Blazers owner accused of unusual cost-cutting move…
You just spent $4.25 billion to buy an NBA franchise, what do you do?
If you’re Tom Dundon, apparently, you start to cut prices.
At least that is reportedly what the new Trail Blazers owner is doing, which is rubbing some the mistaken method, following a collection of experiences that included one on Sunday that Portland’s two-way gamers had been being left at home during the playoffs in what’s believed to be a cost-cutting measure.
The report from the Rose Garden Report urged that the workforce’s resolution not to deliver Caleb Love, Chris Youngblood and Jayson Kent to San Antonio for the first two video games of their first-round collection against the Spurs was one made in order to keep prices down.
The Blazers dropped Game 1 of the collection, 111-98, on Sunday night time.
Tom Dundon speaks during the Rip City Rising Press Conference on April 2, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images
“This is well outside of standard practice in the NBA. All seven other road teams on the first weekend this year’s playoffs brought their two-way players to the games even though they can’t play, sources close to those teams confirmed. They may be stuck in street clothes, but they’re still being treated like they’re part of their teams,” Sean Highkin wrote at Rose Garden Report.
Dundon has come under scrutiny over his perceived penny-pinching methods since the league accepted the sale of the workforce to him at the end of March.
The Blazers dropped Game 1 of the collection to the Spurs on April 19, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images
Last week, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated reported that during a current journey to Phoenix, the Trail Blazers had some of their workforce staffers take a look at of their rooms by midday, hours before any workforce buses began departing for the world, in order to keep away from having to pay for late check-out occasions.
On Friday, Trail Blazers president Dewayne Hankins went on local news and said that there could be no shirts given out to followers as a giveaway when their playoff collection with the Spurs shifts back to Portland.
The look compelled Blazers co-owner Sheel Tyle to go on social media later that day to defend the workforce and said that “we are doing something else.”
“Moda will be rocking for Game 3 & 4,” he also wrote.
Trail Blazers new owner Tom Dundon, proper is seated before an NBA basketball sport against the New Orleans Pelicans, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Portland, Ore. AP
On a grander scale, the Trail Blazers, under Dundon’s stewardship, appear to be trying to pay no larger than $1.5 million per yr for their next head coach and the workforce has already spoken with at least 20 school and worldwide coaches, NBA insider Jake Fischer reported over the weekend.
Tiago Splitter served as the workforce’s interim head coach this season after Chauncey Billups was arrested days into the season over an alleged poker-rigging scandal.
While Dundon, who also owns the Hurricanes of the NHL, might reverse course, it seems that the start of his possession in Portland is off to a stilted start.
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