PORTLAND, Ore. – One of the NBA’s most unexpected stories is developing in Portland, where the Trail Blazers have won five in a row and nine of the last 10. With 31 games remaining, Portland (22-29) has already exceeded its win total from last season (21).
Turns out, this emergence … this uprising … this borderline miracle didn’t just magically materialize out of the Pacific Northwest mist. Behind the scenes, a series of meetings has helped spark the change in one of the NBA’s youngest teams.
The first meeting, held in late December in the office of coach Chauncey Billups, involved a direct challenge to point guard Scoot Henderson.
The second — and third — meetings were in early January and involved Billups delivering brutally honest assessments to Shaedon Sharpe about his defense, eventually leading to Sharpe being stripped of his starting role.
And the fourth meeting, held in mid-January during a five-game losing streak, featured Billups confronting each player, starting with Anfernee Simons … then Jerami Grant … then Deandre Ayton … all the way down the roster … and asking them a question: Can you handle being called out by a teammate?
The meetings have played a role in the most impressive stretch in Portland since 2021, when the Blazers won nine of 10 behind Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Norman Powell and Carmelo Anthony.
While Deni Avdija continues to cement himself as the team’s best player and Toumani Camara continues his emergence as one of the league’s best young defenders, it is the aftermath of Billups’ winter meetings that have inspired the biggest change in the Blazers.
Henderson has gone from puzzling to promising. Sharpe has become a reliable boost off the bench. And the team has started to engage with each other like never before, with more pointed and critical interactions.
And it started shortly after Christmas, on a practice day at the team’s facility. Billups was mad at Henderson, and called him into his office.
When Henderson arrived in Billups’ office in late December, he didn’t know what to expect. But it didn’t take long to understand that it would be different than any other meeting with his coach.
Billups was upset. So much of Henderson’s struggles and concerns in his first season and a half had been with his shot, and his ball security. But Billups told him this meeting wouldn’t involve a word about offense.
Billups played a collection of film clips in which Henderson was torched on defense.
“This is unacceptable,” Billups remembers telling Henderson. “This is so bad … at this point you aren’t even competing!”
When Billups was hired in the summer of 2021, he touted he would be a stickler in two areas the Blazers lacked: defense and accountability. “Putting an address on it” became the catchphrase that captured Billups’ approach to calling players out.
With the tape rolling in his office, Billups put an address, zip code and routing number on Henderson.
“You are going to start not playing because of this,” Billups warned.
Henderson said he couldn’t believe what his eyes were seeing.
“It didn’t even seem like it was me, watching myself on defense,” said Henderson, the No. 3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. “It was like, bro, that’s not even you on the clips. I know you can do better.”
Henderson confessed to Billups that he was frustrated by his offensive touches, and his disappointment sapped his effort on defense.
Billups told Henderson that he believed he was better than what he was seeing. But he emphasized again that he needed to see change.
“I told him, what we are watching on tape … that’s not who you are,” Billups said.
Henderson estimates the meeting was about 25 minutes, and by the time he left the office to get ready for practice, he was literally talking to himself.
“I was to the point where I was like, ‘This is it … It’s time to lock in, Scoot,’” Henderson said.
Billups didn’t have to wonder whether his talk reached Henderson.
“We have that long talk, and then in practice, he came out and destroyed everybody in front of him,” Billups said. “Offense. Defense. Destroyed. He was ferocious. He hasn’t looked back since that day.”
Henderson says that’s not entirely true. He was scoreless in 19 minutes against Detroit on Jan. 8. Then on Jan. 11, at home against Miami, he said his mind and heart weren’t in the game. He felt he coasted. Once again, he found he was talking to himself.
“After the Miami game, I got to the point where I was asking questions to myself, like, ‘What am I doing?’” Henderson said. “So I was like, ‘Never again.’”
The next game, Jan. 14 against Brooklyn, Henderson scored a career-high 39 points. It was the signature moment in his best all-around month as a pro: 14.6 points and 5.3 assists while shooting 48 percent from the field and 44 percent from 3-point range.
About a week after Billups had his meeting with Henderson, his attention shifted to another youngster the Blazers are banking on blossoming into a star: Shaedon Sharpe.
Like he had during his first two seasons, the 21-year-old had flashed moments of jaw-dropping ability. He was a blend of power and finesse, with hammer dunks and silky finger rolls, and throughout much of the early season he supplanted Simons as the Blazers’ leading scorer.
But Billups didn’t like the habits he could see forming in Sharpe. He was only concerned about scoring. His defense was an afterthought, if that.
“His defense was atrocious,” Billups said.
So he brought Sharpe into his office. His tone and message were similar to the ones he used with Henderson: This is unacceptable, and if it doesn’t change there will be consequences.
“What I can’t allow to happen on my watch is Shaedon to become a 22-point-per-game scorer, and not care about giving up 25,” Billups said.
Shaedon Sharpe is a gifted young scorer whose defensive habits needed to be addressed. (Jaime Valdez / Imagn Images)
Billups admits that reaching and resonating with Sharpe has been difficult during his first three seasons. Sharpe by nature is void of emotion, and he often seems to be in his own world.
“I never know until the game starts if I reached him,” Billups said.
And for the next few games, Billups could see he did not reach Sharpe. All the things the Blazers’ coaching staff emphasize with defense — effort, readiness, focus, intention — were not there with Sharpe.
“I told him we are going to have to do something about this, or else … and he didn’t,” Billups said. “He was still kind of lackluster. Sooooo … OK, cool.”
Before the Jan. 19 game against Chicago, Billups took Sharpe out of the starting lineup.
Sharpe responded with 23 points in 33 minutes.
