Head Coach Chauncey Billups is without a doubt the most polarizing figure in the [Portland Trail Blazers](https://www.blazersedge.com) franchise right now. Portland’s 28-39 record would suggest that almost automatically. Any coach 11 games under .500 will receive scrutiny. That’s not the extent of the issue, though. To understand the debate surrounding Billups, you have to understand that Portland’s current record is considered _good_. His 109-204 overall record is not often seen in NBA circles. Usually coaches winning 35% of their games don’t get to coach 300 of them.
Yet here Billups stands, still on Portland’s sidelines, behind the post-game microphones, serving out the fourth year of his contract with the only organization he’s ever coached for. The Blazers hold an option on his fifth year. They haven’t exercised it yet.
As the 2024-25 campaign comes to a close, one of our readers wants to know what’s up with Billups. Let’s tackle it in the Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.
> Dave,
>
> You’ve spent most of the year not talking about Chauncey. Do you see him returning? How would you evaluate him as a coach? We need to hear a take on this that makes sense. I fear we will bring him back for another year or longer. Do you think that will happen?
>
> Luke
It’s a big question. I’m going to answer it in two parts: one today, one tomorrow.
The atmosphere surrounding NBA coaching makes the task harder. The league sets a semi-unrealistic standard for coaching. If a team doesn’t win now, the coach is usually among the first to go.
Logically speaking, though, there has to be a loss for every win. One coach looking good will make another look bad. It’s hard to believe that there are 4-6 brilliant coaches in the NBA garnering the lion’s share of victories and everybody else kind of sucks. These are professionals. They’ve dedicated their lives to the sport and worked hard to get to the pinnacle of their industry. The most humble advanced scout on the worst team in the league knows more about basketball—and has given more to it—than everyone on our site combined. Coaches are better than the NBA makes them look.
This is particularly true when image and expectations come into play. Head Coaches aren’t just measured by wins and losses, but by how fans and media (and by extension, ownership) _expect_ their teams to perform. Very few people guess low, especially in local orbits. Head Coaches get stuck on a treadmill that’s 3MPH too fast for their natural gait. If they run the race of their lives on that thing, they’re going to break even and manage not to fall off. If not, it’s not going to be pretty.
There’s a reason coaches spend four years in the seat and look twenty years older after.
So before we even tackle this question, let’s admit two things:
1\. We don’t know as much as we think we do. We don’t know as much about the game as coaches in general. We don’t know as much about the inner workings of a franchise, locker room, ability and limits of players as the head coach of that team. It’s possible that every improvement and alternative we suggest was already tried, and dismissed, on Day 2 of training camp because it just doesn’t work.
1. 2\. Portland’s performance over the last four years hasn’t all been due to coaching. Losing Damian Lillard, rebuilding a roster, working through the growth curves of multiple young players, and quietly aiming for good draft position all played roles just as big as coaching. In fact those factors may dwarf anything Chauncey Billups has or hasn’t done.
2. That said, Billups _has_ been coaching all this time and we’ve seen the results. Just looking at Portland’s record, you know that there are flaws. But in the spirit of what we just said, let’s take a look at some of the things Coach Billups has done well before we dive into the criticisms.
Unselfishness
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1. The 2024-25 Trail Blazers play with an unselfishness that’s pretty rare, especially for young teams. Part of that may happen _per force_. They don’t have a clear superstar to dominate the offense. But they’re often guilty of over-passing. They never hesitate to move the ball. They run the floor as if they expect the rock to move, and quickly. They occasionally get caught standing around on offense, but it seldom lasts more than a couple plays before corrected.
2. Team-wide assistance reigns on defense as well. The Blazers have tried a couple approaches this season. They’ve concentrated on defending the rim, later focusing on stopping action at the arc. In neither case did they have individual defenders good enough to cover the whole floor. At all times, the majority of Billups’ players have helped each other in coverages. It’s become the norm to see Donovan Clingan gamely charging to close out at the arc or Shaedon Sharpe and Deni Avdija bulling into the lane to help rebound opposing misses. Their careers aren’t going to be defined by those things, but their current team needs them.
3. That’s a hard spirit to inculcate, particularly among young players. But almost without exception, down to the lowest reaches of the bench, Portland’s roster interlocks in spirit even when their natural skills don’t lend themselves to it.
4. When you watch the Blazers play, you almost never get the sense that they feel that scoring is the key to staying on the floor or advancing their career. Anfernee Simons is the closest they have to a pure offensive player. Even he waits until the team is in trouble in the second period or comes out of the locker room for the third before he tries to take over. They make space and touches for each other.
5. This has allowed Blazers fans to see Avdija’s aptitude distributing the ball, Clingan’s power in the pick-and-roll, and Toumani Camara’s ability to dunk. Those things wouldn’t necessarily be emphasized on a conventional roster. If you like the skills Portland’s higher-level role players have shown, you also like—at least in part—the coaching Billups has done with the team, allowing them to showcase it.
