HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- Chauncey Billups won a Finals MVP and was selected to five All Star Games over the course of a stellar NBA career that lasted 17 seasons, but he says nothing prepared him to be a head coach quite like a season as an assistant.
“It was incredible how much it helped me,” Billups said Friday before his Portland Trail Blazers beat the Rockets 125-110 inside Toyota Center. “I'm so happy that I had that year to kind of see the cadence of the coaching thing, and practices, and so many different things. It was big for me to be able to get that year as opposed to just go straight in as a head coach.”
After spending six seasons in television where he interviewed for multiple front office jobs, Billups joined Ty Lue’s Los Angeles Clippers staff for the 2020-21 season. Along with Lue, Billups had the opportunity to work with former NBA head coaches Kenny Atkinson and Larry Drew along with Dan Craig and former Rockets assistant Roy Rogers.
“Being able to learn from those guys was big for me,” Billups said.
Billups played for Larry Brown, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle, George Karl, and Flip Saunders during his time in the NBA and acknowledged a player of his stature could’ve jumped straight to a head coach’s chair.
“I’m glad I didn’t, and when I played, I didn't feel that I could, I really didn't, and I'm a guy that spent a lot of time with the staff, watching film, talking about game plans, talking about me as a point guard and a guy that liked to be two or three steps ahead.”
Becoming a head coach without any coaching experience is far from uncommon in the NBA. Five coaches (Mark Jackson, Jason Kidd, Steve Kerr, Derek Fisher, and Steve Nash) have accomplished that feat in the last 11 years, but Billups didn’t believe he’d be as prepared for the job without spending time as an assistant first.
“I spent a ton of time with my (coaching) staffs, but I still didn't believe that it would be pretty easy for me to just jump right off and then go straight coaching. There's so much that I didn't know, and I learned a lot of those things last year and some of those things I still didn't know that I’m learning this year.”