The Portland Trail Blazers had lost a season-high 10 consecutive games when they awoke Wednesday morning to take on the Charlotte Hornets in the middle of a seven-game trip.

An already dreary season had become considerably worse with most of the team’s regular rotation out with injuries and losses piling up at an alarming rate.

The team sorely needed some good news and a victory. They ended up getting both on the same day.

Early Wednesday, news broke that Blazers coach Chauncey Billups had been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, setting off a wave of good vibes throughout the franchise.

“This definitely comes at a good time,” Billups told The Oregonian/OregonLive from Washington, D.C.. “I think not just from me but just our group. Just to have some positivity. To have some good things to talk about about our organization, about our team. Because it has been a very tough year. But this has come at a really good time for all of us.”

Center Deandre Ayton texted Billups first, telling him how proud and happy he was for his coach. Texts from others soon started flowing in. On the team bus bound for the Spectrum Center, players greeted Billups with applause and words of congratulations. Even more came at the arena when the team gathered on the court together.

“That was pretty cool,” Billups said.

So was winning 89-86 over the Hornets to end their losing streak later that night.

Billups learned of his election two days earlier in Orlando before the Blazers lost at the Magic. But he was sworn to secrecy in an NBA world where secrets often leak. He said he told only his immediate family members. Keeping the secret beyond them proved difficult.

“It was hard because once they come out and say that you were a finalist or whatever, at that point, everybody that is around you that knows and loves you and have been on this journey, they are on pins and needles waiting,” Billups said. “So, it was tough keeping it in, especially knowing what an incredible honor it is, how important of a thing it is. It was tough to hold that down.”

Billups and the rest of the 2024 Hall of Fame class, which includes Vince Carter and Michael Cooper, were officially introduced Saturday during the NCAA Men’s Final Four in Glendale, Arizona.

Following the event, Billups, who coached his team to a 108-102 victory Friday night at the Washington Wizards, planned to rejoin his team in Boston where they play the Celtics on Sunday to end a seven-game trip.

Not on radar

For Billups, reaching the Hall of Fame is a crowning achievement but not something he felt his career would be incomplete without.

“I still never was like, if I don’t make it, my career won’t be validated,” he said. “I never felt that way. No matter what I always felt like what I did as a player and what we did as the teams that I played on, it wouldn’t be undone regardless. However, this is the Hall of Fame.”

Maybe that’s because he had not considered becoming a hall of famer at any point during his life until after winning an NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.

Quite frankly, he had no reason to. The start of his career didn’t resemble that of a player on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

“My road to the Hall of Fame, there wasn’t a lot of traffic on it, I’ll tell you that,” Billups said. “Not a lot of people had my journey from getting in the league and falling all the way off where my career was literally hanging in the balance, to getting off the mat and making it to the Hall of Fame like that. That journey is incredible.”

Billups, the No. 3 overall pick to the Boston Celtics in 1997, played 17 seasons in the NBA after playing two years of college basketball at Colorado.

The early part of his NBA career certainly didn’t have “future Hall of Famer” written on it. Billups struggled in Boston and was traded to Denver, where he also did not play well. Next stop was Minnesota where he gradually improved. Two seasons later, Billups landed in Detroit where he played under Larry Brown and finally developed into an impact point guard during the 2002-03 season.

The following season, Billups helped lead the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons to the NBA championship and was named Finals MVP.

But by that point, he had yet to be named to an All-Star game or an All-NBA team. That changed over the next six seasons. Billups was named to three All-Star teams while still with the Pistons and two All-NBA teams.

“I think after we won the championship, and I won Finals MVP and started really getting into All-Star games, and just being one of the best, at least in my generation, then I was like, ‘Damn, maybe,’” Billups said.

Offensive shift

With Detroit, Billups played on a defensive-minded team. Early during the 2008-09 season, he was traded to the more offensive-geared Denver Nuggets, coached by George Karl.

“I was so excited about it because I wanted to show the world that I could be dominant in whichever style I played,” he said. “Denver was run and gun, up and down.”

He averaged 17.7 points while leading the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals and being named to his fourth All-Star game and third All-NBA team.

The following season, he averaged a career-high 19.5 points per game at the age of 33.

“That was validation for me to show that it doesn’t matter where I play or who I play with or what system. I’m me,” he said

Billups takes pride in the fact that he reached the Hall of Fame without putting up gaudy scoring numbers. But he wondered at some points if averaging a respectable, but not spectacular, 15.2 points and 5.4 assists for his career would hurt his chances.

“I’ve always seen it as kind of like stat-driven, if you will,” Billups said of the Hall of Fame. “And just not knowing who the voters and all the people actually are. Who knows if they can gauge impact? Because, I was an impact player. I made a huge impact without big stats. So, who knows if they can gauge impact?”

Billups does wonder at times what type of numbers he could put up in today’s game. Billups shot 38.7% on threes during his career and shot over 40% in six seasons. But he had only 4.5 per game. The most he ever shot per game in a season was 5.6 in 2009-10, the season he averaged 19.5 points per game for the Nuggets.

The entire NBA averaged 18.2 three-point shots per game that season. This season, teams are averaging 35.1.

Give Billups double the amount of three-point attempts and his scoring average would rise.

Billups noted that while he took just 10.9 shots per game for his career, he played a style that would fit today. He shot mainly threes, got to the rim, drew fouls and shot 89.4% for his career from the free-throw line.

“My game, to me, would have been tailor-made for this,” he said.

Still, he has no regrets about the era he played in.

“I’m completely happy with how we played and the era we played in,” Billups said. “But I do think about it sometimes.”

Even after his career ended following the 2013-14 season, Billups didn’t ponder much about getting into the Hall of Fame. That changed last year when he was named a finalist.

“I thought, ‘I got a great chance, man,’” he said.

The second finalist nod led to Billups’ induction into what he calls “Basketball Heaven.”

As much as the election means to him, that title season in Detroit remains Billups’ proudest moment.

“Nothing is ever going to top that for me because everything I do, I do it to try to win and be the best and beat the best,” Billups said. “So, the championship is always to me gonna be for me the top. But this is obviously right there. A very, very, very close second. This is more of an individual award, obviously. A championship is more of a team thing.”

— Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook)

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