We're over halfway through Scoot Henderson's third NBA season, and there are far more questions about the 21 year-old's future than answers. Henderson hasn't played at all in 2025-26 after tearing his hamstring, and he might still be weeks away from a return to action. There's a real chance we enter year four of Henderson's tenure without a real idea of what he can produce. That's not good!
The problem isn't that he's a bad player; the problem is that, through injuries and slow on-court development, we don't know what kind of player he is. He was good the second half of last year, but that "good" is relative; he averaged about 13 points per game on passable shooting efficiency, and started to look like a potential plus-defender. The explosiveness and finishing were both mostly absent. Henderson was a playable backup guard, and that's not the outcome that anyone in PDX envisioned.
If that's the peak of Henderson's abilities, we might be in dangerous territory. Without a substantial jump in Henderson's ability to create offense by himself — which was supposed to be one of his defining skills when the Blazers drafted him — then his ceiling might be a lot lower than everyone hoped for. And to hope for something different after he returns from a serious lower-body injury might be an unfair expectation to put on Henderson, and a disappointment waiting to happen.
Blazers still have no idea what kind of player Scoot Henderson is
When there's still so much to find out about a player in year four, worry starts to set in.
Plus, the Trail Blazers no longer feel so desperate for guard production as they did when they drafted Henderson in the first place. Now above .500, the days of the Blazers giving Henderson minutes solely for the sake of his development are probably over; this team wants to win games.
Jrue Holiday isn't a long-term answer, of course, but he's provided a steady hand for the team this year. Damian Lillard won't be the same guy he was when he first played for the Blazers, but he will still get plenty of run next year. And Caleb Love, a much less heralded prospect than Henderson, is impacting winning more right now in his rookie season than Henderson ever has up to this point.
I don't know if Love is a viable long-term option as this team's starting point guard, either — but it's concerning how quickly he has surpassed Henderson regarding their respective developments. Love signed with the Blazers as an UDFA and has been vital in the team's recent scorching hot stretch.
Calling a 21 year-old who has played fewer than 150 NBA games a "bust" is premature, and I won't do that here. But expecting Henderson to be a totally different and improved version of himself when he comes back this season isn't realistic. Because of that, he's likely to enter his fourth year as an unknown — and that's a scary place to be for a former top-three pick.