10:50am: Billups’ extension is now official, the Trail Blazers confirmed in a press release.
“The core of Chauncey’s leadership is his ability to build a collaborative culture and growth mindset for our young team,” said Jody Allen, chair of the Portland Trail Blazers. “We’re very happy to extend his contract as head coach, and excited to see his continued work developing our players and transforming this team into one capable of long-term success.”
According to Chris Haynes (Twitter link), Portland exercised its option on Billups for ’25/26 and his extension covers two additional years, so he’s now under contract until 2028.
10:32am: The Trail Blazers intend to sign head coach Chauncey Billups to a multiyear contract extension, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN.
Billups’ new deal comes less than a week after general manager Joe Cronin signed his own multiyear extension with Portland. The two have been friends for decades, Charania notes.
2024/25 was the final guaranteed season of Billups’ initial contract with the Blazers, who held a team option for ’25/26. He has been the club’s head coach since ’21/22, compiling a 116-211 regular season record (.355 winning percentage) over the past four seasons.
Billups indicated last summer that he might not be interested in returning as Portland’s head coach beyond this season, and rumors in the first few months of ’24/25 suggested that the two sides were likely to part ways. However, the Blazers somewhat unexpectedly went 10-4 heading into the All-Star break, and the 48-year-old said at the time that he was happy with the team’s progress and hoped to see the rebuild through.
“Me personally, I definitely think that I’ve done enough (to earn a new contract),” Billups said in February. “But I’m also not about to petition for that. I’m not gonna do that. I feel like I’ve done enough. I feel like I’ve developed a ton myself, which needed to happen.”
As Charania writes, the Blazers have gone 22-18 since January 19 and have a top-five defense during that time. Portland holds a 35-46 record heading into Sunday’s season finale vs. the Lakers after winning just 21 games a year ago.
Billups had a highly successful career as a player, having been named to the Hall of Fame last year. The five-time All-Star won a championship and Finals MVP with Detroit back in 2004.
Good for Chauncey,
I think he took a little too much blame for their terrible season last year. Another year of experience and a somewhat improved squad got closer to a play-in spot than most people expected.
I just pray this doesn’t age like milk. That guy i was talking about from church never closes the half and half and it always goes bad. Idiot
Blazer fans are not gonna be happy about this lol. You have my sympathies.
Sad to see certain franchises learning absolutely nothing and making the same mistakes over and over again. Blazers, Kings, Hornets, ETC.
It took C.B. quite a while to figure out what he was doing, but he’s figured it out. The players bought into the defense first idea. Thibodeau, Nurse, poor pitiful Mike Brown (relieved), Budenholzer, and several others are far worse. Billups? I would never have believed it 3 months ago, but now .. good, maybe very good choice.
That 22-18 record since January 19th is very misleading.
16 of those wins came against teams with a losing record
2 of those wins came against the Magic who are 41-40
2 of those wins came against the Nuggets and Grizzlies without Jokic and Morant
I have a feeling Billups won’t make it the length of that extension.
All I see on these boards are people trashing on this team. Really? Of course they played some losing teams … 16 of 40 is not many. You’d expect to play around half your season games against losing teams…
That’s 16 of 22 wins against teams with a losing record and with the Magic losing today. They finished the season at .500.
Which means they only beat 2 healthy teams with a winning record during that stretch.
The Blazers aren’t making any noise in the playoffs in the next few years.
Ok, this is a lottery bound team who basically beat most of the bad teams and one or two of the good teams. Pretty standard. Not sure what your point is… I guess you just felt it necessary to come here and spin it in a negative way. Dumb.
Good move. Got one right
Copy and paste
I would offer Ayton, Grant and Simons to Washington for Middleton, Smart, Holmes and Gill plus cash. Waiving Middleton, Holmes and Smart. Get off that money and free up cap space in the future
Resign Banton, accept Thybule’s player option.
Draft a SF or SG depending on where Sharpe plays. Also look at a young PF shooter. Tre Johnson or Bailey
Turn Dani into a super sixth man.
Sign three veterans (a guard, forward and big man to sit on the bench on veterans minimum contracts)
Let all the two ways guys walk and look at three others
Tank and develop the upcoming year
Give Scoot and Billups a full test drive for once.
This would be a fresh reset.
Trade Lillard for what……to still try to compete? Should of kept him. Had Brandon Williams young too
Just blow it up.
Portland gets a 2nd too