Shaedon Sharpe Has Arrived: 'He's Must-See TV'

Shaedon Sharpe got the news at the Trail Blazers' shootaround on Friday morning that he'd be getting his first career start. He reacted the way he reacts to most things: not at all.

"I don't really show emotion, so I didn't really react," he said at his locker after the Blazers' win over the Houston Rockets, which saw him score 14 points on 7-of-12 shooting in 29 minutes.

That's been a constant with Sharpe. Beyond the superlatives about his athleticism, which used to be the stuff of legends back when nobody had seen him but is now out to the world, the one thing everybody agrees on when you ask them about him is that he doesn't talk much.

"He's a cool kid," Rockets guard TyTy Washington, a teammate of Sharpe's at Kentucky last season, told me before the game. "He doesn't say too much. He's laid back, just goes with the flow. Kind of like a mystery. You never know what you're going to expect from Shaedon when he's around the guys. Some days he's loud, some days he's quiet."

Even Chauncey Billups had to work to get him out of his shell early on.

"He's actually a funny guy, to be honest with you," Billups said. "But he would never be funny with people he doesn't already know. It even took me a while to get to that point with him. He's very reserved. He's like a sneaky-funny dude. He'll say something funny and he won't even laugh, trying to see if you'll laugh. But he's got a great personality. He's a connector. People love being in his presence. He's got a great way about him."

The circumstances surrounding Sharpe's first start couldn't have been much better. Sliding into the starting five replacing the injured Damian Lillard is normally a lot of pressure for a 19-year-old. But with the Blazers facing a young and inexperienced Rockets team, there would be more room than usual for Sharpe to play through the inevitable rookie mistakes. Not that there have been many of those, or else Billups wouldn't trust him this early with the minutes he has.

There were a few ways Billups could have gone with the starting lineup in Lillard's absence. He could have slid the season's de facto sixth man, Justise Winslow, in for added size, or given Nassir Little a shot. That he chose Sharpe speaks volumes not only about Sharpe's advanced understanding of the game for his age, but about Billups' willingness to give someone with his inexperience real minutes outside of the tank-and-develop environment of last season.

Coaches in the NBA fall into two camps. Some are incredibly reluctant to play rookies and young players; others are more than happy to throw them out there. The ones that do give prospects major minutes are typically in rebuilding situations where the win-loss record isn't the end goal. For teams in Portland's situation, trying to compete for the playoffs, it can be easy for a coach to fall back on trusting veterans, especially when it comes to starting in place of a perennial All-Star.

"When I first started coaching, I just knew that that was not gonna be me," Billups said before the game. "I don't want to penalize a guy for being young. Now, if he's young and not engaged and doesn't know our stuff and he doesn't show the level of professionalism that's needed, I'm not going to jeopardize the team, because you want to put a guy in there who can help us out. But I was never gonna be like that. I've played for coaches that were like that, and I've played for coaches that had the mindset that I have. I don't think it's fair. You do what you feel is best for the team, and you've got to think about the future. You've got to start developing a special talent like [Sharpe]."

On the first two possessions of the game, Sharpe defended No. 3 overall pick Jabari Smith Jr. well enough to force him to miss a contested fadeaway, and then nailed a pull-up midrange jumper on the other end.

And then the highlight show started.

"I ain't never seen bounce like that in my life," said Anfernee Simons, a former NBA Slam Dunk Contest winner in case you forgot. "I saw his first practice and I was like, 'I ain't got the most bounce on the team no more.'"

Coming into the timeout after one of his dunks, Billups joked to the rookie that he reminded me of himself in high school, fully aware that even as a teenager he could never do the things athletically that Sharpe can do.

"I was so hype, I felt like a player in that moment," Billups said. "I wanted to go out and bump chests with him."

Sharpe doesn't look like he realizes what's happening when he blows the roof off the building with one of these dunks, but he does.

"Not really," Sharpe said after the game when he was asked if he compares his dunks. "I mean, OK. I thought the first one was better than the second one."

The dunks are one thing. But above all else, Sharpe just looks like he belongs on an NBA court. He didn't lose a step playing with the starters. It's not just how good he's looked, although he has looked good. It's also how bad he hasn't looked. Most rookies, especially ones who haven't played competitively in over a year before training camp, are going to be up-and-down early on. It took Anthony Edwards the first half of his rookie year to find his footing. For Sharpe, it's been right away.

"​​I love that he understands that it's just a basketball game," Billups said. "So many people overthink this thing. Just like it was a basketball game a year and a half ago at an AAU tournament somewhere, it's still a basketball game now. He's learning different things. He's playing against better guys now, but it's still just basketball."

Five games into the season, I've started to see more and more brand-new No. 17 jerseys in the crowd. During Friday's game, I booked a flight to Salt Lake City for All-Star Weekend in February. I was leaning towards going anyway, since Lillard is a virtual lock to make it. But this week, it's become clear that Sharpe will at the very least be invited to the Rising Stars game. Maybe the dunk contest, too, although he's been noncommittal about accepting that invitation if it comes.

We've already seen a preview of what will happen if that comes together.

"He's must-see TV," Billups said. "You never know what he's going to do when he gets the runway like that."