Conventional wisdom says Dame can't thrive with Scoot Henderson. I say give it a shot.
Portland’s front office should get one go-round with Scoot Henderson to be proven wrong
Over the past month, we’ve heard a lot about the lies of Joe Cronin. We’ve heard from Miami that Damian Lillard only has to come out and tell the truth about all the lies Portland has told him. The broken promises. The extra miles they did not go. And to Cronin’s admission, he failed to deliver a roster that Damian Lillard believed could be a competitor next season, leading to the trade request earlier this month. But you have to credit the Blazers for stopping the politics and being willing to go down on their own merits.
If the current Blazers front office thinks, as I do, that Dame can compete with Scoot Henderson, they should be allowed to be proven wrong. Henderson likely thinks like Lillard. Both are point guards. But talent wins out in basketball, especially elite talent.
I’ll admit, I’m the kind of guy who likes long odds. So my taste for risk is a little bit higher than people in charge of NBA teams and player agencies. But the basketball fan (and gambler) in me is stirring to roll the dice. I would like to see if I’m wrong just so I know. I would just like to see how a team with two guards like Dame and Scoot would look. We’ve had too many imaginary stars photoshopped next to Dame. Why can’t we see a young superstar with him?
Lillard has never played with someone who combines athleticism with the ability to break down the defense and set the table for others in the way Henderson can. Lillard has also never played with someone else who is a natural leader. Henderson has the athleticism and natural point guard awareness of setting others up that Lillard has rarely played with. His athleticism also helps him project as a good cutter, in my opinion. He will have to learn how to play without the ball one day if he is going to be great. Why not try it with one of the best point guards of all-time right out of the gate? Henderson’s below-average 3-point shooting in the G League has many saying the 19-year-old can’t shoot, but his form (76% from the FT Line), work ethic, and athleticism leave me encouraged that he can find the way from the outside. Plus, being in practice with shooters like Dame and Ant is the opportunity to have iron sharpen iron. I still think they have too many guards, but I also don’t think anybody will be able to guard them.
In the process of Dame’s trade request, rather conveniently, it’s been forgotten that part of the reason why Portland opted to tank last season and ask Dame to sit out was due to signing Gary Payton II, who like Lillard, is an Aaron Goodwin client, instead of Bruce Brown. While there isn’t enough proof to say that Goodwin and Lillard forced Portland’s hand to sign GP2, at the very least, the front office pandering to Lillard’s reps did Portland no favors when it came to wins and losses, nor did it save them from Lillard’s decision to demand a trade. But after seeing what happened last summer, you have to credit them for being willing to go down by their own convictions rather than trying to pander to Lillard and his reps. Perhaps that’s the best thing for Lillard too. He clearly doesn’t believe that. But that also doesn’t mean his basketball eye, nor the eyes of his reps, regarding for what works best for him, is infallible.
The decision to tank and get Lillard to miss games has been a point of contention in the discussions about the trade request. To many, Lillard’s willingness to sit out is something that should have been rewarded with a trade of their lottery pick for a veteran, regardless of the return, even though they moved up from 5 to 3 and changed the circumstances of a potential deal. To others, it’s a sign that Cronin set Lillard up to be the bad guy, manufacturing the very scenario that has taken the NBA hostage. Or at the very least, it’s a reason that Portland should agree to a trade to send Lillard exactly where he wants, regardless of what the other team has to offer.
But all of that obfuscates the fact that the signing of Gary Payton II was sold as a major addition to help the Blazers become more respectable. For a market like Portland, you cannot fuck up your exception signings. And the negative effects that move had on the roster, both on the court and off of it, were inescapable. And Payton being an Aaron Goodwin client is a factor in the process of choosing him over Bruce Brown that cannot be ignored. The GP2 signing did nothing but make Portland a worse basketball team.
As someone who was occasionally around the team covering games for the Associated Press, every time Payton’s return date was pushed back, you could feel air coming out of the balloon. Dame, Josh Hart and Justise Winslow tried to rally the troops. Played hurt and tried to save the season. But they could never escape the burden of seeing the team’s biggest free agent signing completely flop.
Joe Cronin has to wear that failure publicly, and ultimately it was his fault. Something he learned from, knowing when to trade GP2 and also holding firm this summer, refusing to trade Scoot for someone like Zach LaVine or Paul George. In the NBA, there is no doubt that you have to make concessions to your stars. Cronin and the Blazers' front office clearly let themselves get walked over too much last summer.
Portland, who held the full mid-level exception, could have acquired Brown, who is three years younger than GP2, coming off a solid season with the Nets. Brown went on to sign the much less lucrative tax-payer mid-level exception to become a key member of Denver’s championship run. This summer he signed a massive 2-year, $45 million contract with the Pacers.
This brings me to the main point of my column, which is, maybe, just maybe, the current Blazers front office was right not to trade the pick, not just for the franchise, but also for Lillard’s goals. It probably won’t work out this way, because curiosity is something that is lost in the NBA in 2023. Perhaps the PTSD of so many failures from the previous regime is blocking the reality of the situation.
Right now it feels as though Lillard and his reps are making Scoot Henderson pay for the mistakes of Neil Olshey. I think that’s a miss. Miami is still the betting favorite to have him at the start of the season. But instead of repeating last summer by following Dame’s checklist, the Blazers owed it to themselves to wonder, what if we need to do it our way this time?
And what if Dame and Scoot are only afraid of what they don’t know? What if they discover something newer and better? Even Miami’s best offer can’t be better than finding out what that looks like. I just hope the powers that be give the basketball-viewing public a chance to find out what it feels like.