Chauncey Billups away from Blazers after grandmother's passing
Yesterday at 01:26 PM
On Thursday, the Portland Trail Blazers announced that head coach Chauncey Billups would be away from the team for a brief period of time due to the passing of his grandmother. Billups will miss the team’s next two games, at home vs the Utah Jazz and at home vs the Dallas Mavericks, per the team’s account on X, formerly Twitter.
The team also announced that Nate Bjorkgren will act as the Blazers’ head coach until Billups’ return.
The Blazers have gotten off to a bit of a rough start to the 2024-25 NBA season, currently sitting at 9-20 just over one third of the way through the campaign. The team has seen some solid play from rookie center Donovan Clingan, who was drafted in the first round out of UConn this past summer, but that hasn’t alleviated the bizarre logjam the team has at the center position, with Clingan, Deandre Ayton, and Robert Williams III all being viable options in that spot, with limited minutes to go around.
The Blazers haven’t seen as much growth as they would have hoped from Scoot Henderson in his second year, although there is plenty of time for the guard to get things back on the right track, and he has the perfect mentor in Billups for doing so.
Overall, there has been some speculation that the Blazers could look to be sellers at the upcoming NBA trade deadline, with players like Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons not necessarily fitting the timeline of the youth movement that the team has embraced recently. It’s also possible that they could look to move one of their trio of centers.
In any case, the Blazers will next hit the floor on Thursday evening at home against the Jazz. That game is slated to tip off at 10:00 PM ET from the Moda Center in Portland.
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