Assistant James Posey details Tiago Splitter’s poise during a chaotic mid-season transition, offering a compelling case for the interim leader to secure Portland's permanent head coaching job.
As the Trail Blazers continue their head coaching search, Portland assistant coach James Posey sat down with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson to discuss everything from Posey’s popcorn line to his coaching experience. During the interview, Posey gave a glowing review of Tiago Splitter as Portland’s head coach, and his remarks are worth considering as the Trail Blazers decide who will lead the team next season.
“We come into training camp and everything, and then all of a sudden we’re hit with that news,” Posey said when asked to describe the mid-season transition to Tiago Splitter as head coach. It was like, Whoa. Now it’s just, What are we going to do now? That’s what everybody immediately thought. And of course, Tiago was caught off guard—he wasn’t expecting it, just like no one else was. But he was given the opportunity to lead us, and he did a great job.
“Unexpectedly, for the first couple of weeks or a month or whatever it was, there was that realization that he’s leading our team, and he did a great job of keeping everybody in line and in check,” Posey said of Splitter’s leadership. “He was upfront and kept that vision of where we wanted to be at the end of the season. That wasn’t easy at all, but he continued to get better as a head coach.”
“With the staff, too, he had things for us to do. We still had scouting games to prepare, and he let us do it our way as long as we got the message across to the players about the schemes and what we were doing. He had a relaxed, trustworthy way of letting us go about our coaching style when it came to scouts. It just continued to get better, and the players had the utmost respect for him as well. They came to practice just ready to work. You didn’t have guys trying to buck the system just because there was a new person in charge. Everybody continued to work, grind it out, and help each other through that time of uncertainty with Chauncey. After a while, that uncertainty faded away and everybody was locked in. We kept the end goal in mind, which was to get to the playoffs, and we were able to weather that storm to get there.”
Splitter did well in leading the Blazers through a turbulent and unexpected mid-season coaching change to their first playoff appearance since 2021. Will that success be enough for the front office to make him the permanent head coach? Perhaps the best candidate to lead the team may be already in the building.
