2022 NBA Draft Qualifiers: Portland Trail Blazers face Shaedon Sharpe No. 7 overall

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The Portland Trail Blazers have advanced to the fences in the 2022 NBA Draft by selecting Shaedon Sharpe with the No. 7 overall pick. Sharpe is the mystery man of this draft. After spending most of his career as a relatively unannounced prospect, Sharpe raised the boards to earn the No. 1 ranking in his class. Eventually, he opted to attend Kentucky, but never played in the Wildcats. This made exploring him one of the most difficult challenges teams could face during this draft process, but virtually everyone was tempted by his advantage.

Sharpe’s advantage can’t be questioned, which is why he was considered the best prospect in his high school class before enrolling in Kentucky, but there are some questions about his fit in Portland that made the our experts in the CBS Sports NBA draft give the selection a B + rating.

This choice is interesting because it looks like with the Jerami Grant trade the Blazers are trying to do well now. And Sharpe is an interesting fit from that perspective. But few players in this class have higher ceilings than him. He’s an explosive goal scorer with a ridiculous size for the wing and athletics, and could one day be a positive defender with those tools. He probably isn’t ready to do it right after not playing last season in Kentucky. Grade: B +

Sharpe is an elite athlete, and nothing that could have happened at the college level would have proved otherwise. It has all the physical tools you can ask for outside of a guard, is projected as a strong shooter and ball handler, and represents the kind of potential that normally makes a player the No. 1 overall. His circumstances prevented him from doing so, but if his development goes as expected, the draft could have also done so.

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The Blazers already made a big move Wednesday when they caught Detroit Pistons striker Jerami Grant in a pre-draft change. This move was the culmination of a rework that began when Joe Cronin replaced Neil Olshey as general manager and quickly reduced the staff to tacos. Missing are CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Robert Covington and Larry Nance Jr. Grant, Josh Hart and others have taken his place.

Everything has been in an effort to solve the problems that condemned Portland during the McCollum-Damian Lillard era. Lillard remains in his place, and as long as he’s a Blazer, the team will likely remain committed to trying to put a winner around him. No novice will have an easy time reaching an environment with these expectations, but Portland is making a strong bet on its favorite prospect here at No. 7.

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