Trail Blazers should retain Shabazz Napier for multiple years

Napier’s Wake-Up Call

On draft night in 2014, LeBron James, then of the Miami Heat, tweeted this:

Of course, this was after Napier led the Connecticut Huskies to their fourth National Championship (and Napier’s second). Napier was named Most Outstanding Player for the tournament, and scored 22 points in the championship game.

And James got his wish: Charlotte selected Napier with the 24th overall pick in the draft and then traded him to Miami.

Less than a month later, though, James was heading back to Cleveland, and Napier was stuck with a confused Heat team. He didn’t perform very well and spent some time in the  G League before being traded in July 2015. Napier didn’t have to go far: It was the Orlando Magic who acquired the point guard for a 2016 second-round draft pick.

Napier couldn’t shoot better than 40 percent in a season despite his low volume of attempts. It was such a change up from his extremely impressive collegiate days, when he seemed to be on top of the world.

And before long, Napier was on the move again — this time to Portland, his third team in as many years since being a first-round selection.

Reversal of Fortunes in Rip City

Fortunately — just as they did with Harkless — the Magic gave Napier to Portland for almost nothing. “Cash considerations” went back to Orlando as the Blazers continued a busy 2016 offseason.

For Napier, who spent less than 365 days with the Magic, it must have been refreshing to be wanted. And Portland made it clear they needed Napier playing minutes on the team.

Napier’s first year with Portland was experimental for the team, to say the least. Head coach Terry Stotts had to see how he could utilize Napier’s skills and presence on the floor while also matching with the way Stotts needed to run his offense.

But in the Blazers’ next-to-last game of 2017, Napier notched a career high of 32 points in an epic win over the San Antonio Spurs. In the season finale one game later — a loss to the Pelicans — Napier scored 25 points.

2017-2018 Blazers

Then, this season happened. And Napier is now on the NBA’s radar, just as that tweet by James predicted he might be.

Napier’s minutes per game shot up from 9.7 to more than 20. In doing so, his points per game doubled from 4.1 to 8.7, his rebounds per game increased from 1.2 to 2.3, and he averages almost one more assist per game as well (1.3 to 2).

During his first two years in the league, Napier shot 38 percent and 34 percent from the field, respectively. He shot 40 percent in 2016-2017 and 42 percent this season.

Napier’s value to the team, and as a player, has increased exponentially in the last 12 months. For years, the Blazers had conundrum after conundrum with point guards. Now, they have a superstar and a perennial backup point guard to get rid of that curse.

The problem is that Napier could very well be gone in two to three months.

That would be a major blow to the Blazers.