Should we be worried about Shaedon? (3 Viewers)

[Samuel]

How fans aren't raving at Sharpe's development this season is beyond me. Of course there are things he needs to keep working on, but he's improving in many areas.

it's the hops. his dunks are so good, and his middies are so smooth that we project superstar on him. he's got loads of nits but he's the best scorer in his class and for the most part all of the trendlines are going up. if he literally does dribbling drills 247 and mainlines gametape in the offseason he should continue improving.

 

[PCmor7]

Here's my Shaedon criticism for the night.

You don't see a lot of star players come out chucking up shots. Maybe a layup or a dunk. Maybe a wide-open 3 that you just can't turn down because it's not fair for the team. But most good players get up and down the court a few times, work up a sweat, get their teammates who don't score as much involved, and then they start to hunt their offense.

Shaedon approaches the 1Q like a warmup. Like this is where he's practicing his shot. And he often starts slow.

The other bad habit I see is he doesn't go for an easy shot or his shot to get some confidence and momentum. He almost never starts the game by going to the basket. He's usually firing up a 3, and it's usually quick. Like tonight, he had the wide-open one at the top and there was no rush to take it and yet he did. And I thought he had a lane to drive on the other 3 he missed.

Take your shot, take a higher-percentage shot, maybe get to the line. But for heaven's sake stop spotting the other team a quarter by coming out and taking shots they're comfortable watching you take because they don't think you're going to make it consistently. That's where Shae loses a lot of his efficiency, with 1-5 1Qs.

 

[1 Eye Jack]

Both Sharpe and Avdija need to turn the ball over less.

Agreed although neither are PG’s but are often asked to be primary ball handlers with so many of our guards out. While turnovers are killing us they are both gaining valuable experience the wouldn’t normally get with healthy PG playing.

 

[PCmor7]

Agreed although neither are PG’s but are often asked to be primary ball handlers with so many of our guards out. While turnovers are killing us they are both gaining valuable experience the wouldn’t normally get with healthy PG playing.

They'll both get better in that regard. With Deni, I think fans are going to need to just get used to it a bit, because most of those turnovers are a side effect of his style. He's driving hard into multiple defenders, so sometimes the ball is going to get dislodged. Good things happen at least 80% of the time when he does it, though, so you take the bad with the good.

Shaedon needs to be better with the handle, because, first, he's supposed to be a true guard, second, he doesn't have as reliable a handle or is as good a passer as Deni, and third, he's not usually driving into crowds. He typically has one guy on him and the occasional help-defender swipe.

Last night was worse than usual because Shaedon was one of a couple of Blazers that seemed to have some kind of inexplicable issue gathering the ball. I thought Amari Williams blocked him on the one drive, but, no, Shaedon just apparently lost the peripheral vision as he tried to gather the ball when he was going up, missed it with his off-hand and then booted it out of bounds all on his own. And he had another play like that earlier.

The more frustrating this was that the Celtics sometimes guarded him with Hauser or Pritchard and Shaedon couldn't beat them off the dribble or wasn't even that inclined to try. Those should be mismatches for different reasons and, when the team's struggling, you need him to produce when he gets that matchup.