Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole
By 
When Blazers fans asked me last year what I thought about Tom Dundon buying the Blazers, I told them what any NHL fan would — he’s a skinflint asshole, but unlike most owners of that type he built a genuinely top-shelf hockey ops staff, combining cutting-edge analytics with more intangible skills. Obviously the Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup has reinforced the latter point. (Greg Wyshynski’s story about the jock-nerd alliance behind the win is superbly done.) It also entailed the risk that Dundon would be convinced that he won because of his worst tendencies rather than in spite of them.
His initial months with the Blazers won’t allay those fears:
Under new owner Tom Dundon, the Portland Trail Blazers have been under a microscope on several fronts. Beyond the contentious battle for public funding to upgrade the Moda Center, he’s taken a chainsaw to the club’s staff. Earlier this year, the Portland Trail Blazers made significant cuts to the front office, laying off 70 employees to cut expenses. Now, Blazers Broadcasting is getting the axe, either through layoffs or contracts not being renewed.
After 19 seasons with the Blazers broadcast team, TV analyst Michael Holton has been let go, as well as statistician Tom Haberstroh, former ESPN legend and Blazers’ TV host Neil Everett, and TV host Jamie Hudson. Several other broadcasters’ contracts have lapsed, with deep pay cuts being expected in some places.
On Weds, TV play-by-play man Kevin Calabro announced he would not accept a pay cut to return to the Blazers.
The cuts move beyond on-air talent.
The TV production crew has also been reduced. As of now, the Blazers are without a Producer after Greg Fonseca left the Blazers to take a job with NBA Broadcasting. Graphics will reportedly be reduced, all of which could affect the quality of broadcasts.
Needless to say, there’s no legitimate business reason to treat these employees or the team’s fans like this, he’s just being a dick because he can.
I suppose it was inevitable that contrarian defenses would spring up, and this is unconvincing in its entirety. But I can’t get beyond this amazing analysis:
While you will frequently hear players rave about the coaches they work with individually or the help they are getting on the health side, it would also be reasonable to conclude that players are going to put their own salaries, opportunities and chances to win above those relative luxuries — unless, of course, they conclude that the luxuries help with their priorities.
That is where this line of thinking could get really interesting. In the NFL, teams such as the Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals have reputations for skimping on frills. While neither of those teams has been a model of success, the Bengals were in the Super Bowl in 2022, while both have gone through the regular ups and downs that most teams go through in a league that has cultivated competitive parity.
What the hell are you talking about, man? The Cardinals are one of the worst organizations in North American pro sports, and the Bengals aren’t a lot better. This century, the Cards have been an abysmal 175-244-2, and their only Super Bowl run was with a below-average team that got one last fluky playoff run out of a quarterback on the verge of retirement. The Bengals did make it to the Super Bowl after backing into Joe Burrow, and have been pissing away his prime ever since. And before that they went 31 years without winning a playoff game. These are your models? And, conversely, if you look at the most successful teams, they’re generally not nickel-and-dime operations that shortchange their staff and fire popular broadcasters at random.
Obviously, if Dundon can do on the basketball ops side in Portland what he did in Raleigh, Blazers fans will live with third-tier play-by-play guys. I but I wouldn’t be particularly inclined to bet on that happening again, and if the team does succeed it certainly won’t be because he does this shit.