Scoot Henderson had plenty of vocal supporters when the Portland Trail Blazers drafted him No. 3 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft (the author of this article being one of them, to be fair). Podcast mogul Bill Simmons was one of them. A few weeks after the draft, [Simmons made his stance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gRla4dzGiM) pretty clear on the Blazers' then-new point guard:
_"He's going to be a f\*\*\*\*\*\* star. Like, people can cut this out, they can put it with like Titanic music five years from now. I'm gonna be right. This guy's a star. He f\*\*\*\*\*\* has it. I will fight you to the death if you disagree with me. Like, he has it. He just has it. I've been watching basketball my whole life. I know who has it and who doesn't."_
Well, I won't overlay that clip with Titanic music... Maybe split screen it with footage of the Titanic sinking, though. Almost three years later, Simmons' [revised scouting report](https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/the-bill-simmons-podcast/d6d843f0-45f5-0133-c150-0d11918ab357/lukas-heater-wembys-bid-and-stealth-winners-of-the-nba-season-with-zach-lowe/cbd47db9-f8ba-47ba-aef6-8da299b6c7d9?t=1h32m8s) on Scoot Henderson is pretty representative of Blazers' fans view of Scoot going forward: there's obvious hope that he becomes a positive player, but the star ceiling might not be realistic anymore:
_"He has a really, really high defensive guard ceiling... I think he's a physical defender who actually cares about guarding people. He can beat people off the dribble and get to the basket. What he's not is what I thought he was gonna be, which is like a Derrick Rose-type of athlete getting to the rim..."_
I won't bash Simmons for being outwardly excited about Henderson because, well, we were all on the same page. A few years later, it's okay to admit that pretty much the entire basketball world miscalculated the kind of player he'd become.
Scoot Henderson's perceived ceiling is defensive-minded role player
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For the record, that's still an important type of player. Defense-first backcourt players who can occasionally create their own shot often have long, productive NBA careers.
But it is telling that the perception of Henderson — from Simmons and others within NBA media — has fallen this far. I actually think that Blazers fans who watch him every night remain slightly higher on his prospects, but that's semantics rather than a fundamental difference in opinion.
At 22 years old, there's no reason to give up on Henderson. Blazers fans have seen first-round draft picks develop at a snail's pace before, like Anfernee Simons, who was mostly a non-factor for three years before coming a 20-plus point per game scorer starting in year four. Fans shouldn't hold onto hope of a star turn for Scoot, but the version of Henderson that Simmons described would actually be an okay outcome at this point.