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  "path": "/new-blazers-owner-tom-dundon-not-exactly-inspiring-confidence",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-18T14:57:58.000Z",
  "site": "https://defector.com",
  "tags": [
    "NBA",
    "owners",
    "portland trail blazers",
    "tom dundon",
    "putting the screws to the budget",
    "getting lowballed already",
    "reportedly a candidate"
  ],
  "textContent": "Tom Dundon readily admits his parsimony. I guess no one ever got turbo-rich by being profligate, but few billionaires brag so much about how they pick up pennies from the ground or turn off unused room lights. He claims he does not display this behavior when it comes to putting the sports teams he owns in position to win. This is a questionable assertion.\n\nAs the owner of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, his philosophies manifested in offering league-low salaries for GM and head coach. That coach, Rod Brind’Amour, was initially making less than many _assistant_ coaches around the league. Many successes and one extension later, Brind’Amour got a raise that kept him in the bottom half-dozen coach salaries. Now on his second extension and in his eighth straight postseason, he's somewhere in the middle of the pack, salarywise—all he had to do was put together the league's most consistently successful team for Dundon to pay him like a normal coach. The Hurricanes' victories are entirely due to their canny front office and uniquely coached systems, and one suspects that the lesson Dundon has taken from striking gold while mining for tin is that he is a genius, and that everyone else is overpaying for talent.\n\nWhen Dundon finalized his purchase of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers earlier this spring, he almost immediately started putting the screws to the budget. He is reportedly offering well below market rate for a head coach. Interim coach Tiago Splitter, who did a fab job since taking over unexpectedly in October, is reportedly getting lowballed already. Jared Dudley, architect of the Nuggets' disastrous defense, is reportedly a candidate, presumably because he'd come cheap; he surely won't have other suitors.",
  "title": "New Blazers Owner Tom Dundon Not Exactly Inspiring Confidence"
}