Tom Dundon's Cheapness is the Talk of the NBA

Let's talk about everybody's favorite story, which is the Portland Trail Blazers.

Not spending any money.

This story has spiraled out of control after I first reported during the play-in game between the Suns and the Trail Blazers that Portland staff was told to check out of their hotel, not early but on time.

Uh, because ownership led by Tom Dundon did not want to pay for the late checkout.

That has been followed by subsequent reporting.

Sean Haiken over at the Rose Garden report, he reported that the Blazers did not take their two-way guys with them.

To San Antonio for the first round.

Bill Orum up at the Oregonians does some reporting on this.

He said that, and this has been in the water supply a little bit other places too, that Dundon was not looking to spend more than around a million dollars on the next head coach of the Trail Blazers.

There's a lot of stuff out there now, Rachel, that I, I can't say because I don't have it nailed down, but it's there.

A lot of little nickel and diming things that are happening behind the scenes.

We know the fans aren't getting t-shirts, right?

The no t-shirts the playoff t-shirts.

I know that sounds dumb, but like fans actually, that stuff matters to them.

That's why teams do it.

Also, it creates an environment in the arena because people put them on and then you get these like great color blocking and stuff in the arena.

Um, what were some of the other things we know already that he's not going to do?

Um, there was another one besides, oh, the mascot.

He's cut one of the mascots.

Yeah, that was he hadn't done that yet, but I guess that's something they're reportedly discussing, reportedly discussing is that there were two mascots.

There's only gonna be one's getting the and that whatever, um, you know, and this, of course, is spar.

I can't wait till next week when I, I, I'm gonna have some of the stuff nailed down next week.

Some of the stuff that I've been hearing about is like insane level.

Cheapery, like it's insane stinginess.

I mean, like that doesn't make any sense.

Doesn't really save a lot of money as far as I can tell.

No, I mean the jokes last night, by the way, after they won, that's the thing.

They pulled up said take a bus back to, well, right, that's the one.

That's the one is like, oh, we don't know who's gonna, gonna be there for game three.

Is Wendy coming back for Game three and are the Trail Blazers going to make it because it's a 1800.

Mile Greyhound bus ride and I would bus 800 miles, right?

So I mean, that's the thing.

They, they have this incredible comeback win, and I know it was against a depleted Spurs team, but literally a lot of the chatter after that win was poking fun at the team for how they're going to get back to Portland.

Are the players going to get charged for the Gatorade that they are drinking on the podium?

I mean, it, it's just, I.

Here's what I know, and I covered the NHL some too.

So I have seen what he has done with the Carolina Hurricanes, and I've seen that team thrive.

Hockey players are different from basketball players.

The rhythm of the NHL is different from the rhythm of the NBA.

I'm not sure it's not going to come back to bite him in the NHL eventually either, by the way, but I don't think that you can kind of get away with this long term and sign free agents.

I, I just don't see it at all.

Who's just from the last week of reporting, Going to want to go there.

And then I saw a report today about Tiago Splitter being pretty frustrated that his job is being interviewed for, even though, or discussed, even though he's clearly definitely being discussed and interviewed for and interviewed for, even though he's gotten this team.

I, I'm not sure that people would have called Portland doing what they've done this season.

And not after the Chauncey stuff, right, and sort of, you know, really gotten the trust of his players and the idea that, and they won game 2, they won, they're 1-1 with the Spurs.

That's what I mean.

And that, you know, that, that at the best this owner would be lowball, way lowballing a coach that has proved himself in difficult circumstances who has an NBA pedigree.

And at worst, being like, uh, whatever, you're disposable, and I'm going to throw you out for the first cheap guy I run into.

I just think that people in the NBA talk about this stuff in a way that doesn't quite happen in the NHL and that free agency, which is such a big part of team building in the NBA still, I can't imagine wanting to go there.

If you're a player and you've heard just the last week of stuff, would you want to sign there this summer?

