Comeuppance

In the 45 seasons that I've followed the Trail Blazers, their general managers have been more bad than good. But it wasn't until recently that I paid much attention to their current head of basketball operations, Neil Olshey. Now I put him in the bad column.

He popped up on the radar screen when it was announced a few months ago that he was hiring Chauncey Billups to be the team's new head coach. Billups had a checkered past in his personal life, and he has precious little coaching experience. To make matters worse, when the media asked about past rape accusations against Billups, Olshey blew them off, saying he had conducted some sort of "investigation," and that would have to be that. Checking around, the press concluded that it wasn't much of an inquest.

At a press conference introducing Billups, Olshey had a signal with his chief media lackey that when Olshey drank out of his bottled water, the underling was to change the subject and cut off further questioning about the alleged rape incident. And when they did it, it was so obvious as to be pitiful.

Meanwhile, the greatest player to put on a Blazer uniform in decades, Damian Lillard, has left no doubt that he wants better talent around him, so that he can bring a league championship home to Portland's faithful fans. But Olshey has left no doubt that that isn't going to happen. "The problem is not the roster," he huffed, essentially flipping Lillard the middle finger.

It isn't surprising that many Blazer fans would like to see Olshey fired. But that would be a decision for the team's owner, Jody Allen, who inherited the Blazers from her eccentric brother and doesn't seem particularly well-versed in the in's and out's of running an NBA team.

Be that as it may, in the last day or two, the Olshey haters have spied a glimmer of hope. Ms. Allen has hired a big-bucks L.A. law firm, O'Melveny & Myers, to investigate charges that Olshey is a vicious tyrant to work for. It mght even be a real investigation, and not the wink-wink kind of inquiry that allegedly happened before Billups showed up in Portland. According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, employees' allegations depict "a 10-year toxic hostile work environment of intimidation, public profanity-laced tirades, mental anguish, among other bullying tactics."

Olshey, 56, was hired by the franchise in 2012. Over his decade as the top basketball decision-maker, multiple employees assert they have had multiple grievances with his treatment of staff in the workplace, sources said.

Furthermore, several staff members raised concerns with the organization’s alleged “mishandling” of the situation when video coordinator Zach Cooper died in April 2020, sources said.

It doesn't take a human resources specialist to look at Olshey and realize that you'd never want to work for a guy like that. But has he done anything fire-able? I guess we're going to find out. Maybe Ms. Allen was as disappointed as many others were about the hiring of Billups, and she's looking to install better blood at the helm before, inevitably, she sells the team. O'Melveny could help her draft the pink slip for Sweetheart Neil.