With playoff chances not worth a hoot, Blazers aim to develop Scoot
Scoot Henderson has a large support system as he enters his rookie season with the Blazers
Another Trail Blazer season is almost upon us. On Wednesday, Portland opens its 2023-24 season at Crypto.com Arena against the L.A. Clippers.
It would be nice to say the local quintet will be a championship contender, or in competition for a playoff spot. Not likely.
That’s not a surprise to those of you who follow the team. Damian Lillard is off to Milwaukee, rookie Scoot Henderson has the keys to the car, and in terms of wins and losses, it appears it is going to be another long season.
In 2022-23, the Blazers finished 33-49 and 20 games behind Western Conference leader Denver. The year before, they were 27-55 and 37 games back of West leader Phoenix. In both campaigns, the Blazers closed the season by tanking down the stretch to position themselves for draft picks.
While most fans understand the end goal, it’s not a pretty picture for those who paid heavy dinero to watch a late-season game. A lineup of Skylar Mays, Kevin Knox, Jeenathan Willlams, Shaedon Sharpe and Trendon Watford was not what they had in mind when they purchased their game tickets before last season.
This season, playing in a loaded Western Conference, the Blazers may not have to tank to lose a lot of games. Covers.com has Portland’s over/under for victories at 28 1/2, lowest in the West and higher than only Detroit (27 1/2) and Washington (24 1/2) in the NBA.
The season will be very much about the development of Henderson, the No. 3 pick in the June draft and the youngster general manager Joe Cronin envisions as the Blazers’ floor leader for the next decade. Henderson, who won’t turn 20 until next February, is a little ahead of most rookies, having played the previous two seasons with the G League Ignite. He is going to get plenty of on-court time, and he will have an abundance of guidance.
Head coach Chauncey Billups, a 17-year veteran at point guard and NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons in 2003-04, has taken Henderson under his wing. Lead assistant coach Scotty Brooks has 10 seasons as an NBA point guard on his resume. The Blazers brought in 30-year-old vet Malcolm Brogdon, the league’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2022-23 with Boston, to back up Henderson and assist in his development — at least until he is traded, which very well could happen.
Then there is Pooh Jeter, his point guard mate and mentor with the Ignite, as the team’s player development coach. Henderson’s support system in his first NBA campaign could hardly be better.
It took Billups a half-dozen seasons before he became a top-flight point guard in the league.
“I’m going to be what I needed as the third pick in the draft at 20 years old,” Billups told Henderson. “I’m going to be that guy for you.”
Brooks, who took Oklahoma City to the 2012 NBA Finals and was head coach of the Thunder for seven years, compares Henderson’s potential with his point guard then, future Hall of Famer Russell Westbrook.
“There are so many similarities, it’s uncanny,” Brooks told reporters. “He’s on the right path to greatness.”
“I see Jason Williams at Duke in him,” Jeter told me this summer. “I see Eric Bledsoe. He has the potential to be the next real-deal point guard in the NBA. But he has to listen to Chauncey and Scott, to learn from people who have been in the NBA and have the knowledge that he doesn’t have. He has to take it one day at a time and have his ears open.”
The 6-4 Brogdon — three seasons removed from averaging 21.2 points and 5.9 assists for Indiana in 2020-21 — is almost certainly a better player than the 6-2 1/2 Henderson at this point, but the latter is likely to start and log more minutes. Henderson seems to be working hard and staying humble, so I’ll forgive him for telling the media on draft night, “I’m an angel of a person, I like to say.”
Because he will probably average 30 minutes a game, Henderson will have a good shot at Rookie of the Year honors. Lillard won it in 2012-13 on a team that went 33-49, averaging 19.0 points and 6.5 assists while leading the league in minutes played at 38.5 per game. Henderson won’t play near that many minutes and he certainly won’t get up as many shots. Averages of about 13 points and seven assists seem reasonable.
Henderson will have plenty of veteran talent around him. His backcourt mate, Anfernee Simons, is only 24 but is entering his sixth season with the Blazers. He averaged a career-high 21.1 points in 62 games last season and could better that in 2023-24.
Three other teammates will need touches: power forward Jerami Grant, whom the Blazers signed to five-year, $160-million contract in the offseason; 7-foot center Deandre Ayton, landed in the trade that sent Jusuf Nurkic and Nassir Little to Phoenix, and swing man Shaedon Sharpe, the second-year pro who may come off the bench along with Brogdon and 6-9 post Robert Williams, also acquired in the deal that sent Jrue Holliday to the Celtics. Grant and Ayton will come in expecting to average 20 points a game.
Offense shouldn’t be much of a problem for the Blazers. Defense is another story.
