a 114-104 win over the LA Clippers<\/a> that brought Portland to within a half-game of LA for eighth place in the Western Conference. Before the game, he gave a short address to the team, telling them the standard would be raised and a commitment to excellence would be expected.\u00a0<\/p>\nSure, it was probably a coincidence that the Blazers played their best game of the season, but there was something about the spirit in which they played that penetrated the 54-year-old owner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really appreciate when I see that kind of effort,\u2019\u2019 Dundon said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all I want. We lose, and it looks like that, I\u2019ll be happy \u2026 so I think that\u2019s the reason I felt that way.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
I present this scene because it shows a side of Dundon that is in direct contrast to my initial encounter with him before the game, when he was an almost robotic wrecking ball of confidence, devoid of any emotional depth. He was intense, conceited and had some dismissive tones about Portland.<\/p>\n
Then on Thursday, during a 30-minute introductory news conference in Portland, Dundon again presented a conflicting image. He was charming. Relaxed. Engaging. He was, dare I say \u2026 likable?\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, he was also evasive about sticky questions regarding his insistence on getting public funding to improve the Moda Center. His track record shows he will fight to get what he wants, and in Portland, he wants $600 million of our money to help enhance his playground. A playground, mind you, that he doesn\u2019t want to pay rent on, or be penalized for if he picks up his ball and takes the franchise elsewhere.<\/p>\n
His tone borders on telling Portlanders and Oregonians that we should be thankful he bought the Blazers. He said if he receives the $600 million from state and local governments, he will sign a 20-year lease.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that commitment\u2019s worth way more than anything else anybody\u2019s gonna do,\u2019\u2019 he told me in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In every other NBA city where the public owns the building, the team pays rent. And no other NBA team has a shorter lease than 20 years. Dundon told me earlier this week he thought 20 years with this market was enough currency to bring to the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I countered that historically, NBA owners brought some form of monetary commitment to their arena renovations, as well as lease commitments longer than 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Portland?\u2019\u2019 Dundon said.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s the rub. Dundon can be amazing for the Blazers\u2019 culture. He is clearly driven. He disdains anything ordinary. It\u2019s win or be replaced. His guiding philosophy in team building is \u201cour job is to find somebody better than you. Your job is to make sure that person doesn\u2019t exist.\u2019\u2019 The Blazers have been lacking in this kind of intensity and expectation. Heck, Cronin was hired without the team interviewing another candidate! How is that a model of excellence?<\/p>\n
Yet, while I embrace Dundon\u2019s competitive spirit and dogged pursuit of excellence, as a Portlander and an Oregonian, I remain wary.<\/p>\n
He has had multiple chances to tell us that he intends to keep the Blazers in Portland \u2026 and he won\u2019t. He has had multiple chances to assure us that his insistence on the $600 million in funding is not a situation he is holding the franchise\u2019s future hostage \u2026 and he won\u2019t. And he has had multiple opportunities to be a partner with us in this venture \u2026 to pay rent on the arena, to pay some of the construction, to put some \u2014 any \u2014 of his money to the improvements \u2026 and he won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why I asked him Thursday why he won\u2019t put his own skin in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has ever told me I didn\u2019t have skin in the game before,\u2019\u2019 Dundon said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know each other very well. Look, we\u2019re going to negotiate and do a larger deal, and they should do a deal \u2014 the people who represent the city and county, your tax dollars \u2014 that is great for them. And I\u2019m going to try and do the same for the Trail Blazers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to get a market deal and be fully committed to it, but the form and structure of that? There is a lot of work to do to figure out what that is.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s fitting that he has taken over the Trail Blazers in the most capricious of weather months in Portland.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
One minute, it is sunshine: he vows to pursue superstar players, and promises that money will first be funneled to upgrade the roster. And he is fixated on the fan experience, like exploring ways to better traffic flow leaving games and the quality of concessions.<\/p>\n
However, the next minute, it\u2019s chilling rain: I\u2019ve never gotten the sense he cares one iota about Portland, the city. He said he bought the Blazers because it was the only NBA team for sale. This comes across as a transaction, an object to generate profit or loss. The good news is he has some checks and balances in the form of team\u2019s Alternate Governors: Sheel Tyle, who lives in the Portland area<\/a>, and Andrew Cherng, who owns Panda Express, will have a voice. Tyle says he loves Portland and will fight for it; Cherng is Chinese and knows the NBA popularity in China, and said he is intrigued by the Blazers\u2019 Chinese rookie center Yang Hansen.<\/p>\nSo as I envision the Blazers\u2019 future, I don\u2019t know whether to put on sunscreen or grab an umbrella. Thursday \u2014 and the locker-room scene Tuesday \u2014 at least showed that he is more human than machine. I asked him whether he cared if he was liked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the list of things I care about, it\u2019s lower,\u2019\u2019 Dundon said. \u201cBut, yeah. I think anybody who says they don\u2019t care what people think isn\u2019t telling the truth, right? But I think I care more about my character than my reputation. I know what I do every day, and I want to win and achieve things without hurting anybody. There\u2019s nothing about me that doesn\u2019t want to do the right thing.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
It brought me back to the first day I met Dundon, in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He spent much of his time before the game with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. They met in an enclosed room for 45 minutes, then Ballmer escorted him to the Clippers locker room for a tour. Later, I asked Dundon if he gleaned anything from Ballmer. He said his biggest takeaway was Ballmer\u2019s humanity and kindness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always impressed by people in his position in the world, and how they still treat people the way he treated me and the others in our group,\u2019\u2019 Dundon said. \u201cHe was just a genuinely nice person.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
His acknowledgement of grace and kindness gave me hope there is something greater in Dundon than a win-at-all-costs bully. And his emotion in the Blazers locker room gives me hope that he sees the people who work for him as more than just cogs.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m hoping for sunny days ahead. But I\u2019m going to keep my umbrella handy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. \u2014 After his first game as owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, Tom Dundon stood in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-695913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695913","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=695913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}