The Portland Trail Blazers have multiple missions during the 2025-26 NBA season: win games, incorporate new players, develop their young core, and overcome a spate of injuries that has dogged the team since November. Amid the ups and downs, one player has toiled relatively anonymously, give or take a spectacular dunk or two. Shaedon Sharpe has played in 36 of Portland\u2019s 40 games while averaging a career-high 21.5 points, but nobody is talking about him. Until today, that is, when Sharpe becomes the focus of our Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag.<\/p>\n
Before you read: Please help us! Several hundred tickets remain un-donated for this year\u2019s Blazer\u2019s Edge Night event. Over a thousand, in fact! You can read about the charity event for local kids here<\/a> or just head straight to the Blazers\u2019 site<\/a> and purchase some tickets for kids in need! Either way, please help send young folks from the Portland area to see the Blazers this March!<\/p>\n What\u2019s your take on Shaedon Sharpe? My opinion keeps changing weekly. I love the things he does well. His dunks stir things I haven\u2019t felt since I cheered for Clyde when I was in college. He always seems to do well enough. I guess that\u2019s better than he was last year. But I don\u2019t look at him like a star and I don\u2019t know why. For a guy who can jump that high it seems like this is the quietest 20 point average I can remember. Have you got a read on who Sharpe is and whether he\u2019s going to be a big contributor for the future? I just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an accident that Sharpe slips through the cracks sometimes. He\u2019s being eclipsed on the regular by Deni Avdija, who is the Golden Goose of the franchise right now. But that\u2019s only the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n We\u2019re used to putting the Blazers in three categories: role players, up-and-comers, and busts. Let\u2019s add a fourth\u2013\u201cStar\u201d– for Deni and then do a mental experiment. I\u2019ll name a player, you describe them. I bet it\u2019ll take you less than half a second to categorize each one. I can even predict with reasonable certainty which category you\u2019ll pick. Watch.<\/p>\n Deni Avdija\u2013StarToumani Camara\u2013Role PlayerScoot Henderson\u2013Up-and-Comer or BustDonovan Clingan\u2013Up-and-ComerMatisse Thybulle\u2013Role Player<\/p>\n I guess we could create a special category for Jrue Holiday and Jerami Grant, calling them \u201cveterans\u201d. That completely ignores that they\u2019re radically different players playing different positions and are in different stages of their careers. But ignoring complexity and uncertainty is how we\u2019ve learned to deal with the Portland Soup that\u2019s been simmering for the last few seasons. We speed-sort indistinguishable murky messes into defined realities. The surprising thing isn\u2019t that we do it\u2013it\u2019s a human tendency\u2013but how fast we can do it with this otherwise quite variable roster.<\/p>\n But wait. Now do Shaedon Sharpe. You can\u2019t, can you?<\/p>\n Is Shaedon a star? Not really. Not entirely anyway. He has moments, but he hasn\u2019t dominated the way Avdija has. Is he a role player? No. Those 21.5 points would argue differently. They also prevent him from being a bust. But playing in his fourth season with significant, but incremental, improvement, he\u2019s not a true up-and-comer anymore either.<\/p>\n Sharpe is in a no-man\u2019s land when it comes to public perception. What you think of him probably depends on the predetermined spot you\u2019re viewing from. If you want him to be a star, you\u2019re mildly disappointed. If you view him as an up-and-comer, you\u2019re probably at least slightly enthused about Shaedon this year. Either way, it\u2019s as much about you as about him.<\/p>\n The fog around Shaedon may not be confined to fan perceptions either. Sharpe is a shooting guard. What, exactly, is a shooting guard supposed to do in today\u2019s NBA?<\/p>\n You referenced Clyde Drexler in your question. If Sharpe played back in the 1990\u2019s like Clyde, his mission would be clear: dominate the team\u2019s scoring. If opponents sent a smaller guard onto him he would post up, get the defender on his back, then rise and turn for an unblockable jumper from 10-12 feet. If a larger guard lined up against him, Sharpe would take him off the dribble and try to drive, dunk, or get fouled. Either way, he\u2019d have all the space, time, bounces, and touches he needed. His skills, role, and position would align and he\u2019d have nearly-unlimited possessions to explore them.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s pace is faster. Nobody gets 12 seconds of the clock to work with anymore. Nobody posts up and probes, not even centers. Except for a few super-dominant dinosaur stars, isolation ball is a thing of the past. Shoot it or move it is the order of the day.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s shooting guards are more like second point guards. They\u2019re meant to be facilitators, floor-spreaders. Half of them are 6\u20193 speedsters with sharpshooting credentials.<\/p>\n The skill set for this new breed of shooting guard is different.