3 Biggest overreactions to week 1 of the Portland Trail Blazers’ season

Chauncey Billups needs to be fired

Even with more than two years as the Portland Trail Blazers head coach under his belt, it’s still not fair to judge Chauncey Billups’ tenure.

The reasons for his struggles the past few seasons are well documented. He dealt with a ton of injuries and saw most of his best players traded as the franchise openly tried to lose. This year is the first season Billups will be able to put his own stamp on his own team.

Although they lost their first three games – and they didn’t look very pretty doing it – the Blazers’ young players have shown some progression already. Maybe Chauncey isn’t the best coach in the league when it comes to X’s and O’s, but he’s pushing the right buttons on his young Jimmies and Joes.

Simply based on the eye test, Portland is playing hard. Statistically, the Trail Blazers are 12th in the NBA in defensive rating and are middle-of-the-pack in steals and blocks. They’re 10th in paint scoring, more than 16 percent of their points come off turnovers and they score 12 percent of their points on the fast break.

Those aren’t eye-popping numbers, but they are numbers that point to a team playing with effort. This is still a young, inexperienced squad that doesn’t have the talent to compete with a lot of NBA teams.

Billups at least deserves to coach this young group for one season.