Portland Trail Blazers: 4 candidates to replace Chauncey Billups

The Portland Trail Blazers might need to consider replacing Chauncey Billups already

The Portland Trail Blazers have staggered to a disappointing 11-18 start under first-year head coach Chauncey Billups, who came into the season with one year of coaching experience.

That came as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and clearly was not enough to prepare the rookie head coach for 2021-2022 and its challenges.

Billups is at his best when he pulls a player aside to give advice culled from his 17 seasons in the NBA playing for seven different teams. He has the ear of the team’s superstar, Damian Lillard, and a wealth of knowledge for emerging youngsters Anfernee Simons and Nassir Little.

But Billups waited far too long to shuffle an ineffective Robert Covington out of the starting lineup, and still favors the toothless big man in late-game situations over the more productive, energetic, and versatile Little.

The only way he seems to be able to handle Jusuf Nurkic — who was clearly disinterested until he realized he was probably going to have at least one new home arena between now and July, if not two or three — seems to be to abandon what this team does best offensively to force-feed the Bosnian Black Hole early in games.

Billups’s in-game substitution patterns have also baffled us at Rip City Project all season, like in Tuesday’s overtime loss to the Phoenix Suns when Larry Nance Jr. sat most of the fourth quarter in favor of Nurkic, who finished the game at a net -9.

Or Wednesday, when he refused to go more than seven deep, leaning heavily on Lillard (47 and 38 minutes) and Norman Powell (39 and 40 minutes) on the second night of a back-to-back. Billups also seems to be uncannily adept at cooling off Simons and Little.

Then there’s the curious case of Dennis Smith Jr., clearly the Blazers’ best defensive guard. Injuries — and, I don’t know, maybe a magic 8-ball? — prompted Billups to use Smith for an average of 39 minutes over a three-game stretch against Boston, the Clippers, and Golden State.

Smith responded with 15.3 points on 53% shooting, six assists, and 5.3 rebounds per game. Billups responded in turn by granting him exactly four minutes of playing time over the next two games, including a DNP against the Suns and Chris Paul — who torched the rest of Portland’s backcourt for 24 points, 14 assists, and 8 rebounds.

In critical moments, the Blazers offense bogs down and reverts to the isolation plays that make us weep, and the defense is confused at best. For long stretches on Wednesday they looked as leaderless as a rec league pickup team and about as likely to make this year’s NBA playoffs.

Stories are popping up all over about how Billups is losing the team, and with Interim General Manager Joe Cronin looking to take the temporary title off his door plate, the Blazers will be active in looking for ways to improve.

And while we fully expect them to be involved heavily in what could be a historic trade market, the change of general managers and the current six-game losing streak aren’t good signs for Billups’s long-term future as Blazers coach.

Presuming a change is made either during the season or at its conclusion, let’s look at four possible candidates to replace him:

Becky Hammon was Jody Allen and Rip City Project’s first choice

Becky Hammon’s resume as a player is impressive — three All-American teams at Colorado State, six WNBA all-star games, four appearances on the all-WNBA team, a Spanish League title, and three retired numbers.

Since a 2013 torn anterior cruciate ligament hastened the end of her career, Hammon has been an assistant for one of the greatest coaching mentors in NBA history in San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. In that time she went from the first woman to coach full-time in the NBA to one of seven.

She supposedly was the number two choice for the Trail Blazers coaching job in July — and the favorite of franchise owner Jody Allen — but it remains to be seen whether that was an honest intention or just a public relations smokescreen to pull attention away from Billups’s admitted involvement in a 1997 gang rape.

Hammon took being passed over with her customary combination of gritty determination and grace, telling CNBC’s Jabari Young:

"I knew I was second; I knew who they wanted. And I’m OK with that, because every race I’ve gotten into my entire life, I’ve been behind, and I’m OK with that. And that’s just how it is — but at the same time, I’m not ignorant to what I’m going up against."

Hammon has the endorsement of players and coaches throughout the league, including an unqualified and enthusiastic one from Popovich, who said she had “earned the respect of everyone in our program, top to bottom.”

In a recent Player’s Tribune post, Pau Gasol took nearly 2500 words to make the point that “Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period.”

San Antonio’s DeMar DeRozan has also been public in his praise for Hammon‘s coaching chops, saying “She’s quick on her feet, understanding defensive coverages, where we should be offensively, what we should run, different mismatches. Her words on the side are always instrumental.”

