Social media has changed the way fans follow professional sports. This has also changed how players can market themselves. Building a brand is paramount in this day and age, and what better way for someone to do it than to post or repost their highlights? However, as this unnamed Portland Trail Blazers player learned quickly, you cannot be doing these things in the middle of the game, especially when you're getting blown to bits.
Speaking on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast with Carmelo Anthony, Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups revealed this one instance when he had to pull this one player aside and call him out for posting a highlight-reel dunk at halftime despite being down by double digits to the New Orleans Pelicans on the road.
“We're down like 18 at the half [in New Orleans]. I had a kid, he had a nasty dunk. We coming out for the 3rd quarter [and] this motherf**ker done posted his dunk on his joint. At halftime,” Billups said. “We down 18! Man, you know, I grinded his a** up. I get wind of it. I said, ‘Ay yo, bro. Take that s**t off your joint man. What the f**k is wrong with you, man?'”
As the old adage goes, there is a time and a place for everything. Posting a highlight-reel dunk is great for one's brand. But doing so in the middle of a game that you're getting blown out in? It's no wonder that Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was dumbfounded and had to ask the player, whoever he may be, to delete the post and put it up at a more appropriate time.
The Blazers fanbase has its theories for who Chauncey Billups is pertaining to
Chauncey Billups has had three full seasons as the Blazers' head coach, and in those three seasons, Portland has faced the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center for a total of five times, going 1-4. The Blazers lost by an average of nearly 21 points in those four defeats.
At the halftime intermission in three of those games, however, the deficit was smaller than 10 points. Thus, for the purposes of this exercise, the December 21, 2021, November 10, 2022, and March 16, 2024 matchups don't count, as the exchange Billups hilariously recalled came while the Blazers were getting demolished after 24 minutes of play.
This brings us to the April 7, 2022 and March 12, 2023 matchups between the Blazers and Pelicans. In the former, Portland was down 13 at the half and in the latter, they were down 20. Billups recounted them being down by around 18 points, so it makes more sense that the March 2023 matchup was the one on his mind.
This narrows down the potential candidates for the social media gaffe to two: Nassir Little and Cam Reddish. Reddish's dunk was a rim-grazer, which, given his athleticism, won't make sense as a solo post on his Instagram feed, and at halftime no less. Little's, meanwhile, was a putback dunk that he threw down with oomph. Suffice to say, Blazers fans believe that it's Little who drew the ire of Billups on that one fateful halftime break.
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