Sharpe is talented but just too raw
Another B- for the Blazers, this time from John Fanta, a college basketball analyst at Fox Sports. Maybe it’s not surprising that someone like Sharpe, who never played college basketball, received one of the lower grades from someone such as Fanta.
The odd part about this grade is how Fanta sings Shaedon’s praises, with analysis like, “He’s super athletic and long, and can play above the rim. His shooting touch is elite, and he has the ability to provide a scoring burst for a team at the next level. While Sharpe fits the mold of a score-first guard, he is a capable passer and can make plays for teammates.”
Shaedon is labeled as a high-risk, high-reward pick (an across-the-board consensus phrase), but the Fox Sports analyst is more concerned about the risk than the reward. He mentions a lack of game time beyond the high school-level and questions whether or not Sharpe will be able to translate those aforementioned skills to the NBA level, specifically pointing out his defense and shot selection, which he wasn’t wrong about.
He concludes by pointing out how talented of a scorer Sharpe can be, adding that this is a need for Portland, but that “there’s just such a high level of variance with what Sharpe ends up being” and questions if he’s a win-now player.
No, he wasn’t a win-now player, and he wasn’t expected to be. So why grade him so low if you knew what you were getting in the first place?