The hiring of Chauncey Billups as the new head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers was not universally embraced. The backlash was immediate, with critics pointing to Billups’ allegedly sordid past. At the same time, the Blazers were thinking of the future. They still have Damian Lillard, one of the best in the NBA in any position. The Blazers’ top brass knew they had to make a change after another early postseason exit when the team was eliminated in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. They can’t waste the remaining prime years of Lillard, and with Billups, Portland’s management believes that a big piece to the puzzle has arrived.
Picking Billups as the new head coach of the Blazers was a bold move. He had no prior experience in a head-coaching capacity and now he’s going to be handling a team that’s widely regarded as playoff-ready — but nothing more than that.
It’s on Billups how the Blazers will be able to get over that hump in the postseason. Lillard has been with the Blazers since his rookie season in 2012-13, which was also the last time Portland missed the boat to the playoffs. But here’s the thing: it’s always been a cup of coffee in the postseason for Lillard and the Blazers. The team has been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round five times in eight seasons. There was something in Portland’s schematics that has not been working, and it’s up to Billups to diagnose that. He might have already, though.
Initially, that might appear detrimental to Lillard’s MO. Lillard loves to shoot threes. Portland fans can’t get enough of Lillard taking those shots from Venus. The Blazers won’t be the Blazers if not for Lillard. However, Billups is seemingly aware that Portland’s offense is so concentrated on Lillard and CJ McCollum doing things on their own.
It’s also clear that Billups does not want to remove the 3-point threat that the Blazers bring every game. The manner with which the Blazers arrive at those shots and where those shots are taken are essentially what Chauncey Billups is eyeing to optimize.
Based on his words, Chauncey Billups has done his initial assignment. In the last season, the Blazers ranked second in the NBA with 15.7 made 3-pointers per game on an average of 40.8 3-point shots. Of all their field goal attempts, 44.8 percent were taken from behind the arc, which was third overall in the league. Here’s where the idea of optimization of Portland’s offense should kick in: the Blazers were the only team last season with more than 26 percent of their made threes unassisted (30.7). Add to that the fact the Portland finished last with 0.517 assists per field goal made.
The Blazers had been so dependent on what Lillard (and McCollum) was going to do under Stotts’ system. Lillard has taken the “taking matters into your hands” to a level in terms of outside shooting that not even Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry has been before. Lillard has been at the top-most percentile when it comes to assisted 3-pointers percentage three times in his career. That means in those three seasons — including 2020-21 — 99 percent of players in the league had more 3-point shots taken off assists than Lillard. For comparison, Curry’s career-best percentile in that regard is second.
Equal distribution of touches is a problem for the Blazers, and it’s what Chauncey Billups is setting out to address and the solution involves expanding the role of Jusuf Nurkic, which could also determine the Bosnian’s fate in Portland beyond the next season.
Chauncey Billups on @bosnianbeast27: “I want to get more out of Nurk this year. He's a weapon that most teams don't have: a big that can score, but he's really really comfortable and happy to facilitate.”
Getting Nurk more touches meant more focus on getting the ball in the shaded area, which Chauncey Billups is already championing. The Blazers were last in the NBA a season ago with only 17.4 paint touches per game, with the ball spending more time bouncing on the floor than getting passed around for better looks. In fact, the Blazers had the highest average dribble per touch last season.
Here’s what Billups told ESPN in a recent interview (h/t Clevin Murray of NBC Sports).
“I think we can be a better passing team,” Billups said. “A lot of time last year they just depended on Dame to be Dame and CJ to be special. We were one of the worst teams at creating corner three-point shots. That’s the best three-point shot in the game. The only way you do that is to play with great pace, space, and drive and kick and get paint touches. That's gonna be something that’s very important for how I want our team to play. That’s the only way you break down defenses. We’ll be a better ball movement team which will make us harder to guard.”
It will take time before Chauncey Billups’ vision for the Blazers’ offense could manifest itself on the court. But at the very least, it’s good to know, from a pure basketball perspective, that he has acknowledged these issues on offense.
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