The blazers didn't really listen to Dame at all, and the GM has known Chauncey for more than 30 years.
At the time of Chauncey being hired, his only coaching experience was ~1 year of being an assistant coach.
They didn't do any search at all, and just went straight to hiring Chauncey.
This partially contributed to Dame leaving - it also didn't help that Chauncey and Dame didn't quite get along (and also deciding to bench him in the last 10 games of the season to tank).
I'm honestly fine with players being hired as head coaches. Before looking into it I thought it was totally fine with Chauncey, especially given his track record as a leader on the Pistons and being a phenomenal classic point guard.
The main issue for me is just telling people you're going to do a search... and then not doing it.