It's been hard for the Portland Trail Blazers to rely on Scoot Henderson ever since made a franchise-player-priced investment in him at the 2023 NBA draft. He missed 36 games over his first two seasons than lost the 51 contests of this campaign to a torn hamstring. Even when he's managed to suit up, it's often been a rough watch featuring everything from turnover trouble and shaky shooting to struggles around the rim and limited defensive playmaking.
But the Blazers have yet to abandon hope. And The Ringer's Zach Lowe thinks that's still the right call.
"I'm here to tell you this: Keep an eye on Scoot, because the explosiveness and burst are, like, very much still there," Lowe said on The Zach Lowe Show. "This guy is so fast and so strong. ... You can see what everyone saw in him already. I would not write off Scoot by any means."
Exhale, Portland fans. Stardom might not be guaranteed for Henderson, but he has shown real sigh-of-relief signs of progress and hinted at still being capable of the ultra-bright future so many initially envisioned.
Henderson's athleticism is elite, and he's flashing the kind of ball skills that suggest he just might take full advantage of those tools yet.
Between our itching desire to rush to judgement, and the things happening with players picked after Henderson (like the Thompson twins, Anthony Black, and Keyonte George), there's almost this desire to tag him with the bust label and move on.
That notion is, in a word, complete and utter absurdity.
For one, he is 22 years old and has 132 career contests under his belt. To act like we have the slightest idea of what his future hold would mean completely ignoring everything we know about player development. Like, very relevant to this discussion, the fact it doesn't always happen on our preferred timeline.
Did we all want to see more from Scoot by now? Sure, but the fact we haven't hardly defines the kind of player he can be.
He's been pigeonholed into this extreme on-ball archetype, but his gains as a shooter and ability to leverage his explosion on off-ball cuts all suggest he can thrive with other playmakers around him. And that's massively important with Deni Avdija making an All-Star leap, Damian Lillard working his way back to full-strength, and Yang Hansen still clinging onto offensive-hub potential.
That said, when Henderson has on-ball reps, you also see why he can be such a tough cover and a rising-tide floor general who helps everyone around him.
You see, simply, the same vision that drew the Blazers toward him in the first place. And, no, a couple of rocky, injury-impacted seasons shouldn't change that.
Maybe we shouldn't need that reminder, but it's still nice for the early film from his return to deliver it.