Scoot Henderson Impresses In Symbolic Matchup With Damian Lillard
On Sunday afternoon, the Portland Trail Blazers and Milwaukee Bucks faced off in a symbolic matchup. On paper, it was just a top-seeded Eastern Conference team against a struggling Western Conference squad, but it was really much more than just that. This marked Damian Lillard’s first-ever game against Portland. Arguably the franchise’s greatest ever player, Lillard became their all-time leading scorer during his 11 seasons as a Blazer before requesting a trade this offseason.
Now in Milwaukee, Lillard faced off with Portland’s newest rookie: Scoot Henderson. Selected out of the G League Ignite program with the third overall pick, Henderson is seen as the successor to Lillard. He’s also a 6-foot-2 point guard that carries superstar potential.
He’s the new face of the Trail Blazers.
After missing nine games with an ankle injury, Henderson played just the seventh game of his career against Milwaukee. It was only his second game back from injury, but arguably the best of his young career.
Coming off the bench and wearing goggles, the 6-foot-2 point guard tallied 13 points, four rebounds, and one assist in 27 minutes of action. He converted two of his six field goal attempts from two-point range, but more impressively knocked down three of his four tries from deep.
Given that outside shooting has always been his biggest weakness, this success was extremely encouraging. These makes from beyond the arc weren’t just routine looks, either. He made some contested shots, including this pull-up over Lillard in a passing-of-the-torch type moment:
Henderson still has an extremely long way to go to fill Lillard’s shoes, though. In Lillard’s rookie season in 2012-13, he averaged 19 points, 6.5 assists, and 3.1 rebounds per contest while playing all 82 games en route to winning the Rookie Of The Year Award.
To this point, Henderson is averaging just 8.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.6 assists. However, he has plenty of time to turn this production around. And even if he doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world for the 19-year-old. Every player's development path is different, and with as much as talent as Henderson has, he has plenty of time to find his footing. His performance on Sunday was a great start to this.
Henderson and Lillard are scheduled to face off again on Jan. 1.
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