Chauncey Billups Discusses Starters, Preseason, Wednesday’s Game Versus Warriors

How you looking tomorrow, Shanty? I’m not sure yet. Um, my thing in in the preseason, I’ll just kind of rotate this guy starting one night, this guy coming off, like I’ll just kind of rotate several of the guys. Uh, so I’m not I’m not really sure yet, but want to kind of get through today and everything. But yeah, I just rotate it all. Um, you know, no reason to read into anything, man. You know, I’m just kind of looking at different rotations, looking at how it’s going. And uh right now all the guys are playing great. Compet the competition is hot. I mean it’s hot, man. They all hooping. So yeah, we’ll see. But everybody reads into everything about everything. That’s on y’all. That’s on y’all. Y’all go ahead. Have fun. No, I’m telling y’all. It’s not worth reading into, but y’all can do what y’all got to do. Generally speaking, will you kind of experiment with lineup combinations, both starting and and rotational? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I’m going to be trying to find a This will be a little different for me how we’re going to play this year because I’ll I’ll play more guys this year based on how we want to play. I’ve always historically been kind of like an nine guys in the rotation type of thing. It’ll be different this year. It’ll be 10. It’ll be 11 sometimes. So, uh yeah, I’ll be tinkering with a lot of those type of things. So, you envision different starting lineups in all four games? Probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Uh, you know, do you have a minutes idea for the starters or some of your vets anyway? Um, not really. I mean, I won’t overplay these guys. We only have four games. Um, I know for sure I won’t play Drew in the second half of at least the first game, you know, but everybody’s I’m not resting anybody. I’ll rest them in the game, you know, in terms of minutes because we don’t we don’t we just got four games, man. It’s it’s good to have these little dress rehearsals, you know. It’s lots to gain from it. How much importance do you put on these dress rehearsals in the preseason? Um, not nothing crazy. Mhm. But it’s just different than us scrimmaging out here against another team that got different concepts and principles and they’re going to guard this way and they’re going to play some zone. they’re going to do, you know. So, I love to do it, you know, um just to have some film on it, just to have some some things that I know we need to probably touch on more or work on a little more playing against type of team like Warriors, what what’s your expectation like, hey, I want the team to do that, especially on the defense end. Is there any Play hard, be physical, man. Be physical, be aggressive, do what we always do. I mean, the Warriors is they’re a a good team to play against at this time of the year, but it’s also the most difficult team because they play away and they have a culture and all the off, you know, off uh off the- ball cutting and all the DHL, you know, they’re they’re they’re the best in the league at it, the best in the world, been doing it 10 plus years. So, it’s tough to play against a team that that that knows all of those things, but it’s also you get a lot of education playing that way against them. So, I’m glad we get a chance to play against him twice in the preseason with um with the evaluation of somebody uh his effort and his performance and the defense and keep up on the pace. Is that something that you evaluate that you want to put somebody on the court or not? Sure. Sure. I mean, I’m I’m evaluating everything, you know. Um, and I evaluate different things than what the public evaluates. The public usually evaluate points and rebounds and scoring and he was three for three for three and this and there. There’s so many different games within the game that as a coach you evaluate, you know, to make sure guys are doing it the right way. I know the assignments. I know the responsibilities. usually the fans don’t, you know. So, I I’m evaluating a lot of different things um that most don’t even know about. Take me back a few years to Chanty the player in the preseason. How did How did he feel about preseason games? I loved it. I loved I did, man. I loved it. I loved it. I um as a older player, like well, you know, my young years, we had eight preseason games, but as I got a little older, it became six. Yeah. And um yeah, I usually played five of the six maybe, you know, um not crazy minutes, but again, I was also a guy that like to practice, but um is that just to get a feel of your teammates? Yeah. And and me too, you know. Uh I’m trying to really rev myself up too out there and get to see play against other people. Training camp is the monotony of it is difficult, you know. So to be able to actually have a real game, it excited me, you know, it really did. So yeah, I I I was I was perfectly fine with it. You talk about that monotony, too. Like does does the team kind of fall into habits during training camp like when they’re scrimmaging because it seems like kind of some of the same lineup sometimes. So I’m guessing for the players as well, like you want to see them against somebody else because they become accustomed to playing against the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I I I can tell you for sure that they they they they’re looking forward to just not beating up on each other, you know, for the next couple days. Um cuz today we we got after it again and you know, you you you start to see that that they’re antsy, you know. Um so it’s just time. It’s just time.

Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups takes questions from the media after practice on October 7, 2025

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11 comments

  5. If he starts Grant over Sharpe, I’m f-ing done with Billups and Cronin. Damn near there already.

    They are more concerned with not looking like idiots for signing Grant to the worst contract in the league and having him coming off the bench than they are with winning.

  7. He’ll probably use different staring lineups in most, if not all, of the four preseason games. As NBA coaches do. So my advice to the Shae freaks out there is not to hurt yourselves until the real season starts, at least.

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