You just spent $4.25 billion to purchase an NBA franchise, what do you do?
If you’re Tom Dundon, apparently, you start to cut costs.
At least that is reportedly what the new Trail Blazers owner is doing, which is rubbing some the wrong way, following a series of reports that included one on Sunday that Portland’s two-way players were being left at home during the playoffs in what’s believed to be a cost-cutting measure.
The report from the Rose Garden Report suggested that the team’s decision not to bring Caleb Love, Chris Youngblood and Jayson Kent to San Antonio for the first two games of their first-round series against the Spurs was one made in order to keep costs down.
The Blazers dropped Game 1 of the series, 111-98, on Sunday night.
“This is well outside of standard practice in the NBA. All seven other road teams on the first weekend this year’s playoffs brought their two-way players to the games even though they can’t play, sources close to those teams confirmed. They may be stuck in street clothes, but they’re still being treated like they’re part of their teams,” Sean Highkin wrote at Rose Garden Report.
Dundon has come under scrutiny over his perceived penny-pinching ways since the league approved the sale of the team to him at the end of March.
Last week, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated reported that during a recent trip to Phoenix, the Trail Blazers had some of their team staffers check out of their rooms by noon, hours before any team buses started departing for the arena, in order to avoid having to pay for late check-out times.
On Friday, Trail Blazers president Dewayne Hankins went on local news and said that there would be no shirts given out to fans as a giveaway when their playoff series with the Spurs shifts back to Portland.
The appearance forced Blazers co-owner Sheel Tyle to go on social media later that day to defend the team and said that “we are doing something else.”
“Moda will be rocking for Game 3 & 4,” he also wrote.
On a grander scale, the Trail Blazers, under Dundon’s stewardship, seem to be looking to pay no higher than $1.5 million per year for their next head coach and the team has already spoken with at least 20 college and international coaches, NBA insider Jake Fischer reported over the weekend.
Tiago Splitter served as the team’s interim head coach this season after Chauncey Billups was arrested days into the season over an alleged poker-rigging scandal.
While Dundon, who also owns the Hurricanes of the NHL, could reverse course, it appears that the start of his ownership in Portland is off to a stilted start.
