The Portland Trail Blazers fell 131-120 to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in Rip City on Saturday, losing their sixth straight game. The defeat moves Chauncey Billups' team to 6-18 on the season, tied with the Memphis Grizzlies for the second-worst record in the Western Conference.
No one expected Portland to compete for a playoff spot in 2023-24. Trading Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks finally began the team's long-awaited and much-needed rebuild, even the presence of solid veterans like Jerami Grant, Deandre Ayton and Malcolm Brogdon hardly guaranteeing the young Blazers wouldn't toil toward the bottom of the standings.
The early-season play of No. 2 overall pick Scoot Henderson certainly hasn't helped Portland avoid that fate. He's been one of the least efficient high-usage players in basketball as a rookie, not making up for that offensive ineffectiveness on the other side of the ball.
Henderson isn't sweating his personal struggles nor Portland's team-wide labors, though. He's fully confident it's only a matter of time until the Blazers vault toward legitimate contention, “shocking” the league in the process.
“I know it's gonna happen. It's gonna click,” Henderson said after Sunday's game, per Alex Tam. “I can't really put a time limit on it. That's something you can't really put a time limit on, something you can't really put a time limit. When it does click, it's gonna click, though, and we're gonna shock the world. And a lot of people that doubted the Trail Blazers, they're gonna eat that.”
Scoot Henderson still finding his footing with Blazers
Henderson scored 13 points, grabbed three rebounds, doled out two assists and committed three turnovers on Saturday, shooting 5-of-10 from the field and hitting his only three-point attempt. He came off the bench for the 10th straight game since returning from injury on November 22nd, playing behind Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe in the backcourt.
There's an argument to be made that Portland should start Henderson despite his personal labors. Simons is on a completely different level as a player right now, and Sharpe is nearly as significant a piece to the team's long-term future as Henderson. It's not like the Blazers have a prayer at the playoffs in such a stacked Western Conference; they'd be better off playing for lottery luck than pushing for the play-in tournament.
Billups has only just begun establishing the hard-nosed, defense-first culture he's been striving toward since taking over in Rip City at the start of 2021-22, though. Henderson has only flashed his outstanding physical tools defensively, going through growing pains on that end virtually every rookie experiences. His inability to threaten defenses from the perimeter makes him a tricky fit as a primary ball handler, too, especially for a team lacking quality shooters around him.
Henderson is right—the Blazers' time probably will come. He and Sharpe comprise one of the most promising young backcourts in the NBA, and Portland is sticked with attractive trade assets even before accounting for the eventual likelihood of the front office moving Simons. The future is definitely brighter in Portland now than it was before the Lillard trade.
But there's no denying Scoot Henderson's acclimation from the G League to the NBA has been rockier than most anticipated. The more comfortable he gets with the speed, physicality and mental rigors of basketball at its highest level, the more quickly the Blazers will have a realistic chance to live up to his bold proclamation on their long-term prospects.
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