Orlando Magic: 5 key players that got away
By Luke Duffy
4. Shabazz Napier
Staying in Portland, and guard Shabazz Napier has really begun to show out for the Trail Blazers this season, his fourth in the league.
Napier, who came to Orlando in his second season after a stint with the Miami Heat, was never really given a chance to shine there. Despite a lack of clear talent on the team, he only averaged 10.7 minutes per game, and appearing in 55 games.
He started none of those, and although he has only started seven games in two seasons for the Trail Blazers, he is settling into his role as scoring punch off the bench well. Napier is averaging 9.5 points per game this season (a career high), and is shooting an impressive 41.3 percent from 3-point range.
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Given that he is a career 36.5 percent shooter from deep and is playing 20.6 minutes per night (another career high), that is the kind of efficiency the Magic would love to have.
Other stats of note include the career high PIE of 13.4, despite posting the second-lowest usage percentage (19.6) of his career.
Like Harkless, Napier isn’t the kind of player that front offices end up kicking themselves over. However, given the current needs of this team, the sting of regret should only be increasing.
The Magic right now have a backcourt that has suffered from injury (Terrence Ross), uncertainty (Elfrid Payton is a restricted free agent in the summer) and inconsistency (Evan Fournier).
Napier would have been an ideal guy to bring off the bench to put up points in a hurry, as he has a couple of times this season. He put up 23 in a late December win over the Philadelphia 76ers, and hung 19 on the Magic in 27 minutes earlier in the season too.
This is a worrying one, as Napier continues to turn into the bench threat/potential sixth man a Magic team aiming for the playoffs would have loved.