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The Philadelphia 76ers are still working through an embarrassing sweep in Round 1 of the playoffs at the hands of the Boston Celtics. It was not a good series for a number of the Sixers including their highest-paid player.
Tobias Harris, who was given a 5-year $180 million contract in the 2019 offseason, had himself a solid regular season averaging 19.6 points. However, he was a complete mess in the playoffs as he averaged only 15.8 points and he shot 2-for-15 from deep in the series.
Still, the Sixers view Harris as a leader especially after returning in Game 4 to try and help his team after suffering an eye laceration in the third quarter.
“For a lot of things not to go our way, to have somebody like Tobias go down like that, and pop back up, and still come back and try and finish the game, it shows his heart, it shows he’s a leader,” said young Shake Milton. “You can really rally behind effort like that.”
Harris has taken on that mantle a bit this season as he has done a lot to try and keep the team together. He has coordinated team dinners and he was also the leading voice inside the bubble to lead their social justice movement. At 28-years old, he still has a lot to learn and improve on, but he can be a reason the team turns things around.
“To be honest, just to continue to improve and get my teammates to continue to improve also and keep us together,” explained Harris. “I think that’s one of the biggest things. If you look at this year, we’ve been through some ups and downs that could have really taken a downturn at many different points, but we were able to stay with it, stay positive, and we got great guys on this team.”
This is going to be an important offseason for the veteran out of Tennessee. Philadelphia is going to need him to move on from this playoff performance as they are probably going to have to be with him for at least the next few seasons. His contract will be hard to move.
“Tobias, as he said in his press conference, he wasn’t happy with where he was in the playoffs in his performance,” said general manager Elton Brand. “Regular season, he had a great regular season All-Star level if we won more games. I’m interested in seeing how he comes back, how hard he works because he’s really motivated to show that he’s the leader of this team.”
For Harris and the Sixers, the work begins now for preparation for the 2020-21 season. He’s going to need to bounce back. [lawrence-related id=37206,37197,37194]