fielded a Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag question<\/a> asking why the team was so complacent about the slow-down, isolation-based offense they\u2019ve been playing lately. I offered that they didn\u2019t have many choices with Jerami Grant and Jrue Holiday as their only multifaceted veteran scorers.<\/p>\nAt the tail end of that question, its author opined that Scoot Henderson might be one of the answers to Portland\u2019s woes, now that he\u2019s fully back from injury. This accompanies a chorus of voices in the Mailbag and our Game Day Threads advocating for Scoot to start and continue his developmental journey.<\/p>\n
On the surface the suggestion makes sense. Scoot is quick. He can push the offense. He gets into the lane and is capable of passing out of it. In theory, he can be a big scoring threat. If you want a firecracker to break up the complacency of an otherwise-staid offense (and if Deni Avdija is injured), Scoot is the most likely member of the roster to serve.<\/p>\n
So why isn\u2019t Henderson starting in a situation that appears tailor-made for his gifts? The distance between theory and reality is still vast. It just doesn\u2019t look like Scoot is ready.<\/p>\n
The best way to frame it, at least for myself, is that Scoot looks like a rookie out there. I am NOT saying that Scoot looks like Scoot Henderson as a rookie. He has made enormous progress since his first year in the league. Full credit there! His shot selection is much better. Reading the court has solidified. He\u2019s down for defense. His three-point shot is much less random. I have been impressed with his growth and continue to be.<\/p>\n
For all that, Henderson still resembles an NBA rookie. A big part of that is a timing thing. You can see it most clearly in his passes. They\u2019re often too hard or just a bit off target. He\u2019s able to use space, but he\u2019s not comfortable in it and not delivering through it with the surety of an experienced player.<\/p>\n
On offense, particularly, Scoot and the gang are like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons\u2014one guy clearly apart from the others, playing his own game\u2014except Frankie isn\u2019t quite in tune with the rest.<\/p>\n
Granted, some of this is because these players have never suited up together as a unit, with Scoot being out most of the year. But Jrue Holiday also missed time and hadn\u2019t played with any of his teammates before the season started. He looked pristine from the get-go. I don\u2019t expect Scoot to resemble one of the greatest team-oriented point guards of this generation, but three seasons into his career, I do expect him to be north of Blake Wesley by a mile. He\u2019s just not.<\/p>\n
Playing off-ball more was supposed to extend Scoot\u2019s shelf life on the floor, but two things are interfering.<\/p>\n
When he\u2019s playing alongside another ball-dominant guard, Henderson is fading. It\u2019s the classic \u201ceither-or\/my turn-your turn\u201d offense, where receiving the ball activates Henderson into Scoot Mode, which may or may not fit with the other things going on around him. That\u2019s forgivable. Henderson isn\u2019t the only guard\u2014not even the only guard on the Blazers\u2014to suffer from that malady.<\/p>\n
The unforgivable sin is that Scoot\u2019s not hitting shots. In his ten games back, he\u2019s had just three shooting better than 40% from the field. Two of those encompassed his only decent three-point shooting efforts: 3 of 5 versus the Minnesota Timberwolves on February 11th and 2 of 4 versus the Utah Jazz on February 12th. Other than that one, 48-hour period (nearly a month ago now), Scoot has been abysmal. Six of his ten outings have featured either 0 or 1 three-pointer hit, 25% shooting or below beyond the arc. His aggregate shooting since he returned: 39% from the field, 24% from distance. The team as a whole averages 45% and 34%.<\/p>\n
Henderson\u2019s assists have been passable. (Hmmm\u2026see what I did there?) He\u2019s at 4.7 in 23 minutes per game, making 7.3 assists per 36 minutes. That would leave him right around 19th in the NBA if he could do it for a full season, in a fairly-close deadlock with his teammate Avdija. Unfortunately his turnover rate of 3.1 puts him at 4.8 per-36. That\u2019s also on par with Avdija, who is one of the most turnover-prone ballhandlers in the league. Henderson certainly has Avdija\u2019s aptitude for attacking the lane and looking for the kickout, but also corresponding flaws.<\/p>\n
So basically, at least since he\u2019s been back, Henderson has looked a bit like a mini-version of Deni Avdija, without the scoring, shooting, or full defensive ability. The problems are two. First, those latter attributes are a large part of what makes Deni special. Second, the Blazers already have one Avdija. They probably don\u2019t need two.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the tantalizing part. Showing any of these characteristics is a positive sign. Deni Avdija wasn\u2019t fully Deni Avdija until this season, his sixth in the NBA. It took experience, reps, and free license with the ball to bring out the All-Star version of Portland\u2019s shiny point-forward. Henderson is only in his third year. He has time.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the hard part. Scoot\u2019s sixth season is not today and is not coming soon. We can\u2019t argue for him to play\u2014let alone captain the offense\u2014on what he might become. We certainly can\u2019t argue that his current performance justifies starting him or even giving him a bigger role than he has now. If the Blazers had a better alternative (which is not hard to imagine if Avdija and Holiday are both healthy) it would be easy to see Scoot\u2019s looks go down. Given his potential and status with the team, I don\u2019t believe he\u2019d ever be benched wholly. But he\u2019s a long way from being essential to this lineup, except in its currently-decimated status.<\/p>\n
In short, Scoot advocates aren\u2019t wrong, but he\u2019s not able to perform at a level yet that would justify expanding his current role. He\u2019s not even the answer in most of the possessions he plays, let alone for the team\u2019s ills as a whole. That will have to wait for another day and, likely, another season. The Blazers will ride this one out as they have the past two, considering anything Henderson gives them as a bonus, waiting still for the true breakout that his promise portends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers are struggling to find their identity during the 2025-26 season. Are they a playoffs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637512,"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-637511","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\/116167567348596899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637511","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=637511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}