Gary Harris has become the veteran rock the Orlando Magic needed

When the Orlando Magic acquired Gary Harris last season, Denver Nuggets fans sent well wishes and best wishes to the team and their former player. They hated to see him go.

The Nuggets’ visit to Orlando on Dec. 1  was a happy reunion. There is still obviously a lot of love for Harris even in the brutal business of winning championships:

https://twitter.com/nuggets/status/1466184974193684487

Of course, there was a reason the Nuggets decided to part with Harris. The enticement of a versatile, young wing defender in Aaron Gordon was a seemingly perfect fit for a Nuggets team on the verge of title contention. And Harris’ play had severely fallen off thanks to injuries.

A rebuild situation did not seem too ideal for a veteran player who has made a name as a 3-and-D player. . . when he is healthy.

The start of his career in Orlando did not get off to the best start either. He struggled with many of the consistency issues that had the rest of the league puzzled with what happened.

And he did not start the 2022 season much better. Orlando needed a veteran player to provide consistency and a good model for the young players on the team. But Harris was for a while one of the worst players in the league based solely on production.

But since that reunion with the Nuggets at the beginning of the month, everything has changed for Harris. Suddenly he has looked like the player who broke out in 2018 and has chased that shooting percentage.

More than that, in a chaotic week of the season with so many players out with injury and health protocols, Harris has been a rock and a leader. He has become the veteran the Magic needed from him.

Gary Harris has broken out of an early-season slump and has re-emerged as the player the Orlando Magic wanted to be a veteran rock for their young team.

For the season, Harris is averaging 10.2 points per game while shooting a 34.6-percent 3-point field goal percentage and 52.6-percent effective field goal percentage. That is his best effective field goal percentage since that breakout 2018 season.

Harris is still chasing that mark.

But those numbers are still weighed down considerably by his slow start to the season. In his first 16 games this season, he averaged only 6.5 points per game and shot 38.9-percent from the floor and 24.0-percent from deep. It really did look like Harris was one of the worst players in the league as some statistical measures suggested.

But since then, largely coinciding with his insertion into the starting lineup following Jalen Suggs’ injury, Harris has started scorching the nets.

Harris is averaging 15.5 points per game while shooting 50.4-percent from the floor and 44.4-percent from deep. He has a 60.9-percent effective field goal percentage in December.

It is just 11 games — nearly half the games he has played — and so there is still a wait and see if these numbers are permanent or just a hot streak. It is starting to feel like the former more than the latter.

These numbers are certainly in line with his 2018 season, when he averaged 17.5 points per game while shooting 48.5-percent from the floor and 39.6-percent from deep.

Even if this hot streak does not last, reverting even to those shooting numbers would give the Magic a huge boost and the kind of stabilizing three-and-D player they need to stabilize their lineup.

Harris’ last game showed just the level of consistency he provides.

In Sunday’s loss against the Miami Heat, he scored 20 points on 7-for-11 shooting. He was the only Magic player to shoot better than 50-percent in the game. He showed all the aggression and poise you would expect.

When the lane was open, he got to the rim, where he has the penchant for creative finishes:

What makes Harris good though is he always plays within himself. He understands when there is that gap to get to the basket and when he should be driving to pass.

That remains one of the big issues for the team. They have few playmakers and many of their drivers are scorers first.

But, according to Basketball Index, Harris has a 13.1-percent assist rate on his drives, putting him in the 86th percentile of the league. Harris is going to get to his spots and make the right play. That kind of trust is vital for a young team.

Harris is good at playing within himself and taking what the defense gives him. That is because he has a reliable jumper when given the space to get into a one- or two-dribble pullup.

They can also increasingly rely on him to hit from beyond the arc too.

Defenses still buy that he is a threat from beyond the arc, one of the few. But Harris does not quite have intense gravity. Defenses do not sag off him, but they do not stay tight to him. That opens up space for him to hit on catch-and-shoot baskets, where he is making 36.3-percent of his 3-pointers for the season according to data from Second Spectrum.

In December, Harris has made 45.5-percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers on 4.0 attempts per game. That puts him in the 67th percentile in the league.

All these improvements have helped the Magic’s offense find some traction.

Add on top of that Harris is still a pretty good defender. According to Basketball Index, he has a positive defensive impact even though he defends the team’s primary ball-handler most games. Harris has made his name as a 3-and-D player and the Magic are finally seeing that.

The slow start and the Magic’s overall poor defensive numbers will likely hide some of this impact. For the season, the Magic have a 112.4 defensive rating with Harris on the floor (slightly worse than the team’s 112.1 season average).

In December, the Magic have a 110.0 defensive rating with Harris on the floor — compared to a 113.3 defensive rating overall.

There is that correlation that the Magic play better defense with Harris on the floor. And certainly his more positive impact has helped grow that.

Harris is a piece of the puzzle as the Magic wait to be healthy again.

So much of this Magic team is waiting to see what this team really looks like when they have anything resembling health with Jalen Suggs, Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz in the lineup. Harris is the kind of player who would benefit from having better players around him and wh would help those players improve themselves.

This is why if this trend continues Harris will become one of the bigger names at the trade deadline. This version of Harris is the one who can contribute to playoff teams and make them better.

It is the Harris that everyone imagined with the Nuggets for so long but just could not stay on the floor consistently. If there is one benefit of the laid-back atmosphere Orlando has right now, it is that Harris has had the time to find his game again.

That, in turn, has helped the team keep its competitiveness and stay on the right path. Harris has been a big boost to this young team on the court now.