Sitting at Summer League from the NBA executive section watching a bunch of players unlikely to make the league is now part of Chauncey Billups’ job as the Blazers’ new head coach.
He’s tasked with hopefully finding a player worth taking a chance on. Whether it’s veterans like Michael Beasley, Kenneth Faried, and Emmanuel Mudiay. Or some youth by the names of Antonio Blakeney or Kobi Simmons.
All are possibilities and decisions the team will have to make as they enter year one of the Billups experiment. What the team does will have some effect on Damian Lillard’s feelings towards the organization.
Despite the limited moves made this offseason, Billups is very optimistic about what the team could become.
“It was already a very good team before I showed up. I just want to try and enhance it. I feel like the biggest thing I want to try and do is defensively. We have to be a lot better. It was a poor defensive team last year. Offensively they were really special. If we want to take that jump, we gotta be better defensively.
