Draft day is the day basketball players around the world can make their dreams come true of playing in the NBA, not to mention achieving the type of financial security that almost everyone else doesn’t have.
Scooter Henderson has already made a decent amount of money playing in the G League over the past two seasons, but he’s now a big league player after the Portland Trail Blazers selected him with the No. 3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft on Thursday.
The moment the Blazers called him up and told him he was their pick was captured on video, and it was a joyous moment for the Georgia native.
A special, special moment ❤️ pic.twitter.com/MRLi16igpG
— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) 23 June 2023
Although Henderson is only 6 feet 2 inches tall, Henderson is believed to have immense potential as a future star in the NBA.
He averaged 16.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists a game last season for the G League Ignite, but those numbers are only part of the story.
Henderson is an excellent athlete, and reportedly has a wingspan of 6-foot-9, which is very typical for someone of his height.
In fact, his athletic ability and explosiveness have been compared to Russell Westbrook and Ja Morant, arguably the two most athletically gifted point guards of all time.
The question is whether his arrival is a prelude to a potential Damian Lillard trade a little later this summer.
Lillard has struggled with some poor and mediocre Blazers teams for almost his entire career, and this team will almost certainly not give him a realistic chance at an NBA championship in the near future.
Now is the time for Portland to start again and build around Henderson and Anfernie Simmons.
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