{"id":1912037,"date":"2026-05-01T04:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T01:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1912037"},"modified":"2026-05-01T04:22:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T01:22:44","slug":"trail-blazers-gm-decision-to-not-allow-two-way-contract-players-to-travel-is-on-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1912037","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers\u2019 GM: Decision to not allow two-way contract players to travel is \u2018on me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin took the blame for the team\u2019s controversial decision not to allow its players on two-way contracts to travel with the rest of the team for its first two road games of a first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one\u2019s on me,\u201d Cronin told reporters Thursday. \u201cIt was more of a miscommunication on my end.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Speaking at an end-of-season news conference, Cronin said he did not double-check to ensure the traveling party for the first two games of the series would include Caleb Love, Chris Youngblood and Jayson Kent, the team\u2019s three players with that contract designation. They did make the trip<\/a> to San Antonio for Game 5, when the Spurs closed the series out with a 114-95 win.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about doing some traveling party reductions. Next year, we\u2019ll run a little lighter,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cI just assumed that meant including them and I didn\u2019t double-check. And we fixed that mistake, we brought those guys to San Antonio. That was on me for not communicating properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

While players on \u201ctwo-way\u201d contracts \u2014 which allow them to spend a maximum of 50 days on the active NBA roster during the season \u2014 are not eligible to participate in the playoffs, the Trail Blazers were the only team to exclude them from traveling to road games. Their absences received close examination amid multiple reports, including by The Athletic, <\/em>of new owner Tom Dundon enacting cost-cutting measures at every possible corner since the NBA Board of Governors finalized his purchase of the franchise in late March.<\/p>\n

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According to The Athletic\u2019s<\/em> Jason Quick<\/a>, those measures included not offering free T-shirts to fans in Portland for the team\u2019s two home playoff games and requiring team staffers to check out early from their hotel in Phoenix before the team\u2019s Play-In Tournament victory over the Phoenix Suns to avoid late fees.<\/p>\n

Cronin did refute reports that Dundon has been seeking a coaching candidate<\/a> willing to accept an annual salary in the range of $1 to $1.5 million per year, well below market standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the reports on budget out there were a little misleading,\u201d Cronin said Thursday. \u201cI have talked to Tom a lot about this. We\u2019re going to pay the coach based on some sort of level of shared risk. If it\u2019s a first-time coach who comes with a lot of risk and doesn\u2019t have a market that we have to necessarily compete in, it\u2019ll be one number. If the coach we\u2019re talking to is a 15-year vet and a future Hall of Famer, it\u2019s going to be a completely different number.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd Tom isn\u2019t going to flinch at either of those scenarios. We\u2019re going to be very open-minded to what types of people we interview and would potentially bring in. And I\u2019m not concerned about the number at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A team source told Quick last week that the widely reported salary figure for the coaching search is \u201cjust not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiago Splitter took over as interim head coach in October after Chauncey Billups was arrested as part of a federal investigation into illegal gambling activities.\u00a0In Billups\u2019 absence, Splitter coached the Trail Blazers to a 42-40 record and the franchise\u2019s first playoff berth since 2021.<\/p>\n

While Splitter remains a candidate for the full-time job, the franchise opened its search before the season ended, a practice that is frowned upon league-wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of disrespect (toward Splitter) that\u2019s going on is beyond description,\u201d a league source told Quick. \u201cIt\u2019s like, every day, a new name is coming up. It\u2019s the most vicious thing I\u2019ve encountered in 30-plus years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin took the blame for the team\u2019s controversial decision not to allow its players on two-way contracts to travel with the rest of the team for its first two road games of a first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs. \u201cThat one\u2019s on me,\u201d Cronin told reporters Thursday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1912037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1912037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1912037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1912037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1912037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}