It’s unquestionable that Hammon is prepared and capable of leading an NBA team, and it’s rare that franchises get the opportunity to correct a mistake so quickly and clearly. Hiring Hammond is our first, second, and third option, and we hope Jody Allen and Joe Cronin can agree where Allen and Neil Olshey did not.

But should the Blazers decide to make the same mistake twice, there is a great candidate out there with a strong local connection.

Luke Walton has a strong local connection and solid reputation

The perennially underperforming Sacramento Kings let Head Coach Luke Walton go after a 6-11 start to this season. This followed three seasons heading the Lakers — two of which featured some of the worst rosters in team history, and one helming a hastily assembled and injury-riddled team led by LeBron James.

It seemed inevitable that when James was brought in before the 2019 season, he’d want a new coach, but a 20-14 start kept Walton safe until Christmas day injuries to James — who would play a then-career low 55 games that year — and Rajon Rondo torpedoed the Lakers’ season.

Walton actually got his NBA coaching start as an interim replacement for Steve Kerr, going 39-4 with the Golden State Warriors to start the 2015-2016 season. That earned him the next two jobs in some of the most empathy-inducing, no-win situations any coach has faced in recent memory.

Walton has the respect of Kerr, Phil Jackson, Jeanie Buss, Vlade Divac, and just about every teammate, coach, and player he’s dealt with in his 10 seasons as a player and seven as a coach in the NBA.

He also has Trail Blazer red running through his veins — I know we all have red blood, but play along with me here. Portland drafted his dad, Bill, with the first pick in the 1974 draft, and pops was both the league and finals MVP in leading the Blazers to their only title in 1977.

It would certainly be a treat to see his tie-dyed giant of a father around the Moda Center again.

Luke Walton also offers some measure of head coaching experience, something Hammon and Billups don’t. Nor does our third, but equally as deserving, candidate.

Darvin Ham has earned his shot to lead an NBA team

Some of the NBA’s historically best coaches were successful, but marginal journeyman-type players: Pat Riley, George Karl, and Erik Spoelstra come to mind immediately. But former star players tend to expect perfection from up and down the roster, and often their on-court motivational skills and leadership don’t transfer as well to the coaches end of the bench.

There are a host of reasons this is the case. Rotation or bench players have more time and mental space to be observers of the game. Playing and coaching for a variety of teams also exposes them to multiple on-court systems, strategic approaches, and organizational philosophies.

What if I told you there was an undrafted player who carved out an eight-year NBA career with six different teams, has been an assistant in the league since 2011, and was a head coach in the development league the season before that?

And what if that same candidate won a ring as a player with the 2004 Detroit Pistons and as an assistant coach with the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks?

You’d give Darvin Ham an interview is what you would do. Well it’s at least what we would do.

Ham was instrumental in building the Atlanta Hawks from laughingstock into contender and the Bucks from contender to champion. He’ll get a head coaching job soon; the Portland Trail Blazers would do well to put him on their very short list.

But hiring a coach with zero prior NBA head coaching experience hasn’t gone so well thus far this season, so perhaps they’ll look for someone with a longer list of coaching credentials.

Mike D’Antoni will be mentioned for every NBA job opening until further notice

This suggestion may not come as much as a surprise to anyone who does their best to follow the NBA coaching carousel as it throws people off, who then claw and fight to find their way back on, only to be tossed aside again.

But Mike D’Antoni deserves a look any time a team is looking for a steady and respected presence with a proven track record of success.

Following in the Spoelstra/Riley mode of a marginal player who became a Hall of Fame coach — he was a second-round draft pick and hung on for a few unmemorable NBA seasons before departing for a solid career in Italy — D’Antoni has the credibility and experience to reach into the Portland Trail Blazers’ currently boiling cauldron of underperforming veterans and underused youngsters and make some kind of playoff porridge out of it.

He may not be the most original or most diverse choice, or even the best one, but he would provide some stability to an organization that has been in the spin cycle this season — with the combination of injuries, epically terrible defense, and the Olshey investigation and firing.

A coaching change seems inevitable at this point, and it would behoove the Blazers front office to make it sooner rather than later, for every missed chance at a win is one chip out of Lillard’s resolve to stay in Portland.