Trail Blazers News: Chauncey Billups Now Odds-On Favorite To Be Next Coach Fired

According to Bet Online, third-year Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups has emerged as the odds-on favorite (+200) to be the next head coach canned, following the recent in-season firings of former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin and now-ex-Brooklyn Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn.

Billups boasts a brutal 75-143 cumulative coaching record across the better part of three seasons in the Rose Garden. The flip side of that equation is that, during his first two seasons, with Portland ostensibly (laughably) thinking it could win, Billups was undermined by former team president Neil Olshey’s horrible roster-building around All-Star point guard Damian Lillard. Now, with Lillard having been shipped off the Milwaukee Bucks by new GM Joe Cronin, the Blazers are nakedly tanking.

It’s hard to totally blame Billups for the team’s record, but his uncertain lineups (he can’t seem to commit to starting or benching No. 3 draft pick Scoot Henderson) and ineffective in-game scheming (outside of one impressive win three weeks ago over Lillard’s new team) do him no favors.

Billups is followed closely by Charlotte Hornets head coach Steve Clifford, who has +250 odds to be fired for the second time by the Hornets. Lakers head coach Darvin Ham has also been given +250 odds to be let go, in the midst of his second season with the franchise. Ham’s LA squad is 30-26 and has won six of its last seven contests, but amidst weirdly shifting starting lineups the club struggled to regain the form that led it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last spring. The team seems to have stabilized with a new first five of point guard D’Angelo Russell, shooting guard Austin Reaves, forwards LeBron James and Rui Hachimura, and center Anthony Davis.