Portland Trail Blazers guard Scoot Henderson sustained a left hamstring tear during an offseason workout leading up to the start of training camp and is out indefinitely, the team announced on Friday afternoon.
Henderson will miss the start of the 2025-26 NBA season and is expected to return to basketball activities in four to eight weeks. He will begin his rehabilitation immediately.
The Blazers drafted Henderson third overall in the 2023 NBA Draft as a potential successor to Damian Lillard, who was traded from Portland to the Milwaukee Bucks before the 2023-24 season. Between his explosive athleticism and playmaking abilities as a lead guard, Henderson was viewed as one of the future pillars of the Trail Blazers franchise.
While this is still the case with the 21-year-old guard, this hamstring injury is a major setback entering his third NBA season.
The good news for the Blazers is that they added veteran guard Jrue Holiday to help lead their backcourt this offseason, and Shaedon Sharpe has been taking steps toward becoming an essential part of this roster. Holiday was acquired from the Boston Celtics in exchange for starting point guard Anfernee Simons.
However, the Trail Blazers are now limited in their backcourt since Henderson will be sidelined indefinitely to begin the year, and Lillard is out the entire season with his Achilles injury. Upon being cut by the Bucks, Lillard opted to return to Portland this offseason, signing a three-year, $42 million contract.
He will make $14.1 million this season while rehabbing his Achilles injury, and then he will make $13.4 million during the 2026-27 season before having the ability to become a free agent again at 37 years old in 2027.
The Blazers will miss not having Henderson to begin the new season, especially since he was expected to compete for an essential spot in Chauncey Billups' starting rotation. Now, upon returning in the middle of the season, he will need to reintegrate himself into the Blazers' equation.
This offseason, Billups urged his young guard to continue working on his game and spend as much time as possible in the gym.
“My challenge for Scoot all summer has been: we need to be playing as much as we can, man. We need to be playing,” Billups said in June. “You have to play basketball — and a ton of it — to be able to see those things and for the game to slow down for you.
“That’s my challenge for him. And again, it’s one of the reasons why he’s here in town—working, playing hard, playing five-on-five every single day. And he’s continuing to get better.”
In two seasons with the team, Henderson has averaged 13.3 points and 5.2 assists per game while shooting 40.1 percent from the floor and 34.0 percent from 3-point range. He started in 10 games for the Blazers last season.
