Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts.
Terry Stotts and Damian Lillard came to the Portland Trail Blazers the same year, 2012. Lillard has been a godsend to the franchise. I’m not so sure about Stotts. In researching this piece, I found that disturbingly, the Blazers have a terrible postseason record that didn’t start when Stotts became the coach. It just continued.
Stotts’ job as Head Coach of the Trail Blazers is also his only head coaching job. The best thing that could happen to him was that they drafted Damian Lillard earlier that Summer. Judging from the records, Lillard is the reason Stotts lasted as long as he did. During the same nine years that Stotts struggled during the postseason, Damian Lillard became a superstar.
Ten years before Stotts’ arrival, the Blazers missed the playoffs five times consecutively and exited the first round five times. So they’ve always been a little not good in the postseason.
From their regular-season standings, fans would think Portland was a team to look out for and fear. They will take you down in the playoffs. Not so. During the eight years that Stotts took his team to the playoffs, they got out of the first round only three times. The season Dame gave that wave goodbye to Russell Westbrook was one of those times. Portland would go on that postseason to the Western Conference Finals, where the Golden State Warriors swept them.
The Blazers went to the playoffs every season because they finished their regular seasons as the West’s third, fourth or fifth seed. This season was the first time they finished at sixth. Twice they finished at eighth. Why?
Portland has the second-best backcourt in the NBA, second only to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the Splash Brothers. They’ve had some Hall of Fame players and still do. Why doesn’t that add up to at least the Western Conference Finals two or three times? At least in the regular season, they were the third seed!
What pieces are they putting around Dame and CJ? Thanks to acquiring Robert Covington, the Blazers have no upcoming first-round draft picks. How’s that working out for them? That’s for another piece.
Let’s go back to 2017, a first-round exit after the Portland Trail Blazers earned the West’s third seed. No, excuse me, swept in the first round when the Blazers were the third seed. Who’s to blame when that happens?
The following year, they were also the third seed. In 2018, Portland went to the Western Conference Finals only to be swept by Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.
The players returning for the 2019-2020 season were determined there would be no more first-round exits. Then the world was hit by COVID-19, and everything, including sports, was suspended.
Because of the coronavirus and its devastating effects, basketball returned in a bubble format. The players convened in Orlando, Florida, to continue the season, including a one-game play-in, the playoffs, and finals.
Portland worked tirelessly to make the playoffs. They went 6-2, led by Big Game Dame, regarded by many as the best player in the bubble. It was one dominating performance after another.
Lillard put the team on his back, with 60-point plus and 40-point plus games. Whatever needed to be done to make the playoffs, he did. They also won a one-game play-in against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Blazers pulled it out with four players scoring over 20 points. After all that hard work by Lillard and his teammates, the Lakers swept them in the first round.
An evening after the Portland Blazers exited the first round in the 2020-21 playoffs; Terry Stotts is out. “Mutually parted ways,” as the saying goes. Was this the one too many times? The Blazers made a habit of leaving in the first round long before Stotts got there.
I believe it was not making the challenge call that his star center, Jusuf Nurkic, begged him to make in the third quarter of Game 6. Literally. A foul on a shot from beyond the arc. Nurkic didn’t recover from that foul. It was like watching a balloon slowly deflating. My family and I yelled at the TV, “challenge it, challenge it!” He didn’t, and Denver made all three shots. After Portland lost again, Stotts had to go.
“Damian Lillard won’t let that happen,” people told me when I suggested that Stotts won’t have a job by Monday morning. I think it was Lillard quoting Nipsey Hustle (How long should I stay dedicated? How long til opportunity meet preparation?) that woke up Blazers management. Now, according to Twitter, Dame is asking for Jason Kidd to be his new coach. That’s a different story for another time.
BlazerNation, PNWS will always keep you informed of the happenings going on in Portland. We will let you know if Jason Kidd gets the job or who the new coach will be. No draft news, of course, but there’s always free agency!