{"id":692573,"date":"2026-04-01T20:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692573\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:49:13","slug":"tom-dundon-tries-to-spark-trail-blazers-on-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692573\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Dundon Tries to Spark Trail Blazers on Day One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday March 31st, 2026, marked the beginning of Tom Dundon\u2019s reign as the governor of the Portland Trail Blazers. Attending Portland\u2019s 114-104 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, Dundon gave an interview to Jason Quick of The Athletic<\/a>. Quick, a long-time Portland media member, queried the new owner on his first day, his plans for employees and staff, and keeping the Trail Blazers in Portland.<\/p>\n

One of the most intriguing responses from Dundon came when Quick asked him about his opening message to the locker room. Dundon provided electricity, focusing on his own motivational role as owner:<\/p>\n

It was very short, and it was just, one, I appreciate what they do. They\u2019re the product. They made it to the NBA, so it\u2019s very impressive. But right now, where we are isn\u2019t where I think we can be. And it\u2019s more about maybe increasing the standards, increasing the commitment to excellence, increasing the intensity \u2014 things that I think everybody says, things everybody wants to do. Now, doing it and expecting to do it and every day getting better \u2026 that is not a debate with me. \u2026 It is going to happen. It always happens when I show up. And we\u2019re gonna do it. I think they want it, too.<\/p>\n

This spirit continued through questions about Dundon\u2019s approach to winning and losing, also to employees of the organization and whether they should be worried about their jobs:<\/p>\n

I mean, everybody who\u2019s not thinking like that every day \u2014 like, regardless if there\u2019s new ownership, if you don\u2019t wake up fighting for your job, fighting for your spot, then that mindset is probably not very good anyway. So if it takes this for people to think like that, then that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

When asked specifically, Dundon said he needed to gather more data and observe the approaches of Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin and Head Coach Tiago Splitter before making a decision on their continued tenures with the franchise.<\/p>\n

The interview then moved to the broader subjects of the Blazers remaining in Portland and playing in the aging Moda Center. When asked about his insistence on a publicly-funded arena renovation, Dundon indicated to Quick that he felt a 20-year commitment to remain in town was enough contribution from the team\u2019s side to justify the project. But when the topic came to the Blazers moving out of town, Quick quotes Dundon saying:<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t spent any time on that. (Team president) Dewayne (Hankins) and the team have spent all their time trying to figure out how to renovate Moda Center. Anything that people write or say, it\u2019s just made up, because nobody has spent any time on that. I fully expect to get everything we\u2019re working on done. That\u2019s all we can really do is work on that.<\/p>\n

The interview is a must-read, probably the fullest and least-editorialized depiction of Portland\u2019s new owner in his first week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday March 31st, 2026, marked the beginning of Tom Dundon\u2019s reign as the governor of the Portland Trail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,37660],"class_list":{"0":"post-692573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}