<\/p>\n Read the court! Well, Shaedon hasn\u2019t played organized ball that long and he\u2019s really more of a self-starting scorer than a floor general.Pressure the defense with a quick drive! Sharpe is more deliberate, needing to set up the defender before going past him\u2026if he can get past him at all, because his first two dribbles aren\u2019t that intimidating.Spread the floor! Sharpe\u2019s best season from the arc was 36%. That was his rookie year when he sat in the corner and waited for Damian Lillard to pass him the ball off of a bent and broken defense that couldn\u2019t close to him. Sharpe hasn\u2019t sniffed that percentage since. Not even close.<\/p>\n Honestly, Avdija is playing more of a backcourt role for the Blazers right now than Sharpe ever has, at least by the new definitions. I guess in a healthy lineup that would push Sharpe to small forward? But small forwards are often offensive role players who specialize in three-point shooting. Sharpe is neither. He doesn\u2019t fit there either.<\/p>\n Can you see all the gray area Shaedon is working in? He\u2019s become pretty good at the game he plays, which is sometimes (but not always) what the sport and his team demand.<\/p>\n This would work really well if Sharpe were a transcendent superstar, one of those guys who is so good that he forces the game to bend around him. We haven\u2019t seen that yet.<\/p>\n It would also work well enough if Shaedon could shore up the parts of his game that fit with modern demands. His three-point percentage sits at 33%. His True Shooting Percentage is 54.0%, 172nd in the NBA, 70th among statistically-qualifying guards. His Usage Rate is high, his Assist Rate modest. All of this screams decent older-school guard. None of it indicates a modern star.<\/p>\n But just when you put the period at the end of that sentence, you also see that Sharpe\u2019s per-minute and per-possession scoring have increased significantly this season. He\u2019s gotten more shot attempts, but his overall percentages have either stayed constant or gone up. He\u2019s getting to the rim more often and drawing more fouls too. In addition to those dominating dunks, he\u2019s taken over games from time to time. Looking at all this, there\u2019s more in the tank. We haven\u2019t seen all of Shaedon Sharpe yet. Even if he doesn\u2019t quite fit, he\u2019s too good to ignore.<\/p>\n In the end, the picture resolves to be almost exactly what the original question described. In a certain view, around the right bend, Sharpe ends up being a star. He\u2019s already got the scoring chops, even in this unclear, developmental state. If he ever started firing on all cylinders, he could score 25 without thinking. But he\u2019s not there yet. Either he needs to grow in efficiency and court synergy or the team needs to find a way to feature him better. He\u2019s not yet a smooth player or a smooth fit.<\/p>\n The problem is, there\u2019s no guarantee that time will solve these issues. It\u2019s possible that Sharpe is the player he is and the league demands what it demands. He\u2019s never going to be bad, but he might fall more on the Anfernee Simons side of the effectiveness scale than the CJ McCollum side. Or maybe by Season 7 he has it all figured out. Who knows?<\/p>\n For now, it just seems like the team and Sharpe are a little bit out of sync. It\u2019s almost like there are two Blazers games going on at any given time. There\u2019s the Blazers when Avdija leads and other teammates play off of him and then there\u2019s another Blazers game when Sharpe has the ball. Those two haven\u2019t been reconciled yet, at least not completely.<\/p>\n The relatively unstructured play of the last few seasons allowed Sharpe to show his talent but didn\u2019t give him a good environment in which to hone it. The current mile-a-minute, move-the-ball approach might be better defined and executed but still isn\u2019t optimal for his game. Sharpe remains a really good chef\u2019s knife in need of sharpening, more than useful to a home cook but not quite ready to go into Gordon Ramsay\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n Compare him now to two years ago and you\u2019ll see how far he\u2019s come. Into what is he growing, though, individually and environmentally? That\u2019s now the key question. It hasn\u2019t been answered yet. For now, 21.5 points per game and the occasional highlight dunk will have to tide us over.<\/p>\n Sharpe isn\u2019t done developing. Neither is the team around him. Maybe we\u2019ll get a better answer to these questions over the next year or so. (Perhaps with a permanent, skilled, empowered coach to help resolve these issues and the picture.) For now, understand that a few things continue to conspire against Shaedon, that he continues to make progress as he overcomes them, and hope for the best.<\/p>\n Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com<\/a> and we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible. And don\u2019t forget to help kids in need see the Blazers play<\/a> this spring!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers have multiple missions during the 2025-26 NBA season: win games, incorporate new players, develop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,38295,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-534680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-blazers-mailbags","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115889953293331164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}