Not if you have better options.

Any other options?

It's, it's, look, when they, when you reported about the staff being left, I, I just want to explain you how fast that got around the league.

Like I was getting text messages from people that had nothing to do with the Blazers off the top, being like, Have you heard the late checkout story, right?

I mean, well, yeah, I mean, the fact that these guys, first of all, in a lot of cities, they don't even get into the hotel so if it's a back to back, they don't get into the hotel until 12, we had, uh, who was it, the Lakers got into their Miami hotel at 4 in the morning toward the end of the regular season.

And then had a game that night in the Trailblazers world, those staff members, trainers, masseuses, people who actually have jobs to do, would then be told, oh, it's 4 in the morning, we're getting in, but by the way, you have to be out of your hotel room by in some hotels, 11:00 a.m. And by the, there were also players who were looking to get their pregame massages.

And the masseuse apparently was like, yeah, I've been tossed out of my room.

I can't give it to you.

It's just, it's a bonkers way to run a team when you are a billionaire.

So they're.

Two reactions that I've gotten from different people about this.

One is that from people around Tom Dunton that know him, they consistently say to me, he does not give a flying bleep.

Like this stuff is obviously getting out there.

He knows it's getting out there.

He's not really bothered by it.

Like this is how he runs his team.

This is how he runs his businesses.

The Carolina Hurricanes, which he owns, as you mentioned.

Uh, have been as run as cost efficient as it's possible to run a professional uh franchise.

He gets to Carolina and one of the first things that he does is he marries the radio and TV broadcast together.

So the TV broadcast becomes the radio broadcast, which is weird because, as you know, TV doesn't sound like radio, especially in hockey, where there's a lot of, a lot to describe out there.

The other thing I've been hearing from NBA Times, which has surprised me.

Like the NBA is basically telling me like, let him grow into this.

Like, don't, don't overreact.

Let him grow into this .

I think they really like this guy because he's coming in with experience owning a major league franchise.

And not a lot of owners do that.

Usually it's, now it's a private equity guy.

It's somebody from a, you know, a different walk of, of life.

This guy's coming in with what, 89 years of running the NHL's Hurricanes.

You can quibble with what he did.

But that team in the last 3 years has been to the conference finals.

This year, they finished with the 2nd best record in the NHL.

So there's, he, there's a level of success.

He's achieving something.

He hasn't won a cup yet, but he's achieving something out there.

So the NBA, they've been telling me like, just, he'll figure it out.

He, he'll, he'll figure out that you can't nickel and dime your, uh, support staff.

You can't keep your two-way players and save $5000 by not taking them on the road.

All the things that we've been reporting on, he'll, he'll, they've seen them saying he'll figure that out.

Look, maybe he will because as I said, I do not think this model will work in the NBA.

So he'll figure it out one way or another.

You know, this could be another case of we always call it new owner syndrome where Matt Ishbia rolls in, he went the other way, right?

But it didn't work.

And then, yes, he figured it out.

I mean, that was a really surprisingly competitive team that got, you know, fielded this year.

So, yes.

These guys do figure it out.

We've seen ownership that has stumbled in the first couple of years, and then, you know, sort of reforms their ways.

This could be one of those cases.

It's just such an own goal to me, because I just think about the average NHL salary is versus an NBA salary.

Think about where these NHL players are coming from versus where the NBA players are coming from, the endorsement money that NBA players have, so they're just used to living a richer lifestyle in general.

Like.

You know, you heard LeBron James say the other day, I don't want to go to Memphis anymore because the hotel's not nice enough.

Same thing in Milwaukee.

He's like, I don't want to, what do you say?

He's, I don't want to get the hotel brand wrong.

Is it a Hyatt?

He was like, I don't want, he's like, I don't want to stay at a Hyatt.

Like.

Hyatt's getting straight.

