The Portland Trail Blazers are not just rebuilding a roster anymore. They are rebuilding the building around it.
On Tuesday, the organization laid off staff members across the business side of the franchise, with Blazers reporter Sean Highkin reporting that around 70 people were let go. Highkin wrote that he knew some of the names but would let the affected employees announce their situations themselves, a small act of decency on a day that reportedly hit many longtime workers hard.
Was told around 70 people were let go today in the Blazers’ layoffs on the business side. Know some of the names but out of respect to them I’ll let them announce it when and how they will.
— Sean Highkin (@highkin) May 19, 2026
The team confirmed layoffs but did not publicly give a total number. In a statement, President of Business Operations Dewayne Hankins called the move part of an effort “to position the organization for the future” and said the changes affected “talented people who have helped shape the Trail Blazers over many years.”
That is the official language. The unofficial feeling, according to Highkin, was far uglier. He said one person who survived the cuts felt as if the organization had simply looked at a salary spreadsheet and removed the highest numbers without regard for what people actually did or how important they were. That is the kind of sentence that sticks because it captures the fear inside every sports business office: that loyalty, institutional knowledge and years of invisible labor can be reduced to one column on a document.
Talked to one person who survived the cuts today who said it feels like they just looked at a spreadsheet of salaries and cut the highest ones without any regard for what anyone does and how important they are.
— Sean Highkin (@highkin) May 19, 2026
The timing makes the move even louder. The layoffs came less than two months after the Blazers were purchased by a new ownership group led by Tom Dundon, the Carolina Hurricanes owner whose early NBA tenure is already being defined by cost-cutting scrutiny. Reports around the league have painted the layoffs as Dundon’s most significant move yet to reshape the franchise’s expenses after taking over from the Paul Allen estate.
For fans, the pain of a day like this is easy to miss because these are not box-score names. They are not lottery picks, head coaches or front-office power brokers. They are the people who make game nights feel alive, who build community programs, sell tickets, create content, service sponsors, answer calls, produce digital coverage and hold together the relationship between a team and its city.
A franchise is not only its cap sheet. It is memory. It is trust. It is the people who know how the place works because they have been there through rebuilds, playoff runs, losing streaks, sellouts, injuries, draft nights and bad winters.
Portland has spent years trying to find its next basketball identity. Now, under new ownership, it is also facing a business identity question: what kind of organization does it want to be?
The Blazers may call it restructuring. Maybe, in time, ownership will argue it was necessary. But for the people who lost jobs, and for those left behind to wonder what comes next, Tuesday sounded much colder than that.
It sounded like the spreadsheet won.
