Former Colorado-Boulder standout and Denver Nuggets star Chauncey Billups recorded a podcast with Adrian Wojnarowski that hit the interwebs Wednesday morning.
Billups and Wojnarowski chatted about a number of topics in the 48-minute conversation, including Billups’ thoughts about his future in basketball, why there aren't more ex-players in front office roles and Kevin Durant’s decision to go to Golden State.
It sounds like Billups might be interested in a coaching job in the future, which, if you care about the Nuggets, should make you do the thinking-face emoji IRL. Denver has multiple assistant coaching spots available after Ed Pickney resigned earlier this month. Previously, Billups had said he was mostly interested in front office gigs. That seems to have changed, though.
Below are some of the highlights. You can check out the full podcast here.
On Billups’ decision to turn down the top assistant coaching job in Orlando, where Frank Vogel was recently hired as head coach. (Billups is still under contract as an NBA analyst with ESPN):
Billups: “When I’ve talked about my future, it’s mostly been about front office stuff. But when I started to take a deeper dive into my future, whenever that is when it comes time to maybe get back in or not, I’ve opened up my mind to the opportunity to coach because I know that I like to have a day-to-day impact on guys similar to what I did as a player when I led my teams. Kind of my fear of being in a front office, one of my reservations is maybe I don’t have that day-to-day impact on a guy like I’m used to.”
On the lack of ex-players moving into front office roles:
Billups: “My concern really is with most of these teams going away from having basketball people in the front office, it concerns me about the game. I think if you want to become a champion, a great player, you have to be in a position to be taught that. You have to learn that from somebody.
I know nowadays, so many people talk about the analytics of the game. It’s taken over decision making in front offices. And you know, I don’t 100 percent agree with that being the way to build a team. If you don’t know basketball and have never been in basketball, that’s all you have to go on.”
On Kevin Durant’s decision to sign with Golden State over Oklahoma City:
Billups: “I’m a little torn on this, Woj. Because as a competitor and the way I was raised in the game and how I rose to become the player I was, I don’t like the move. I don’t like it just for the competitive spirit of it. I think Kevin Durant was a great enough player to go and win it and have a chance to win it a respectable way. Not a team that had been a champion a couple years before you and should have been a champion this year having a team down 3-1. So from a competitive standpoint, I don’t like the move. But as a friend of his, I’m very happy for him. I'm happy he was able to do what he wanted to do.
But from a competitive standpoint, it’s almost like, and they haven't won it, but it’s almost like there’s 20 floors in this building. And he took the stairs for 18 and then hopped on the elevator.”