Like now you have a guy who's been, can't, you know , a player who can't go get his pregame physical body work done because the massage guy has been thrown out of his room.

I don't think he's gonna sit very well.

Whereas, you know, I covered the NHL for a while and like still dip in and cover it not time to time.

Those guys are a lot more like, OK, they're accommodating.

NBA players are not accommodating.

Somebody made, somebody made this comment to me that it's kind of how Michael Jordan ran the Bobcats when he took over as majority owner, because Mike, and that it's, it's different because Michael comes in, he sees all the perks that all these guys are getting.

He's like, I didn't get that.

I didn't need that.

You don't need any of this stuff.

You get, take the bus, you get car service here or there.

You don't need all these bells and whistles that go in with being, come with being a modern NBA player.

Michael eventually came on board with all that .

You have to if you're gonna run.

An NBA team and the hope is, the hope is that Dundon comes along, but one problem is players and how players respond to it.

That's big.

It's the biggest thing.

But when you are running a small market NBA team.

If you want to get the best and the brightest to work on your staffs in PR, marketing, everything that goes in building out a team, scouting, all those things, you have to, there's a tax that goes into that.

Like if you're asking a guy to live and work in Oklahoma City, no disrespect to Oklahoma City, or San Antonio, or Portland, Cleveland, another example, uh, you have got to give them perks.

You've got to pay them well, you've got to treat them well.

You've got to make them want to be.

In a market that is less desirable than other markets they may want to work in.

Now, I love Portland.

I'm sure you love Portland.

I love the wineries in Portland .

Shout out to my friends up in Winderley.

Used to be run by a couple of Boston College people .

Great winery out there.

Um, but like I really enjoy going to Portland.

It's, it's, it's great.

I love it, but it's a small market type of place.

The weather kind of sucks like during the basketball season.

So there's, there's a tax built in.

So if you're nickel and diming.

You know, support staff.

If you're nickel and diming, and I think another anecdote that came out was none of the, the content people were traveling with the team.

Like if you, why, why would someone want to go and work there?

Especially if they have another place that they can go to work.

So that's a big part of it.

Like if you want to get real people working on these staffs, top-level people, you gotta pay them well, you gotta.

Treat them well, and right now that doesn't seem like the direction that he's going with this franchise.

Well, that's where the league office to me.

I, I unders again, they've seen this movie before, maybe not in this particular way, but you and I have seen it so many times.

Like how many times does a guy walk into owning an NBA team and say, oh, nobody else knows what they're doing.

I'm going to show you how an NBA team should really be run and.

Shockingly, within a few years, they have changed their tune.

So I understand the NBA office being like, let, let's just wait and see.

But long term, if this really is his long term strategy, I'm worried if I'm in the NBA office because you're going to kill a market that right now has a very loyal fan base.

You're about to open up a team in Seattle.

You're going to have people, you know, who sort of have.

Sonic's Love, who sort of transmuted to Portland when the Sonics weren't there and now we're tempted to go back or are going back .

I, I just think that market needs special attention as opposed to the opposite right now .

I think that the fans in Portland should consider themselves lucky that the NBA is expanding to Seattle and that they are expanding to Vegas because based on how he's operating this team, if this guy didn't get every nickel from the city and state to remodel, the Motor Center, he'd be looking somewhere else.

I don't know where he'd be looking right now, where he would, What makes sense beyond Seattle and Las Vegas.

Maybe he's thinking Kansas City or some of these other markets.

I don't know.

But I think it's, you got to breathe a sigh of relief that those markets are accounted for right now in expansion talks.

Otherwise, I'd be a little bit nervous that if this guy doesn't get exactly what he wants when it comes to the renovation to the Motor Center.

He's asking for $600 million.

It's a lot of money there.

It's look, it's one of those stories that like just gains traction because of how dumb it is.

Like all these little things that we're not talking like what does a late checkout actually cost?

I think it's the Camby Hotel in Phoenix that they were staying.

