Shaedon Sharpe Out 4-6 Weeks With Small Labral Tear in Left Shoulder
A big injury blow to the Trail Blazers after the first week of training camp.
One day after losing Robert Williams III for two weeks to a hamstring strain, the Trail Blazers have suffered another, much more significant injury.
Shaedon Sharpe, who missed most of last year after undergoing a core muscle surgery and came into training camp fully healthy, suffered a small posterior labral tear in his left shoulder during the first week of camp, the team announced on Saturday afternoon. He is expected to miss between four and six weeks.
This isn’t the first time Sharpe has dealt with this injury to the same shoulder. It’s the exact same one he picked up five minutes into his Summer League debut in Las Vegas in 2022. He missed the rest of that tournament, and opted not to have surgery and was ready to play for the start of his rookie season. He played 80 games that year.
The short end of the timetable the Blazers have given for Sharpe this time would have him missing the first seven games of the season, starting with the opener against Golden State on Oct. 23 and extending through their Nov. 2 game in Phoenix, if he’s cleared to play after four weeks. If his recovery extends out the full six weeks, he could miss six additional games and potentially return on Nov. 17 at home against Atlanta.
Portland already had a stacked early schedule filled with Western Conference contenders. No matter who was or wasn’t available, it wasn’t going to be realistic to expect them to win a lot of those games. But the loss of Sharpe for the first part of the regular season is a major setback for a team going into the season with the primary goal of developing young talent and figuring out which of their prospects are worth building around long-term—and which ones aren’t. They’ve invested a lot in Sharpe over the past two years and he appeared poised for a breakout after a productive summer that included going through part of training camp with the Canadian national team ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Along with Scoot Henderson, Sharpe was arguably the most important player the Blazers hoped to get some extended data on in another rebuilding season, after the core surgery limited him to just 32 games last season. And going into his fourth season, Sharpe will be eligible for a rookie extension. Committing years and money to him long-term gets more difficult without seeing him play and develop enough to project what he’s going to be in the NBA. What the Blazers have seen so far has been promising, but they haven’t seen enough of it to be certain.
From a fit standpoint, Sharpe seemed in line to get the nod over Henderson to start alongside Anfernee Simons in the backcourt. Now, it’s likely that Henderson will be the Blazers’ starting point guard to open the season, while the Blazers hope this shoulder injury for Sharpe is just a short-term setback.
It begins…
I wonder if he will get surgery this time.