3 coach replacements if the Trail Blazers decide to fire Chauncey Billups

Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups does not have an easy job — being the leader of a rebuilding team in the NBA is a near-impossible position to succeed in. Your bosses are actively attempting to lose games but still expect you to develop the players on the roster and get buy-in from a team that expects to get blown out every night.

With that being said ... it's probably time for Portland plan for life after Billups, who is entering his fourth season as Blazers head coach, all of which have finished well below .500. This season likely won't be different, as Portland is prioritizing growth for its young players like Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson. That's a nice way of saying they're tanking — hard. Adding Deni Avdija and rookie Donovan Clingan are both nice moves, but won't change the fortunes of this year's Blazers too drastically.

If the Blazers decide that Billups is no longer their guy, there are plenty of options on the coaching free-agent market who could fill in nicely with the Blazers' young roster.

James Borrego

There are zero good reasons why James Borrego is not being an NBA head coach right now. During his three rebuilding years in Charlotte (the franchise decided to rebuild after his first season), he improved the Hornets' winning percentage from .354 to .458 to .524 ... and then he got fired. His dismissal was one of the more egregious coach firings in recent NBA history, and though he quickly found a position on a coaching staff — he's currently the associate head coach of the Pelicans — he hasn't gotten another shot at being a team's head coach.

Portland would be a perfect landing spot for Borrego; in Charlotte, he developed a young point guard into an All-Star and would have the chance to do the same in Portland with Scoot Henderson. He also became known as a pretty smart offensive coach, something Portland needs desperately after finishing with the second-worst offensive rating in the NBA last season. There is limited offensive talent on this roster, and a new coach wouldn't come in and turn these guys into the 2017 Warriors, but a new set of eyes on this roster could be a saving grace for a team that's entering an important time for many of its player's development.

Micah Nori

It's a good sign when a team feels confident in its chances to win after its head coach has to leave the game with an injury. That doesn't happen often (or really, ever) but it did to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2024 Playoffs when head coach Chris Finch was forced to leave the sideline because Mike Conley accidentally ran into him and injured his knee. Micah Nori stepped in and did an admirable job running the Wolves while Finch recovered from surgery.

Nori has never been a head coach in the NBA, but he's been an assistant for well over a decade, and if a coach sticks around that long, they clearly know the ins and outs of the coaching world even if they've never gotten a shot to coach a team of their own. In fact, Nori recently got some love in the annual NBA GM survey, where he tied for first place for "best assistant coach in the NBA."

Sam Cassell

The coach that Nori tied with in the NBA GM survey? Sam Cassell!

The idea of a "winning culture" might be overplayed at this point, but still, hiring an assistant coach from a team that just won the NBA Finals sounds like a good idea. Cassell is an assistant on the Celtics and also won three titles as a player in a highly successful career that spanned 16 seasons. So Cassell has been part of winning teams as a player and assistant coach; he's an NBA lifer who deserves a shot at a team of his own.

Blazers fans might have bad memories of hiring a former NBA point guard to coach their team; this hire might feel a little too similar to the Billups hire, but the similarities between the two end there; Billups had exactly one year of coaching experience when the Blazers tabbed him as their coach, while Cassell has been on NBA sidelines since 2009.