What does the late checkout actually cost for like 40 people?

Like what does it cost?

$500,000 1,000,000 dollars?

I don't know.

This, this goes back to a discussion we had when they passed expansion as opposed to relocation.

This is a discussion we're having around the country with various politicians of both stripes.

How much money do rich people really need?

You're talking about a billionaire.

a billion dollars is not just a little bit more than several, you know, a couple $100 million.

It is so much more money that this guy's grandkids, grandkids, grandkids will still be excessively wealthy.

And I just don't understand what it is about, because it's not actual money.

Like he's not, he, he'll never notice it in the bank account.

I mean, it's like a rounding error.

So is it scorekeeping?

Is it I know better than everybody else, whatever it is, like taking away money from people who are coaches, scouts, hotel rooms, etc.

etc.

because you just need more.

I find that it's just incredibly off-putting, and it's happening, of course, all over the country in a million different ways.

But how much more money do these guys need?

It's like they're getting what, half a billion dollars off these expansion fees each, and many of them are already multiple, multiple billionaires times over.

It's not good for the health of the league.

What's better for the health of the league is relocating a couple teams to Seattle and Las Vegas, but they want their money.

And it's just how much money do these guys need?

I'm gonna just keep asking the question.

Now I'm asking it in Portland.

Yeah, it's gonna be asked for a while.

This, um, Another dynamic is this young minority owner they have Shield tile, uh, big Portland guy, loves the city, sat alongside Dundon.

I'm gonna use this phrase again, Meat Shield, because that's what it feels like.

Shield tile is becoming like he's out there having to explain every cost-cutting move like he was the first one to go like, no, no, no t-shirts.

We're gonna have something though, and I'm dying to see what.

I'm, I'm assuming it's a towel of some kind.

Um.

He's, which like, aren't those more expensive than t-shirts?

He's having to go out there and they're not high quality t-shirts that get given away at NBA games, but like every time, and this, this is on this, he's only owned the team for a couple of weeks, every time Tom Dundon and his ownership does something cost cutting, I feel like Shield Tile is gonna be out there like explaining it away, like having to be the public face of all this.

It was.

It's just, it's just incredible.

It's a story, it's the story that it's, I, I'm fascinated by it because, I'm telling you, after I first reported that part of it, people were reaching out to me about everything.

I have heard so many different stories about little things, dumb, dumb things.

You look at it and like, wait a minute, how much could that possibly.

Save.

I don't get it anyway.

Coaching is a huge ingredient into whether your team does well or not.

A huge ingredient.

And to lowball coaches like this is just beyond me.

I mean, that's what I mean about the NBA.

If this guy doesn't grow out of it, should be really concerned because you are going to trash that market.

If you don't have competent coaches there, if you can't attract free agents, if you have crappy or limited or minimal scouting because he doesn't want to pay for it.

Oh, we don't need people transferring.

Around Europe, you know, blah blah blah blah blah, like I, I just, that team is going to get run into the ground quickly, and that is the concern that I would have.

Like he almost has to keep Tiago Splitter now because he won that game against the Spurs.

I, I would have done it to do it anyway, but like I don't think he feels he has to do anything.

He, he doesn't have to do anything.

But by the way, is Tiago Splitter gonna want to stay there, not for less than $4 million.

They're gonna, I have heard $4 million is the number that they've got to get to to keep Tiago Splitter, which.

By NBA head coaching standards is not a big number.

Mike Malone's got $8 million to coach at UNC, and he probably would have made like $10 million as an NBA head coach, like a first-time head coach who's had the degree of success Tiago Splitters had $4 million.

Let's see if he, and what have you heard that they want to pay a coach?

$1.5 million something like that.

That, that's a big gulf to narrow, big gulf.

But again, maybe he, maybe the NBA guys I've talked to are right.

Maybe he grows into this job, realize you got to spend a little bit, and This is all becomes a footnote later on.