The Portland Trail Blazers earned their first win of the 2025-26 NBA season, defeating the Golden State Warriors in blowout fashion with a final score of 139-119. With a convincing win of that magnitude, there are a lot of promising takeaways. Still, one low point was the play of recently extended guard Shaedon Sharpe.
The same inefficient play that Blazers fans have been previously frustrated by with Jerami Grant can be applied to Sharpe, who finished the contest with 17 points, four rebounds, one assist, and one steal, shooting 5-of-15 from the field and 1-of-6 from beyond the arc.
This is now the second consecutive game in which Sharpe has been inefficient to kick off his anticipated season. In Wednesday's loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, he recorded 15 points while shooting just 5-of-20 from the field and 3-of-9 from deep.
Shaedon Sharpe is becoming the inefficient one-dimensional player everyone thought Jerami Grant was
Sharpe earned a starting spot this season after a promising training camp, where he was deemed the one standout performer. It appeared that Sharpe and Grant were trending in opposite directions, as Grant was coming off an underhwhelming 2024-25 campaign in which he averaged 14.4 points on 37.3% from the field. That was particularly concerning when considering that Grant is a relatively one-dimensional score-first player who doesn't impact winning in multiple aspects as a rebounder or playmaker.
It's incredibly early in the season and a limited sample size of just two games, but it appears that those roles have now been reversed.
Grant is off to a red-hot start to the season and seems to be having a bounce-back campaign, following up a 29-point performance against the Timberwolves with another efficient outing against the Warriors, scoring 22 points on just ten shots.
The Blazers have to be thrilled with how Grant has started the season; it could potentially even mean that he's building up his trade value to no longer be considered as much of a negative asset, given his massive contract.
Meanwhile, they also have to be wondering if they just made another financial mistake by committing to Sharpe long-term with a four-year, $90 million extension.
To be fair, the Blazers are asking Sharpe to do a lot on the offensive end with a defensive-minded roster missing Scoot Henderson and Damian Lillard. Still, we can't help but shake the feeling that the same reasons Blazers fans wanted Grant benched -- inefficient shooting and one-dimensional play -- now apply more so to Portland's high flyer.
If he can't improve his shooting and efficiency as a three-level scorer, it's going to be difficult for Sharpe to return value on this investment.