Miami Heat: Time To Ease Up On The Shabazz Napier Hype

Not too long ago, Shabazz Napier was widely viewed as nothing more than a pawn to convince LeBron James to stay with the Miami Heat, after the King’s glowing endorsement via Twitter. Unfortunately, trading for James’ “favorite player in the draft” wasn’t enough to keep James in town, and the Heat dynasty crumbled.

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Meanwhile, Napier was seemingly left in no man’s land as the majority believed

drafted him solely for that purpose. All of sudden, people forgot he had just led the Connecticut Huskies to their fourth NCAA championship in the history of the school, and the second title during his four-year stay.

(And to rub a little salt into the wound, 2K Sports released this trailer of NBA 2K15, which featured James dunking on poor Shabazz.)

Fast-forward to the present day and the rookie is showing that he can flat-out ball, having shined in recent outings. Although it has to be said, the road to this point has hardly been an easy one.

Expectations were high as we headed into Summer League play, but Napier did nothing to justify them – or the decision to trade for him. He struggled mightily in almost every single category for example, scoring efficiency as he often settled for jump shots (seriously, A LOT of jump-shots) rather than driving to the basket.

That inevitably led to a very underwhelming 29 percent field-goal rate – including 11-of-48 from 3-point range for just less than 23 percent accuracy.

At least you could commend him for his ball distribution since he racked up nearly four assists per game, thanks largely to the five outings in which he had at least five dimes per game. However, that too came at a cost – specifically 43 turnovers which, as you worked out, were more than the assists he dished out in the 10 games.

So to recap: He couldn’t shoot all that well, he was giving the ball away like Santa Claus at Christmas and he didn’t look all that great defensively either. Yikes.

Nonetheless, the preseason came and as he got more comfortable, the better he started playing. After a couple of sub-par performances against New Orleans and Orlando, Napier burst onto the spotlight against LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He didn’t shoot well at all, going 2-for-8 from beyond the arc (4-of-11 overall), but he still managed to put up 16 points along with seven dimes, in just 20 minutes of play. The key was that he was aggressive as illustrated by the six attempts at the foul line, and that made the rest of his game easier.

A 12-point and a 14-point outing followed in games against Atlanta and Golden State, but the big one was the 25-points performance against the reigning NBA Champs, the San Antonio Spurs.

He looked like the Shabazz Napier we saw in college as he strut his stuff all over the court and got to the line at will for 14 free-throw attempts

And HeatNation went wild:

However, maybe it’s time we put the brakes with the hype. All too often we get way to excited about a player doing really well in a handful of games then start expecting(and/or demanding) too much, too soon. In this case, that would be making Napier the starting point guard.

He has already had his fall from grace moment when he went 0-for-7 and didn’t register a single point against the Houston Rockets – although he did have a pretty sweet set-up for Khem Birch.

Furthermore, he hasn’t actually played against many high quality guards in the NBA yet. During summer league, it was against players who, albeit were talents and very capable, but most likely won’t end up in the NBA – ditto for the majority of the preseason as his minutes have primarily come at the back-end of games.

Even, when he torched the Spurs, it wasn’t Tony Parker or Patrick Mills he terrorized. It was Cory Joseph and Bryce Cotton; two players your typical, casual NBA fan probably wouldn’t know.

So at this point, he is still learning the ropes as an NBA point guard, therefore it would probably be best for him to sit back and learn. Then when he is given his opportunity, he will eventually force Coach Erik Spoelstra to give him a more prominent role.

Until then, he just has to listen to his coach’s advice and “keep working.”

"“That’s the only message I’ve given him,” Spoelstra told reporters. “We have seen a residual from all the time he has put in, but we’re not drawing any conclusions at this point.”"

Besides, Miami Heat fans should be content with Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole as the lead guys on the rotation. Sure, the most recent memory fans have of Chalmers is when he struggled during the NBA Finals as he averaged 4.4points and shot 33.3 percent, while Cole hasn’t been spectacular.

However, Chalmers had a career year last season in terms of field goal percentage (45.4), matched his best assists per game output (4.9) and still scored at a decent rate (9.8 ppg). Meanwhile Cole has been very solid and developed into being one of the better, more reliable back-ups in the NBA. That’s not a bad pair of players to have while you’re in a state of flux.

So let’s all dial down the hype and let Shabazz Napier develop in his own time without the unnecessary extra pressure. After all, patience is a virtue.