Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon pushed back against criticism that he is running the team on the cheap, saying he’ll pay extra for a winning roster.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Speaking publicly for the first time since his introductory press conference in April, Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon used a podcast to address a wave of reports and commentary about his allegedly “cheap” methods and practices just weeks into his tenure.
Speaking on the Game Over podcast with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul, Dundon said he is willing to pay luxury tax penalties to build a competitive Blazers roster.
This story continues below.
“I want to run the business properly, but I want to win more than I want to make money,” Dundon said. “That seems kind of obvious if you’re in this business, right? Winning’s the only reason you do it. Why would you buy a team? I hope we’re in a position where going in the (luxury) tax means we have a chance to win. And if we have a chance to win, the tax is irrelevant.”
Dundon’s early weeks running the Blazers have drawn some media and community scrutiny.
Among the controversial decisions: not sending a team photographer or digital media staff to road postseason games, declining to provide hotel late checkouts for staff before a play-in game, and forgoing playoff T-shirt giveaways in favor of towels.
On the podcast, Dundon offered an apology for one decision in particular: leaving the team’s two-way players — Caleb Love, Chris Youngblood, and Jayson Kent — at home for the opening weekend of the playoffs.
The Blazers were the only team in their first-round series not to bring those players on the road, according to reporting from Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report. Though two-way players are ineligible for postseason games, teams typically bring them along for developmental and team-building purposes, as they contributed to the team’s success in the regular season.
Dundon said he simply hadn’t understood the league norm, called it a mistake, and corrected it for the ensuing series against the San Antonio Spurs.
He brushed off the hotel checkout incident as a straightforward effort to avoid unnecessary fees for staff members, saying they checked out at 1 p.m. before a team-provided lunch at 1:45 p.m.
He also acknowledged the towels over t-shirts decision as a lesson in fan preferences — saying that in his NHL experience fans love waving the towels, but it appears basketball fans prefer shirts.
Minor details, like printing documents on both sides of the paper instead of just one, serve as small and seemingly inconsequential decisions, Dundon said, but they’re representative of a team environment that he wants to create.
“All this other stuff — I think about being efficient,” Dundon said. “You know, like I’m worried about parking spaces and getting in and out of lines. All I think about is our fans want to come in and how do I get them in quicker?”
Dundon also addressed concerns that he could look to relocate the franchise if ongoing negotiations with the City of Portland over Moda Center renovations — which the team wants fully publicly funded — do not go his way. He drew a parallel to his experience purchasing the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.
“When I bought the Hurricanes, all I heard was — because I was from Texas — we were going to move the team to Houston,” Dundon said. “Moving the team is difficult. We didn’t move the Hurricanes. We ended up getting a deal done.
“And we went through the same thing in Portland. Before I even bought the team, I had an agreement with the city and the state. They’ve already approved half of it. Assuming that all gets done, then this is a non-story. So, for me, it’s never been really a thing. You didn’t buy the team to move it. We bought the Portland Trail Blazers.”
He said he’s looking forward to completing an arena upgrade.
“Today, the problem we’re trying to solve is just to get a lease extension and get the building renovated and, those are fun things to do, right?” Dundon said. “Making the building better and adding some energy to that building, those are things I enjoy doing.”
One major decision looming over the franchise is the head coaching search. Some reports have suggested Dundon’s group has explored hiring a coach at a salary well below league norms, a claim a team source has disputed.
On the podcast, Dundon pointed to his 2018 hire of head coach Rod Brind’Amour for the Hurricanes — a coach still in charge who Dundon called the best in the league — as evidence of his ability to identify quality leadership. The Hurricanes are currently in the Conference Finals, having gone undefeated through two rounds of the NHL playoffs.
How Dundon ultimately handles the coaching hire, along with broader basketball operations decisions this offseason, will go a long way toward answering questions about what kind of owner he intends to be in Portland.