The NBA Play-In Tournament, (a great addition to the NBA post-season, IMO), starts today. In honor of the Portland Trail Blazers making the post-season, today’s post is about this year’s Blazers team and building a church staff.
The 2025-26 Portland Trail Blazers have been one of the more interesting up and coming teams in the NBA this year. Not because they suddenly turned into the 1996 Bulls. But because they’ve spent the season showing what happens when a team tries to grow up the right way: young talent out front, veterans steadying the wheel, and Damian Lillard hanging around like the world’s most overqualified assistant coach. Portland made the play-in tournament this season, which, for this franchise, counts as real movement and not just the annual exercise in “maybe next year.”
That feels a lot like a healthy church staff.
A good pastoral team needs young leaders who bring energy, creativity, and the occasional dangerous amount of confidence. You need people willing to try things, start things, question things, and occasionally suggest an idea that makes the rest of the staff stare out the conference room window and whisper, “Well, that’s either brilliant or a lawsuit.” But you also need seasoned leaders who know how to read a room, slow the tempo, and have never worn skinny jeans or had an ironic mustache.
That’s basically Portland’s whole deal this season (not the skinny jeans and mustache, but the whole young leaders / veterans thing.)
Scoot Henderson
Take Scoot Henderson. A few weeks back against Indiana, he put together one of those nights that makes one think that maybe drafting him as the third overall pick in the draft wasn’t a mistake. He scored 28, handed out 6 assists, and somehow had 0 turnovers, which for a young guard is roughly the basketball equivalent of a youth pastor turning in his receipts on time. It was one of those games where you could see the talent and the maturity starting to shake hands.
Church staffs need that kind of young leader.
They bring movement. They bring pace. They bring fresh eyes. Younger pastors are often the ones who say, “Why are we still doing it this way?” and everyone over 42 immediately feels spiritually attacked. But they’re not wrong. Sometimes the church does need a little disruption. Sometimes the future shows up wearing sneakers and calling you “Unk.” That’s not rebellion. That’s often growth in its annoying early form.
Shaedon Sharpe
Then there’s Shaedon Sharpe. Earlier in the season, in a win over the Lakers, he led Portland with 25 and reminded everyone why raw talent keeps getting so many second chances in this league. Sharpe can change the feel of a game fast. He has that thing you can’t really coach: sudden lift, shot-making, and the occasional jaw-dropping moment.
That’s your gifted younger staffer. Maybe they’re not yet fully formed. Maybe they’re still learning when to talk and when to listen. But they are also undeniably alive. Undeniably gifted. You don’t suppress that. You shape it.
Donovan Clingan
Donovan Clingan has had that same feel this year. Against San Antonio in early January, he dropped a career-best 24 and 12, and for a stretch looked like he had decided to personally introduce himself to the entire league. And later, against Indiana, he topped even that with 28 and 13. Big body, growing instincts, unfinished edges, real impact.
That’s another kind of young pastor: not polished yet, but substantial. You can feel the weight they carry even before they fully know how to use it. Their future is obvious. Their timing is still under construction. Welcome to ministry.
But here’s the catch: young cores are fun until the game gets tight. Then suddenly everyone starts making decisions like they’ve had three cold brews and one podcast about leadership. Young cores need coaching and accountability
That’s why the veterans matter.
Jrue Holiday
Jrue Holiday has been the adult in the room all year. Against Utah around mid-February, he poured in 31 points with 9 rebounds and 7 assists. A few weeks later against Memphis, he went off for 35 and 11, hit 8 threes, and basically spent the evening reminding everyone that there is something to be said for experience, even if you are overpaying for it. Against New Orleans just a few days ago, he came up big again as Portland kept its postseason hopes moving in the right direction.
Every church staff needs a Jrue.
Not necessarily the loudest person. Not the trendiest person. Definitely not the person whose primary growth metric is “vibes.” Just someone who knows what time it is. Someone who can settle the chaos, make the right read, and keep younger leaders from confusing adrenaline with anointing.
Jerami Grant
Jerami Grant has played that role too. In a late-March win over Minnesota, he hit a go-ahead three late, then followed it with another dagger in the final seconds. Not dramatic in a reality-TV way. Dramatic in the much better “I know exactly where to be when this matters” way.
That’s the veteran pastor who has lived long enough to know that every crisis is not the apocalypse and every shiny idea is not revival.
Damian Lillard
And then there’s Dame.
The offseason reunion with Damian Lillard was never mainly about this year’s box score. Portland brought him back while he rehabs his Achilles, and both the organization and Lillard were pretty open that this season would be about recovery, presence, and mentorship more than game action. Lillard said he was excited to help younger players like Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe develop, and then-head coach Chauncey Billups joked that Dame would basically be “the highest-paid assistant coach in league history.” It’s funny because it’s true.
That matters.
Not every veteran contributes by logging 34 minutes and dropping 27. Some veterans contribute by giving the team a spine. Dame has spent this year on the bench, around practice, around the locker room, around the younger guards, pouring confidence and perspective into a roster that desperately needs both. By December, he was already talking publicly about how adversity is where identity gets formed, which is the kind of thing a franchise icon says when he knows his job is bigger than his stat line.
Church staffs need that kind of veteran too.
They need the pastor who may not be the primary driver of every initiative anymore but still changes the room by being in it. The leader whose words carry weight because they’ve paid for those words over time. The one who can lean over to a younger pastor after a hard meeting and say, “Relax. You’re not dying. You’re learning.” That kind of presence is gold. It’s not flashy. It’s not Instagrammable. It just keeps people from quitting the ministry on a Monday morning.
That’s the real lesson from this Blazers team.
“A church staff should have a spark, but it also needs a spine.”
All spark on a team and you end up with a ministry full of brilliant ideas and deeply cursed follow-through. But it also can’t be all spine and no young fire, unless your dream is to slowly become a very polite museum.
You need Scoot’s burst. Sharpe’s fearlessness. Clingan’s emerging presence. You also need Jrue’s composure, Grant’s late-game steadiness, and Dame’s leadership from the bench that says, “I may not be on the floor right now, but I still know how this works.”
Because whether you’re building an NBA roster or a pastoral staff, the goal is not just to collect talent. It’s to build a team where the young guys don’t have to become wise overnight, and the veterans don’t have to pretend they’re still 26.
That’s where real health shows up.
dc.