“When he came out and started playing hard, I said, ‘OK, he listened,’” Billups said.
The move has not come without hiccups. Sharpe’s scoring average in the 10 games coming off the bench has dipped to 14.7 points, and he has twice failed to play 20 minutes, including Monday’s overtime win against Phoenix, Billups pulled him with about six minutes left because he felt Sharpe was a step slow on all his rotations.
It was Jan. 15 when Billups was struck cold watching a scene unfold during the nationally televised game between Golden State and Minnesota.
Golden State’s Gary Payton Jr. had missed an assignment, and the cameras caught teammates Buddy Hield and Dennis Schröder getting on his case.
“And then, as soon as they were done, it was (pat on the shoulder) boom, let’s go to work,” Billups said. “Nobody was mad, nobody’s feelings were hurt … “
The scene caught Billups’ attention because earlier that day in practice, on the heels of an 18-point loss to Brooklyn, he was imploring his team to hold each other accountable. He wanted players to call out a teammate if they failed to provide help defense, to yell at a teammate who doesn’t pass to a wide-open shooter, to get on a guy for poor effort.
The next morning, before the team’s game against the Clippers, Billups showed the Blazers the interaction between Payton, Hield and Schröder.
“This is what it looks like,” Billups told his team. “This is how it is supposed to be … this is it.”
He then went around the room.
“Ant, will you be mad at (Ayton) if he gets on your a– because you didn’t play defense?” Billups asked Simons.
No.
“What about you, Jerami?” Billups asked Grant.
No.
He went around the room and asked each player if they could handle being called out by a teammate. With everyone on board, acknowledging that criticism from a teammate was for the betterment of the team and not a personal attack, the players crept out of their comfort zone.
Camara said it was an important moment in the season because it broadened the team’s voice. Previously, all the critiques were coming from Billups. Now, the feedback had a different wavelength.
“In the NBA, there are a lot of grown-ups, people who make a lot of money, so feelings and guys’ own agendas can get in the way,” Camara said. “So I think it was an important thing for Coach to come in and say, ‘Are you going to let guys keep you accountable?’ I think it’s a big thing for respect. It balances the team.”
Camara said the blunt feedback started in film sessions and has carried over to the court.
“On the court, our communication has been way higher,” Camara said. “We were lacking leadership and communication, and everybody took a step up.”
For the past two weeks, Billups has repeatedly brought up the team’s improved communication as a foundation for the uptick in play. What he didn’t mention is the spirit and tone of the communication: For once, the policing and accountability are coming from the players.
“That was what I was referring to when I say they’ve been talking — they are challenging each other,” Billups said. “They might get into it a little bit, and that’s good. In fact, it’s beautiful. That is a big change for us.”
Henderson said he attributes the group meeting as the turning point of the season.
“We had another kind of meeting, where all of us said we are cool being held accountable — and it was all of us,” he said. “We were asked, one by one, and we said yes one by one. When someone says something, we are going to be OK with holding each other (accountable). After that, everything clicked for everybody.”
Since the winning stretch started with a 113-102 win over Chicago on Jan. 19, the Blazers lead the NBA in opponents’ points per game and rank second in the NBA in defensive rating, net rating and opponent field-goal percentage. During the streak, the Blazers have beaten Phoenix twice, Orlando twice, Milwaukee, Miami, Chicago and Charlotte. The only loss was at home to Oklahoma City in a game that was within six points with two minutes left.
In three weeks, Billups held four meetings, all sessions that either challenged, shook and/or changed a young team.
Of note, however, is one meeting that hasn’t taken place: a meeting about his future.
A trend that has grown this season is Billups getting booed in pregame introductions. And loudly … enough that he hears it.
A section of Blazers fans because of sexual assault allegations from a 1997 incident. No criminal charges were brought, and Billups settled a civil lawsuit with the woman.
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He is 103-194 in four seasons in Portland while largely guiding a franchise that valued better lottery odds over winning. As the franchise sidelined players like Grant, Simons, Jusuf Nurkić, and Damian Lillard, Billups was forced to use players like Jeenathan Williams, Jamaree Bouyea, Ashton Hagans, Cameron McGriff, Ibou Badji and Taze Moore.
“I’ve done the best job I can with what I’ve been given,” Billups said. “And I don’t make excuses. I don’t do it. For the people who think I’ve been underperforming … that’s their opinion.”
His contract expires in June, and the team holds an option for next season. But Blazers ownership has not addressed his future, according to Billups’ agent, Andy Miller.
“I have not had any discussion with them regarding his option and possible extension,” Miller said. “We are completely confident with his development and body of work as a coach. He is well-respected league-wide as both coach and a leader.”
On Tuesday, Blazers general manager Joe Cronin declined to comment on Billups’ status.
Billups says he wants to come back next season.
“Of course. I’ve put in a lot of work here, taken a lot of losses here,” Billups said. “But you know, any time as a coach when you walk into a lame-duck year, you are thinking ohhhhhh boy. But I haven’t let that enter my head because I have to be so present for my dudes. I’ve done so much, and I’ve seen these guys take these steps, so of course I would like to see it through. But it’s not my choice.”
So he focuses on his team, careful not to look too far ahead or even allow himself to think about the Play-In (Portland is four games behind Phoenix, Golden State, Dallas and Sacramento for the last play-in spot). All the while, he keeps his finger on the pulse of the team, ready to call a meeting if someone or something goes sideways.
“I hear people talking about (the Play-In Tournament), but for me, I just keep my head down, keep looking for these short-term goals,” Billups said. “Just try to get better and better, and we will see what happens when it’s that time.”
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(Photo of Chauncey Billups and Scoot Henderson: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
