Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen is just as befuddled as fans of his team’s underwhelming play over the past few seasons. Allen is spending huge money on Portland, which is one of the five teams this year that is over the luxury tax line, but so far this 2017-18 campaign, the Blazers are just 17-16 through the first 33 games.
Also adding to Allen’s frustration is the fact that the Blazers have not gone past the second round of the playoffs in any of the past four times they made the boat to the postseason.
These factors have all led to Allen taking it upon his hands to see what ails Portland, per John Canzano of The Oregonian.
The lieutenants who work at owner Paul Allen's Vulcan, Inc. mothership have been analyzing data and asking important questions. Two NBA front-office sources said they were contacted in the last 10 days by the Vulcans and asked whether they thought Trail Blazers struggles were due to a broken roster or poor coaching.
“Paul is getting antsy,” one of the league sources said, “he thinks they should be winning more.”
We haven’t seen the kind of data Paul Allen’s team has unearthed through its investigation, but one of the glaring problems the Blazers are having is the lack of support from their second unit. Portland is 10th in the NBA in first-five unit scoring, but is just 24th in terms of bench offensive production.
Allen could also be keeping a close eye on Blazers head coach Terry Stotts and general manager Neil Olshey. After all, it’s been a popular notion in professional sports to train one’s attention on the coaching staff and front office whenever a team struggles
Whether it’s the coach, the management, or the players, the Blazers have to diagnose what’s wrong with their team and find a fix to it before Allen gets “antsy” enough to blow up the franchise.
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