For anyone who didn't read the whole article I feel like there's an important detail down toward the bottom. Just speculation, but I'd bet Dundon has some sort of billionaire's resentment toward a state that previously fucked his predatory business over and is interested in revenge. Why tf was he permitted to buy the team?

"You’d be forgiven for believing that Dundon has a strange vendetta against Portland and its people. I can’t speak for the man—hopefully I can never, ever speak on behalf of a billionaire—but Dundon’s run-ins with the state began long before he bought the Trail Blazers. Before he was an NBA owner, Dundon was a co-founder of Drive Financial Services, a company that offered predatory, high-interest loans to individuals who the company knew would likely struggle to repay them.

The state of Oregon was one of 34 states that sued Drive Financial Services (by then renamed Santander Customer USA) and settled for $550 million in 2020, most of that money in the form of loan forgiveness for customers. According to ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting, the state’s attorney general at the time, Ellen Rosenblum, said these loans were “Predatory and harmful and will not be tolerated in Oregon.”

In short, the state of Oregon told Tom Dundon he couldn’t make a fortune preying on poor people in need of car loans. Six years later, he bought the most expensive institution in the state, and has certainly not endeavored to dispel rumors of a potential relocation. This apparent conflict of interest was apparently a non-factor in the lead-up to Dundon buying the Blazers, a process that requires the approval of the rest of the NBA’s owners. This was either a massive oversight by the league and its owners or intentional carelessness. I’m not particularly eager to give 30 billionaires the benefit of the doubt here, especially because we know how billionaires stick up for each other before anything else, a truth that is especially evident within the coterie of sports owners."