LOS ANGELES \u2014 Tom Dundon\u2019s first day as owner of the Portland Trail Blazers came with a simple message to his players: The standard is changing.<\/p>\n
In a short meeting with his team inside Intuit Dome before Tuesday\u2019s game against the LA Clippers, Dundon told his players he appreciates what they do, but he expects more.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, where we are isn\u2019t where I think we can be,\u201d Dundon told the team.<\/p>\n
Dundon, who also owns the NHL\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes, is known as a demanding and calculated owner who relies on analytics and gut feeling. Since taking over in Carolina, the Hurricanes have made the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons and made the Eastern Conference final three times. This season, Carolina is tied for first in the East.<\/p>\n
Dundon takes over a franchise that hasn\u2019t made the playoffs since 2021 and has had dwindling attendance since a rebuild started in 2022.<\/p>\n
In the minutes before the Blazers tipped off against the Clippers, Dundon gave an exclusive interview to The Athletic, touching on his vision for the franchise, the unease of employees fearing for their jobs, and the future of the Blazers in Portland amid their quest to secure public funding for $600 million in renovations to the Moda Center.<\/p>\n
Here is a portion of Tuesday\u2019s Q&A with Dundon.<\/p>\n
Note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n
Describe your first day \u2026<\/p>\n
Today was more just seeing what their process is on game day and meeting a bunch of people. I don\u2019t know that we did anything super useful other than kind of absorb the information and just try to find the places where there\u2019s the opportunity to get better, right? You\u2019ve got to see how they do it today before you have an opinion about what ideas we can bring up to see if they want to consider things that could give us an advantage in the future.<\/p>\n
What was your message to the team?<\/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
How do you do that?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how to explain it because it just is. Like, I can\u2019t accept it any other way. You know? For me, it\u2019s not a choice. It\u2019s like, whatever we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re trying to do better, and you just keep going and going. I\u2019m just obsessed with trying to find a way to get better. I can\u2019t handle losing. I can\u2019t handle thinking something could be done better. And if you get all the players and the coaches and the staff, everybody thinking that way \u2026 you should get better.<\/p>\n
And I think the organization the last couple years has been in a different place than they are now, where now it\u2019s starting to build. Now we\u2019ve got to get past those old habits that maybe weren\u2019t as focused on the best outcome. So, pushing people past what they think is possible, and then doing it again and again and again. I don\u2019t know, I just \u2026 I just do it.<\/p>\n
I think there is a general unease among employees, worrying you are going to come in and make sweeping changes.<\/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
But I want people thinking about the future and not worrying about what I\u2019m gonna do. They need to worry about what they\u2019re gonna do. But I don\u2019t like getting rid of people. I like to see who\u2019s capable of taking that next step. So, I\u2019m not looking to get rid of people. I\u2019m looking to get better.<\/p>\n
Still, you will have a couple of high-profile decisions to make at head coach (interim coach Tiago Splitter) and general manager (Joe Cronin). How soon will you come to those decisions?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know. Like, I\u2019d need to acquire information. It would be hard for me to have an opinion about anything other than the level of intensity that I want. I have expectations that are probably higher than most people are used to. And so I think that\u2019s where I\u2019m starting with, is getting through to everybody what I like, what my expectations are, and then you gotta see if people can match that. And that\u2019ll tell you more than me just guessing who can or can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Some people are fearful you will move the team out of Portland. Can you offer any assurances that you won\u2019t?<\/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
Why won\u2019t you put any money into the arena?<\/p>\n
Well, so the way the arena deal will work is we are going to commit to be here for a long term (20 years), and that commitment\u2019s worth way more than anything else anybody\u2019s gonna do. And so \u2026<\/p>\n
Twenty years is pretty standard, though.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think so in terms of the market.<\/p>\n
So you think 20 years is enough currency, so to speak?<\/p>\n
Twenty years? That\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n
Historically, other owners have committed years and put in money \u2026<\/p>\n
In Portland?<\/p>\n
Is there a message you want to deliver to fans?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m more like we just gotta do it, so you don\u2019t really have to tell stories. You should be able to notice, the team improves, and things get better. Hopefully, we\u2019ll get people in and out of the arena faster. The food\u2019s better. The experience is better. And when you go, we win more, and you can see the difference in the product and how we play.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I\u2019m supposed to promise people this or that because I can\u2019t predict the future. I just know that the expectation should be high across the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Tom Dundon\u2019s first day as owner of the Portland Trail Blazers came with a simple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,555,4,20967],"class_list":{"0":"post-534271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hurricanes","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-portland-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116328176366825030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}