The Portland Trail Blazers are in the playoffs for the first time in five years, but the Blazers story on ESPN’s front page isn’t about their play, but about their pay… or rather, their unwillingness to pay under the leadership of new owner Tom Dundon:
During Sunday’s Game 1 in San Antonio, the Portland Trail Blazers were surrounded by color-coordinated fans wearing Spurs shirts.
But when the Spurs play Portland later this week, they won’t see fan T-shirts draped over the backs of chairs. Trail Blazers
president Dewayne Hankins said fans won’t receive T-shirts — a customary provision from ownership to fan bases across the league — for Friday’s Game 3 or Sunday’s Game 4 against the Spurs at the Moda Center.
Blazers alternate governor Sheel Tyle shared on social media that “We aren’t doing t-shirts because we are doing something else.”
Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report also shared ahead of yesterday’s game that the Blazers will not be sending their two-way players on the road:
And in a move that could only be attributed to more cost-cutting measures from new owner Tom Dundon, Love and the Blazers’ other two-ways, Chris Youngblood and Jayson Kent, did not travel to San Antonio with the team for Games 1 and 2 and will be watching from home in Portland.
This is well outside of standard practice in the NBA. All seven other road teams on the first weekend of this year’s playoffs brought their two-way players to the games even though they can’t play, sources close to those teams confirmed. They may be stuck in street clothes, but they’re still being treated like they’re part of their teams.
This follows reporting from The Oregonian’s Bill Oram that the team didn’t send award-winning house photographer Bruce Ely to Texas, nor did they send longtime Blazers digital reporter Casey Holdahl. It’s also been reported that Dundon “is shopping for a new head coach in around [the] range of $1 million per year,” and SI’s Chris Mannix reported that members of the Blazers’ staff “were asked to check out of their rooms at noon, hours before the first bus left for the arena. The reason, multiple sources say, was for the team to avoid the cost of a late checkout.”
All of this had led to criticism of Dundon’s unwillingness to spend on what are traditionally no-brainers for NBA teams: The Ringer’s Bill Simmons has dubbed Dundon “El Cheapo,” and longtime sports journalist Bomani Jones said that the “league made a mistake with this guy.”
