Chauncey Billups and the Failure of Accountability
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The Portland Trail Blazers were a team of veterans whose starting five had an average age of 29 and a combined 38 years of service heading into the 2021-22 season.
Chauncey Billups had never been a head coach in the NBA… or at any level.
At first blush, Billups and the Blazers didn’t seem like a natural fit. But Billups was an NBA champion as a player, well-respected by his colleagues, and an important part of Ty Lue’s coaching staff with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Billups got a five-year, fully guaranteed contract from former Blazers GM Neil Olshey for a number of reasons, but one of them was trumpeted louder and more often than any other: accountability.
“To me, accountability is when something is out of place and something isn’t going right, we have to identify what it is and then, as I would call it, put an address on it.” - Chauncey Billups [via Casey Holdahl of TrailBlazers.com], Sept. 27, 2021
Under former Blazers coach Terry Stotts, some argued that players were allowed to do too much AND not enough. Their defense wasn’t just outdated… some players took entire plays off. Their offense: roll the ball on the court and let their best players cook.
There was no accountability.
That, the argument went, was the problem. It wasn’t the roster. The team was among the most talented in the NBA and capable of contending, some said, if only they had a coach that asked more of them.
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“A window facing the Blazers’ practice court has been blacked out, featuring four bold, red letters and the words associated with them. What does P.A.C.E. mean to Billups? The same talking points so enthusiastically parroted by Portland at Media Day: Preparation, Accountability, Communication and Execution.” - Jack Winter, ClutchPoints, Oct. 3, 2021
The opening weeks of the 2021-22 NBA season were promising for Portland. The Blazers were trying new things on both offense and defense. If nothing else, things looked different.
While Damian Lillard was struggling, the team rattled off impressive wins against the defending Western Conference Champions Phoenix Suns and the venerable-if-not-at-full-strength Los Angeles Clippers.
Their 3-2 record belied a team that was finding itself, growing into something new, that was at the messy and complicated start of what would be a beautiful metamorphosis.
“Chauncey Billups anticipates Blazers to improve defensively, expects accountability” - Clevis Murray [Headline], NBC Sports NW, July 3, 2021
Since then, things have changed.
Portland’s effort-heavy defense got scouted by opponents, and while it looked more active, the Blazers gave up record numbers of open threes. Damian Lillard’s struggles continued, visibly nursing an injury while his playmaking took a modest bump and his scoring sagged. CJ McCollum was as inconsistent as he’s ever been. The new, more active role expected by Jusuf Nurkic after conversations with Billups didn’t translate into a larger offensive presence.
Things got worse.
“Obviously, he’s going to voice his frustrations to us… letting us know that it’s not good enough, we need to do this better.” - Anfernee Simons on Billups via Aaron Fentress, The Oregonian, Nov. 14, 2021
Billups’ offensive schemes that emphasized more ball movement and more off-ball flow devolved back into simple pick and rolls and ISO-heavy sets. The defense got worse. The body language from the players (particularly the starters) starting going sideways.
In the middle of November, less than 20 games and less than a quarter of the way through Billups’ first season as an NBA coach, he started publicly calling out the players.
He bemoaned their lack of effort. He lamented that the starters didn’t have the requisite energy or passion to compete. He said that changes to the starting lineup may follow, and that he didn’t understand why the team wasn’t playing with more urgency.
“My biggest concern I think at the moment is, I want us to compete harder. I want us to compete in every game. And I don’t feel like every game we do that. I really don’t.” - Chauncey Billups via Aaron Fentress, The Oregonian, Dec. 2, 2021
This didn’t just happen once. It happened multiple times, after multiple games to multiple reporters. All within the span of weeks.
With the team at .500 and looking no more like a contender than the year before, it was announced that Lillard would need at least 10 days off. Shortly after, Anfernee Simons, Nas Little, and Norm Powell all took turns sitting out.
Billups’ words got sharper.
In comments to reporters following the Blazers’ second-consecutive 30-point home loss, this time to the shorthanded Boston Celtics, Billups suggested that getting the team to play hard wasn’t his responsibility as a coach. He said playing with that energy wasn’t something that can be learned. It’s something that players either have or don’t.
"Competitive fire and pride, that's something you either have or don't have. That's something you can't turn off and turn on." - Chauncey Billups to Sean Highkin, Dec. 4, 2021
These comments follow a concerning stretch of games where the Blazers were no longer a group showing flashes of development; just a team in dishevelment. Their defense has sagged to dead last in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass. And beyond reporting from earlier in the year about at least one of the starters not fully buying into Billups’ system, you don’t have to look beyond what fans see on the court to notice something isn’t right.
“In recent weeks, sources say Lillard has grown frustrated with the team’s play and tension appears to be on the rise between the players and Billups.” - Shams Charania and Sam Amick, The Athletic, Nov. 6, 2021
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We can all take this - Billups’ public comments, the losses, the stats, the reporting, the players’ body language - and draw our own conclusions.
Here’s mine: Chauncey Billups is failing to be an effective leader of an NBA team.
For as much as he and the organization preached accountability, there’s no evidence - not yet, anyway - that he’s willing to hold himself accountable or let others do the same.
There’s no evidence that “accountability” has been anything but performative, or has done anything to motivate the team toward his shared vision… or ANY shared vision.
There’s nothing to suggest Billups understands how to bring people along through change, or that his time as a leader on the court means he knows how to lead from the sidelines.
Think about a time you had to be a leader to a group of adults, especially through a time of change, maybe at your work, your school, or your home.
If you’re like most people, it was probably a lot more complicated than just writing out a demand and expecting that people follow it. It probably involved a lot of talking, sometimes individually or sometimes as a group. Maybe it meant thinking about how to navigate your authority being challenged. Demonstrating yourself what you wanted to see.
There might have been times when you heard something that you had to sit with, and that made you think about YOUR role as a leader in getting folks to all pull in the same direction.
It was probably complicated.
Now think about a coach with no head coaching experience and no equity with a team telling a veteran group of professionals that leadership and motivation isn't a part of his job as coach. Think about how a player who was buried on the bench and worked his ass off before finally getting a chance to shine would take that. Think about how it would feel being asked to do stuff you’d never done before, without being consulted first and without having a chance to shape that shared vision.
It’s also really hard to ignore what "holding players accountable" is supposed to do: motivate players. And how weird it is to then ALSO say that “playing with fire” is something you either just have or don’t…. so which is it? Are you using accountability to motivate, or is there no point because players either have it or they don’t?
Great coaching, Chauncey.
I find it very hard to believe that multiple NBA players have coincidentally slipped into a permanent state of not caring. I find it much easier to believe that Billups, with no experience, tried to force stuff on players without getting them to buy in to that change. And the result is a team that looks flat, lifeless, and on the verge of squandering the prime and good will of the most talented player the franchise has seen in its 50-year history in Damian Lillard.
To fix this, Chauncey Billups needs to ask himself what role he might have in the team’s sluggishness, and be open to changing not just his philosophy, but his approach to that philosophy. He needs to consider what purpose it serves to suggest players who have demonstrated for years how much they care that they “don’t have” a competitive fire. He needs to go back to the drawing board and involve the players in building a shared, cooperative vision for where the team wants to go.
Chauncey Billups needs to hold himself accountable, and be open to being held accountable.
If he doesn’t, things will only get worse.
Thank you all for reading and listening. You can find us at WeLikeTheBlazers.com, @LikeTheBlazers on Twitter, and by searching We Like the Blazers wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Brandon Goldner. Appreciate you all. And Go Blazers.
