As Doc Rivers officially takes over as the new head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, a lot of the talk has been focused on the team’s star duo of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. It makes sense due to their importance, but what about the guy with the max contract?
Tobias Harris had an up and down first season of a 5-year $180 million deal with the Sixers. He did average 19.6 points and 6.9 rebounds and he shot 36.7% from deep after starting the season shooting only 21.7%, but he collapsed in the playoffs shooting only 2-for-15 from beyond the arc.
While playing for Rivers with the Los Angeles Clippers before being traded to Philadelphia, Harris put up some career numbers and he shot 42.6% from deep during his time in Los Angeles. The hope is that he can recapture that form now that Rivers is in Philadelphia.
“I loved him. I love coaching him,” Rivers explained. “I like that he was a multi-positional player. He’s a big 3, he’s a quick 4, last time I used him a lot in LA moving him back-and-forth. I love his shot. He has a great in-between game which is sometimes lost in today’s game and I think he’s a terrific straight-line driver. We have to just put him in positions for him to do that.”
Rivers then went to explain why Harris had so much success with the Clippers. He used him a lot in the pick-and-roll game.
“We put him in more pick-and-rolls than he ever been in his entire life and we had some success with him out of it” he added. “Pick-and-rolls to me are combinations that can create problems defensively for the other team and Tobias can do that. I’m really looking forward to working with him again.”
While playing in 55 games with Los Angeles in the 2018-19 season before the trade, Harris was used in pick-and-roll action 1.5% of the time and he averaged 0.5 points while shooting 61.5% in those actions per NBA Stats. With Philadelphia in the 2019-20 season, the number dropped slightly to 1.2% of the time and to 0.3 points in those actions.
The idea is to have Harris more involved in the offense rather than just focus on being a 3-point shooter. The Sixers would certainly benefit from a much more aggressive Harris to take some of the pressure off Simmons and Embiid for the team to flourish on offense. [lawrence-related id=38151,38148,38145]