Orlando Magic Player Evaluations: Shabazz Napier
The Good and The Bad
| Season | G | MP | FG% | 3P% | eFG% | FT% | TRB | AST | STL | TOV | PF | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 55 | 10.9 | .338 | .327 | .423 | .733 | 1.0 | 1.8 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 3.7 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/28/2016.
The expectations were low for Shabazz Napier entering the season and he still seemed to underwhelm. It is hard to get around Napier’s struggles throughout the season. He was given opportunity and he struggled to perform.
As a young player, that is all he could ask for was opportunity. And yet, each time Napier came out on the floor, he struggled to do many of the things everyone expected of him — namely make shots and run the offense without much incident. He struggled to have any kind of consistency.
His shooting numbers were poor, making just 32.7 percent of his 3-pointers. And that was a big reason why the Magic were willing to bring him on and give him a chance.
Yes, Napier had his moments where he got hot. Like most NBA players, he was as capable as anyone else to go on a streak and score a lot of point. That is what he did at UConn too. The different though is what can a player do every night?
With Napier, the answer proved to be not that much. He was not great at running the offense and getting the Magic through their sets. Defenses consistently pushed Napier off his spot and gummed up the entire offense because Napier had the ball.
This probably seems overly harsh, but the Magic eventually abandoned Napier too. He played intermittently for the latter part of the season playing in more than 10 minutes just once in the final 17 games and appearing in only six of those contests.
Next: Best Game of 2016