Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is looking to take a very young roster in to the fourth season of his coaching career and hope to show some development that a future is bright. However, it was not always that way as Billups was on the show “7PM In Brooklyn” with former player Carmelo Anthony and The Kid Mero about how the team was when he initially took the job.
Billups would be candid in his response when asked how it feels to coach a team mostly consisting of young players looking to make a name for themselves in the league. The former player of from 1997 to 2014 would say that it was not originally like that as when he accepted the position to be the Blazers head coach, players like Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic, and funny enough Anthony were on the team.
“When I took the job you know it was a veteran laden team,” Billups said. “Melo [Anthony] was actually still on the roster. I really took the job thinking that I was going to be coaching him. You know with Dame [Lillard] and CJ [McCollum], Nurk [Nurkic]. So it was perfect for me, I'm thinking okay boom, a few moves here and there, I'm coming to like try to elevate things and then very quickly it changed.”
Billups says there is “beauty” in Blazers rebuilding
The 47-year old head coach would talk about the changes the Blazers organization was going through right after he was hired where he mentioned the general manager who hired him in Neil Olshey and how he was let go of his duties. However, he would not say anything negative about his roster, even expressing that there is a “beauty” in rebuilding and having the team be filled with youth.
“You know 3,4 months in the guy that hired me Neil Olshey gets fired and just everything kind of changed,” Billups said. “Now we’re rebuilding and we’re young and there's beauty in that too. It's crazy, it almost kind of resembles the start of my actual playing career to be honest and you just never know how you’re going to have to get it. But I signed up to coach and what I thought I was going to be coaching wasn't that but I still signed up to coach.”
In any sense, Billups is looking to exceed the most amount of wins he has had in his career with the highest being 33 during the 2022-23 year. Last season, the Blazers were last in the Western Conference with a 21-61 record as they're shooting for taking a huge jump this upcoming season with Billups at the helm.
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