The Trail Blazers will not extend a qualifying offer to point guard Shabazz Napier, making him an unrestricted free agent, Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports tweets.
It’s somewhat surprising the Blazers would not make the qualifying offer for a rotation player, given it was a modest $3,452,308, Portland did add 19-year-old guard Anfernee Simons in the draft, so perhaps it feels Simons can step into that role. Portland is well over the cap and the decision to let Napier walk could also help it avoid the luxury-tax threshold.
Napier, who led the University of Connecticut to the 2014 championship, has also played for the Heat and Magic. He had his best season as a pro in his second year with Portland, averaging 8.7 PPG and 2.2 APG in 20.7 MPG while appearing in 74 games, including nine starts.
Suns 2yrs/$8m
He’ll make a nice backup PG on a min contract somewhere.
No way he’s taking the vet min. He’s not 35 years old and someone will pay him with the expectation that he can continue the good work he did off of Portland’s bench in a larger capacity with more responsibility.
Hey, remember that time that LeBron liked Napier’s game enough to compel the Heat to draft him and then LeBron left? That was cool.
Might be a nice replacement
for Smart in Boston
LAL bound
I suppose he is gonna be a good backup as you guys mention, but obviously needs to go cheaper, I think that is the problem with Portland, his number are very low for someone making his sort of money, either he needs to do a big jump or take a pay cut going forward to another team.
He only made $2.4MM. Normally he would be due a raise bit who knows this year.
Shabazz would be a perfect fit in LA as a Laker….he’d thrive in Luke’s system!