Philadelphia 76ers: Tobias Harris is producing regardless of analytics

Through the first six games of the 2021-22 NBA season, Tobias Harris is playing really well for the Philadelphia 76ers… or is he?

On one hand, he’s averaging 19.4 points per game, which is right on par with his Sixers career average, to go along with 4.2 assists, and 8.6 rebounds per game. While his 3 point shooting percentage is only at 30 percent, he’s at least taking four shots from beyond the arc per game, up .6 from last season, and his overall field goal percentage is the highest its ever game at 51.9, with the potential for it to only get better with an increased frequency of shots around the hoop.

And yet, as Ben Detrick pointed out in Twitter, Harris has by far the biggest disparity in his on/off splits of any player on the Sixers this season, with the team scoring 19.7 more points with number 12 on the bench instead of the court over 100 possessions.

So what gives? Is Harris a contributing factor to the team’s success, or is he holding Doc Rivers‘ squad back with his idiosyncratic style of play?

Well, I’ll tell you this much, nothing looked too wrong with his game in the Philadelphia 76ers’ absolute routing of the Atlanta Hawks in their first game back on the admittedly slippery court of the Wells Fargo Center.

The Philadelphia 76ers need to make the most out of Tobias Harris’ game.

On paper, Tobias Harris is an easy player to fall for because he can pretty much do anything you’d want from a forward in the modern-day NBA.

He can shoot 3s, play some deceptively good D, and score from anywhere on the court, both in a spot-up situation or coming off the dribble.

Do you want a forward who can get buckets off of a screen? Harris can do that. How about one who can set screens for guards like Tyrese Maxey and contribute as both a roller and a popper? Harris can do that too. Heck, Harris is even averaging 4.2 assists per game, which is more than Maxey, Shake Milton, or any other guard on the team.

In practice, however, Harris doesn’t quite live up to the idealistic version of his game.

You see, Harris has a bad habit of taking bad shots. He’ll dribble his way into bad looks, drive into traffic without a plan in the paint, and even take some catch-and-shoot 3s that would make Danny Green blush. He seldom sets the team up for success in the halfcourt when Maxey hands him off the ball at the top of the key and often disappears at the end of games when the team needs him most.

Remember how Ben Simmons got a ton of flack for averaging 2.1 points in the fourth quarters of the Sixers’ Semi-Finals series against the Atlanta Hawks back in June? Well, Harris only averaged 3.6 points despite attempting 3.7 more shots per quarter (4.1 overall).

Sidebar: How inefficient was Tobias Harris as a shooter versus the Hawks over that seven games series? Well, let’s just say Seth Curry averaged more points per game despite attempting 2.2 fewer shots in the fourth quarter. Not ideal, considering their enormous contractual disparity.

Even if Harris’ turnovers remain under two per game, he has a bad habit of wasting possessions with ineffective decision making and has been on the court for many of the team’s patented five-minute-long scoreless stretches.

No wonder his efficiency totals are down; a few scoreless stretches can seriously swing a statistic with under 200 minutes of action under your belt.

Ultimately, I don’t think Tobias Harris is an inefficient player. While that on/off statistic is rather eye-popping, we aren’t quite at the point in the NBA season where statistics can be properly judged due to the lack of a sufficient sample size. With that being said, Harris could use some work at shoring up his offensive efficiency, as he kills drives more than most, and brings a movements-happy offense to a screeching halt when he tried to go full-on 2018-19 Jimmy Butler. For my money, I’d rather see Harris attempt more 3s as an outlet option for Joel Embiid than consistently take the ball out of Tyrese Maxey’s hands.