I have never questioned his potential. How could you, nobody had seen him play since his junior year of HS. I questioned and still do his ability to impact this team in a positive way consistently. I like what I’ve seen when he’s on.
So what vet could we have got that would have really affected our record? (And presumably we would have to have thrown one of our vets into the trade to make salaries balance.)
So in two years when the player they traded for fails to make a difference, and the 21-year-old Sharpe is finding his groove, how freaking pissed off would we all be? Most people who wanted to trade the pick wanted a PF. Grant has proved to be better than all the ones mentioned. (except Siakam who was not available and who has been hurt. ) The smart move was to keep the pick and use N.O.'s pick to build for the future. I was fine if he never got the opportunity to play all this year. We were not getting a difference-maker with the 7th pick. Hell, some people wanted us to give him up for Grant even though we all knew Detroit wanted to dump his salary.
Sharpe has been very dull of late. no surprise given his rookie status and having played so little the previous year. Be interesting what Chauncy does with his minutes when Dame/GP II/Keon come back - my guess is they are slashed unless he really picks it up
madness And it's kinda wild that Shaedon is playing against Lebron about 1 yr after matching up vs his son in HS with Lebron (and Melo and Mike Schmitz) on the sidelines.
my hope is next year he hits his stride. Even that is early though. keep gathering young talent Joe. Some size please!!
If Josh is still hurt Saturday I’d like to see Sharpe start and/or get more touches. His development really is the single biggest X-Factor on how far this team can go. He’s young and like most young guys the more he feels involved on offense the better he plays on defense.
Also, I’m curious. Do people think Sharpe is too dumb to understand cutting, or do you think he’s been told to be careful cutting outside of designed plays because he brings a defender who clogs the paint for Simons/Grant drives? Im guessing the latter.
So starting is going to get him more involved in the offense? Or do you just think he will get more minutes that way? I think one could argue he will be more involved in the offense if he comes off the bench.
That’s a fair point. He also seems to get touches based on personnel on the floor. I just want to see him more involved on offense.
Yes. However, Chauncey can redeem himself by starting Sharpe for the remainder of his time with the Blazers. Sharpe is the kind of player that can be one of the two best players on a team that wins a championship. If Billups thinks Sharpe is not the defensive stopper at this point that he wants at Small Forward, then Sharpe should start at SG and Simons can come off the bench. If Sharpe is not starting, that's telling me you're not really serious about pushing the Trail Blazers to their potential, you're just trying to make everyone happy, first, and trying to be awesome, second.
Who knows? For his development? Maybe. Would we have won more games if he was starting? I doubt it. Plus, in our standard healthy starting lineup, there was no way you were getting this more assertive version of Sharpe... and even as he is putting together these exciting and hopeful performances like today, he is still giving up too much on the defensive end, which is to be expected from a physically-underdeveloped rookie (in terms of strength). In the long run, I don't think the Blazers season nor Sharpe's long-term development really would have changed much regardless had he started consistently sooner.
He defends the two better than Ant does and their field goal percentage is very close to the same. I think if he works hard this off season he will be the clear cut starter the first game of next season.
Easy answer, Dame. He could've been the first 6th man MVP. Simon's on the bench might have given the best balance to both units, but Hart was probably the most likely choice.
Well if we don't add a starting level forward then Cronin can just say we needed to keep that spot open for Sharpe and start him with Simon's. He'd still be our tallest starting SF since what four seasons prior? Great excuse to pinch some more pennies and do nothing.
