{"id":150156,"date":"2025-07-13T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T02:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=150156"},"modified":"2025-07-13T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T02:44:11","slug":"trail-blazers-scooter-henderson-offseason-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/13\/trail-blazers-scooter-henderson-offseason-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers Guard Showing Necessary Offseason Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> point guard Scoot Henderson<\/a> is just over three months away from kicking off his third NBA season. However, the talented former G League star’s career hasn’t played out the way most anticipated. After a rather pedestrian first two NBA seasons, which have included injuries and growth pains, Henderson is hard at work this offseason preparing for the 2025-26 campaign, and his head coach, Chauncey Billups<\/a>, is reportedly very encouraged by what he’s seeing so far. Billups needs Henderson to take a giant leap this upcoming season, and judging from his recent remarks, Henderson’s offseason progress is more positive than anything else.<\/p>\n

Trail Blazers Guard Showing Necessary Offseason Growth<\/h2>\n

Portland Trail Blazers’ Scoot Henderson showing impressive signs during offseason, per HC Chauncey Billups<\/h3>\n

Henderson surprised many when he decided to skip playing college ball, despite a Division 1 scholarship from Ole Miss and offers from Georgia Tech, Florida, and Florida State, to enter the G League to play for the Ignite. Henderson was one of the most anticipated players in the 2023 draft. However, following his selection by the Trail Blazers, his NBA career has started with a sputter.<\/p>\n

In two seasons, Henderson hasn’t met expectations quite yet, averaging just 13.3 points per game. He’s also dealt with injuries in both his rookie and sophomore seasons, playing in 62 and 66 games each season. Last season, Henderson took a step down from his rookie year, seeing his PPG drop, as well as his rebounds, assists, and minutes. Mixed in with the drop in production, Henderson suffered from an ankle sprain and a concussion late in the year.<\/p>\n

Chauncey Billups expresses positive outlook on next season<\/h3>\n

Presently, Henderson is back to full strength, and\u00a0<\/span>according to Billups, who recently spoke with ESPN<\/span><\/a>\u00a0during the ongoing Summer League in Las Vegas<\/a>, he’s been hard at work this summer. While discussing the Blazers’ recent draft pick, Yan Hansen<\/a>, and the rest of the roster, the four-year bench boss expects Henderson to have a solid bounce-back season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a tough year last year, only because he didn\u2019t get to play basketball during the summer. He was banged up, he was licking his wounds from the season,<\/em>\u201d Billups said.\u00a0\u201cThis year he\u2019s been playing ball all summer, he\u2019s been working on his game, as you said. Scoot is gonna take an incredible leap this year<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Portland
Feb 26, 2025; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Scoot Henderson (00) dunks the ball against the Washington Wizards in the first half at Capital One Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Bilups stated outright, Portland has a young team. Considering the organization’s recent extension of Billups through the 2028 season, they clearly trust him to build this team into future playoff contenders.<\/p>\n

Henderson was thought of as the future face of the franchise after the departure of Damian Lillard<\/a>. That said, Henderson still needs to show a substantial improvement next season if he is to become the star the Trail Blazers hope he can be. From Billups’ perspective, Henderson is on the right track. That said, the real test will come during the regular season, where all his offseason work will hopefully flesh out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers point guard Scoot Henderson is just over three months away from kicking off his third NBA season. However, the talented former G League star’s career hasn’t played out the way most anticipated. After a rather pedestrian first two NBA seasons, which have included injuries and growth pains, Henderson is hard at work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":150160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1608,62,23],"tags":[187,4702],"class_list":["post-150156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-basketball","category-nba","category-trailblazers","tag-damian-lillard","tag-scoot-henderson"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150164,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150156\/revisions\/150164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}