{"id":738988,"date":"2026-05-20T04:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/738988\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:06:24","slug":"how-tom-dundon-could-poison-the-well-of-the-portland-trail-blazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/738988\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tom Dundon Could Poison The Well Of The Portland Trail Blazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/p>\n

Tom Dundon has owned the Portland Trail Blazers for less than a month, and has already upended the organization. (Photo by Soobum Im\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tom Dundon has owned the Portland Trail Blazers for less than two months. Without clearly showing why penny pinching moves will translate into luring the best talent to a small market, he risks alienating not just fans, but free agents on the court and off.<\/p>\n

Dundon and his group of investors purchased the Blazers for a reported $4.25 billion. Accumulating his wealth through subprime car loans and accused of predatory lending<\/a>, Dundon is a break from two prior cornerstone ownership groups of the Blazers in Harry Glickman and Paul Allen. Where both wanted their touches on the club, neither decided that going bargain-basement shopping was the best route to do business.<\/p>\n

Dundon has been framed as \u201ccheap\u201d due to cost-cutting measures. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said that Dundon \u201cknows what he\u2019s doing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are starting to say he\u2019s not willing to spend the money,\u201d Silver said. \u201cYou gotta remember, this is a guy who just won a bidding war, call it $4.5 billion to buy a team, and they\u2019re calling him cheap. It just can\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frugal or unconventional might be the kindest way to describe Dundon. <\/p>\n

There were several events during the postseason that were not entirely Dundon\u2019s fault that played into his \u201ccheap\u201d narrative, not all of which were entirely his fault. There was limited travel for support staff; the team and staff was notified the night before arriving in Phoenix that they had to check out of hotel early forcing them to hang in a in a ballroom; stopped offering free T-shirts to fans, although they is not entirely on Dundon. That was notably in the playoffs when other teams normally do, and; excluded two-way players from traveling with the team during the playoffs. Although on the latter, Dundon said he \u201cmade a mistake\u201d<\/a> saying he did so based on what he knows about the NHL, which ignores picking up the phone and asking the league how these things function in the NBA.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like he\u2019s gone down this route before. When he purchased the Carolina Hurricanes, he notably let the radio broadcast team go<\/a>, which featured Hall of Fame and long-time radio announcer Chuck Kaiton, in favor of airing a simulcast of the TV broadcast audio in 2018 when Kaiton wouldn\u2019t take an 80% pay cut to stay with the team. One would hope Dundon wouldn\u2019t attempt that in Portland, but if so, there\u2019s the precedent. <\/p>\n

Dundon is a man focused on the hustle. He expects his staff to hustle as he does. As a Sports Business Journal feature story outlined<\/a>, Dundon learned to like money from an early age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to have money if I didn\u2019t have it,\u201d Dundon recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s always been enjoyable to me to figure out how to make money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the changes in Portland, he blown off his detractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hurricanes, since I bought the team, have the first or second-best record in the league,\u201d Dundon said to the Oregonian<\/a>. \u201cSo, 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

There have been other owners across the pro sports landscape who have gone in and tossed over the tables. Notably, Jim Crane after he purchased the Houston Astros. Crane made it clear that ripping the roster down to the axels and investing more in analytics was something he saw would lead to success and mirrored his efforts around how the St. Louis Cardinals functioned. He was lambasted for the moves but ultimately proved wise given the Astros incredible run.<\/p>\n

Dundon will say his track record with the Hurricanes will show he can do the same with the Blazers. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s more likely he poisons the well if his methods permeate his entire ownership tenure. <\/p>\n

The penny pinching doesn\u2019t exactly translate with the NBA, a players\u2019 league and one where market size to elevate brand is difficult in Portland. Damian Lillard proved it could be done, but luring free agents to a small market with the cuts that affect players\u2019 quality time with the club make it difficult as a destination. <\/p>\n

To add, it\u2019s been rumored that Dundon is going to go on the cheap for a new head coach, offering in the neighborhood of $1.5 million a year, which would rank at the bottom of the league\u2019s head coach pay scale. Add that as one more reason for key player talent to avoid Portland.<\/p>\n

And there are changes raising eyebrows with the Blazers\u2019 fanbase, one of the most loyal in the league. On Tuesday, as many as 70 employees on the business side were laid off, including digital reporter Casey Holdahl.<\/p>\n

Tom Dundon has owned the Portland Trail Blazers for less than a month, and has already upended the organization. (Photo by Soobum Im\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThese changes impacted talented people who have helped shape the Trail Blazers over many years,\u201d Dewayne Hankins, Portland Trail Blazers President of Business Operations, said in a statement. \u201cWe are deeply grateful for their contributions, their leadership and the care they showed every day for our team, our fans and the Portland community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dundon can say that the Blazers have bloat, but if the high number of layoffs in the front office is true, you\u2019re moving well past cutting fat and into bone compared to other NBA organizations.<\/p>\n

And that leads to a core problem: who wants to work in a front office under those conditions, and how does that translate to the fan experience? As Dundon has shown during the playoffs, maybe the fan experience isn\u2019t a priority.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a rocket scientist to see what Dundon\u2019s game plan is, even if he\u2019s been poor at communicating it the right way to fans who don\u2019t follow what he\u2019s done with the Hurricanes: winning cures everything.<\/p>\n

In the near term, that means trades. Or maybe it\u2019s not just the near term, but the overall way of roster building. <\/p>\n

Rumors have circulated that a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo favors the Blazers given draft picks out of the Damian Lillard trade for 2028-30, and the fact that Giannis has played with Lillard and Jrue Holiday. If that were pulled off, it would mark a significant early prize for Dundon and prove to the fans that all the penny pinching is easy to push aside if it doesn\u2019t affect improving the team. But, it\u2019s not a given that a star of Antetokounmpo\u2019s caliber is headed to Portland, and more than one sees the chances as a dark horse.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s a duality playing out with Dundon. He\u2019ll point to the success of the Hurricanes and say that the track record and methods have proven their worth. The other is thinking that just because something works in the NHL doesn\u2019t mean that it works in the NBA, and burning down the house and fanbase along the way isn\u2019t the greatest way to start off. After all, the Blazers have been spoiled with incredible ownership for over 50 years, even if the fans maybe didn\u2019t know it at the time. <\/p>\n

The problem is, will Dundon push away talent, both on and off the court? The well isn\u2019t poisoned\u2026 yet. After all, he\u2019s only had less than 60 days to upend the Blazers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Dundon has owned the Portland Trail Blazers for less than a month, and has already upended the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[2214,7,91296,601,91294,9639,6,687,471,3967,39242,91295,1617],"class_list":["post-738988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-adam-silver","tag-basketball","tag-blazer-owner-is-cheap","tag-blazers","tag-blazers-layoffs","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo-trade-rumors","tag-nba","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-tom-dundon","tag-tom-dundon-controversy-wit-the-blazers","tag-trail-blazers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116604933458691688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738988","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=738988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}