For better or worse, this is what it’s like to be a Blazers fan.

We don’t get shiny new things, and when we do they tend to tarnish in either a quick or slightly slower, but ultimately painstaking manner. Which is why recent news of both head coach Chauncey Billups and general manager Joe Cronin’s contract extensions were the only reasonable conclusion to the initial chapter of both’s tenure in Rip City.

It’s been a slow grind for the coach and executive over the past four seasons, with losing as the primary theme to what was from the beginning a rebuild.

Expectations were low from the get-go, with only growth as an expectation from the powers that be at the highest levels of Jody Allen’s basketball operation.

Even fans sought little in the wake of Damian Lillard’s departure, seeking only light at the end of the depressing tunnel they’ve been navigating since their favorite son sought greener pastures in Milwaukee.

But in the wake of last week’s news that both Cronin and Billups would be in for what will now be a longer haul, it’s time for that light to get a little brighter, and to the tune of a team defined by success rather than seeking it.

Billups has accumulated an 117-211 record on the sidelines in Portland, but despite again losing to the tune of a 36-46 mark this past season, the team improved by 15 games from the season prior and over the second half of the campaign looked like a team capable of competing with – at the least – the league’s bottom-tier playoff franchises. The former Piston great has to get some credit for that, especially with a core that he’s had the bulk of two seasons now to work with.

Billups himself has on many occasions — including this past week — spoken to culture-building as the foundation to success, and like him or not there’s at least a reasonable level of evidence that he’s building his with this group, one that Cronin mostly put together.

Leading us to Cronin who has low-key done some nice things since officially taking the reins roughly three years ago.

The 49-year-old executive has drafted Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson and this past year Donovan Clingan, all of whom appear to be pieces a successful team can build around.

Yes, Henderson may not — at least for now — look like the superstar player many wanted him to be, but he improved in nearly every statistical category from his initial season to now, and at just 21-years-of-age has to still be considered a win for a franchise with the future in mind.

Sharpe too continues to improve and show flashes of potential stardom, and Clingan appears to be a solid addition in the paint despite having a somewhat limited ceiling.

But while you can make a case for Cronin with the aforementioned three, along with 2023 second round pick Toumani Camara who has been a pleasant surprise over his two seasons with the team, the real proof in the general manager’s pudding is 24-year-old forward Deni Avdija who Cronin acquired via trade this past offseason.

Avdija was part of deal with Washington that included Malcom Brogdon and four assorted draft picks, but dazzled this past season and might be the cream of Portland’s roster crop when you consider his present and future production coupled with his price.

The Israeli hooper is under contract for the next three years and is scheduled to make roughly $13 million per season, a steal in exchange for what he appears he’ll bring to the table in that time.

Even the harshest of Cronin critics have to bend the knee as the result of that move, and it’s undoubtedly the foundation with which the executive’s strongest case can be made.

But while we can talk until the cows come home about what could be with both the coach and general manager, that conversation will eventually have to be about what is if the duo are to earn their stripes rather than wear the speculative ones the organization is giving them by way of their new deals. Because at some point it has to be less about what you’re doing and more about what you’ve done — which has to start with a “W.”