Hours after the Portland Trail Blazers were rocked by the news that coach Chauncey Billups had been arrested by federal agents and charged with multiple felonies, the future of the franchise was unfolding in an office overlooking the basketball courts at the team’s practice facility in Tualatin.
Joe Cronin had asked Tiago Splitter to join him for an impromptu morning meeting, and the Blazers’ general manager had some stunning news for the assistant coach.
“I want to name you interim coach,” Cronin told Splitter. “Are you up for it?”
Splitter, who had been hired in June as part of a shakeup of Billups’ staff, had only been with the organization for about four months. And while he had been a coach for years, serving as an assistant in Brooklyn and Houston and a head coach in Paris, he had no NBA head coaching experience. He wasn’t even part of the league last season.
But Splitter barely batted an eye.
“Yes,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Of course.”
“He didn’t even take a breath,” Cronin said. “He was incredibly calm. It’s a big job. It’s a crazy day. It’s a huge moment in his career — and he was just ready to start working.”
Amid unprecedented chaos, Splitter didn’t flinch. And that, according to those who know him best, is textbook Tiago Splitter. The man who blossomed into a revered MVP in Spain, who starred in the Olympic Games with Brazil, who won an NBA championship alongside Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs, built his storied career on his cool, steely demeanor and selfless game.
NBA coaches and players have called him “stoic” and “chill” and “lowkey.” David Kahn, the former NBA executive who now serves as co-owner and COO of Paris Basketball, says Splitter oozes “beach bum” vibes. And these characteristics have served him well as he’s guided the Blazers through a period of unique drama, during which he’s provided stability and leadership at a time of turmoil.
“He’s kind of just been the voice of reason for us,” Blazers forward Kris Murray said. “He’s brought a lot of good things to the table and we appreciate everything he’s done. He’s getting the best out of all of us.”
A terrific presence
Splitter stood courtside at American Airlines Center in Dallas, a few steps away from the Blazers’ bench, and peered toward the Dallas Mavericks’ sideline.
His arms were crossed. His eyebrows were furrowed. His face was emotionless.
Deni Avdija had just missed a three-pointer at the end of regulation, so a grueling, 10-day trip littered with injuries, losses and down-to-the-wire finishes was about to stretch into overtime.
It was a tense moment, but Splitter was calm. He huddled with his team, exchanged a few words with assistant coach Patrick St. Andrews and gazed toward the Mavericks, searching for clues about who might take the court. Then he crossed his arms and flashed that impassive stare, which has become a staple along the Blazers’ sideline for more than a month
It’s a sight Kahn saw countless times in Paris last season, when Splitter guided Paris Basketball to a French League championship and into the EuroLeague playoffs, and it’s one of the traits the executive remembers most about his former coach.
“I learned from (Miami Heat president) Pat Riley a long time ago, how you stand on sideline, how you present yourself, really matters,” Kahn said. “Tiago has a terrific presence. He’s a big man. He’s composed. He looks the part. It’s an underrated quality.”
Splitter possesses a burning intensity, Blazers players and team insiders say, which surfaces in his preparation, his scouting and, intermittently, during games. He barks at referees. He earned a technical foul in a buzzer-beating loss to the Chicago Bulls. He routinely shouts at his ball-handlers to “Go! Go! Go!” when they’re not pushing the pace to his liking. But most of the time, Splitter stands steely-eyed on the sideline, arms crossed or hands placed at his hips, scrutinizing his team, calculating his next adjustment.
“He played in the league for a long time,” Blazers point guard Jrue Holiday said. “And he definitely has maturity to him and the demeanor to balance us out. I think the way that he carries himself is very stoic. We definitely have confidence when he talks. Everybody listens.”
It would have been natural, perhaps even excusable, if the Blazers had collapsed when Billups was placed on leave by the NBA for his alleged participation in a rigged underground poker game run by the Mafia. It was an unparalleled moment in franchise history and it came at the worst possible time, one morning after the Blazers’ season opener.
Splitter had been awake until roughly 2 a.m. that night watching film of the Blazers’ next opponent without a clue about what would come next. Several hours later, as if he were starring in a fever dream, Splitter was sitting in Cronin’s office, accepting a chance to become interim head coach. He and Cronin met with the entire basketball organization afterward, gathering near the free throw line on one of the courts, and they urged the players to keep Billups in their hearts but focus on the future. There were still 81 games left in a season of high hopes, they said, and this was no time to dwell on things they could not control.
“Stay together,” Splitter said, among other things, when he addressed his players.
They have followed his request.
Portland punked the Warriors in his first game at the helm, earning a runaway 139-119 win, which ended with players drenching Splitter in an ice-cold water bath inside a celebratory postgame locker room at the Moda Center. They followed with inspiring wins over the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder — the Blazers remain the only team to defeat the reigning champions — and another against the Warriors.