During Billups’ first two seasons as head coach, the Blazers have ranked 28th and 29th in the league in defensive rating. (It’s been a tradition for some time. In Terry Stotts’ final two seasons, the Blazers finished 27th and 29th in defensive rating). Lillard’s absence should help, but Simons is hardly a stopper, and Henderson will spend some time learning the NBA game.
Defense is at a premium in the playoffs. The better defensive clubs generally thrive. One of Billups’ goals is to put a better defensive effort on the floor. The Blazers can hardly be worse than they have been in recent history, but they’re not likely to make quantum leaps right now.
At least through the trade deadline, Billups will get a better chance to prove his coaching moxie this season. In Simons, Grant, Ayton, Brogdon and Williams, there are veterans with talent who know how to play.
A couple of them may be gone by then; Cronin is looking toward a push two or three years down the road, so veterans may be shipped off for young players and/or draft picks. I’d like to think the Blazers can at least match their record of a year ago and perhaps improve on it, but we’ll see if another tank job is in order.
Losing can be contagious. Teams work hard to develop a winning culture, but a losing culture can transpire, too, and it’s hard to turn that around. Ask the Clippers, who missed the playoffs in each of their first 13 seasons and made it in only three of their first 27 years of existence. Ask the Pistons, who have zero playoff wins through the last 14 campaigns. High draft picks are nice, but they aren’t guaranteed to result in victories and championships.
Regular-season games don’t mean as much as those in the playoffs, of course, but they aren’t meaningless. Season ticket-holders pay to watch 41 regular-season games a season. A victory over the Warriors in November or the Nuggets in January or the hated Lakers in March is fun for the fans.
The Houston Astros tanked three straight seasons in the early 2010s, sending them on the way to a string of winning seasons and four World Series appearances, so it can work. San Antonio has experienced four straight losing seasons, but only last year was a blatant tank, and even then the Spurs won three of their last five.
The Blazers are gathering assets (draft picks) and collecting young players to prepare for the future, when they expect Henderson to be ready. I get the drill. But I can’t recall an NBA team blatantly tanking three years in a row. It’s unseemly. The fans deserve better. If it happens this year in Portland, the club should be embarrassed.
A few other observations:
• The in-season tournament that commissioner Adam Silver is so fired up about? To echo a phrase used by an old fraternity brother, “It leaves me weak.” Meaning, I’m not impressed. Seems unnecessary.
• I’m also not too excited about the Rip City Remix, Portland’s new entry in the G League, playing in town. Seems like it’s better to be in a smaller city nearby, where the city’s fans can embrace them and the NBA team’s diehards can drive to get their fix once in a while.
• I think Nurkic is being underrated nationally. Some scribes across the continent are saying Drew Eubanks, now also with the Suns, might start ahead of him. Yes, Nurk was undependable during his 6 1/2 seasons with the Blazers, and at times, Eubanks was better than him. But the Bosnian Beast averaged 14.4 points and 9.8 rebounds during his time in a Portland uniform, and he’s still only 29. A fresh start might do him good. With all the stars around him in Phoenix, less will be expected. There is little pressure. He will rebound, score around the basket — probably miss more than his share, too — and run the court well enough to get a few dunks. Nurk at his best is pretty darn good.
• Nurkic fancied himself as a 3-point shooter last season, and he wasn’t bad, shooting .361 on 119 attempts from beyond the arc. Ayton took only 24 3’s last season, making seven, but I get the impression he would like to spend a little more time at the 3-point line this season. The Blazers need Ayton — as they needed Nurkic — to focus on doing the dirty work in the interior. If he does that, he will get his boards, and he will get his points.
• The way I see the Western Conference’s top eight playoff spots playing out: 1. Denver (good chance to repeat); 2. Phoenix (plenty of offensive firepower, though defense could be an issue); 3. Golden State (old guard keeps them contending); 4. Clippers (possibly higher if Harden arrives); 5. Sacramento (ready to take the next step); 6. Lakers (LeBron and AD won’t let them slip any lower if they stay healthy); 7. Memphis (defense will be its strength); 8. Minnesota (Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert should be a terrific trio).
And the East:
1. Boston (best overall talent in the conference); 2. Milwaukee (Giannis and Dame lead the way); 3. Cleveland (on the rise); 4. Miami (Coach Spo gets more from his players than anyone); 5. Philadelphia (hurt by the Harden situation); 6. New York (Randle and Brunson a strong 1-2 punch); 7. Atlanta (best of the rest, but I’m no fan of Trae Young); 8. Indiana (very young, but well-coached by Rick Carlisle).
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