Portland Trail Blazers' Anfernee Simons has set the record straight with what he expects from Chauncey Billups as a coach.
In his fourth year in the league, Blazers’ Anfernee Simons got the chance to be mentored by NBA legend Chauncey Billups, who is now head coaching for the first time since his retirement.
As the pair looks forward to a productive season with the Blazers, Simons is hoping to get a tough love from Billups as a coach, an approach his father used on him.
“We had that conversation before the season about how I wanted to be coached and I told him you can be hard on me because that’s all I know,” Simons told Blazers.com. “My dad was hard on me growing up, so that’s the only way I can get better is somebody constantly on me on certain things.”
Whether Billups is tough on the Blazers or not is yet to be known. However, one thing certain is that whatever his coaching style is, it seems to have worked for Simons in his first two games, having averaged 14.5 points per game on a remarkable 60 percent shooting from the field.
Billups, for his part, had earlier put an emphasis to upholding accountability and respect within the Blazers team.
“I’m never going to disrespect a guy, I don’t operate that way,” Billups said via NBA.com. “That’s what I mean when you hold a guy accountable. And that’s not just defensively, that’s offensively as well, that’s just period. If you want to be a great teammate, a great player, you have to accept some coaching.”
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