A huge development in the controversy surrounding the Portland Trail Blazers' decision to hire Chauncey Billups as their head coach has just surfaced. Despite their claims of having undergone a full investigation of Billups' 1997 rape allegations, a new exposé has revealed that the Blazers did not actually do their due diligence on Billups and his 20-year-old sexual harassment case.
For context, Blazers general manager Neil Olshey spoke openly about Billups' case when they unveiled him as the team's new head coach on June 29th. Olshey claimed that the organization “did everything in our power to vet that incident.” He refused to provide the details on the investigation, though, and said that we are all “just going to have to take our word that we hired an experienced firm that ran an investigation that gave us the results we’ve already discussed.”
In a report by Conrad Wilson and Tony Schick of OPB, however, they revealed that the Blazers overlooked “a number of basic steps” in their investigation. The most glaring of which is the fact that Portland's front office “did not obtain information directly from several primary sources, including the accuser.”
The Blazers were heavily criticized for decision to bring Billups on board primarily because of this particular issue. Billups himself vehemently denies the allegations, claiming that the sexual contact he had with the accuser was consensual. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
This latest development serves as a huge blow for Portland in terms of their hire process for Billups. It may be true that he's qualified for the job, but this new report seems to imply that the team intentionally chose to overlook these rape allegations just to be able to get their man.
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