It was a little after noon on Thursday when the Portland Trail Blazers slowly started to move on from chatter about arrests, indictments and conspiracies to basketball and what comes next.

That was when general manager Joe Cronin gathered the entire practice facility staff in Tualatin — coaches, players, trainers, basketball operations personnel, everyone — for a chat.

The mass of people stood near the free throw line on one of the courts, roughly 90 minutes before Chauncey Billups was scheduled to be arraigned in a federal courtroom in downtown Portland, huddling together for the first time since learning their coach had been a target of a multi-year law enforcement investigation.

The mood was “heavy, quiet,” according to one team source. Matisse Thybulle called it “incredi

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