Tobias Harris expanding his game beyond scoring
Tobias Harris is known as a scorer and not much else. Throughout 2015, as he enters free agency, he had to show potential in other areas of his game.
The biggest question facing the Orlando Magic’s current roster and players is the future of Tobias Harris. We have spent a lot of
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time discussing Harris and his future and how much the Magic should or should not pay him.
There have been suggestions he is worth the max and reports the Magic will do whatever it takes to keep him and reports the Magic will go up to $13 million per year on his offer sheet. There will be plenty more to write about Harris.
Some have suggested Harris is a unique player as a combo forward who can both post up and hit 3-pointers. He is an offensive anomaly in that way. An anomaly that still needs to learn efficiency to reach his full potential.
He needs something else though.
The knock on Harris, and perhaps the reason why so many seem to view him as the odd man out in this core, is his seeming inability to do anything other than put the ball in the basket. His game needed to expand to further prove and solidify his worth.
“It has been my focus throughout the whole year,” Harris said. “I’m not worried about what people have to say, I worry about my game, working on my game and showing everyone that I’m a complete player, a two-way player. I just want to do what I can do to help my team win. To be able to get stops and guard some of the best players I’ve been playing against, I think it only helps our team.”
Could he be as good a scorer without the ball? Could he provide some value outside of his scoring and his ball-handling ability?
First a look at his raw statistics from the season:
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/14/2015.
Harris posted solid numbers. His shooting percentages were up across the board and he averaged a career-high 17.1 points per game. He has shown throughout his career he can score in the post — 1.04 points per possession, posting up on 9.1 percent of the possessions he used, according to NBA.com.
He improved his spot-up shooting and 3-point shooting this season. Moving his 3-point shooting up from 25.4 percent to 36.4 percent his year and improving his catch-and-shoot shooting percentage from 31.6 percent to 38.1 percent this year. He scored 1.00 points per possession and a 52.7 percent effective field goal percentage on spot-up opportunities this year, according to NBA.com.
These were modest improvements, but signs Harris can be a complimentary piece in some capacity. They will need to keep improving to justify the way the ball sometimes tends to stick in his hands in sets run for him when he looks to score.
Offensively too, Harris had to improve his passing numbers. Harris had only 3.4 assist opportunities per game, according to NBA.com. He was not great at keeping the ball moving. His 8.8 percent assist rate this year was actually a career high.
Defense was another point of emphasis for Harris throughout the season. He is not known as a good defender and it was something he was constantly working to improve throughout this major season.
James Borrego said Harris really took defense to heart and became proud of his defense and his defensive effort. That is a major first step for young players to feel confident defensively and make it a priority in their play.
Harris certainly tried to do that, even if the results remain mixed. His defense is still very difficult to measure. But it did say something that Jacque Vaughn matched Harris minute-for-minute with LeBron James in the Dec. 26 game. He got more and more defensive responsibility as the season went on — with mixed results.
Because Harris has played so much in the last three years, it is really tempting to want him to be a finished product. He has put up some strong offensive numbers and done some great things for this team. But like any young player, Harris still has bouts of inconsistency and a need to discover a role.
Harris is just 22 years old. There is still a lot of improvement to go for him.
That does not help anyone decide how much money to invest in him this summer — for the Magic or for the rest of the league. Harris is going to get rewarded both for what he has done and for the potential he has.
He still has a lot of work to do. As the Magic know, he is very capable of doing that work.
“He does his job every single day,” James Borrego said. “He comes to work. Speaks when it’s appropriate. Leads by example. Those are the types of players we need in this locker room. He’s one of those key guys for us.”