{"id":736366,"date":"2026-05-17T01:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/736366\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T01:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:45:16","slug":"trail-blazers-owner-addresses-accusations-of-cheapness-other-topics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/736366\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers Owner Addresses Accusations Of Cheapness, Other Topics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Dundon\u2019s reputation for being cheap<\/a> has become a punchline throughout the NBA since he took over as owner of the Trail Blazers in late March, so it was bound to be a topic when he appeared on the Game Over podcast<\/a> with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul. Dundon, who also owns the NHL\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes, told the hosts that he has a track record of being willing to spend to make that franchise successful, Joe Freeman of The Oregonian<\/a>\u00a0relays in a subscriber-only story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t want to waste money. I want to invest it,\u201d Dundon said. \u201cI\u2019ll have many masseuses. I\u2019ll have the best food. We\u2019re going to take care of the players, because it helps you win. It\u2019s part of the deal. Some of the stuff about how we\u2019re going to run the business; Portland spends $100MM more a year on their business than the Hurricanes do, not including players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hurricanes, since I bought the team, have the first or second-best record in the league. So, I\u2019m just not going to waste $100MM, just because somebody wants to write an article calling me cheap. I\u2019m just not going to do it. And so, it\u2019s hard because I don\u2019t think about a budget when it comes to the playing team and how to make sure we win. Some of the stuff that was blamed on money is actually not 100% true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the stories painting Dundon as cheap was a report<\/a> in April that he didn\u2019t have two-way players\u00a0Caleb Love<\/a>,\u00a0Chris Youngblood<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jayson Kent<\/a> travel with the team for the first two games of a playoff series in San Antonio. Dundon called that decision a result of being new to the league, saying he didn\u2019t realize that bringing those players is common practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just made a mistake. I just don\u2019t understand the league,\u201d he said. \u201cIn hockey, we don\u2019t travel extra people, because we\u2019re not on vacation. We\u2019re here to win, so we don\u2019t want a distraction. The NBA seems to live with those distractions. It\u2019s not how I think about it. So, you\u2019ve got to learn what\u2019s the differences between the two leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman passes on several more Dundon quotes from the interview:<\/p>\n

On reports that he had staffers check out of their Phoenix hotel rooms early to avoid paying for an extra day:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hotel story with the staff is an interesting story, I think, because, normally, when you travel, you get late checkout, right? In this case, in sports, it\u2019s usually like 5% and never comes up. Because it was last-minute \u2014 going to Phoenix, there was no hotels \u2014 I guess Phoenix in March is a pretty popular place. So, I had trouble getting hotels. And the hotel really wanted us to be out early because they needed the rooms. And so, they wanted us to pay for a second night. And so, we did that for the coaches and the players. But we got (them) to let us leave at 1 o\u2019clock. And I had a room at the hotel. I was there. So, I\u2019m like, lunch starts at 1:45. We have a huge ballroom with this really nice lunch for everybody. So, I said, \u2018Look, we\u2019ll do the players and the coaches. We\u2019ll stay. We\u2019ll pay the extra night. For the staff, we\u2019ve got this big ballroom with food. We\u2019ll go down there and work.\u2019 And everyone was down there. I was down there. I actually learned a lot during that hour, because I got to talk to some of the training staff, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would do it again. I think it\u2019s actually pretty stupid to think that people who are there to work, who are being fed, and 45 minutes later \u2014 they weren\u2019t in the lobby \u2014 they brought their bags down in the room right by where the bus was, right next to my bag. And we sat down there and talked. And if that\u2019s too hard for people, I\u2019m not right for them. I want that culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

On whether he\u2019s willing to pay the luxury tax to build a winning team:<\/p>\n

\u201c(General manager) Joe (Cronin) called me \u2014 and I don\u2019t even know if it was allowed \u2014 he called me at the trade deadline. Technically we didn\u2019t own the team yet, (but) he had a deal \u2014 actually two different deals \u2014 but one in particular where we would have gone into the tax. And it would have been whatever, $20 million. I was fine with it. I want to run the business properly. But I want to win more than I want to make money. And that seems kind of obvious if you\u2019re in this business, right? Winning is the only reason you do it. Why would you buy a team?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, obviously \u2026 a lot comes with staying in that tax in the NBA, right? They\u2019ve made the rules in a way that it\u2019s complicated. But to go in strategically because you can pick up a young player or have a chance to win \u2026 we would definitely do it. And I\u2019ve got to think most people would. I don\u2019t know many owners that wouldn\u2019t do that. I don\u2019t think we operate any differently. I hope we\u2019re \u2026 in a position where going in the tax means we have a chance to win. And if we have a chance to win, the tax is irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

On rumors that the Blazers might leave Portland:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I bought the Hurricanes, all I heard \u2014 because I was from Texas \u2014 we were going to move the team to Houston. Moving a team is difficult. We didn\u2019t move the Hurricanes. We ended up getting a deal done. We went through the same thing in Portland. Before I even bought the team, I had an agreement with the city and the state. We had an agreement in principle. They\u2019ve already approved half of it. Assuming that all gets done, then this is a non-story. For me, it\u2019s never been really a thing. We didn\u2019t buy the team to move it. We bought the Portland Trail Blazers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Dundon\u2019s reputation for being cheap has become a punchline throughout the NBA since he took over as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,11691,26001,83223,6,687,471,3967,564,39242,1617],"class_list":["post-736366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-basketball","tag-blazers","tag-caleb-love","tag-chris-youngblood","tag-jayson-kent","tag-nba","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-rich-paul","tag-tom-dundon","tag-trail-blazers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116587392308422591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736366","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=736366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}