There's a lot of decisions to be made in the Portland Trail Blazers' upcoming season. One choice I believe the coaching staff should be angling toward is giving Jrue Holiday the start at point guard, and letting Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe come off the bench.
This is not an idea that's likely to be popular among the Blazers' fan base. I'm pretty sure a lot of people want to see Scoot and Shaedon get starting jobs now, before Damian Lillard comes back healthy next season. But I think if Portland is going to build a foundation this season that will continue building toward a consistent winner down the road, it'd be smart to get the veteran in the first five on the floor.
In my mind, the Trail Blazers are going to probably want to roll with Holiday, Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara, Jerami Grant and Donovan Clingan as their starting five. This is not only a very big lineup, but it should also give Portland their best shot at having solid defensive output. This group has tons of defensive potential.
Jrue Holiday should start over Sharpe and Henderson
With Holiday in the first group on the floor, you get a grizzled vet on the defensive end. And even if Holiday's still struggling with his shot like he did in Boston last season, he's still a high-IQ guy that you can trust to be at least a connective piece on offense.
Then when you look at Henderson and Sharpe coming off the bench, I think that gives those guys more of an opportunity to thrive playing a lot of their minutes against opposing bench players. And who knows? By the end of the season or mid-way through the season, maybe one of those two is performing so well off the bench that it makes sense to promote them to the starting group.
Again, the main reason I'm bringing up this idea is looking at it from the defensive side of things. I think Portland's best shot to win games this coming season is going to be leaning into their strengths on that side of the basketball.
And at the end of the day, we all know this will be something of a transitional year for the Blazers anyway. There will be a lot of lineup combinations to tinker with. But to start out the year at least, I see this combination and strategy being their best best.