With all due respect to the Portland Trail Blazers’ season, head coach Chauncey Billups plans to take a leave of absence to pay respect to Junior Bridgeman whenever his homegoing service take place. The late Bridgeman, a billionnaire businessman and 12-year NBA veteran with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers from, was a mentor and business partner of Billups. “I don’t care when it is. I’m going,” Billups told Andscape in a phone interview on Wednesday hours before his Blazers hosted the New York Knicks. “I don’t care. This is somebody that is extremely, tremendously important to me and my life. And I wouldn’t miss it for anything just to be there and pay my respects. He would have done it for me. “He’s enhanced my life in a major way. And I’ve run a lot of major decisions by him. And that’s just how I feel about him. He was the man, bro. I can’t believe this.”