Scoot Henderson Out 4-8 Weeks With Left Hamstring Tear
Henderson suffered the injury during an offseason workout earlier this week.
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Days before the start of training camp, one of the Trail Blazers' most important young players suffered an injury that could keep him out for the start of the season at least.
The team announced on Friday that Scoot Henderson suffered a torn left hamstring during an offseason workout earlier this week and will return to basketball activities in four to eight weeks.
This news is a major blow for both the Blazers and Henderson to start the season. The team was pleased with Henderson's development in the second half of last season and, after trading Anfernee Simons over the summer, he was set to have his clearest opportunity yet to earn the starting point guard job. Henderson, who becomes extension-eligible next summer, by all accounts had a productive summer and was hoping to build on that second-half success and have a true breakout season in his third year in the NBA.
This injury puts all of that on pause.
At the shortest end and in the best-case scenario, a four-week recovery timeline will have Henderson missing the Blazers' first two games of the season, on Oct. 22 against Minnesota and Oct. 24 against Golden State. If he misses the full eight weeks, that could mean he misses the first 16 games of the season and potentially returns during the mid-November three-game road trip at Golden State, Oklahoma City or Milwaukee. That's a wide range of outcomes depending on how Henderson's recovery goes.
It's also not clear how Henderson's absence to start the season will impact the Blazers' rotation. Henderson was certainly in strong contention to earn a starting spot in the backcourt, along with Jrue Holiday and Shaedon Sharpe. Now, it's possible Holiday and Sharpe could start together, or Deni Avdija could start alongside Holiday, with Toumani Camara and Jerami Grant starting at the two forward spots.
All of that will be decided once training camp begins next week. But this news is not what Henderson or the Blazers wanted ahead of a year with big expectations.
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