Portland Trail Blazers guard Shaedon Sharpe suffered a torn meniscus in his right knee and will miss six months, the team announced this week. It is a brutal blow for a young player who had spent the entire summer positioning himself for a breakout season.
Sharpe, entering his fifth NBA season, was expected to take a leap this year. He averaged career highs across the board last season, and Portland’s front office had built the depth chart around him being a top-three scoring option next to Scoot Henderson and Deni Avdija.
Six months puts a realistic return timeline somewhere in early March, which effectively wipes out most of his season. Even if he beats the timeline, the Blazers are not going to rush him back for a team that was already a long shot to make the play-in.
Portland’s rebuild just got harder. General manager Joe Cronin has been patient with this group, resisting the urge to blow it up further, but losing Sharpe means the front office may re-open trade conversations that were shut down over the summer.
Henderson now becomes the de facto number one scoring option, which is a lot to ask from a guard who has been up and down in his first three seasons. Avdija is a solid contributor but not a first option. The depth around them is young and untested.
The upside for Portland is draft positioning. This team was already projected in the lottery. Without Sharpe, that lottery finish becomes a near lock. In a draft class that features multiple top-end talents, the Blazers could add another building block.
The downside is Sharpe himself. Second knee surgery in his career, second time he has missed extended time, and the durability questions that dogged his pre-draft process are going to come back into the conversation. NBA teams remember these things at contract time.
Sharpe is on his rookie extension window. The Blazers and his agent had opened preliminary talks over the summer, and this injury will complicate those talks significantly. Neither side wants a max deal signed with a player coming off major knee surgery. Neither side wants to lowball a future max talent either.
Recovery starts now. Meniscus surgeries are highly successful in the modern era, and players routinely come back at full strength. But six months is six months, and Portland’s season is officially in a new kind of trouble.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
