Blazers’ route? They’re going with Scoot
The Blazers are banking that Scoot Henderson, who they took with the No. 3 pick in Thursday’s draft, won’t take long to blossom in the NBA
The Trail Blazers made the move they consider best for the franchise Thursday night during the NBA draft. Not the move that the franchise player considers best for him, however.
There is plenty more to sort out after Portland selected ballyhooed point guard Scoot Henderson with the third pick in the 2023 draft, which took place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
That puts Henderson in direct competition with the Blazers’ meal ticket, Damian Lillard, who made clear after the 2022-23 season that he wants no part of a rebuild.
“I don’t have much of an appetite for bringing in guys two and three years away from really going after it,” Lillard said then. “And if the route is to do that, then that’s not my route.”
Portland general Manager Joe Cronin said after Thursday’s draft that he went for the best talent available at No. 3, period.
“Draft for talent, not need,” Cronin said. “It’s critical. I wasn’t going to be moved at all. I’m drafting the best player possible, and we’re going to figure it out.”
By “figure it out,” Cronin means sorting out a crowded Blazer backcourt that now includes Lillard, Henderson and shooting guards Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe.
I’ll bet a month’s mortgage that Simons will soon be traded in a deal that will bring a veteran “big” back to Portland. But I’ll get to that later.
The word in the run-up to the draft was that the Blazers were considering trading the pick for experienced talent. The problem with that thinking is, NBA executives often fall in love with the players they’re scouting. That’s what happened with Portland and the Scootster. Perhaps coach Chauncey Billups — himself once a No. 3 pick back in 1997 — was in on the love connection, too.
Unless Cronin’s nose is growing, the Blazers aren’t trading Henderson. Lillard, either.
“My goal is to keep both of them,” Cronin said. “I have zero desire to trade Dame. I really hope this works out here. You can tell how excited I am about Scoot Henderson.”
Earlier, Cronin had declared that Henderson “has a chance to be a transcendent player in this league. We’re incredibly excited to have Scoot come to Portland.”
I asked the Blazers GM if he believes the two natural point guards can play in the backcourt together.
“It’s a possibility those two can blend well together,” Cronin said. “From a talent standpoint, it’s really high end. They can complement each other. We’ll see how Chauncey decides how to use them. I don’t know if he’ll use (Henderson) as a backup or a starter, or swing him, but basketball is about talent.
“Sometimes we get too caught up in position or size. We measured Scoot at 6 2 1/2 barefoot. I’d rather have the shorter guy who is a better player than the 6-5 guy. Scoot is so long and so powerful and so dynamic, he can hold his ground against some 2’s (defensively).”
The Blazers are walking a tightrope. On one hand, they have the ultimate respect for Lillard’s loyalty and want to reward what he has accomplished for the franchise over the past decade.
“There’s nothing we want more than for Dame to retire a Trail Blazer and to put a high-end winner around him,” Cronin said. “It’s an incredibly good problem to have. We have the best player in franchise history who wants to be here and wants to have a winner put around him. That’s our challenge. We have to find ways to make this team competitive as possible as quickly as possible.”
On the other hand, Cronin has to be mindful of the team’s future, and that Lillard turns 33 next month and won’t be at the top of his game forever.
Over the past month, the Blazers have tested the waters in an attempt to swing a deal that could bring a front-line star to Portland. The No. 3 pick was at least a big part of the potential carrot.
“Post-lottery, the goal was to see what the value of the pick was in the draft and on the trade market,” Cronin said. The potential bounty wasn’t as good as the Blazers had hoped. They weighed whether or not to keep the pick.
“And we opted to go with Scoot,” Cronin said.
Of course, they would have gone with Brandon Miller had not Charlotte taken the 6-9 forward from Alabama with the No. 2 pick behind Victor Wembanyama to San Antonio at No. 1. And maybe been just as happy. Position-wise, it made more sense.
But the Blazers are legitimately pleased to have Henderson, and to have him locked into a rookie pay scale contract that will call for him to make about $8 million his rookie season.
Henderson, for his part, seems genuinely happy to be a Blazer. During a post-draft Zoom conference with Portland media, he said all the right things.
“I’m excited to come to Portland,” he said. “When I visited, I loved all the greenery and everything about the people. I’m going to learn a whole bunch alongside Dame and Anfernee, guys who have been through what I’m about to go through, guys who have been fearless in the league. I’m going to learn a lot. I’m a listener. It’s going to be great for me.”
Henderson said he has communicated with Lillard — likely through texts and social media — and that he wants to build a chemistry between them.
“It starts off the court, before on the court,” Henderson said. But on the court, he said, “we could be very complementary to each other. There are a whole bunch of guys on that team I’m ready to play with and grow with and build that chemistry.”
Henderson intends to be a sponge around Billups.
“I’m gonna pick Chauncey’s brain so much, he might get annoyed,” he said. “I’m going to try to learn from him and all those guys. There’s a whole organization that I want to learn from. I’m all ears.”
