Shaedon Sharpe Must Make Similar Fourth-Year Jump as Blazers Teammate

Portland Trail Blazers guard Shaedon Sharpe is making major strides in year four. As his offensive volume increases, Sharpe's efficiency is maintained. Outside of his three-point shooting, anyway. An increased sample size figures to help him there, though.

As Sharpe, Jerami Grant, and Deni Avdija continue to power an offense with bigs who are limited in creation, it'll be on the former two to help the latter until Jrue Holiday returns from a calf strain.

Holiday was an effective floor general for Portland in the 12 games he played. In his last four games before injury, Holiday had 38 assists. Since then, Avdija has had games with 13 and 14 assists in a 127-123 win against the Golden State Warriors in November and a 121-118 loss against the Toronto Raptors in December, respectively. Sharpe should be putting those numbers up, though.

Of course, Sharpe's development was always going to have issues given that he never played a game with the Kentucky Wildcats. Sharpe explained that he didn't play because he needed to get his body "right."

“Getting my body right, getting a little bit stronger, a little bit bigger,” Sharpe said in explaining his decision not to play for the Wildcats during the 2021-22 College Basketball season. “My mindset was, get my body right.”

Sharpe didn't come away from Lexington with much else other than playing elite SEC competition in practice. It's why he's always been sharp offensively, but raw. It's why he often looked like a deer in the headlights defensively until recently.

Sharpe's development defensively was the product of trial and error reps the past few years under Chauncey Billups. His leap forward on the scoring side needs to come while playing within a cohesive offensive system or with playmakers like Holiday.

Jrue Holiday Had Major Year-Four Leap in Assists

Holiday had a career-high eight assists per game in his fourth season, the 2012-13 campaign with the Philadelphia 76ers. He nearly doubled his assist total from the season before.

Sharpe is starting from further behind, but having a similar fourth-year jump can allow Portland to hedge against Scoot Henderson never working out at the point guard position. For the duration of Holiday's contract, barring a lack of development from the Blazers, Sharpe will have the 35-year-old as a running mate.

Maybe he'll continue emulating Holiday. Sharpe made tangible steps while Holiday has been on the shelf with a calf strain.

Sharpe's assist totals went up with Holiday out of the lineup. That was to be expected. Especially since Sharpe's season-high assist total happened during the first game that Holiday was in street clothes.

Once Holiday is back, though, Sharpe will have another capable scorer and passer whom he can play off of. He's seen what the offense can do with and without a playmaker like Holiday. While he couldn't provide what Holiday did during the 2-8-and-counting stretch, Sharpe did up his assist totals to over three per game.