Portland Trail Blazers: 2017-18 player grades for Shabazz Napier

Weaknesses

While Napier is capable of getting hot from the field, he can also get very cold. He shot below 40 percent on five or more attempts in 21 of his 74 games. He even had four games where he did not make any field goals on five or more attempts.

Napier is also a ball-stopper at times. While he has strong playmaking skills, and netted a lot of potential assists, the 3.5 assists per 36 minutes he finished the year with is still pretty low for a point guard. It’s the same amount of assists per 36 as big men Eric Moreland and Julius Randle.

His assists per 36 are still second-most on the team, 0.2 more than C.J. McCollum. This reality shows why Portland’s offense tended to stagnate, as the Blazers averaged the fewest assists per game in the league (19.5).

At 6’1″, Napier is considered undersized, even as a point guard. His stature results in him struggling in certain facets on both ends of the floor. On offense, he struggled to score at the rim. Napier made only 51.8 percent of his shots in the restricted area, the worst mark on the team.

It also limits him defensively, as his 103.6 defensive rating (137th in the league) and 0.12 defensive plus-minus (236th in the NBA) puts him in the middle of the pack in the league.