When it became official Sunday that Toumani Camara and the Portland Trail Blazers had agreed to an $82 million contract extension, he tried to call his brother in Belgium to share the good news.
The call went unanswered.
When it became official that Shaedon Sharpe and the Blazers had agreed to a $90 million contract extension, he celebrated with a casual meal at home alongside his girlfriend and a late-night workout.
“My girl made chicken alfredo,” Sharpe said. “I really like chicken alfredo. And I just worked out at night. That’s really it.”
What? You expected a visit to Le Pigeon or El Gaucho? A celebratory bottle of Dom Pérignon?
Maybe a splashy impulse purchase?
The two franchise pillars may have been rewarded with long-term contracts and lifetime financial stability over the weekend, but the work, they say, is only just beginning. So there wasn’t much to celebrate.
“Celebrating?” Camara said. “I was just telling my people I was ready to get in the gym yesterday. It makes me more hungry. It’s something that pushes me to do more.”
But there was plenty of celebrating inside the Blazers’ front office over the weekend. General manager Joe Cronin didn’t merely bolster the franchise’ future with deals that could keep the pair of building blocks in Portland through the 2029-30 season, he also didn’t break the bank to do so. If Camara continues his trajectory as one of the NBA’s most versatile and imposing defenders, his 4-year, $82 million extension could be a bargain. If Sharpe takes the next step in his evolution and becomes a superstar — as the front office believes he can — his 4-year, $90 million extension could be a steal.
So it was a franchise-defining weekend for the Blazers, who two days before the start of the regular season fortified their foundation after years of rebuilding. The bulk of the Blazers’ promising young roster, including the young core of Camara, Sharpe, Deni Avdija and Donovan Clingan, is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
“This is kind of been what we’ve been working towards; developing these guys,” Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said. “They get to this stage, this point ... I tell our guys all the time, don’t take this for granted. There are a lot of guys — you can look at two drafts before, three drafts before — and see so many guys not even in the NBA anymore. So for us, these are wins. We work so hard to develop Shaedon and Toumani and Donovan (Clingan) and Scoot (Henderson) and these other guys. That’s what our (rebuilding) seasons have been about. So you get to this point and you say, ‘Man, it was well worth it.’”
Camara established his worth during a breakout second season in 2024-25, when he blossomed into one of the best defenders in the NBA and helped forge the Blazers’ new identity around defense. The 6-foot-7, 229-pound forward averaged 11.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.5 steals and earned All-Defensive second team honors. A versatile and relentless defender, Camara has shown that he can bottle up point guards full-court and bang down low against bigs with equal success.
He drew an NBA-high 91 offensive fouls last season, including a league-best 31 charges, and ranked ninth in steals (1.5 per game) and loose balls recovered (60). He is, Billups said, “the heart and soul” of the Blazers’ defense.
But Camara also showed growth on the other side of the ball, shooting 37.5% from three-point range and increasing his scoring average by nearly four points from his rookie season. Team insiders have been touting Camara’s offseason development since September and his “3-and-D” ability is a linchpin to the future of the franchise. In just two seasons, he has become one of the most respected and well-liked Blazers, in part because of how hard he works and how much intensity and effort he plays with.
When Billups called Camara Sunday afternoon to offer congratulations, he joked that he could “see the smile through the phone.”
“He was like jumping-around-in-his-apartment type of happy,” Billups said. “It just made me proud, man.”
After his brother ignored that festive phone call — which came in the middle of the night in Belgium — Camara finally connected with him and their mother, and they celebrated thousands of miles apart. After all, Camara grew up in Brussels, Belgium, left for the United States at age 16 to play high school basketball, and barely made it to the NBA as the No. 52 pick of the 2023 NBA draft. Then he was traded from Phoenix to Portland roughly a month before his first game.
Camara’s journey has been about as unlikely as they come, so as he reflected on it Monday afternoon at the Blazers’ practice facility in Tualatin, he sported a mix of disbelief and giddiness.
“It’s a hard question,” he said, when asked to reflect on how far he’s come. “I feel like I work so hard and I’m always focused on where I’m at in the moment. I never really project myself too far. My dream was always to get to the NBA no matter how my route was going to be. I never really thought about money (or) being able to get locked in with a team for seven years. I think it’s something that means so much to me, being able to have the trust from the whole organization and see the work that I’ve been putting in and get rewarded. I think that’s the biggest thing. I don’t think I would have believed you, to be honest.”
Sharpe, meanwhile, was more nonchalant about his lucrative extension, fitting for a person who rarely shows emotion or offers much commentary.
He said he was “excited” and admitted that he carried a little “relief” to have his future resolved. But when asked what factors led him to sign the deal, he was at a loss.
“I don’t know,” Sharpe said. “I just talked to my agent (and) he said, ‘You know, it’s a pretty good deal.’ So I took it.’”
The Blazers are betting it will look like a great deal in a couple years. The organization believes the 6-foot-5, 22-year-old shooting guard is a budding star who is vital to lifting them out of their multiyear rebuild. He already owns a career-worth of highlight-reel dunks and high-flying finishes, and his overall game took a promising step forward last season, when he averaged 18.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists, while shooting 45.2% from the field.
His long-range shooting has been streaky, his defense a liability. But coaches and teammates insist both are as good as they’ve ever been — and that the best is yet to come.
So when Billups and Cronin called Sharpe on Sunday to share the good news, Sharpe said, the congratulatory phone calls came with a caveat: “The job’s not done. We’ve still got work to do. Let’s get this thing rolling.”
So they will get it rolling together.
Before the Blazers began their penultimate practice before the regular season, Billups, as he always does, gathered his team on the court for a quick chat beforehand. In the middle of a massive huddle, Billups mentioned the pair of extensions and offered congratulations, prompting the group to spontaneously erupt in applause.
After a franchise-altering weekend, the Blazers are heading into the next phase of their rebuild with stability, a defined young core and, finally, an apparent path toward success.
“It means a lot knowing that these guys — the younger guys and guys on the way up — have potential,” Sharpe said. “I think we can really do something special here. Everybody’s just got to buy in and work together.”
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