{"id":827596,"date":"2026-07-27T19:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827596\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T19:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:58:13","slug":"blazers-owner-tom-dundons-taste-in-players-questioned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827596\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers\u2019 Owner Tom Dundon\u2019s Taste in Players Questioned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Most of the headlines surrounding new Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon have involved continued wrangling over funding for the Moda Center, the arena in which the Trail Blazers play. But an interesting tidbit hit the news this weekend. NBA media member Chris Mannix and former Trail Blazers wing Evan Turner discussed Dundon and the Blazers on SI\u2019s Open Floor NBA Show. The relevant clip is <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/eN0RCBlutPU?si=NlLQjLKuRxFfYz6w\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">available on YouTube here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In the discussion, Mannix drops an anecdote in which Dundon inquired about former NBA big Christian Wood, who played for eight different teams in an eight-year career. Only once did he remain with a franchise for more than one season, spending two years with the Houston Rockets between 2020-2022. Other than that, be proved to be a stat-producing nomad, generally providing points, sometimes rebounds, but never winning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Mannix\u2019s story has Dundon inquiring about Wood, who hasn\u2019t played since 2024:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">He has some wild ideas. Somebody told me recently that he was asking some personnel about why Christian Wood was no longer in the NBA. Because he looks at the numbers that Christian Wood has put up and sees like a guy that could potentially, you know, in Dallas he was like nearly a double-double guy. He will give you numbers, but the reality is as you and I both know, Christian Wood has just proven to be not a winning player. That is the kind of stuff where you need people in your front office that kind of tell you like, nah, that ain\u2019t it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Turner retorts with an explanation of analytics in the NBA, suggesting that numbers are \u201ccute\u201d but reality tells a different story. (As an aside, he also describes his former home of Portland thusly: \u201cIt\u2019s beer drinkers with flannels, and that\u2019s just the girls.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Asking about players is smart. Dundon could be lauded for his curiosity. But one wonders what lies behind that \u201cwild ideas\u201d comment lurking at the front of Mannix\u2019s explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most of the headlines surrounding new Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon have involved continued wrangling over funding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,47884,590,85],"class_list":["post-827596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blazers-news","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}