Blazers Star Scoot Henderson is Developing Similar to Trae Young

The Portland Trail Blazers are coming off a 141-88 pounding of the Charlotte Hornets Saturday evening.

In their largest victory in franchise history, there was no shortage of bright spots. Anfernee Simons led the team in scoring with 25 points on 50 percent shooting, while Toumani Camara, Jabari Walker, and Shaedon Sharpe each scored 20 points a piece.

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This thrashing of the Hornets improves Portland's record to 24-33 which is good for the No. 12 seed in the Western Conference. It also brings them to the same win total as the San Antonio Spurs who sit at the No. 11 rank.

Although it didn't seem like a possibility before the season began, a play-in tournament spot is more than reasonable to dream about for fans.

A huge part of the sudden ditching of the rebuilding blueprint has been the development from the young pieces in Portland.

One talented guard in particular, Scoot Henderson, has had a slow start to sophomore campaign, but seems to be firmly finding his rhythm since January.

On the Game Theory Podcast, host Sam Vecenie detailed Henderson's similar development in comparison to superstar Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks.

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"I am relatively positive about him right now. He's a 21-year-old guard who literally just turned 21 two weeks ago, figuring it out in the NBA. It takes forever with small guards," said Vecenie. "There is one small guard one-and-done player in the last decade who has been good as a rookie. It's Trae Young. It takes these guys forever to figure it out, and that's ok."

Young played one spectacular college season at the University of Oklahoma while Henderson played one G League season before declaring for the 2023 NBA Draft, but the point still stands.

Henderson improved his 39 percent shooting percentage from last season to 43 percent so far despite a slight dip in his scoring averaged (down from 14 to 12.4 per game).

He is shooting 45 percent from the field in his last 10 games averaging 12.6 points and 5.7 assists per game. More importantly, he is proving himself as a vital part of the recent Trail Blazers succesess.

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