Live. Breathe. Ball.

Basketball is not a sport, it's a way of life. 1-7-24: Kevin’s huerting, Shaedon looking dull, a second helping of GOAT Curry…

QUICK HITS

• Oh it Huerts! After having a breakout season last year, poor Kevin Huerter is struggling in a way that can only make you feel for the young man. The Sacramento Kings sixth-year guard was fundamental to the team’s success last season, as after being traded from the Hawks to Sacramento two summers ago, Huerter averaged career-highs in points per game (15.2), field goal percentage (48.5%), three-pointers made per game (2.7), three-point percentage (40.2%), and effective field goal percentage (60.3%) last season. But how quickly things change. This season, Huerter is averaging career-lows across all those measures:  9.7ppg, 41.8%fg, 1.8 made 3’s, 34.1%3pt, and 52.1%efg. The former Maryland Terrapin is a player whose game is predicated on confidence (whose isn’t I suppose), and you can see that he has lost his. Hopefully, this is just a shooter mired in a rough stretch, but it’s been tough to watch a player whose game was so infectious in its joy and bravado struggle and press the issue in an effort to regain the level of play he reached just this time last year.

• For her respective sport, I believe that Caitlin Clark is as good a pro prospect as we’ve seen. The do-everything senior guard from Iowa University is having the type of season—and college career—that only the all-time greats can achieve. So far this year, Clark is averaging a staggering 31.3 points (1^st in the nation), 7.1 rebounds, 7.6 assists (3^rd in the nation), while shooting 48.5% from the field and 39.9% from behind the line—on 4.9 makes per contest. Those are the type of numbers that only GOAT’s can bleat about. What’s most impressive is that Clark is doing this while every defense she faces is tilted so heavily towards her that the court needs to be re-leveled after her games. Clark’s difficulty on her shot attempts is in a class that only Steph Curry can claim. Like Steph at Davidson, Clark has already proven capable of handling whatever defensive tactic a team can throw at her. But unlike Steph, at a long six-feet tall, Clark has very good positional size for a guard at the WNBA level. Add to that a competitive fire that burns as bright as any player at the college level, and Clark feels as close to a can’t miss proposition as we have ever seen. If Clark decides to declare for this year’s WNBA draft, which thanks to an additional year of eligibility because of COVID, she may not, the Indiana Fever will be positioned to take someone that has all the makings to be the best women’s basketball player ever

• Scoot is starting to make moves. After a rough beginning to his rookie season, during which he missed 9 of his first 21 games with an ankle injury, averaging just 9.3 points and 4.1 assists on 33.6% from the field and a woeful 20.5% from the three, it looks like Scoot Henderson is figuring it out. In his initial handful of NBA games, it’s not just that the numbers weren’t great, the eye test told you that the game was moving at a speed that was faster than Scoot could process it—a problem that afflicts just about every rookie point guard to ever lace them up. However, fast forward, and the 2^nd pick of this year’s draft is beginning to look like the player we all expected. Over his last 13 games, Henderson has averaged 15.3 points, 6.0 assists, on 39.6% from the field, and a vastly improved 41.2% from three. More importantly, after not hitting double-digits in assists in any of those first 12 appearances, Scoot now leads all rookies in point-assist double-doubles (4) and assists per game at 5.1 (Keyonte George is second at 4.5). He also ranks second amongst all rookies in assists percentage at 28.2% (trailing only the surprising Craig Porter Jr. at 28.5%). That same eye test also now tells you that Scoot is getting to his spots with the aggressiveness and cunning that was the lynchpin to his game coming from the Ignite last year.

• While we’re talking about the Blazers, I’m a bit worried about what’s going on with Shaedon Sharpe. After jumping out to an impressive start this season over his first 22 games—a stretch that saw him averaging a healthy 37.1 minutes, while producing 18.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and a strong 2.3 made three’s on 36.5% from behind the line on 15.1 total field goals attempts from the floor—the Blazers exciting second-year guard seems to be struggling either with confidence personally, or with the confidence of his coach, Chauncey Billups. While a nagging hip injury caused him to miss 5 of the Blazers last 12 games, Sharpe’s numbers have taken a precipitous dive: 22.7mpg, 8.6ppg, 3.6rpg, 20.7%3pt, 9.3fga in his 7 games played over that stretch. The significant drop in minutes per game (-14.4) and shot attempts (-5.8) during the stretch is most concerning.  I’d like to believe that this is just a by-product of Sharpe trying to work himself back from a nagging hip issue. But the injury was only for five games, and what I’m seeing is Chauncey Billups marginalizing the young talent for the sake of trying to be more competitive. For a coach possibly fighting for his job, this desire is understandable, but as an organization, it’s a terrible tactic to take with a team that should be in full rebuild mode. Sharpe is one of the more exciting young shot makers in the league and has clearly improved significantly from his tantalizing rookie year. His season averages of 16.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists are all big jumps from last year’s numbers (9.9ppg, 3.0rpg, and 1.2apg), and while the efficiency still isn’t great this season (40.7% from the field and 33.7%3pt), it’s completely fine considering his combination of age (20) and the level of difficulty he is able to execute on many of those attempts.