The Blazers have been decimated by injuries this month, forcing Splitter to coach multiple games without as many as seven sidelined players, including all three of his point guards and his starting backcourt. Even so, Splitter has promised two things — that the Blazers would play hard and they would compete — and his players have backed up the pledge. Eleven of the Blazers’ 18 games have included “clutch-time” minutes, when the score is within five points in the final five minutes. That is tied for the third-most in the NBA.
They’ve had their share of struggles, not uncommon for a team easing out of a multiyear rebuild, but the Blazers have continued to fight for their interim coach. Along the way, the Blazers have praised Splitter’s blend of communication, schematic aptitude and composure, crediting him for keeping the team level-headed amid the drama.
Portland Trail Blazers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder NBA basketball
Portland Trail Blazers standout Deni Avdija (8) on interim coach Tiago Splitter: “He’s really good at communication. If he sees me going crazy or getting a little mad, he comes to me and tries to explain things, calm me down. He’s really good at, like, making us confident and comfortable.”Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
During their signature win over Oklahoma City, the Blazers trailed by as many as 22 points and Avdija was mired in perhaps the worst shooting funk of his career, missing his first 11 shots. At one point, Splitter sidled up to his budding All-Star, put his arm over his shoulder and calmly told him: “Relax. Keep shooting. You’re going to be fine.” Avdija responded with 11 points, three assists, one rebound and one block in the fourth quarter, carrying the Blazers to a 121-119 come-from-behind victory.
“He’s really good at communication,” Avdija said. “He comes to you personally, quietly. If he sees me going crazy or getting a little mad, he comes to me and tries to explain things, calm me down. He’s really good at, like, making us confident and comfortable.”
He also has schematic chops. Splitter played under one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, Gregg Popovich, and on one of the most electric teams in modern NBA history, the 2014 NBA champion San Antonio Spurs. But he also served as an assistant under Kenny Atkinson, Steve Nash and Ime Udoka, among others, so he has been exposed to a variety of styles and schemes.
Kahn said Splitter’s after timeout plays, which are often drawn up on the fly based on the needs of the moment, were “fabulous,” and Blazers fans have already been dazzled by his creative thinking.
In a nip-and-tuck game at the Orlando Magic, the Blazers were staring at a one-point deficit with 11.6 seconds left. During a timeout, Splitter drew up a play for Toumani Camara to inbound the ball from the sideline with two main options: Shaedon Sharpe on the perimeter or Jerami Grant cutting to the basket. The first option was Sharpe, but in the huddle, Splitter turned to Camara with a message: “If JG is open, throw him the ball.”
Sure enough, Grant looped around a Holiday screen and darted toward the hoop. Camara tossed a lob pass. Grant snared it and banked in a shot, drawing a foul and giving the Blazers a momentary lead.
“We’ve been in a lot of crunch-time games this year, but he’s always been under control,” Murray said of Splitter. “There’s games that we’ve won, there’s games that we’ve lost. But he’s always put us in position to win and I think he’s only getting more comfortable.”
Egoless
Kahn sat in front of his computer in Paris, peering at the screen and a bearded man living thousands of miles across the globe.
The Paris Basketball co-owner and COO was looking to replace coach Tuomas Iisalo, who had left for the Memphis Grizzlies after a successful international career. Splitter had not been on Kahn’s radar at first, but after talking to a few candidates, including a current NBA player Kahn wanted to hire, Splitter emerged as a contender.
“I interviewed a lot of coaches — a lot — ranging from longtime EuroLeague coaches to former players with little experience,” Kahn said. “And halfway through my Zoom meeting with Tiago, I could feel the confidence and the knowledge and a lot of other positive qualities.”
They set up a follow-up meeting in which Splitter agreed to prepare a few video clips for Kahn to showcase his basketball acumen, and Kahn was impressed by Splitter’s attention to detail and work ethic — he organized the clips while juggling his assistant coaching duties with the Houston Rockets, who were knee-deep in the season. There was just one potential hurdle.
The previous year, Paris had excelled using a relentless, fast-paced attack that featured lots of cutting, movement and full-court pressure. The style went against the grain in EuroLeague and its bevy of plodding, slow-paced teams, and Kahn didn’t want to overhaul the club’s identity.
Would Splitter be willing to adapt his philosophy and continue to play Paris’ style?
Much like that meeting with Cronin after Billups’ arrest, Splitter didn’t hesitate.
“It was clear to him that we needed someone to come in and continue what we had built rather than start over,” Kahn said. “He has a remarkable ability to put his ego aside, which is really hard to do, especially when you’re a head coach.”
