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.