ESPN Reports: Portland Trail Blazers have reaches an agreement with rivals to sign 2……Read more

Two of the younger players who play roles for the Portland Trail Blazers will be with the team for a considerable amount of time. Or at the very least for the entirety of the 2024–25 NBA season.

It was on Saturday that the non-guaranteed contracts of strikers Toumani Camara and Jabari Walker got fully locked in, as stated by Keith Smith of Spotrac. This was a decision that was easy to make, to say the least. Both of these young guys have a lot of potential, and on a team that is in the process of rebuilding like Portland, they should get significant playing time on the court.

During the 2023 NBA Draft, Camara was chosen with the 52nd overall pick, which was assigned to him from Dayton. He had a scoring average of 7.5 points per game when slashing during his rookie season.450 points, 337 rebounds, 758 assists, 4.9 rebounds, 1.2 boards, 0.9 steals, and 0.5 blocks. For the Trail Blazers, who finished with a record of 21-61, Camara started the bulk of his games (49 out of 70).

Walker, a 6-foot-9 combo forward, was picked with the No. 57 overall choice in the 2022 NBA Draft. He attended Colorado for two years, during which time he was selected to the All-Pac-12 Team. Walker was selected at the end of the draft from Colorado. His father, Samaki Walker, was a journeyman power forward for ten years and won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2001-2002. He follows in his father’s footsteps. The big guy, who was in his third year of playing, had a breakout season in 2023-24, averaging 8.9 points on a slash line of.460/.295/.754, 7.1 rebounds, 1.0 assists, and 0.6 swipes per night throughout his 72 healthy games (23 starts).

The executive management of the Trail Blazers would be wise to give Walker and Camara an extended look at their rookie-scale wages for the upcoming season. Although neither Walker nor Camara is particularly considered to be a talent with All-Star potential, both of them had early runs with Portland that were promising enough to warrant such an opportunity.

Portland’s most important young prospects at present are lottery picks Donovan Clingan (the No. 7 selection out of the University of Connecticut this summer), point guard Scoot Henderson (the No. 3 pick in 2023 from the G League Ignite), and shooting guard Shaedon Sharpe (the No. 7 pick out of Kentucky in 2022).