The Trail Blazers suffered their first loss under new head coach Chauncey Billups on Tuesday.
No plays were diagrammed.
No baskets were shot.
This was Billups’ introductory news conference — a low-hanging ‘hello Portland!’ moment. The easiest win on the schedule. These kinds of events are difficult to lose but the Blazers kicked it away.
Billups sat alongside general manager Neil Olshey, hoping to set the tone for a new era of Blazers’ basketball. What fans, sponsors and media badly needed was a unifying, reassuring performance. The news conference should have overflowed with authenticity, accountability and transparency.
It didn’t have any of that.
The new Blazers coach was accused of sexual assault in 1997. He was never charged. He settled a civil case out of court in 2000. This news conference was a perfect opportunity for the Blazers and Billups to put what they repeatedly called, “the incident of 1997,” to rest.
Instead, they tripped all over themselves.
Olshey called the incident “consensual” in his opening remarks. There are a limited number of people who know exactly what happened in 1997. Olshey is not one of them. True or not, with or without a financial settlement, that word should have never been used in association with a rape allegation.
Portland’s GM offered that the organization conducted a thorough vetting of Billups, including an independent investigation into the rape accusation. Who did investigators talk with? What did they learn? What in the investigation made the Blazers feel good about hiring Billups? When asked for clarity about the investigation Olshey bristled and called it “proprietary” information.
Added Olshey: “You’re just going to have to take our word.”
There have been some wild moments over the years around here when it comes to introductory news conferences for Portland head coaches. Former coach Mike Schuler, for example, went to sit in a folding chair and fell off the back of a stage during his first news conference. Billups didn’t pancake. The organization did it for him.
Billups talked about his wife and three daughters early on. He talked about his relationship with star Damian Lillard. He was later offered a chance by veteran beat reporter Jason Quick to dive deeper, humanize himself and talk about how the sex-assault allegation shaped him in “unbelievable ways,” as he said himself a few minutes earlier.
It was a great question by Quick. I sat forward to listen to Billups. Maybe you did, too. Because this was the moment we all needed. It had the potential to be a powerful pivot point but was quickly cut off by Ashley Clinkscale, the franchise’s corporate public relations senior vice president.
“We’ve addressed this,” Clinkscale said. “Its been asked and answered. Happy to move on to the next question.”
Can we move on?
The primary focus of Tuesday’s news conference should have been closure. Billups himself said the sex-assault allegation in his rookie season changed his life. How so? It was an important opportunity, one Billups himself badly needed. Only nobody got to hear his answer because the Blazers PR staff inexplicably slammed the door on it.
Turns out, it was an orchestrated misfire.
Olshey appeared to relay a “that’s enough” signal Clickscale. The GM picked up one of the two water bottles on the table in front of him and glanced her way. She executed the hit-and-run and the damage was done.
For Billups, it was an introduction into the ham-handed world of Trail Blazers, Inc. For the rest of us, it was another example of the basketball organization blowing an opportunity to deeply connect with fans. The questions about Billups won’t stop. They’ll continue, only now with added skepticism. He’ll be charged with coaching the roster amid the distraction.
Let’s face it — people want to like Billups. They want to accept him and know him. We’re forgiving by nature, but need help to get there. The news conference was the first, and maybe only, opportunity to hear Billups speak about basketball, family and put to rest the questions in his past.
We needed it.
Billups deserved that himself.
“Asked and answered,” the PR person said.
It hadn’t been asked or answered.
I don’t know if Billups is going to win a pile of games in Portland. He might be a sensational coach. He might struggle given Olshey’s inability to build a complete roster. But I know that Tuesday’s news conference event wasn’t a promising start. It was a clunky corporate production that ultimately offended the audience.
Peace of mind isn’t “proprietary.”
It should have belonged to the entire fan base today.
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