Portland Trail Blazers: Should they sell high on Shabazz Napier?
By Ty Delbridge
Should the Blazers sell high on Napier?
Napier will be a free agent at the end of this season and if he keeps up this level of play, the Blazers are going to have a tough decision to make this offseason.
Napier provides the Blazers with a great backup guard and he can even play with Dame and C.J. because of his shooting ability. The guard is an energizer bunny off of the bench. He is 26 years old and is starting to come into his basketball prime. It takes a player about 3-4 seasons to get comfortable in the NBA. Napier is at the four-year mark and is showing great improvement.
The problem for Napier is he is stuck behind two great guards and will always be their backup, no matter how well he plays. He is also only 6’1″. Portland already has an issue with playing small guards and being outsized. He is a better defender, but still will have a tough time guarding players like Russell Westbrook, Eric Bledsoe, John Wall and Jrue Holiday because of his smaller size. Lillard and McCollum are 6’3″ and 6’4″.
Napier is a restricted free agent and I expect teams who need a point guard to offer him a nice contract. Portland will have the first shot at re-signing him and can match any offer from a team.
The Blazers handed out a lot of money two summers ago to their young guys so they were not losing them for nothing. They matched Allen Crabbe‘s $75 million offer sheet from the Brooklyn Nets. They didn’t want a young Crabbe leaving their team. But after one season, they ended up trading him to the Nets anyway as a salary dump move. It will be interesting to see if the Blazers learned their lesson about overpaying for players, or if they keep the trend going.
I believe the Blazers should trade Napier before he leaves for nothing, or before they overpay for him. Because of his play this season and the need for backcourt depth in the NBA, I don’t see how the Blazers sign Shabazz to a reasonable contract.
Here are a few moves the Blazers could make at the trade deadline to get the most out of Shabazz Napier. It may be hard for the Blazers to trade Napier as he is playing on a one-year deal.