The Trail Blazers Have Reportedly Hired Chauncey Billups As Their Next Head Coach

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The NBA’s coaching carousel has begun moving quickly, with Boston (Ime Udoka), Indiana (Rick Carlisle), and Dallas (Jason Kidd) all filling their vacancies this week. That left Portland, New Orleans, Washington, and Orlando as the four remaining open jobs, and on Friday night, the Trail Blazers made their move in hiring Chauncey Billups from the Clippers staff.

Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups and the Blazers are progressing in contract talks to make him Portland’s next head coach, sources tell ESPN. https://t.co/w2Uu4wTO5o

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 26, 2021

Billups — the 2004 NBA Finals MVP — was offered the Trail Blazers job tonight and will be the new Portland coach. https://t.co/R05tXu0KLP

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 26, 2021

It had been reported earlier in the evening that Billups had emerged as the frontrunner — which wasn’t a surprise given the initial reporting indicated Damian Lillard’s preference was either Jason Kidd or Billups — and the two sides moved quickly to finalize a deal. Billups has been on the short list for a number of jobs in the past and it was considered a matter of when, not if, he would get a head coaching job — it also wasn’t long ago he was considered a candidate for top front office positions as well.

The 2004 NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons is a well-regarded basketball mind and given his experience as a championship point guard, it’s not a surprise that the Blazers would look to him to help guide their team led by a superstar point guard. Now the Blazers can move ahead on the rest of their offseason, which could see a rather significant shakeup to the roster we saw exit the first round a month ago. With Billups on board, they can begin focusing on those efforts, although Billups has more pressing matters at hand with the Clippers down 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals. Once he’s in Portland, however, it will be all hands on deck to evaluate the needs of the roster and where they can go on draft night and beyond to try and finally build a title contender around Lillard.