The Portland Trail Blazers have multiple missions during the 2025-26 NBA season. That means winning games, recruiting new players, developing a young core and overcoming the spate of injuries that have dogged the team since November. Amid all the ups and downs, one player struggled in relative anonymity and pulled off a spectacular dunk or two. Shaydon Sharpe has played in 36 of Portland’s 40 games and is averaging a career-high 21.5 points, but no one is talking about him. That is until today, when Sharp is the focus of the Blazer Edge mailbag.

Before reading: Please help! Hundreds of tickets remain undonated for this year’s Blazer’s Edge Night event. Actually more than 1000! You can read about charity events for local children here. Go straight to the Blazers website Buy a ticket for a child in need! Either way, please help us get young people in the Portland area to see the Blazers this March.

What do you think about Shaydon Sharpe? My opinion keeps changing every week. I love what he does so well. His dunk stirs emotions I haven’t felt since cheering for Clyde in college. He always seems to be doing well enough. I think he’s better than he was last year. But I don’t see him like a star, and I don’t know why. For a player who can jump this high, this seems like the quietest 20 point average I can remember. Have you read about who Sharpe is and whether he will be a big contributor in the future? I just don’t know.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sharp sometimes slips through the cracks. He is currently being replaced as a regular by the series’ golden goose, Deni Avdija. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

We’re used to dividing the Blazers into three categories: role players, up-and-comers, and failures. Let’s perform a psychological experiment by adding a fourth “star” to Deni. I will name the players and you will describe them. I think it will take less than half a second to categorize each one. You can also predict with a fair degree of certainty which category you will choose. clock.

I think we could create a special category for Jrue Holiday and Jerami Grant, calling them “veterans.” This completely ignores that they are fundamentally different players playing different positions and at different stages of their careers. But ignoring complexity and uncertainty is how we’ve learned to deal with the Portland soup that’s been simmering for the past few seasons. We quickly sort an indistinguishable, vague mess into a clear reality. Surprisingly it’s not that We do – it’s human tendency – but how fast You can do that with a very varied roster like this one.

But wait. Now let’s try Shaydon Sharpe. That’s impossible, right?

Is Shedon a star? not much. Not completely anyway. He has his moments, but he’s not in control like Avdija. Is he a role player? No, these 21.5 point arguments would be different. They also prevent him from becoming a bust. But playing in his fourth season and having made significant but gradual improvement, he is no longer a true up-and-comer.

Sharp is in a lawless zone in terms of public perception. What you think about him probably depends on what you look at from a predetermined place. If you’re hoping for him to be a star, you might be a little disappointed. If you consider him an up-and-coming player, you’re probably at least a little bit enthusiastic about Shedon this year. Either way, it’s as much about you as it is about him.

The fog around Sheddon may not be limited to fans’ perceptions. Sharpe is a shooting guard. What exactly is a shooting guard supposed to do in today’s NBA?

You mentioned Clyde Drexler in your question. If Sharpe were playing like Clyde in the 1990s, his mission would be clear: dominate the team’s scoring. If an opponent sends him a smaller guard, he’ll post up, turn the defender on his back, stand up, turn around, and go for an unblockable jumper from 10 to 12 feet. If a bigger guard lines up against him, Sharp will take him off the dribble and try to drive, dunk, or foul. Either way, he should have all the space, time, bounce and touch he needs. His skills, roles, and positions align, and he will have nearly unlimited possessions to explore them.

The pace is fast today. No one can handle a 12 second clock anymore. No one posts or investigates, not even at the center. Isolation balls are a thing of the past, except for a few super-powerful dinosaur stars. Whether to shoot or move is a trend of the times.

Today’s shooting guards are more like second point guards. They are meant to be facilitators, floor spreaders. Half of them are 6’3 speedsters with shooting credentials.

This new breed of shooting guard has a different skill set.

Let’s be honest: Avdija is playing more of a backcourt role for the Blazers now than Sharp ever has, at least by the new definition. Will a healthy lineup push Sharpe to small forward? However, small forwards are often offensive role players who specialize in 3-point shooting. Sharp is neither of those things. He doesn’t deserve to be there either.

See all the gray areas that Shedon is grappling with? He’s gotten pretty good at the game he plays, and that’s sometimes (though not always) what the sport and his team demand.

If Sharpe is a transcendent superstar, one of those players who is good enough to sway the game around him, this could work very well. we haven’t seen it yet.

Also, if Shedon can strengthen the game part to match modern demands, it will work well. His three-point percentage is 33%. His true shooting percentage is 54.0%, 172nd in the NBA and 70th among statistically eligible guards. His usage rate is high, and his assist rate is modest. All of this would make any decent old school guard scream. None of this is indicative of a modern star.

But if you put a period at the end of that sentence, you can also see that Sharpe’s points per minute and points per possession have increased significantly this season. He has seen an increase in his shot attempts, but his overall percentage has remained constant or increased. He’s getting to the rim more often and drawing more fouls. In addition to those underwhelming dunks, he also took over games at times. If you look at it this way, there’s a lot more stuff in the tank. We haven’t seen all of Shedon Sharpe yet. Even if he wasn’t a perfect fit, he’s too good to ignore.

In the end, it turns out that the situation is almost the same as described in the original question. From one perspective, around the right curve, the sharp becomes a star. Even at this uncertain stage of his development, he already has the ability to score. If he starts firing on all cylinders, he can score 25 points without a second thought. But he’s not there yet. He needs to grow in efficiency and court synergy, or the team needs to find a way to feature him better. He’s still not a smooth player or a smooth fit.

The problem is, there is no guarantee that time will heal. Perhaps Sharpe is the player he is and demands what the league wants. He’s not bad by any means, but on the effectiveness scale he might fall more on Anfernee Simons’ side than CJ McCollum’s. Or maybe he’ll have it all figured out by season 7. who knows?

As of now, it seems like the team and Sharpe are a little out of sync. It’s almost as if there are two Blazers games going on at any given time. When Avdija leads and other teammates play with him, it’s a Blazers game, and when Sharpe has the ball, it’s a Blazers game again. The two have not yet reconciled, at least not completely.

The relatively unstructured nature of his play over the past few seasons has allowed Sharpe to display his talent, but not given him the best environment to hone it. The current mile-per-minute approach to moving the ball could be better defined and executed, but it’s still not optimal for his game. The Sharp is still a really good chef’s knife, needs sharpening, and is more than useful for home cooks, but it’s still not good enough to be in the hands of Gordon Ramsay.

If you compare him now to how he was two years ago, you can see how much he has improved. But how is he growing personally and environmentally? That’s the important question now. Not answered yet. For now, he should be able to get by with 21.5 points per game and the occasional highlight dunk.

Sharp’s development isn’t finished yet. The same goes for the team around him. Perhaps we’ll have better answers to these questions over the next year or so. (Perhaps there will be a skilled, empowered, permanent coach to help resolve these issues and the bigger picture.) For now, understand that some things continue to conspire against Shedon, and that he continues to make progress as he overcomes them, and hope for the best.

Thank you for your question! You can always send it to blazersub@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can. and don’t forget Let’s bring kids in need to a Blazers game. This spring!