The Portland Trail Blazers went 1-2 this week. After starting with a win over the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland fell to the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic to bring their overall record to 5-5 on the season.
Despite the down week, there were a number of good individual performances, including from this week’s Blazer of the Week: Shaedon Sharpe.
Sharpe averaged 23.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game this week. After struggling with efficiency to start the season, Sharpe had his best week from the floor, shooting 51.9% from the field and 33.3% from behind the arc. This performance over the week was capped off with Sharpe’s best game of the season, a 31-point outburst in the Blazers’s loss to the Magic.
Sharpe has been tasked early this season with becoming a more significant scoring threat in the starting lineup to supplement Deni Avdija and, while there have been growing pains, Sharpe showed a snapshot of what that could look like this week. As long as he is able to keep his efficiency near what it was this week, his dynamic abilities on the offensive end will be a major threat for opposing defenses to contend with.
This week’s runner up is Jrue Holiday.
Holiday has been a steadying veteran presence for a young g Portland team and has helped implement the strong defensive identity that the Blazers have hung their hat on. This week was no exception. In addition to the strong defense, Holiday added averages of 17.7 points, 7.7 assists and 7.3 assists per game. This included a near triple-double in a 18-point, 13-assist, 9-rebound performance in the loss to the Heat. His
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