How could Jabari Walker fit with the Sixers? Get to know the ‘hustle guy’ through the eyes of a Blazers reporter.
To gain insight on the Sixers' newcomers, The Inquirer reached out to beat writers who covered the teams for which they last played. Up next is Walker, who spent three seasons in Portland.
Other than Quentin Grimes’ lingering restricted free agency, the 76ers’ offseason has slowed down.
And because of their current roster construction — including the long-term, max contracts of Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey — the Sixers’ moves this summer needed to be around the edges. They signed Trendon Watford to a veteran minimum contract, and added Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow on two-way deals.
To gain insight on these newcomers, The Inquirer reached out to beat writers who covered the teams for which they last played.
Up next is The Rose Garden Report’s Sean Highkin, who covered Walker’s tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Q: How surprised were you that the Sixers were able to land Walker on a two-way deal?
A: I was a little surprised. Guys who have played almost 200 NBA games, and been productive rotation players, typically don’t get signed to two-ways. In his three years in Portland, he only played one game in the G League.
Even when he wasn’t in the rotation consistently, the Blazers didn’t feel like he “needed” to play down there. I’ll bet he uses up his two-way days on the active roster pretty quickly in Philadelphia and is converted to a standard contract before the end of the season.
Q: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much enthusiastic support from a fan base for a departing non-star player as Blazers fans had for Walker when news popped he had joined the Sixers. How did he endear himself so much to the city and the organization?
A: Portland is just a fan base that embraces role players, pretty much across the board. The only ex-Blazers that the fan base doesn’t refer to as a “Blazers legend” in later years, off the top of my head, are Raymond Felton and Gary Payton II. That goes double when it’s a player like Walker, who’s a hustle guy. Add to that him just being a really likable guy who’s great at interacting with fans and it’s not a surprise he became a fan favorite.
Q: Walker has talked fondly about being part of a rebuilding team, and acknowledged the situation is different with the Sixers. How do you anticipate his skills translating to a team trying to win now?
A: I think his role will be the same on just about any team he’s on — he’s an undersized center and bench-energy big who will rebound and grab loose balls when he’s on the floor. He just does positive things.
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Q: What aspects of Walker’s game improved the most during his time with the Blazers?
A: His shooting numbers improved dramatically in his third season. After shooting below 30% from three-point range in his first two seasons, he hit 38.9% of his threes last year, albeit on very low volume.
The thing that’s going to decide what level of NBA contributor he is long-term will be how his offensive game continues to develop. When you’re smaller for a center, you can’t just be a rebound-and-energy guy with no offensive skill set. If that shooting improvement carries over, it raises his ceiling considerably.
Q: How much did he talk about his father’s influence on him as a player growing up, and now?
A: Very early on, he talked about Samaki’s influence. One of the earliest media availabilities of his career was at Summer League in Las Vegas in 2022, and he told us that his dad — who had a solid 10-year career in the league but was never a star or a go-to scorer — taught him from a young age that, when people call you a “role player,” you shouldn’t take it as an insult, because guys who know what they are and do the dirty work can stick in the league for a long time and make a lot of money. I was impressed by a kid, who was 20 at that point, already having that much self-awareness about what success would look like for him in the NBA.