3 teams who should call the Philadelphia 76ers about Tobias Harris
Tobias Harris is one of the harder players to truly quantify on the Philadelphia 76ers‘ roster.
On one hand, he’s playing just slightly below his career averages in a Sixers uniform, scoring 18.9 points, 3.3 assists, and 7.2 rebounds a night while hitting 46.7 percent of his shots from the field and 31.5 percent from beyond the arc. Despite missing a half month due to COVID, Harris has remained an engaged leader for the team both on and off the court and could ultimately see his numbers improve once Philly finally strings together some on-court continuity for the first time since October.
But when you actually watch Harris on the court without the boxscore, there are some increasingly troubling developments that are hurting the Sixers more than they help.
For one thing, Harris remains an incredibly indecisive player with the ball in his hands. He routinely passes up catch-and-shoot 3s for contested 2s, rarely embraces contact when he’s driving to the paint and has a horrible pension for passing the ball off to Joel Embiid away from the basket after drawing defenders into the paint.
Now granted, some of these issues could come from Harris playing a role he’s ill-equipped to play, as he’s taken it upon himself to be the Sixers’ second-best player when he’s really better suited to be an option there, and once Ben Simmons is traded, he could settle into a more advantageous offensive role, but who is to say that will actually happen? Harris, statistically speaking, has always been better off when paired with an elite passer, and if he’s tasked with playing power forward next to a player like, say, Brandon Ingraham, many of his offensive issues may remain.
Fortunately, if Daryl Morey views the best chance to improve the Philadelphia 76ers’ roster is by acquiring a small or even power forward, the team could always opt to trade Tobias Harris, as there are a few teams who could really use his services over the back half of the 2021-22 season and beyond.
The Philadelphia 76ers could help the Indiana Pacers rebuild.
The Indiana Pacers are reportedly looking to sell off a few ill-fitting pieces in the hopes of launching a soft rebuild, with Caris LeVert, Domantas Sabonis, Jeremy Lamb, Justin Holiday, and Myles Turner all potentially on the move.
Does landing Tobias Harris help a rebuild? No, not on his own, but if the Sixers find themselves on the lookout for a player like LeVert, or want to go crazy and try to pair up Sabonis with Embiid in the paint – which probably isn’t the best idea but hey, who is to say? – they could easily package his contract with one or more of their young players, like Paul Reed or Jalen Springer, to help the Pacers build towards the future with a versatile forward in place alongside Malcolm Brogdon.
Worst-case scenarios, both Harris and Brogdon could be traded in the offseason to fully embrace a #PacersProcess. Best-case? The duo play well, and Indiana can continue to be a 4-6 seed and hopefully draw a few more fans to the least attended market in the NBA.
Of the teams looking to re-tool, Indiana is probably the hardest to judge because they simply haven’t started it yet. They may want to bottom out and hope to land the next Reggie Miller or Paul George, or they may be more interested in remaining competitive with a professional scorer like Tobias Harris and hope that they hit the lottery in the NBA Draft Lottery in 2022 while they continue to fight for relevance. Either way, this situation is worth monitoring.