Casey Holdahl: The Blazers lost the tiebreaker to the Hornets –both finished with 21-61 records, tied for third-worst — which means Charlotte has a 13.3 percent chance of getting the top pick while Portland has a 13.2 percent chance ..read more

Adrian Wojnarowski: Steve Hetzel will be joining Jordi Fernandez’s new Brooklyn Nets coaching staff as an assistant, sources tell ESPN. Hetzel spent the past three seasons in Portland with Chauncey Billups after stops under Steve Clifford with Orlando and Charlotte ..read more

Sean Highkin: Taze Moore, who played this season for the Rip City Remix and had a 10-day with the Blazers plus an end-of-season hardship deal, just signed with the Vancouver Bandits of the Canadian Elite Basketball League ..read more

What are some funny or wild travel stories with the Lakers? Austin Reaves: The craziest one to me was when we were in Portland, and it was 20 or 30 minutes before we were leaving to go to the game, and the fire alarm started to go off. Fire alarms occasionally go off. They come over the intercom, and they turn them off quickly, but these kept going off. I was like, I didn’t want to be stuck in a burning building, so I got down the stairs and walked out. Everybody else in the building was going out, too. We went out the front, and our bus was leaving from the back from where our meal room was a ..read more

Was there ever a time when you got in trouble with your wife because of your job? “(In 2012,) I was a beat writer covering the Portland Trailblazers and one of my childhood friends was getting married. At this time, Nicolas Batum was a restricted free agent. He was trying to get to Minnesota. His agent, Bouna Ndiayem, who happens to be the agent for Victor Wembanyama, gave me a call and wanted to go on record. This is ten minutes before the wedding is about to start. I’m not in the wedding, but I have a second-row seat. Ndiaye says that he was basically trying to force his way to Minnesota. ‘W ..read more

To show for all of that, Billups has a career 81-165 coaching record. He said in no uncertain terms at his end-of-season press conference on Monday that he’s ready for that to change. He called this year’s 21-61 finish the “toughest” season of his career and admitted that he was being “a little unrealistic” when he came into this season thinking he could have the post-Lillard version of the rebuilding Blazers competing for the postseason while also developing Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe. “I thought, because we’ve got some really good pieces on this team, we brought back some real winnin ..read more

Billups knows all of this. He isn’t running from it. “In this business, I always feel like you’re trying to prove what you can do and what kind of coach you can be,” he said Monday when he was asked directly about his contract status and job security. “I’ve always felt that way and I feel no different going into next year. I’m looking forward to that opportunity to be able to prove how good I can be. In this league and any league in the professional ranks, you’re always coaching for your job. It’s a part of the business. But that doesn’t scare me. I’m not worried about it. I’ll be fine. I’m lo ..read more

Aaron J. Fentress: Blazers GM Joe Cronin on coach Chauncey Billups’ value to the organization: “Chauncey is an incredible leader in this organization,” Cronin said. “He goes above and beyond what a standard coach does. He helps me with staffing. He’s a part of all of our high-end staffing interviews. We spend a lot of time talking about our different departments throughout this organization and how we can make them better. He’s really active with feedback and ideas, and just looking at ways that we can improve. He’s an incredible teacher. Not just with our players and their development and tea ..read more

Sean Highkin: Joe Cronin confirms that Chauncey Billups will be back as head coach next season ..read more

Sean Highkin: Joe Cronin: “We’re not good enough yet. We don’t have enough talent. We need to continue adding to our talent base ..read more