With the return of the Trump, how does Lillard influence young people?

The choice of Lillard to return to Portland reveals several important significance behind this team's choice to return home.

First of all, it is obvious that Lillard pays more attention to returning to his hometown to reunite with his family and rejoining the team that cultivated him to grow up than simply chasing the championship. If this is really the last battle of his career, it's almost certain that Lillard will end his career without a championship.

Second point, although he may no longer be able to reach his previous star level when he returns to the field in the future, the Trail Blazers chose to sign Lillard, which not only attracted his stadium strength, but also his value as a mentor to young players.

This is the key point. There are many young players in the Trail Blazers who can all get benefits from Lillard, but the real focus is still on Scott Henderson. Looking back at the Trail Blazers’ trade in Lillard, the main purpose is to make room for the newcomer. However, although Henderson occasionally performed well during this period, he still failed to show a growth progress that was enough to take over in the first two seasons.

If he continues to fail to make leap progress, then in the new season, Lillard is likely to return to the starting point guard. By then, Henderson's career prospects are likely to reverse, and once he is labeled as a substitute point guard, it will be difficult to get rid of it in the future. Especially since he is given three years in Portland and still cannot prove himself, it is unlikely that other teams will be willing to give him such a good opportunity in the future.

At present, Henderson is very similar to the wandering point guard role who will go to multiple teams in the future and starts from the substitute, gradually deviating from the core storefront role that fans expect. But before being completely abandoned, he has an excellent opportunity to rewrite the script this year. As the person who also selected the third pick after Vinban Yama and Brandon Miller in the 2023 draft, it is naturally worthy of high expectations from fans.

From the perspective of that time, almost everyone attached great importance to Henderson, especially Trail Blazers general manager Cronin, who was willing to send away the greatest team soul-level player in team history in order to let the young star take over. Although I have chosen to bring Lillard back again, this does not mean that Henderson's experiment has failed; but ironically, Lillard has become Henderson's potential successor instead.

Recalling the story before and after, the NBA is truly unpredictable.

Ideally, Henderson should be able to make good use of these resources. Whether it is the inheritance of experience from veterans or the pressure of being replaced in the future, he is completely possible to become a bench role in the new season, and even after the rotation between Holiday and Sharp; similarly, Sharp is also facing a critical evaluation stage, after all, he and Henderson have always been high-quality choices to be regarded as cores of the future backcourt.

From the perspective of players, Henderson's talent has never been a problem, and looking at the top ranks is also a high-quality level. In theory, physical fitness and mobility speed should not be easily limited by anyone, and even if it is affected, you can gain an advantage by confrontation. But the key is stability and the need to gradually develop shooting ability at least at the league average.

What needs to be considered in particular is that Henderson is only 21 years old at the moment and still has enough time to make progress in the future.

And the Trail Blazers are still willing to give him a chance. From the basketball perspective, it seems a bit strange to introduce Holiday, who is 35 years old and is gradually declining, and also signed a three-year contract of over 100 million. But as a mentor to the young player, he was originally regarded as Henderson's partner and was brought back. Of course, this was Lillard's choice before he came back.

More importantly, in order to trade Holiday, the Trail Blazers sent away last season's starting point guard Simmons Jr. At present, Simmons' strength is obviously higher than Henderson. Unless the Trail Blazers really want to give Henderson more time and ball rights, they naturally won't send Simmons away easily.

Considering the existing conditions, Simmons Jr. leaves the team, guides the veteran, and gives absolute ball rights. In such a high-quality environment, if Henderson still cannot show his due growth progress, then when he enters the contract renewal negotiation stage next summer, the team will inevitably have to face some choices.

For the Trail Blazers, of course they hope that by this time next year, Henderson will show the core value of the future, but this is still a problem at present. The Trail Blazers will not always give opportunities in vain. They have chosen to hand over the ball to Henderson, and now it is his turn to achieve results.