Without Sharpe, Portland's Backcourt Has No Room for Error

The number that keeps pulling me back is 15.5. That's how many shot attempts per game Jrue Holiday was taking in the final stretch of last season, up from his baseline of 13.8 — and while the volume climbed, his field goal percentage cratered from 45.8% to 39.4%. More shots, worse results, no one to absorb the load. That was with Shaedon Sharpe still on the roster. Sharpe is gone now, six months minimum after tearing his meniscus in August, and the question Portland cannot answer before training camp opens is a simple one: if Holiday cracked under that pressure with a third scoring guard available, what happens when he and Ja Morant are the only options?

I've been tracking this fracture line since September. The piece I ran on Holiday's shot chart was meant as a warning about what the late-season data revealed beneath an otherwise acceptable season aggregate. His 44.8% full-season mark looks serviceable. His final-10-games numbers look like a guard fighting for oxygen. The problem with adding Morant — a genuinely elite scorer who commands the ball and the offense — is that it doesn't reduce that pressure on Holiday. It redistributes it in ways that could make the underlying pattern worse.

Here's the structural reality Portland is now sitting with: Morant and Holiday are both high-usage guards who need the ball in their hands to be effective. Neither is a natural off-ball player. Sharpe, averaging 19.4 points on 45.1% shooting last season, was the one piece of the backcourt that could function as a scorer without demanding primary creation duties. He was the release valve. Without him, every possession that stalls, every defensive scheme that takes away Morant's drive, every night Morant isn't right — all of that pressure redirects to Holiday. And we already have a data point for what Holiday looks like when the pressure spikes.

Deni Avdija is the one figure who could theoretically absorb some of this. His 23.7 points and 6.4 assists per game on 46.4% shooting made him Portland's most reliable offensive force last season, and his role as a forward who can initiate, score, and distribute gives the offense a third hub. But Avdija is a forward, not a guard — he cannot replicate what Sharpe provided in terms of backcourt spacing and secondary ball-handling under pressure. And asking him to carry more of the offensive weight while also covering for a Morant-Holiday pairing still finding its rhythm is a significant ask for a player who had never previously been asked to do this much.

What concerns me most is the absence of any obvious internal solution. Sidy Cissoko and Caleb Love are the next guards on the depth chart, and neither profile as a third scoring option capable of relieving the top two. My read is that Portland needs to find a wing or guard who can score without needing creation, someone who catches and finishes and doesn't require the ball to be useful — the exact archetype Sharpe occupied. Without that, the Morant-Holiday pairing isn't just an experiment in fit. It's a stress test the late-season data already told us Holiday might not pass.