Brooklyn Nets: 5 free agents from 2nd tier to watch

Long Island native Harris an enticing target

Tobias Harris doesn’t have the sparkling resume of his Philadelphia 76ers’ teammate, Jimmy Butler, but in many ways he might be a better fit for what the Brooklyn Nets need moving forward.

Whereas Butler is a wing, Harris is a combo forward who has played the stretch 4 spot very well for four different teams over the past several seasons.

He averaged a career-high 20.0 points per game between his time with the LA Clippers and the 76ers this season, also putting up a career-high 7.9 rebounds per game while shooting 48.7 percent overall and 39.7 percent from 3-point range on 4.8 attempts a night.

After a rough Game 1 against the Nets in their first-round playoff series, Harris excelled over Philadelphia’s final four games — all 76er victories — and finished the series shooting 49.3 percent overall while going 10-for-20 from deep and averaging 17.6 points, 8.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals in the series.

He won’t remind anyone of prime Kevin Garnett at the defensive end at the 4 spot, but for a team that started a plethora of small 4s this season, Harris would represent a huge upgrade at that position.

While it feels like Harris has been around forever — he was the 19th overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, 11 spots ahead of Butler — and is significantly younger.

Harris will be 27 in July, putting him demographically much closer to the emerging franchise core in Brooklyn than Butler, and at 6-foot-9 and 235 pounds would provide some added size and shooting at a position where the Nets had little of either in 2018-19.