Henderson said he gives “120 percent” on the court and that he “hates to lose even more than I love to win.”
Then he said a curious thing.
“I’m a hard-nosed player, a dog out there. And an angel as a person, I like to say.”
I worry a little about somebody who describes himself as “an angel.”
Scoot Henderson refers to himself as “an angel of a person.” How long will it take him to earn his wings in Portland?
What I know about Scoot is he is the sixth of seven kids to Chris and Crystal Henderson growing up in Marietta, Ga. After eighth grade, Scoot made the decision to choose basketball over football just as his parents were establishing a gym, “Next Play 360,” which became a hub for developing all the Henderson siblings. Now he has his own AAU program, “Team Scoot,” as part of his family business.
Three sisters played college ball — Onyx and China at Cal State Fullerton, Diamond at Tennessee Tech and Syracuse. The sister are part of “Team Scoot.” Onyx helps with social media, China in styling his outfits and Diamond acting as his “chief of staff.” Younger sister “Moochie” is a top-rated point guard in her class. Brother CJ helps him train along with Dad. All are coached by Chris, who never even played high school ball but seems to go about life with an enormous amount of self-confidence.
“I tell all my kids, if you’re not doing it to be the best, we’re not going to do it,” Chris Henderson told Dime Magazine. “I didn’t want any second-place trophies in my house. If we went to a tournament and got a second-place trophy, it wasn’t coming home with us. I had to create that culture in my household. Either we are going to be the best or we’re just going to be everybody else.”
Scoot played not a second of college ball. He graduated early from Kell High in Marietta and signed a two-year, $1 million contract with G League Ignite in Las Vegas when he was 17. He became the youngest American ever to turn pro.
Henderson played two seasons with the Ignite. This past season, he played only 19 games of 32 games, missing the team’s first eight games after sustaining a nasal fracture and concussion. He averaged 16.5 points, shooting .429 from the field, .275 from 3-point range and .764 from the foul line. He averaged 6.8 assists, 5.4 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 3.4 turnovers in 30.7 minutes. Henderson was shut down the last five games to avoid injury with the Ignite 11-16 and on the outside looking in for the G-League playoffs.
Following his father’s directive, Scoot has trademarked a motto, “O.D.D.” (Only Determined to Dominate).
“I’m on an odd pathway that nobody has ever been on,” he told ESPN. “And I’m prepared for the job. Everyone should be O.D.D., mentally wise. Be overly determined to dominate whatever it is in life you want to do.”
Cronin was asked if, by keeping Henderson, the Blazers were in danger of losing Lillard.
“No,” he said. “Dame badly wants to win. He is being more vocal than ever, but I don’t look at that as a negative. He is passionate about this. It matters deeply to him and it matters deeply to us. The reason you still see Dame in our gym every day, still meeting with me and Chauncey constantly. is because he wants it to work here. He is challenging us to get it done, which is more than fair. He has earned that.”
Cronin believes Henderson will make his mark quickly in the NBA.
“Scoot is going to have his ups and downs,” he said. “The rookie year is hard on a player. There are a lot of obstacles. I’m not saying he’s not going to have some negative moments. But every player is different in their preparation to get here. The past of Scoot and Shaedon couldn’t be more different, in the amount they have played against high-quality competition, the reps they had gotten. Shaedon made tremendous growth in a short period of time. These uber-talented guys are able to pull that off. A lot of it is, are you physically ready? Scoot and Shaedon are unique that way. They’re so strong already. It’s just how fast the mental part can catch up.
“Scoot is not your normal 19-year-old. This is a special player. He is going to need some time to adjust to the NBA, but he has already been playing professionally for two years. He won’t take too long to find his stride. He is unique in that regard.”
Cronin was asked what he would tell fans who were expecting him to make a big move via the trade route by draft night.
“We made the biggest move possible by drafting Scoot,” he said. “He is going to be better than any player than would be perceived as that big move. When you factor in getting him on a rookie pay scale, that allows us to build a lot more depth than we’d have been able to otherwise.”
The Blazers aren’t done this summer. Simons is the logical player to be moved for a front-line player who can provide rebounding and defense, and maybe some scoring. We have heard the names of Paul George and Bam Adebayo and Zion Williamson and Deandre Ayton in trade rumors. It may yet happen with one of them. Just as likely, with someone else.
“There is still a lot of movement to be had,” Cronin said. “We have to do a good job in free agency and the trade market, in this activity window the next two to three weeks. We have added some young players. The goal now is to add some veteran players to continue to ramp up this team.
“We have done a good job of putting ourselves in a good position to make these moves and start to get aggressive and push our chips in. We have good picks, we have good players, we have a lot of talent. Now we have to fine tune it and get it balanced and ready to go.”
On Thursday, the Blazers made their highest pick in the draft since Greg Oden went No. 1 in 2007.
They chose a point guard, one who refers to himself as “an angel,” with the promise that veteran front-line help will be on the way.
Blazer fans will be watching. The franchise player will be, too.
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