Individual Success
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Piggybacking on that, Billups has done a fairly good job putting his players in position to succeed.
You can see it first when you watch them pull up for three-point shots. We might be able to argue that the Blazers take too many beyond the arc schematically, but except on rare occasions, nobody can point out Portland players hesitating when they launch them. From Scoot Henderson to Shaedon Sharpe all the way through centers Clingan and Duop Reath, the Blazers are concentrating on one thing when they take a three: making the shot. They’re not looking over their shoulders, wondering if they should fire, wondering if they’ll be pulled if they miss. That takes confidence not just in their own abilities and judgment, but in their coach’s trust of same.
We can also point to Clingan, Avdija, Camara, and Scoot Henderson as at least partial—if not complete—success stories when it comes to developing their personal games.
Henderson was dead in the water after his rookie season. Were I coach, I think I might have advised him to never, ever think of launching a three again based on his performance and the look of his release. This year he’s not only shooting confidently, he’s firing at a completely professional 37% success rate. It’s opened up his game immensely.
Avdija running the offense with highly-drafted Henderson and star-in-waiting Simons on the club is not an automatic. Billups put him in position to make the most of his gifts, helping his teammates to capitalize on same. Now plenty of Blazers fans think that Deni, not Ant, is Portland’s next star.
Camara is an amazing defender. Billups not only started the second-year wing but challenged him to take the best opposing player most every night. Camara also feasted on a steady diet of corner threes to start the season. He’s expanded his driving game—heretofore unseen and unheralded—as the year has progressed. None of these things were automatic. Without them, Camara would be a defensive specialist but not necessarily a complete player.
Donovan Clingan looking so good early in the year has a lot to do with the way he was coached, not just learning the NBA game, but being put in positions where his gifts made the most difference. For a while, Clingan looked like a Rookie of the Year candidate (albeit honorable mention) and perhaps a future All-Defensive Team member. That’s precisely because Portland’s coaching staff made sure his 7’2 frame and defensive instincts made a difference instead of becoming liabilities. We’ve seen a mild form of the opposite when Clingan has been pressed into starting duties...part of his progression as a player, also showing how far he still has to go. Contrast early Clingan with this later version and you can see the difference the situational coaching has made.
It’s not fair to credit players—particularly young ones—with all of their own successes while knocking the coach (substitution patterns, schemes, interpersonal relationships) for the ways they fall short. Billups has actually has a fair bit to do with the best things Blazers fans notice about their roster.
Targeted Style of Play
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Again, one can quibble whether the Blazers are employing the style of play that’s going to be best for them, either now or in the future. We will tackle that. But there’s little doubt that Billups has coached towards a few clear emphases. His players have responded.
The running attack was a focus point for the Blazers coming into the year. They’ve raised their aggregate fast break points per game from 12.7 to 15.5 this season, their efficiency from 1.66 points per shot to 1.95. Those are huge leaps. Fast break points account for nearly two-thirds of the Blazers’ increase in scoring this season over last.
Offensive rebounding has been another point of emphasis in the Billups regime. They remain third in the league, the same place they occupied last season.
Last year the Blazers were a sieve, giving up 53.5 points in the paint per game. From the first night of the season, you saw them committing to staying in front of drivers and putting multiple defenders in the lane. This year the number is down to 47.7. That’s mediocre—11th in the league—but mediocre is far better than awful.
Portland’s three-point percentage allowed has actually slipped a bit this season, from 35.1% to 36.4%, in part because of the lane emphasis we just mentioned. But their overall field goal percentage allowed has dropped from an eye-searing 49.1% to a merely-sort-of-bad 47.1%.
Personnel certainly has something to do with these changes. And full disclosure: not every change for the Blazers this year has been positive. But coaching—the ways in which Billups asks his team to play—does play a role here. It appears that when their coach underlines an aspect of the game, the team complies.
Bonus
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I want to add that I’ve never seen any coach get along as well with opposing players as Coach Billups does. We use a couple of national media libraries for the photos that accompany stories. Picture after picture has Billups laughing with, shaking hands with, or with his arm around players from other teams. Apparently somebody likes him out there.
Conclusion
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No matter what Blazers fans want to say about their coach—and there is plenty to say—some positives have shown through under his guidance and tutelage. Whether those outweigh the negatives is a matter of judgment. But recognizing the good things is part of a fair evaluation.
What _good_ things have you noticed about Billups’ coaching? Share those in the comments section below or respond to the ones I’ve listed. Part two, a bit more critical, comes tomorrow.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to [blazersub@gmail.com](mailto:blazersub@gmail.com) and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!