The Portland Trail Blazers held a news conference on Thursday morning introducing longtime front-office executive Joe Cronin as the team's interim general manager. Sitting next to Chauncey Billups and newly-minuted team president Dewayne Hankins, Cronin answered questions about the Blazers' uncertain present and future with thoughtfulness, candor and humility that's long been missing from the top of Portland's front office flow chart.
Here are three key takeaways from Cronin's first media availability as the Blazers' head decision-maker.
Cronin isn't a lame duck
All reporting has suggested Cronin would get a real chance to have his interim tag lifted and succeed Neil Olshey as Portland's full-time general manager. He sat courtside with Jody Allen at the Blazers' first home game following Olshey's departure, engaging in sustained discussion with Portland's notoriously hands-off owner.
Cronin reiterated on Thursday that ownership has assured him he'll have every chance to win the job outright.
More importantly, he's already operating with that autonomy while actively seeking ways to improve Portland's roster. Just like Olshey, Cronin will need approval from Allen and vice chair Bert Kolde before sending trades into the league office, but has carte blanche to negotiate possible deals with other teams.
Hankins clarified on Thursday that the organization is “not in any rush” to name a permanent replacement for Olshey, saying there's “no timeline” for the search process. It appears Cronin will have ample time and opportunity to prove he's the right person for the job.
As Olshey's number two for the last several seasons, here's hoping Cronin takes a different path to team-building and media interactions than his former boss. Thursday's presser made it seem like he will.
Chauncey Billups, fully onboard
Damian Lillard has already gone on record, again, with his plans to remain in Rip City. Though his initial reaction to Olshey's firing was mostly one of nostalgia for their decade-long working relationship, Lillard's pithy social media response to ESPN's fraught story on his looming extension is a clearer lens into his thinking on the Blazers' front office shuffling. He's not upset that Olshey's gone.
Billups' reaction to the man who hired him less than six months ago—amid mounting controversy and vocal local criticism, remember—getting fired was always more in doubt anyway. His relationship with Olshey dates back to their time with the LA Clippers more than a decade ago. Years before he even considered becoming a head coach, Olshey was publicly raving about Billups' potential on the sidelines. Obviously, their existing comfort with one another played a huge partin Billups succeeding Terry Stotts.
You wouldn't have known it on Thursday, though. Billups even went out of his way to say he's more excited to be a part of the Blazers under Cronin and Hankins than he was Olshey and former CEO Chris McGowan, who resigned in November.
Billups and Cronin actually go back further than he and Olshey.
They often went head-to-head on the court as Denver-area high-schoolers, even meeting in the 1994 Colorado state championship game. Cronin's team emerged victorious, in large part due to the “big dude who was beastin' everyone in the middle,” Billups said, referring to Cronin.
There's the expectation of inevitable tension anytime a general manager who recently hired a head coach gets fired. Maybe it will come as the honeymoon phase of Portland's new brain trust passes, or if Cronin's time at the top of the pecking order proves temporary. Even though financial considerations basically ensure Billups isn't going anywhere, a new head decision-maker for the Blazers may want to handpick their own coach anyway.
Focusing on that concern is borrowing trouble for now, though. Cronin and Billups don't just have an existing rapport, but clearly a similar vision for how to make Portland better going forward.
Personnel changes are inevitable
Cronin's had the benefit of watching the Blazers hemorrhage points en route to an 11-15 record in the season's early going, again struggling to string together stops despite deploying Billups' more aggressive defensive system. Even so, it's obvious he doesn't share the head-scratching belief of his predecessor that Portland's 29th-ranked defense and ensuing first-round playoff exit a year ago were more about coaching issues than personnel deficiencies.
In fact, Cronin on Thursday all but guaranteed the Blazers will be making changes to the roster status quo.
The importance of timeliness with regard to those changes isn't lost on Cronin, either. He understands the significance of urgency when it comes to an on-the-fly rebuilding job like the one facing Portland. Still, Cronin won't be rushing the moves he deems necessary for this team to improve. Raising a veteran team's ceiling isn't easy, but that's the task in front of him.
Winning the press conference shouldn't be cause for celebration. It's not like Cronin, Billups and Hankins remade the wheel of discourse with media or offered anything revelatory—let alone especially surprising—about the Blazers' plan of attack from here.
Olshey had a habit of creating bad headlines on the rare occasions he spoke with reporters. Based on Thursday's presser, it would be shocking if that came to pass while Cronin is at the helm. And if the moves he makes as Portland's head decision-maker quickly payoff, Cronin's time at the top of the front office will likely prove enduring.