. It’s certainly not unusual for people in a particular line of work to discuss the goings-on in their business.

But the fact that — tweety typo alert! — “mumurs have already started” and “league sources” acknowledge that basketball people value and respect Stotts’ work doesn’t really tell us much about the most important question of all: Does Terry Stotts deserve to lose his head coaching gig with the Trail Blazers.

I say — emphatically — NO.

Here are a few reasons why.

Blazers Players Defend Stotts

First off: Damian Lillard — the Trail Blazers franchise player.

Lillard is correct; Stotts has done a great job since Day 1, not only on the court, but off it, too. He’s one of the most respected head coaches in the Association. And he fits the culture of Portland perfectly. Players who come from elsewhere have long raved about the system that’s in place in Rip City.

One of those players is Maurice Harkless, who said of Stotts’ and the Blazers’ system: “The way they run things here, as long as you work hard, eventually your opportunity is going to come.”

Another player is Wade Baldwin, who had this to say: “I was welcomed, invited, and it kind of makes you want to give back. What you receive you want to give back. It makes it easy.”

And, lest we forget, CJ McCollum, who not only defended Stotts, but subtly placed the blame where it probably belongs — on the head and shoulders of general manager Neil Olshey.

“With what he’s been given.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

When it comes to defending the work of a head coach, perhaps the first place we should turn is to the players. The quotations above are just a small — and recent — sampling of what Blazers players have said over the length of Stotts’ tenure in Portland.

Stotts’ Record

Stotts just wrapped up his sixth year as Blazers head coach — and it might have been his most impressive performance of all. As we argued earlier this season:

"(T)his season may be (Stotts’) best coaching job yet. He’s put together an effective-enough offense from a roster that doesn’t feature much firepower beyond Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. He’s nurtured rising stars Maurice Harkless,Jusuf Nurkic and rookie Zach Collins. And the Blazers defense is one of the best in the league."

Winning 49 games and finishing as the third seed in the Western Conference with a lineup that often featured talented but limited role players such as Pat Connaughton and Al-Farouq Aminu playing mega minutes is impressive, indeed. The lineup of coaches who might have been able to pull that off is short.

Awards and Such

Stotts has been Western Conference Coach of the Month five times during his time in Portland. And he is certainly in the discussion for the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award, although he is unlikely to win it.

Stotts has only coached the Blazers to one sub-.500 season, and that was in his first year as Portland head coach — and during Lillard’s rookie campaign. And, as Lillard himself stresses, the Blazers made the playoffs fight straight seasons after that.

Including the playoffs, Stotts has 272 wins as Blazers head coach — third best on the all-time list of Portland head coaches. And his win/loss percentage of .553 is fifth-best on the list.

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Stotts is definitely deserving of some criticism. His playoff winning percentage is just .314, and — at least during this season’s first-round sweep at the hands of the Pelicans — he sometimes appears to stick with his program rather than make adjustments on the fly. But, of course, much of that goes back to personnel; it’s difficult if not downright impossible to make adjustments if your players are incapable of carrying out that new plan successfully.

Stick With Stotts

There will always be a subset of fans for whom anything less than a championship is grounds for a coach’s dismissal. This is a shortsighted and reactionary attitude.

I think Stotts’ record and the admiration he receives from his players and from other coaches around the league mean he’s the right man for the job right now. And if totally unscientific Twitter surveys are worth anything, then much of the Rip City fan base feels the same.

Stotts is going to need some help from his colleagues in the Blazers front office. And there is reason to doubt that much will change this summer — although surprising, blockbuster trades do happen. But Olshey has hamstrung Portland with several contracts that will be difficult to offload.

But one thing is for sure: No matter who winds up in a Blazers uniform come the 2018-2019 season, Stotts will squeeze every ounce of effort and talent out of his roster, no matter how limited.

Portland Trail Blazers fans should cheer the return of Terry Stotts to the sideline next season. And they should look forward to the day when Portland has a roster that’s truly capable of executing his creative game plans for a full season — and on into the future, not to mention the playoffs.