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Tom Dundon’s Stanley Cup honeymoon might be short-lived.
On Sunday, the Hurricanes won their first Stanley Cup since 2006 and first under Dundon, who bought the team for $420 million in 2018. But the Hurricanes’ title run put a hold on the coaching search for the Trail Blazers, which Dundon paid $4.24 billion for in March in the first part of a multi-tiered transaction.
With just a week before the NBA draft, Dundon has to work quickly to make his first big hire as the team’s owner. On Monday, ESPN reported that the Bulls hired Tiago Splitter as their next head coach, taking one reported finalist off Portland’s list.
Splitter had no NBA head coaching experience prior to this season, but became the Trail Blazers’ interim coach after Chauncey Billups was arrested in October as part of a federal gambling probe. Splitter, an NBA veteran who won the 2014 title with the Spurs, led Portland to the playoffs despite the circumstances.
Longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein reported on Monday that Splitter was one of three finalists in Portland, along with Minnesota assistant Micah Nori and Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook.
For months, Dundon has drawn criticism for his handling of the Trail Blazers’ coaching search. After taking over the team in March, he was reportedly calling candidates during the season, even though Splitter was still coaching. It was also alleged that he was trying to hire a coach for roughly $1.5 million per season, which is considered the price for a high-end assistant coach.
In late April, Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin confirmed Dundon’s wishes that he wanted a full coaching search conducted instead of simply removing the interim tag off of Splitter.
“The current status is, Tiago is a candidate for the position,” Cronin said. “But we’re also looking around at other candidates. We decided early on we were going to cast a wide net and get to know a lot of different coaches and analyze and evaluate them in relation to Tiago.”
Dundon also faced criticism for having team staff check out of hotels early during the playoffs, not letting two-way players travel in the postseason, and for laying off dozens of longtime team employees in mid-May. On May 15, Dundon appeared on Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul and admitted to the two-way players and hotel actions, but didn’t address the coaching search specifically. He did, however, respond to the notion of being considered cheap.
“I want to run the business properly, but I want to win more than I want to make money,” Dundon said. “That seems kind of obvious if you’re in this business, right? Winning’s the only reason you do it. I’m just not gonna waste $100 million just because someone wants to write an article calling me cheap. I’m just not going to do it… Like on traveling players, I just made a mistake. I just don’t understand the league.”
