Scoot Henderson heats up

Rookies, lasagna, and how NBA talent cooks

BY HENRY ABBOTT

The lasagna at Manina, a since-closed restaurant in Maryland. DEB LINDSEY/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES

All cooked, that lasagna is a triumph. Anyone can buy nice pasta, ricotta, mozzarella, onions, tomatoes, garlic, basil, and olive oil. But would the lasagna come together just so in your kitchen? 

The thing in between is called cooking. There’s a fine line between putting a little toast on the garlic, and burning it. Pasta isn’t perfectly cooked for long. Not every pomodoro tastes fresh like a garden tomato. The perfect dish doesn’t happen: It’s expertise, it’s work, it’s a process. You’d be crazy to ignore what happens in the kitchen.

But in sports, we ignore the cooking all the time. We objectify, measure, and sniff around incoming players like they’re the tomatoes on the loading dock, then speculate about who’ll be part of something great. The NBA draft system ignores player development and misses all the time.

As much as TrueHoop is a basketball publication, it’s also a place with a sign on the wall that reads: “Be the best at getting better.” My business partner, David Thorpe, is like an award-winning chef; just about everything he says is an effort to push beyond what a player is and into what he or she might become. I just finished the second draft of a book called “BALLISTIC” about the sports movement lab P3, where every athlete arrives with a detailed movement assessment … and then starts the work of seeing what magical place they can reach from that starting point. We’re obsessed with what someone could become, which is a story of inspiration, revelation, and work. 

Every athlete faces a chef’s question: What should I do with this? It’s a raw tomato right now but what’s it going to be? You gotta learn how to move ahead.

I’ll never forget my former editor and current Substacker Royce Webb saying that every player is a snowflake: They’re all different. Good teams see the strengths in them; bad teams see the flaws.

Is any tomato perfect? They’re bumpy little things formed by soil, sun, and rain. Many arrive imperfect. So what? Make a killer sauce. 

Which, somehow, is the next layer of this lasagna story: Blazers rookie Scoot Henderson. 

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“Gentlemen,” emailed Max, “I know it’s a process but I’m concerned that Scoot’s increasingly familiar 3-8 for 8 points and 4 assists games are maybe not on the trajectory we want and need out of our coveted high lottery pick. Where did Erik get this wrong?”

A hundred years ago Max and Erik and I all grew up together in Oregon, as Blazers fans, but I got to know them later in New York, when Erik was an ESPN executive who helped launch the TrueHoop Network. Every now and again, we reunite in emails about the Blazers, in which Max and Erik rib each other half to death.

The smart response to Max would have been nothing. But I couldn’t resist. I’m a Scoot fan (more on that later). I sent back something kinda long about how 19-year-olds fare in the NBA. The point, to me, is that, as Scoot is so young—he turned 20 this —”will he be good” seems like wondering, months before your wedding, if it’ll be sunny that day. 

I emailed all kinds of stuff. Nineteen-year-old Giannis averaged seven points on 40 percent shooting from the floor. The Supersonics were crap with Kevin Durant on the floor for two years; Russell Westbrook led the league in turnovers. There were Tracy McGrady-is-a-bust stories. Young Derrick Rose was older than Scoot and couldn’t shoot, draw a foul, or defend. Jermaine O’Neal barely got to touch the ball as a rookie. Kobe’s first two seasons he came off the bench and made south of 43 percent of the shots he took.

I also added: “Advanced plus/minus stats are newish, but in all the time they’ve existed, you could count on your fingers the number of rookies who help their teams win (and mostly they’re huge: Victor, Chet, Evan Mobley). Scoot has three years to be the age of rookie Dame. So mostly, I think, he’s facing defenses he has never seen before, with bigger, faster, stronger players, and he’s like someone visiting a Vegas casino for the first time. It’s dizzying, and no measure of your poker.”

The Celtics’ incredible Derrick White is one of the best players on the NBA’s best team right now. White joined the league at 23, shot 3-pointers well for the first time at 28, and is elite in advanced stats for the first time at 29. 

For fun, I just looked up what this year’s 24 all-stars—and their two injury replacements—were doing when they were Scoot’s age. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was at Kentucky. Nikola Jokić was in the Adriatic league. Jalen Brunson was beginning three years at Villanova. Kawhi was still at San Diego State. Joel Embiid was three seasons from his first NBA game. Donovan Mitchell was at Louisville. Duke, Cal, Kentucky, Fresno State, Iowa State, Weber State, Oklahoma, Davidson … almost everyone was an undergrad. Devin Booker was in the NBA but didn’t shoot like Devin Booker.

Of this year’s 26 All-Stars, only five had kicked NBA ass in any meaningful way before turning 20: LeBron James, Luka Dončić, Anthony Edwards, Anthony Davis, and Jayson Tatum. They’re the best of the best. Scoot does not appear to be at that level. 

Erik immediately replied: “Max chirping away, throwing pebbles at a soldier—only to face a bazooka of information. Let that be a lesson to him. Scoot is the real deal.”

Max made a fair point about how not every tomato becomes an All-Star.

I am well aware of rookie/young players’ considerable limitations, and in fact have cited those very same comps and stats to the various elite players in their respective young campaigns.

But that’s the very question and potential problem: Henry is comping Scoot to Westbrook and Durant and Jermaine O’Neal (worst trade ever); but what if (what if?) Scoot Henderson is far more likely to comp to, say, Marcus Smart or Jeff Teague or Mike Conley? What then?

Erik’s assumption is that his guy Scoot is gonna be an All Star. It’s just a matter of when. I’m … not … so sure.

While I was nodding along—Max’s point here is perfect, it is all unknowable, Jeff Teague and Marcus Smart are possibilities, Scoot just talked about wanting to copy one of Conley’s moves—Erik turned it into a bet. 

I’m willing to bet you $1,000 that my man, Scoot, will be a two-time all-star over the course of his career. What happens beyond that is unknown, but I think everyone here would argue that a repeated all-star would be a good outcome for a lottery pick. Are you going to take the bet?

Max took the bet instantly.