Portland Trail Blazers: C’mon Dame, say what you mean!
On Chauncey as a coach…
The next big question was who would be the next coach. On the same night that Stotts was fired, Damian Lillard told Yahoo sports, “Jason Kidd is the guy I want.” Unfortunately, Jason Kidd did not want the job and turned it down.
Get me, Chauncey Billups! No, that’s not exactly what he said, according to Jason Quick and Shams Charania of The Athletic, “I like J. Kidd and Chauncey,” Lillard said, referring to Lakers assistant Jason Kidd and Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups.
But he did say that he got a list of candidates and chose Billups; how was he to know. Mr. Lillard, I think you did know. There are reports of how close the two of you were/are. What was it that Dame didn’t know? When Billups was a rookie, he was accused of sexual misconduct. The police never charged him, but Billups did pay off the young lady in question.
… Or not
Billups got the job despite the controversy, which made many people in Portland unhappy. It seemed like the only people supporting Billups were Lillard and Olshey. When asked about the allegations, Dame answered on Twitter,
https://twitter.com/Dame_Lillard/status/1408812211192037382?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1408812211192037382%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpacificnwsports.com%2Fportland-trailblazers-billups-to-be-naw-head-coach-amid-controversy%2F
So you just “heard” Billups’ name? Dame! Dolla! Come on; this is BlazerNation! You can’t lie to your fans, and that’s what you do every time you flip-flop. You know this man! At least you knew Billups enough to hang out with and now won’t stand with your decision?
By the preseason, Lillard and the coach, whose name he heard about, were very close. According to Quick, he was close enough to change Lillard’s mind from leaving the team.
“I think a big part of (my change in mindset) was me and Chauncey’s conversations, and where we see things the same, I’m not going to share details of our conversations, but it’s not often when I speak to people that they see what I see. Watching a game, observing people … there’s not many people who see what I see. But a lot of what I see, he sees. So that was very important to me. Like, that was a big deal.”
Tell me that does not sound like Kyrie Irving!