With the new boss moving in, can the Trail Blazers make changes?

At the beginning of the offseason, team operators Jody Allen and Paul Allen Foundation jointly issued a statement that the Trail Blazers will look for new buyers in the new season. Originally, I thought the transaction would take some time, but unexpectedly, ESPN recently announced that the Trail Blazers had found a new buyer: the new operator is a team led by Tom Dundon, with the team priced at more than US$4 billion. Although the price is different from well-known teams such as the Lakers and Celtics, it is much higher than the previous estimate of Forbes's 3.5 billion US dollars. The current operating rights of the Trail Blazers were bought by his deceased former boss Paul Allen in 1988 for 70 million yuan. Paul Allen was one of the most active bosses in the league at that time. During his time in power, he recruited soldiers, allowing the Trail Blazers to enter the playoffs for 21 consecutive years and maintain stable combat effectiveness for years.

Before the 2018 season, Paul Allen suddenly passed away unexpectedly. Although his personal will was not officially disclosed, the team's operating rights were then handed over to the foundation for handling in accordance with the instructions and operated by the organization CEO Jody Allen. But Jody Allen was not that interested in professional sports, and immediately stated that the team would officially sell the team to the outside world at a certain point in time.

In the last offseason, when the 30-year time limit for Moda Center signed by the Trail Blazers and the City of Portland expired, Jody Allen first reached a contract renewal agreement with the City of Portland to renew the time limit for Portland as home until 2030. Then the Moda Center, which originally had the operating rights, was sold to the city government for a symbolic $1, to give Portland a full right to operate the stadium, and to loosen the additional impact of the stadium when selling the team in the future.

From now on, it seems that these conditions are all in line with the time to sell the team.

In the offseason of 2025, the Trail Blazers missed the playoffs again, and the Lotto draft also ended in failure, but the team still showed no sign of selling. In fact, in the past few years, the team has been more or less looking for buyers. The person who made the most active statement at that time was Phil Knight, the founder of Nike who made his fortune in Portland.

But when the team was officially announced to be sold this year, Phil Knight changed his preface, saying that he was getting older and was not suitable for running the team, and publicly stated that he would not participate in the bidding. Just when Portland fans didn't know who the next boss was willing to take over, Tom Dundon from Texas announced his entry into the team.

Tom Dunton, who is that?

He made a fortune in finance in Texas and is currently the head of Downton Capital. In recent years, he has expanded his tentacles into professional sports events. In 2017, he acquired the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes from Peter Camanos Jr. and gradually acquired shares to become an independent operator. He has also invested in the American Football AAF League before. In 2021, the Peak Ball retail website: Peak Ball Center was acquired. This sport has become increasingly popular in recent years and the number of participants is increasing. Now he has also begun to include the Trail Blazers in his sports career.

It is reported that Dungton took his fellow financial industry to jointly invest, joining forces with Bluebird Capital's Mark Zheer and Global Collective Management CEO Hill Tyre, the three are considered the main investors.

Of course, what is more important to the fans is that it doesn't matter who acquires the team, what type of boss is Dungton and his partners? Do you just regard the Trail Blazers as a simple investment target, or are you willing to devote yourself to it? This is the key.

Combined with the North Carolina Hurricanes' record in recent years, Trail Blazers fans may be able to look forward to the new boss Tom Dundon. After Dundon took over the team, this team that has not made the playoffs for nine consecutive years has become abnormal in recent years and has made it to the playoffs for seven consecutive years. The city to which the Hurricanes belongs is a small market, and they were also worried about moving to a big city after Dunton bought the team. But he did not do so, and recently reached an agreement with the local government to renovate the main venue. After the news of the acquisition of the Trail Blazers was made public, Dungton immediately expressed his intention to keep the team in Portland. In addition, Mark Zhell, one of the investors, is currently settled in Portland with his wife. These resumes can also make Portland fans temporarily put aside their concerns about the team's relocation in the future.

As a newcomer operator, the outside world is still quite optimistic about Dungton's business style. US media The Athletic rated him as the top ten boss in the NHL. However, in the NHL agent's People's Opinion Survey, Dungton was considered the worst boss. Overall, Dunton's style may be close to that of the early Cuban, and he himself has a good relationship with Cuban. The latter even provided a lot of advice to Dunton when he acquired the Hurricanes.

Compared with the background of the team boss, the most important question for fans is: What will the future of this team be?

From the player structure, after several lineup changes during the offseason, most of the Trail Blazers player contracts have only two or three years left, and there is no worry about changing contracts in the short term, which also means there is no need to worry about the team not being able to retain the players. The curious part is that if the team can reorganize the contract, the Trail Blazers can free up some salary space next offseason.

If Dungton is an active boss type, will it be a critical focus for the management to actively deal with it in the subsequent offseason, try to make up for players and promote the team's reconstruction process?

As for the team moving part that Portland fans are most worried about, judging from Dungton's past operating performance and shareholder composition, the Trail Blazers should have sold it only after confirming that they will not relocate to Portland. But given the past experience of Seattle losing the team overnight, Portland fans are inevitably worried about it..

In order to avoid such an unexpected situation from happening again, the Trail Blazers also conducted some formalities before the official sale: the team signed a promise when they promised to continue using the Moda Center, and a huge liquidated damages would be paid if they were moved away by default. In addition, the Trail Blazers' sale contract is likely to include additional conditions for "the team needs to stay in Portland".

In addition, the previous attitude of NBA president Adam Xiaohua can also show that he hopes Portland will retain the NBA team. Especially considering that there is only one team left in the Northwest, if moved away, it will mean that the NBA will directly lose the entire Northwest market. From this link, if the Trail Blazers really finally get to the point of relocating the team, the NBA may also participate in it and forcefully stop it.

As a former boss, although Jody Allen lacks enough enthusiasm for professional sports, she still has a good operating system during her takeover of the team, making the team ready to welcome the new boss. The team is also actively developing a new broadcasting model, which also received great praise last season. Although the team's lineup has been in a situation of being up and down, and even the team's general manager and coach have maintained the same candidate for four years, the team's record has begun to gradually stop falling and rebound.

We welcome a new boss with distinctive personalities in the rising stage. Will this change of dynasty of the Trail Blazers be the key to their move towards Western power? Will the team have a better lineup, a better system, and a better team, or will the senior management begin to interfere with the team under the new business thinking concept, resulting in the rush to achieve success and fall into the next reconstruction period?

No matter what, it is foreseeable that in the near future, both on and off the court, we will see more news about the Trail Blazers and more changes.