MAILBAG: What are the Expectations for Scoot Henderson's Second Season?
Looking at the present and future of last year's No. 3 overall pick.
We did part one of our final Trail Blazers offseason mailbag earlier this week.
As you’d expect, a major topic of interest last week when I put out the call for questions was what to make of Scoot Henderson going into his second season, so I grouped all of those together for the second installment. I’ll have a broader training camp preview running over the weekend, leading into media day on Monday morning, and then we’re off and running.
Sean, David Thorpe has some pretty negative and pointed feedback on Scoot based on what he saw in the Summer pick-up league down in LA. How concerned are you about him and his growth going into the new year. Should we be worried that the Blazers FO has blinders on with Scoot?
- Mike W.
I wasn’t at these summer pickup games in Los Angeles so I can’t speak firsthand to how anybody looked down there. But I generally put those runs in the same category that I do all offseason workout videos that players post, and I’m hesitant to draw too many conclusions from them, good or bad. I think Shaedon Sharpe is poised for a breakout, but it has nothing to do with him going off in the pro-am that he played at in Vancouver earlier this summer. That kind of stuff is fun social-media content but it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me in either direction.
With that said, I definitely don’t think the blinders are on with Henderson for the front office. Everyone was very encouraged by how he played the last month of his rookie season, but he has to carry that over to this year and leave no doubt he’s the guy long-term at point guard. If he doesn’t, and they don’t win the lottery next May (meaning Cooper Flagg is off the board), they can’t be closed off to the idea of taking the best player available, regardless of position. And there are several point guards projected to go in the top five to seven picks.
Sean it seems like we need to make decision on Ant, Scoot, and to a lesser extent Shae this coming summer. It feels like this comes down to Scoots development (outside of Ant taking an all star leap). What does Scoot need to show to make the FO comfortable that he’s the guy going forward?
- Colin P.
To me, the make-or-break element of Henderson’s development is the finishing. Last season, he shot 46 percent at the rim, which put him in the seventh (!) percentile in the NBA per Cleaning the Glass. For someone with his level of athleticism and explosiveness, that can’t happen. I’m not as worried about the three-point shot. He finished the year over 30 percent from deep, which isn’t great but took a real jump after the All-Star break to at least be respectable. The playmaking and feel stuff is there. If he can actually score consistently when he gets to the rim, his ceiling becomes a lot higher.
Looking ahead to the end of the season, what do you think are good player comparisons for Scoot at the high end and low end of his possible development?
- Jeff
The thing I and others have pointed to throughout his rookie season is how similar his numbers were to the rookie seasons of De’Aaron Fox and Darius Garland, two other high lottery picks at point guard who were among the worst players in the NBA their first years and became All-Stars after that. His career trajectory could be that, or it could be Emmanuel Mudiay. We’ll find out a lot this year.
In a season without many data points, I feel like one data point we did get was Scoot and Ant was clunky. Knowing that, how can the team work on that pairing in training camp? Or is that a dynamic that really needs to be worked through within real game action?
- Alex P.
That fit is always going to be clunky. Simons wants to play on the ball, and Henderson isn’t a good enough shooter to play off the ball. Assuming health, I’m not sure how much they will actually be playing together this season. I don’t think Henderson is going to start—it’ll be Simons and Sharpe in the backcourt, most likely—and they’ll stagger the minutes enough to minimize the awkwardness.