Of course that's the first choice for a lot of people. I was trying to be semi-realistic. I doubt Chauncey will make any changes or make it a priority to get Scoot at least 30 minute a game.
If we’re looking for balance, start Matisse with Ant, and have Sharpe and Scoot paired off the bench. The Ant/Grant show doesn’t feature many opportunities for Shaedon.
I think Jody Allen made that call. Joe didn't have a choice. Once dame made the demand there was no going back.
Wemby is better than I thought he would be. And I wanted him to suck if the Blazers lost the draft lotto, but wanted him to be KD 2.0 if we won the lotto. He is an awesome talent. But, and a huge but, Popovich has been tanking on purpose playing Sochan as a PG. Spurs should have 10 more wins than they have now.
watching Chet and then watching Scoot, bro the difference is astronomic. You wouldn't belive that they are both rookies
Maybe because Chet got a full year in the league learning the ropes before his "rookie" season? He's also 2 years older than Scoot. AND he's a 7'1 freak like Wemby playing a position that doesn't routinely go against the best players in the league.
I think I remember someone advocating to try and trade 3rd pick last year for Chet (not that it would actually happen but). I like Scoot and think he’s going to be a hell of a player but definitely going to take time especially as a PG
Chet Holmgren is nearly two years older than Scoot. Those years from 19-21 can be big improvement years.
One year Chet was a senior in highschool, played invitationals and AAU, the next he was competing for a national championship in a fantastic D1 program at Gonzaga who came up short in the Sweet 16 and the next he was in an NBA system learning from his current coaching staff and taking in a real NBA season. Scoot meanwhile skipped his senior year of highschool and played 16 exhibition games over a two year period of time with the Ignite. I feel like because all Ignite games are exhibitions it's more like spending time at a basketball camp and I just don't think a year or in this case two of that is as good as being in a program, on a team, playing for big goals and in meaningful games.
you don't develop much when you're in a cast for weeks than a walking boot for more weeks because of a Lisfranc fracture of the foot. Those can be pretty serious
I'm not a Scoot hater. I'm rooting for him. He's only 19 and has plenty of time to develop. But I think many Blazer fans are having a hard time coming to grips that Scoot has performed way under expectations. He's shooting 25% from 3. He's shooting 43% from 2. He has a PER of 5.4. He has a WS of -0.9 (last in the 2023 draft class). He's averaging 5.2 fouls per 36 minutes. He's averaging 4.6 turnovers per 36 minutes. Henderson has had some nice explosive drives to the basket. But unless he can demonstrate a reliable jumper, the defense is gonna keep backing up and take away his ability to get in the lane. 19 games is way too early to give up on a player. But 19 games is also plenty of time to acknowledge a reasonable sample size. Scoot has a lot of work ahead of him.
To me it is less about his season averages than about the trend, or his most recent games. No doubt he sucked to start the season but that is not him now. This year has never been about winning (at least for me) but about growth, improvement and figuring out how to win as a team. Compare Scoot’s first five games to his last five, I’m sure the stories they tell are quite different.
I believe at one point Ant was the least efficient player in NBA history. Scoot has the physical tools. He has proven to have the skills and work ethic. He is adjusting to playing the hardest position in basketball at the highest and fastest level, at 19 years of age, and he doesn't have as much of a physical advantage to rely on. He's going to get stronger. He's going to get faster. He's going to improve his shooting. The game will slow down for him. He already has everything else, aside from experience, which only comes with time. He'll be fine.
I think what he was getting at is that Scoot has a couple of years to be as finished of a product as the potential rookie of the year Chet Holmgren—even if Chet was further along than Scoot 2 years ago. No one is besmirching the name of Chet Holmgren—who is really good at basketball!
We saw some good chemistry between Simons, Scoot and Ayton , with Camara on the court too. Replace Brogdon with Shaedon Sharpe and I won't care what the score is as long as these guys get a lot of playing time together. Here's a little clip of what could be. If only BILLUPS would make it a priority. Simons, Scoot, Ayton all getting touches on a possession, ending is a high-quality shot attempt. To me, on offense, that's what this season should be all about. The younger players sharing the ball and learning how to punk the defense like ours got punked last night. Simons has inbounded the ball to Scoot. Scoot dribbles up and drops it off to Ayton. Ayton passes the ball back to Simons. While Ayton runs to take post position, Simons passes to Scoot, who then throws a HIGH (finally) pass to Ayton. It wasn't a perfecet pass and Curry sneaks up from behind and gets his hand in the cookie jar. Curry clearly fouls Ayton (one of those uncalled fouls against Ayton because he's big and Curry is small) by yanking on Ayton's hand to separate it from the ball. In the ensuing inbounds pass, Scoot passes into Camara who taps the ball back to Scoot. Simons meanwhile starts in the restricted area and snakes around to lose his man and heads to the 3-point line, where he receives a pass from Scoot. Blam. 3-pointer drained by Simons. Scoot can soon become through experience, if he is given it by the coach, what Draymond does on offense. A connector between scorers and always a threat to go straight at the hoop if the defense is napping, whether that's half court or full court.
This is one of the reasons I don't put a lot of stock in all these metrics. For one thing, all stats "lie" in some respect or can be twisted or skewed because they never happen in a vacuum. They try to take into account totally unsanitized situations, but they can't. There can't be a totally accurate accounting for opponent, for teammates, for coaching scheme, for time and score, for what a player might be learning or trying to work on. As a defender, one only needs to watch Scoot defend against screens to realize how good he is. He rarely gets stuck on them. He forces the other team to abandon its primary option and take tough shots. If they make tough shots, there's not much more you can do. And he's guarding some of the best perimeter offensive players in the NBA today as a 19-year-old. Yeah, I'll take what my eyes are telling me here over the neurotic advanced metrics. The other reason I don't trust advanced metrics is people quoting their own tweets.
I accept that I'm in the minority here. I'm rooting for Scoot, but at the same time I'm okay saying Scoot is playing poorly. There were some high pre-season expectations for Scoot to live up to. Heck, before the season started, Scoot had the second highest odds of winning rookie of the year. Now he's barely in the top 10. And yes, I know: - he's only 19 and will (most likely) improve. - games this year are not about wins and losses, they're about gaining experience. - he's shown improvement as the season has progressed. - 19 games is a small sample size. - advanced stats don't tell the full story. - other great nba players struggled their rookie year. - Henderson has the physical tools to be great someday. Since everyone here loves advanced stats so much, here is a look at Scoot's progression measured by Game-Score (Game-Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game. 40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance.) Henderson has had 9 bad games, and 3 good games. And the trend line is heading the right direction, up. Let's hope Chauncey continues to get Henderson some quality playing time and puts him in a situation to learn.
