The city of Portland was subjected to 113-degree temperatures over the weekend. Many people decided to hunker down in whatever shelters were available and wait out a heatwave that was both dangerous and distracting. The Western and Eastern Conference Finals also trudged on with some less than spectacular games. Wildfire season is also picking up for many people around the state of Oregon.
Among all these major news stories, the Portland Trail Blazers, led by general manager Neil Olshey, decided to quietly release news that Chauncey Billups would be the team’s next head coach. That was just the start of an incredibly tough weekend for Portland sports fans.
Immediately after the hire, fans began to direct disgruntled tweets towards Damian Lillard for the hire. Many believed that Lillard was aware of rape accusations against Billups stemming from a 1997 event settled in civil court. Dame pushed back on that narrative and began to talk back.
It only got worse from that point forward…
Sunday afternoon saw the release of an article from Yahoo! Sports, where Chris Haynes suggests Lillard could push his way out of Portland due to the fan backlash from Billups’ hiring, and the franchise’s inability to secure a title contending roster:
The enormous backlash from the Portland Trail Blazers' process to hire a new coach and his concerns on whether a championship contender can be built have become factors that may push the franchise player — Damian Lillard — out the door, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Lillard has remained loyal to Portland in large part due to the tremendous fan base. But over the last few days, he’s seen some of those same fans attacking him on social media for a pending coaching hire he played no part in consummating, sources said.
All these events could have easily been avoided. Neil Olshey could have waited for the Clippers’ elimination before leaking Billups’ frontrunner status. He could have organized a coherent public relations message around the hire, making sure the whole organization had a consistent message.
He could have avoided a news dump.
But that’s just not the Neil Olshey way.
