The New Orleans Pelicans have landed Bennedict Mathurin on a two-year, $16 million deal that includes a player option, according to Shams Charania. ESPN’s NBA insider also reported Wednesday that New Orleans has been pursuing Mathurin aggressively for more than a year, with the team viewing him as an important part of its young core.
That price tag stands out immediately. Mathurin brings top-six draft pedigree after going No. 6 overall to the Indiana Pacers in 2022, and at 24 he’s still trending upward. He has also topped 17 points per game in each of the last two seasons.
The fit comes with questions, though. Mathurin is still mostly a score-first wing, and that kind of player has lost some shine around the league as teams continue to ask how much that style truly moves winning forward. Even so, his contract looks like strong value, especially at an average annual salary of $8 million.
For Portland, the comparison is hard to ignore. The Trail Blazers were not linked directly to Mathurin, but he would have been a clear low-cost way to add bench scoring.
The parallels to Shaedon Sharpe are obvious, and Sharpe’s situation has only made the contrast sharper. He recently suffered a torn meniscus and will be reevaluated in six months, which points to a return likely after the All-Star Break.
That injury adds another layer to a decision that already carried some risk. Portland extended Sharpe for four years and $90 million, a deal that works out to $22.5 million annually. That’s $14.5 million more per year than what New Orleans gave Mathurin.
There was logic behind Joe Cronin’s move. Sharpe wasn’t yet producing at a level that justified that kind of money, but the Blazers were clearly betting on where his game could go over the life of the contract. Still, the timing has made the deal look shakier.
Sharpe had already slipped out of Tiago Splitter’s playoff rotation in Portland’s first postseason with him, and he had become an afterthought in the backcourt depth chart after the team made a surprising Ja Morant deal to pair the Grizzlies star with Damian Lillard’s return from a gap year following his Achilles tear.
So when New Orleans got Mathurin at that number, it sharpened the question for Portland even more. Had the Blazers gone after Mathurin, they would have been taking on some of the same concerns they have with Sharpe, just at a far lower cost.
Maybe the cleanest answer for Portland is not to chase a replacement at all. How that looks once the season begins without Sharpe will tell the story.
In Other News...
Shaedon Sharpe Injury Just Put His Blazers Future In Doubt
Shaedon Sharpes latest setback comes at a tough time for a Trail Blazers backcourt that already looks different from the one he was trying to carve out a bigger role in. Portlands plan has been reshaped around a new group of guards, with names like Ja Morant and Damian Lillard now part of the conversation, and Sharpe had already been working to fit into a more crowded structure under head coach Micah Nori after posting a fairly high usage rate in his previous role.
Now the torn meniscus changes the timeline as much as the depth chart. Sharpe is expected to miss about six months, which puts his return well after the All-Star break and could push his recovery right into the stretch where Portland has to make larger decisions about the roster and its future. For a player whose place in the rotation was already less certain than it once seemed, the injury has only made the next chapter in Portland harder to read. [Read more 🡒]
Hawks Face One Big Question In Proposed Blazers Wing Swap
Shaedon Sharpes injury has quickly shifted the conversation in Portland from upside to uncertainty, with the young wing now expected to miss six months because of a torn meniscus. For a Trail Blazers team trying to balance long-term talent with present-day roster planning, that kind of setback naturally invites questions about whether holding onto a promising but unavailable piece remains the best path forward.
One possible route gaining attention is a swap with Atlanta involving Jonathan Kuminga, a player looking for a new contract and one whose next deal could fit into the kind of broader roster and cap maneuvering both teams are exploring. The framework makes sense on paper for each side, but for now it remains only a proposal, with no official deal announced and plenty still unresolved about whether the sides will actually meet in the middle. [Read more 🡒]
Damian Lillard Shared The Doubt That Helped Define His Rise
Damian Lillard recently revisited one of the earliest moments that helped shape the edge and resolve that have defined his career. He looked back to his sophomore year in high school, when a coach cast doubt on whether he would even make the team the following season, a slight that stuck with him long after those days on the court.
Lillards path since then has become the stuff of Portland basketball history, from his rise through college to being selected sixth overall by the Trail Blazers in 2012. He has gone on to become an eight-time NBA All-Star and the franchises scoring king, a rsum that turns that old doubt into part of the legend, even if the full story of how he answered it still hangs in the background. [Read more 🡒]