Tiago Splitter wants to keep the Portland Trail Blazers job. The interim coach, who took over from Chauncey Billups before Game 2 of an 82-game season, has led the team to the postseason and publicly said he hopes to retain the head coaching post.
But the market around him is moving in another direction. Multiple reports say new owner Tom Dundon is trying to pay well below the NBA norm of about $4 million for the next coach, with Jake Fischer reporting that Dundon does not appear willing to go above $1.5 million a year. Local sportswriter Dwight Jaynes and The Oregonian’s Bill Oram have also reported that Portland is believed to be shopping for a coach in the range of about $1 million annually.
That salary target matters because Portland is entering an offseason of uncertainty once its playoff run ends. Fischer reported that the Blazers have already held some level of exploratory dialogue with about 20 international and college coaches, but the figures being discussed are far below what even first-time NBA head coaches typically command. High-level college coaches also make far more than Portland appears willing to spend.
The tension is hard to miss. The Blazers are frequently projected by coaching insiders to hire a current NBA assistant unless something can be worked out with Splitter, which would leave the team’s postseason success tied to a hiring process shaped as much by price as by performance. For Portland, the next decision may say less about the run it just made than about how far Dundon is prepared to stretch for the coach who got it there.
