MAILBAG: What Will Shaedon Sharpe's Rookie Extension Look Like?

If you missed the first two parts of the latest round of mailbag, you can read them below.

MAILBAG: Are the Trail Blazers' Veterans Standing in the Way of Development?

We’re midway through the week, so here’s part two of the latest mailbag. The third part will run on Friday. Here’s part one, from Monday:

The Rose Garden ReportSean Highkin

MAILBAG: Has Donovan Clingan Hit a Rookie Wall?

Last week, I put out a call for mailbag questions and I was happy to see a lot of variety in the topics. Given where the Trail Blazers’ season is, I expected a lot of calls to fire the coach and calls to trade certain players, and there was some of that, which we’ll address over the course of the week.

The Rose Garden ReportSean Highkin

The final installment covers Shaedon Sharpe’s upcoming rookie extension, which Trail Blazers player is most likely to be an All-Star in five years and why Jabari Walker isn’t playing more.

If the season ended tomorrow, what do you think the Blazers end up offering Shaedon in the offseason? Interested to see how much the new CBA shapes this along with their own evaluation of Sharpe’s trajectory.

- Tim M.

This is going to be one of the most important decisions the Blazers have to make in 2025.

Sharpe’s second season was largely a wash because of injuries, but this year, he’s taken major steps forward and firmly cemented himself as someone the Blazers feel is important to keep around. If they don’t agree to an extension before the start of next season in October, they’re not going to let him walk in restricted free agency.

Current projections for next season have the max for a rookie-scale extension for Sharpe’s 2022 draft class around $247 million over five years, with an annual salary well north of $40 million. I don’t think Sharpe will get anything close to that, but that’s the high end of what someone in his position could get.

To your point, the new CBA could make it less automatic that every team’s best young prospect will get the full rookie-scale max. The 2021 draft class, who were extension-eligible this past fall, had four players sign for the full rookie max: Cade Cunningham in Detroit, Evan Mobley in Cleveland, Scottie Barnes in Toronto and Franz Wagner in Orlando. All four of them were a little bit eyebrow-raising in the moment because none of them had proven at that point that they were no-brainer franchise-level max guys on par with an Anthony Edwards. However, this season, three of those guys (Cunningham, Mobley and Wagner, before his injury) have made that leap and proven worth that contract. We’ll see if the Barnes extension works out for the Raptors.

I only see two guys from the 2022 draft class who are likely to get a max extension this offseason, Paolo Banchero and Chet Holmgren, although both of them have missed significant time with injuries this season. Jalen Williams is another possibility given his role in the Thunder’s dominance over the Western Conference thus far this season.

Sharpe could slot in somewhere a little below that. A good point of comparison is three other 2021 draft-class guys who signed extensions a little below the max: Trey Murphy III in New Orleans (four years, $112 million) and Jalen Suggs in Orlando and Jalen Johnson in Atlanta, who signed for five years and $150 million each. All three of them fit a similar profile to Sharpe: highly skilled guards or wings with a lot of upside whose early career had been hampered by injuries and inconsistency. All three showed just enough, however, for their teams to feel comfortable paying them that kind of money.

If Sharpe finishes out this season producing like he is right now, an extension somewhere in the $25-30 million per year range for him would be a reasonable ballpark.

But we’ll see where negotiations end up.

Hey Sean, who does the team see as the most improved player since joining the team? How does that player fit in the future of the club?

- Sam S.

I don’t know about “most improved” because everyone is still so young, but I don’t think anyone envisioned Toumani Camara being as good as he is. Particularly on the offensive end, I think he’s outperformed expectations. He came into the NBA, and excelled his rookie season, mostly as a defender. But a string of recent double-digit scoring performances make it seem like he could be better on that end than anybody thought.

What current Blazer has the best chance to be an all star in the next 5 years? I think the answer is none.

- Anne M.

Unless you’re a no-doubt lock to make an All-Star team (Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards, etc.), the safe answer is usually “none” because there are a lot of great players in the Western Conference and it’s hard anyone outside of that inner circle to make it. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry will age out soon, but Victor Wembanyama will be an All-Star lock every year for the rest of his career at this rate. There aren’t a lot of spots up for grabs, now or in the future.

I’d still default to Sharpe if I had to pick somebody from the current Blazers, because his high-end upside is higher than anyone else’s on the team.

Did Jabari Walker get lost in the Deni/Robert Williams shuffle? I was looking forward to him making progress as part of the team's frontcourt core.

- Matthew B.

It’s just math. Who do you take minutes away from to give them to Walker? He’s more of an undersized center than he is a power forward, and they already struggle to get both Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams III on the floor every night. Maybe if they trade Jerami Grant at the deadline, that will open up some minutes, but Grant just missed the entire five-game road trip and Kris Murray appears to have earned that spot in the rotation in his absence.

I like Walker a lot on a personal level and he’s good at what he does—an energy/rebounding bench big—but I don’t know if there’s enough offensive upside for him to be someone that’s a priority long-term. They have too many guys competing for those minutes and somebody has to be the odd man out.