Scoot Henderson Gets a Harsh Welcome to the NBA

LOS ANGELES — Hours before Scoot Henderson's NBA debut, Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups reflected on his own first NBA game 26 years earlier.

Billups, like Henderson, was a No. 3 overall pick, playing the same position. His introduction to the NBA was playing against Michael Jordan. He still remembers the entire day, from shootaround until the moment he finally checked in for the Celtics.

Billups did his best not to make Henderson's first real NBA game a bigger deal than it was. They had already had a conversation back in August, when the schedule was released, about his first game being against a Clippers team featuring one of his idols, Russell Westbrook. When Henderson woke up on Wednesday, he took his customary three deep breaths to get rid of the nerves, as he's done ahead of every big game he's played in.

"I've been waiting to go up against the stars," Henderson said Wednesday morning at shootaround on the UCLA campus. "This [Clippers] team is very deep. They have three Hall of Fame players. It doesn't really change the fact that I'm going to go up there and try to kill my opponent, just because I respect them in the game growing up. Now it's like, we're on the same floor, so whoever my opponent is, I don't care."

Once the ball tipped on Wednesday night, though, it was impossible to avoid a few realities. One was that this was a rebuilding team playing against a team with title aspirations featuring a healthy Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The 123-111 final score was not indicative of how overmatched the new-look Blazers were in the first game of the post-Damian Lillard era, which the Clippers led by 20 at the half and by as much as 30 at one point.

Another was that, as good as Henderson may ultimately be, there are going to be a lot of nights like this in his rookie season. Point guards this young, even the great ones, struggle early.

Here's how Henderson's NBA career started: After Deandre Ayton won the opening tip, a pass from Matisse Thybulle sailed through his hands for a turnover. On the next possession, he got downhill for a layup, which he missed. He was long on a floater, missed a dunk over two Clippers defenders and was called for a travel. That was all in his first shift. He finished with 11 points; all but two of them came in the fourth quarter, when the game was well decided.

"Regardless of what happens, he's going to remember this day and this game for the rest of his life, probably," Billups said before the game.

Maybe decades from now, when he's looking back on a Hall of Fame career, Henderson will be asked about his NBA debut and laugh about how rough a go he had of it against the Clippers.

It brought to mind something he said back in July after his Summer League debut in Las Vegas, in which he looked a lot more comfortable than he did on Wednesday.

"I love playing on big stages," he said then. "It's like a movie."

That's what the leadup to Wednesday night at Crypto .com Arena felt like. Sitting at his locker before the game, an NBA TV crew approached him and had him put on his jersey for an interview for their Rooks series. All the non-basketball stuff that comes with opening night, especially in Los Angeles, is new to him, even though he's starred in a movie as one of LeBron James' high-school teammates and in a documentary about the G League.

Anyone who was watching this game out of all the options on the NBA's first full Wednesday slate of the season was probably tuning in for Henderson. The hype isn't to the level of Victor Wembanyama's ESPN debut against the Mavericks the same night, but if all goes according to plan, Henderson will be one of the players the NBA props up as a face of its next generation.

It's a lot to take in in one night, even for someone as outwardly unbothered as Henderson seems to be at all times.

"I thought he was nervous," Billups said. "I think the main thing that happens in this position is, you want to play good so bad, and that can kind of overtake you. It was a lot coming at him. Who we're playing against, that's a good team and they're out to prove, 'No, not against us.' That's another thing that you don't even think about."

Just like he wanted to let his teenage point guard breathe leading up to his first game, Billups said he's going to wait until the two of them can go over the film together before giving his extended thoughts on Henderson's performance. He wants to hear how Henderson saw it and get his perspective before coloring it with his own.

"I'm very anxious to see how I turned the ball over," Henderson said. "Sometimes it was tough passes, sometimes it was miscommunications. I'm going to watch it."

After the game, as he talked through his rough outing—how he needs to get downhill rather than letting the defense dictate the pace—Henderson was as calm as he was in the morning at shootaround.

"I don't think anything really surprised me," he said. "Other than, teams have real scouting reports on certain players, and knowing that I'm going to be one of the players that teams focus on and try to stop, even with the team we have."

For Henderson, this was as harsh a welcome-to-the-NBA moment as he's ever going to get. For the Blazers, getting their teeth kicked in by a veteran Clippers team was a preview of what a lot of this season is going to be.

"There's going to be some nights where he looks 19," Billups said. "Tonight was one of those nights. I'm not surprised by it."