Coaches have their own ideas about how teams should be run and typically want to put their imprint on a new organization. Kahn saw that Splitter appreciated the value of building on the momentum from the previous season and was willing to adapt rather than force his own agenda.
“It took a big person like Tiago to put his ego aside, right from start, and embrace what we’re doing,” Kahn said. “He did a magnificent job.”
It was a fitting moment for a person who has built his career on the backbone of playing without an ego.
He was a star in the Spanish ACB League, during which Splitter won MVP awards for Saski Baskonia, but when he joined the Spurs before the 2010 season he was just another guy playing alongside a cluster of Hall of Famers. Splitter quickly acclimated into the vaunted Spurs culture. By the 2013-14 season, he had blossomed into a starting power forward alongside Duncan, but he averaged just 8.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 21.5 minutes.
“He was a tough player, he knew his role and he was always a master of that,” said Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks, who was with the Spurs during Splitter’s time there. “He set screens, he played defense, he rebounded. And he did all the little stuff that doesn’t always show up in box scores but helps win games and championships. He knew what it took to be a good teammate and be a part of a good team.”
And sometimes, that meant accepting a demotion. After starting most of the season, Splitter was moved to the bench in the NBA Finals in favor of Boris Diaw. Popovich wanted to lean on a small-ball lineup that was more versatile, dynamic and better suited to beat the Miami Heat and their Big Three.
“But he never complained,” said Udoka, who was an assistant with the Spurs and now coaches the Rockets. “He knew his role and he didn’t try to go outside of his role. I always say to my players now: ‘Knowing your weaknesses is a strength. Understanding how to play off superstars is a skill.’ He was an underrated glue guy for a championship team and he was selfless enough to take a backseat during the playoffs. He was a perfect fit, both culture wise and IQ wise, for San Antonio.”
That brand of egoless basketball has guided Splitter during his coaching career.
A couple of years after he was forced to retire because of a chronic hip ailment, Splitter was interested in returning to the game, either as a coach or front office executive. Marks brought Splitter to Brooklyn as an unpaid intern and asked him to discover what inspired him. Rather quickly, Splitter gravitated to coaching and he eventually joined Atkinson’s staff, spending a significant chunk of his time grooming young big man Jarrett Allen.
Atkinson was immediately struck by Splitter’s understated, unassuming demeanor, and his willingness to take on the most remedial task. Splitter didn’t walk around flashing his championship ring or bring up the Spurs’ culture in team meetings, which did not go unnoticed.
“It was like his playing career didn’t even exist,” Atkinson said, laughing. “The only other person I’ve seen like that was (Warriors coach) Steve Kerr. They just never talk about their accomplishments. That really helped him fit in. When you’re a coach and you’re around other coaches talking about your career, it can be intimidating. I feel like he might as well have been a video intern. He didn’t come with any ego. He just fit in, he was just one of the guys. And players love that, because this is not about the coach. It’s a player’s league. That’s going to help him down the line.”
Serenity among uncertainty
After Cronin asked Splitter to be the Blazers’ interim coach and Splitter accepted without batting an eye, he slowly started to come to grips with his unfathomable new reality.
And Splitter’s mind started to wander.
He thought about Billups, the embattled coach who hired him. He thought about his players, who he had only known for a few weeks. He thought about his wife and kids, who were still adjusting to a new home in a new city.
Then he thought about the implausible opportunity in front of him.
“You hear it and it sounds like everything was calm, right?” Splitter said. “But in my mind, it’s a little different. I tried to, of course, be present in the moment and do the right decision. When I started coaching, I always wanted to be a head coach. So it was, ‘OK, why not?’ I had the opportunity in front of me. So I just want to be present and mindful of my decision. I think when I maintain calm, that’s when I make the best decisions.”
It’s far too early to predict how things will go for Splitter and the Blazers (8-10), who are only 18 games into a marathon 82-game NBA season. Injuries have sabotaged the relentless, fast-paced style Splitter hoped to run.
The drama of Billups’ arrest still hangs over the franchise. A new ownership group is months away from officially taking over the team.
But this much is clear: At a time of crisis, Splitter helped stabilize a season that could have collapsed. And, slowly but surely, the Blazers are taking on some of their new coach’s personality traits, growing calmer, cooler and more confident as they move forward in a season unlike any other.
“I know a lot of people look from the outside and they’re thinking about the situation and seeing chaos,” Splitter said. “But, to be honest — kudos to the players and the staff — it’s pretty normal what’s going on. Everybody’s just doing their job, trying to compete. I think when you lead a team, you’ve got to bring fire when they need it. But they also need calm sometimes, and I’m just trying to bring serenity and calm when they need it.”