Tom Dundon's cost-cutting has quickly become an NBA punchline, but it's not that funny for Trail Blazers fans

The new Blazers owner is slashing costs, and fans won't receive T-shirts as Portland hosts its first playoff game in five years on Friday

What's the old saying about first impressions? You only get one chance to give everyone free T-shirts, otherwise the entire NBA internet will come for you and call you cheap. Something like that. Don't bother fact-checking. 

When Game 3 between the Spurs and Trail Blazers tips in Portland on Friday night, it ought to be a happy occasion for the locals. The series is tied 1-1 after the Blazers stole Game 2 in San Antonio, and it will also mark the first playoff game in Portland since 2021. The Blazers and their fans should be feeling good. 

But beyond all that, you're going to hear a lot about T-shirts in the run-up to the game and maybe even on the broadcast. Or maybe you've already heard a lot about T-shirts because everyone has been talking about them all week. That's due to new Blazers owner Tom Dundon deciding there would be no T-shirts for the home crowd, which is something organizations across the league generally drape over each seat to commemorate playoff games and make them feel special. (The team's alternate governor posted that they are "doing something else" instead.) 

That turned out to be a big mistake by Dundon. You know what fans really love? You're probably way ahead of me on this but... yeah, T-shirts. Most NBA teams shoot them out of cannons into the crowd during commercial breaks, that's how popular they are. Telling your fans that they won't be getting free T-shirts for the first home postseason game in five years because you want to save money is a good way to get a lot of people angry at you. It's also guaranteed to encourage people on social media to make fun of you at your expense. 

Easily avoidable PR gaffes seem to be Dundon's thing. He's made quite a few since taking over the Blazers in late March after paying a reported $4.25 billion for the franchise. Dundon, who also owns the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, is notoriously frugal. So much so that when I Goggled "Tom Dundon" the top search terms that followed his name were, in order, "cheap," "net worth," "religion," "wife" and "cost cutting." Upon purchasing the Hurricanes, he fired the radio broadcasters and reportedly gave low-ball contract offers to head coach Rod Brind'Amor and his staff.

Portland penny-pinching

The cost-cutting has continued apace in the Pacific Northwest. According to The Rose Garden Report, the Blazers did not send their two-way players to San Antonio for Games 1 and 2 in order to save money. The Oregonian reported that the team photographer and digital reporter also did not make the trip for the same reason. In retrospect, they might have lucked out by not joining the traveling party, because a separate Sports Illustrated story revealed that while the team was in Phoenix to face the Suns in the play-in last week, a number of Blazers staffers were seen hanging out in the lobby one day. They had been "asked to check out of their rooms at noon, hours before the first bus left for the arena" because the team wanted to "avoid the cost of a late checkout."

That's both sad and funny, but it also caused some logistical issues. According to The Athletic, the team masseuse -- congrats to that person for making the travel cut! -- was left without a space to ply her pregame craft on the players, which in turn stressed out head coach Tiago Splitter. 

The comical thriftiness does not stop there. The Blazers evidently have two mascots (if you knew that and do not live in Portland this is a good time to go outside and touch grass) and Dundon is apparently thinking of sending one (or both?) to farm upstate somewhere. 

Not surprisingly, the internet had a blast dunking on Dundon for all this. Various social media feeds were inundated with jokes about how cheap the man is. (As a quick aside, I'd like to say I've read them all and you're all doing fantastic work.) For his part, Dundon does not seem bothered in the slightest. 

"Do you know what I do when I see a penny on the ground?" Dundon asked rhetorically. "I pick it up."

Someone ought to tell him that's not such a great use of his time since the U.S. Treasury stopped circulating pennies in late 2025. Also, does he realize he's a billionaire? Given the aforementioned cost-cutting evidence, it seems unclear.

None of this augurs particularly well for Splitter's hopes to have the interim tag removed and be rewarded with a fat new contract. Thin new contract, maybe. Splitter took over when former head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested as part of an ongoing federal gambling investigation. Not an easy situation to handle, but Splitter stepped in and led the Blazers to a 42-40 season, their best record in a non-bubble season since 2018-19. By any measure, he's earned the job, but he might be asked to take the full-time position at a discount -- if he's even offered the role at all.

According to NBA reporter Jake Fischer, Dundon wants to pay his head coach no more than $1.5 million per season. For context, $1 million to $1.5 million is the general ballpark for some top assistants in the league. For further context, Mark Schmidt -- the former head coach of St. Bonaventure, who recently stepped down after 19 years -- reportedly made $1.6 million in his final season. St. Bonaventure is in a tiny town in upstate New York called Olean. Have you ever been to Olean? If not, do not go. I cannot stress this enough. There's a reason a school most people have never heard of had to pay a coach most people have never heard of $1.6 million a year to stick around that long. 

Dundon has denied putting a low-level cap on how much he's willing to fork over for his head coach, should it be Splitter or someone else. He's reportedly reached out to scores of potential candidates in the NBA and college. That's his prerogative, but taken in total none of these moves have helped endear Dundon to Portland -- especially because his approach to running an NBA franchise is so drastically different from former Blazers owner Paul Allen. Allen, who died in 2018, was famous for hosting players on his yacht and flying them to road games on his private jet.

By contrast, Dundon's style comes off closer to the owner from the movie Major League. Before long, the Blazers will have a cold tub with an outboard motor and a plane with propellers. (Don't bother calling the flight attendants, there aren't any.)

The potential on-court impact

It's easy to joke about all this, but Blazers fans will be forgiven for not finding much (or any) of it funny. A friend of mine who lives in Portland is worried that Dundon's budget-conscious reputation will scare off high-level talent from wanting to play for the Blazers -- or even make the high-level talent that's already in-house think about moving on at the first opportunity. The name that kept coming up in this context is Deni Avdija. He made his first All-Star team this season, is averaging career highs in points and assists per game, and is a finalist for the Most Improved Player award, along with Atlanta's Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Detroit's Jalen Duren. (The winner will be announced Friday evening.)

Given his breakout season and upside, the 25-year-old Avdija is on arguably the most team-friendly contract in the NBA. He's making $14.3 million this season and has two years left on a deal that declines in each of the remaining seasons. He'll make $13.1 million next season and just $11.8 million the year after. That's Dundon's kind of contract. The problem for Dundon and the Blazers is how to retain him going forward. Because of Avdija's low salary, the Blazers would have to clear cap space to renegotiate and extend him in 2027. But after making the playoffs this season and getting Damian Lillard back from an Achilles injury for next season, the Blazers will no doubt be hoping they'll be too good to think about clearing the books in 2027 just to extend Avdija. And besides, paying Avdija early and bending over backward to do so would seem to be in opposition to how Dundon conducts business. At which point Avdija is barreling toward unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2028. By then, after several years of seeing this new management style up close, will Avdija want to stick around even if Dundon -- who, to be fair, has said he's willing to pay players -- wants to open his wallet and offer top dollar?

Going by the many stories that have already been written about his short and highly criticized tenure in charge of the Blazers, Dundon doesn't appear to be sweating any of this. The Hurricanes made the conference finals in two of the last three seasons. If he can turn the Blazers into a similar success story, the thinking is that all the rest of this can be overlooked. Of course, running an NBA franchise is considerably more expensive and, with apologies to the NHL, there's also a lot more media and fan scrutiny that goes with it -- as Dundon has learned over the last month.

Because the Blazers won Game 2 in San Antonio, that guaranteed the series would go at least five games -- a development that delighted the internet jokers who realized Dundon will have to shell out for a return trip to Texas. Not to give him any more ideas, but maybe he can help subsidize it by charging the players for soda.