Shaedon Sharpe has agreed to a four-year, $90 million extension of his rookie-scale contract with the Trail Blazers, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania — a move that keeps the hyper-athletic young swingman in Portland through the end of the decade, and that represents a vote of confidence that the seventh overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft can be a player of consequence for the next competitive iteration of the Blazers.
The new deal for Sharpe comes on the heels of extensions in Portland for general manager Joe Cronin and head coach Chauncey Billups after the 2024-25 NBA season. The Blazers finished 36-46 — their fourth straight sub-.500 season following the firing of longtime former head coach Terry Stotts. They improved dramatically over the course of the campaign, though, bouncing back from a 9-20 start to go 27-26 after Christmas. Portland posted the Westâ€s eighth-best record and net rating after Feb. 1, fueled by a defense that allowed fewer points per possession over its final 34 games than any team outside of Golden State, Oklahoma City, Orlando and Boston — all playoff teams (and, in the Thunder, the eventual NBA champions).
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While correlation isnâ€t causation, it seems notable that the Blazers†significant defensive uptick began in earnest when Sharpe moved from the starting lineup to the bench mid-season. After a 22-point beatdown by the Rockets stretched their losing streak to five games, the Blazers ranked 28th in the NBA in defensive efficiency. Billups sent Sharpe to the bench, explicitly calling out his shortcomings on the defensive end of the floor.
“We need to be better defensively. … He’s struggled a little bit,†Billups said, according to Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report. “As a head coach, as I’m trying to build and develop these guys, I don’t believe in playing on one side of the ball. I just can’t allow that. I can’t have that on my watch. Shae has to get better. I’ve seen him be so good so many different times, but he’s just struggled a little bit. And when he struggles, there needs to be consequences for that.â€
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Over the next six weeks, the Blazers went 13-5 with the leagueâ€s second-best defense — setting a template for an identity shift that continued this summer when Portland plucked ace defensive veteran Jrue Holiday from the fire-selling Celtics. Sharpe, for his part, responded to the demotion well, continuing to score well in a reserve role and maintaining his offensive potency after a late-season return to the starting five, averaging 21.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 35.2 minutes per game down the stretch.
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That sort of up-and-down season produced something of a conundrum for Portlandâ€s braintrust as Sharpe became eligible for an extension this summer. If the Blazers want to be a defense-first team, built around sturdy wings Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara and backstopped by 2024 lottery pick Donovan Clingan at center, and they have an eye on improving their collective long-range game — 19th in made 3-pointers per game, 26th in team 3-point accuracy — then would it make sense to throw the proverbial bag at a career 33% 3-point shooter that they had to bench for defensive malfeasance?
On the other hand: For an organization thatâ€s been searching for its next foundational star since before trading Damian Lillard, and thatâ€s still searching even with Dame now back in the building, might Sharpe be the best bet they can make at the moment? And might making it now — rather than letting Sharpe play out the season and enter a restricted free agency market where, unlike this frigid summer, more teams might have the financial flexibility with which to toss him an offer sheet if heâ€s coming off a breakout run — actually be the more prudent course of action? (Especially with extension decisions on the likes of Avdija and former No. 3 overall pick Scoot Henderson fast approaching.)
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All told, Sharpe averaged 18.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 31.3 minutes per game on .551 true shooting in his third professional campaign. The list of players to produce like that by their age-21 season includes only 26 other names; 24 of the 26 went on to become All-Stars, and Magic forward Franz Wagner was on pace to make it 25 last season, if not for a torn oblique muscle. (Weâ€ll keep a candle lit for you, John Collins.)
Thatâ€s not to say that Sharpe will wind up blossoming into a LeBron/Luka/KD/Tatum/SGA-level top-flight perimeter superstar. But when youâ€re talking about a 6-foot-5 wing with a near-7-foot wingspan and nuclear athleticism, whoâ€s still playing catch-up a bit after skipping college ball entirely, and whose development curve already compares favorably to where several somewhat similarly styled players were at the same age, you can understand a team deeming it reasonable to ante up, paying for the right to see if that kind of blossoming does happen — and to be able to reap the benefits if it does.
Thatâ€s the path the Blazers took, agreeing to terms that will carry Sharpe through his mid-20s, the anticipated upswing toward his athletic prime. Theyâ€re betting that Sharpe — who has reportedly turned heads in training camp — will continue his upward trajectory, taking the kind of leap that will solidify him as not only one of the most exciting young perimeter talents in the NBA, but as a bona fide cornerstone of the core theyâ€re building in Portland.
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“Shaedon, man — I think everybody knows the talent that he is and what he can do, but that boy can hoop,†the veteran Holiday recently told reporters when asked who had stood out to him in camp. “When you go up against him in practice, first-hand, every single day — heâ€s got it.â€
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