Philadelphia 76ers: It’s a shame Gary Harris didn’t ask for a buyout

What if the Philadelphia 76ers didn’t fill their final roster spot with DeAndre Jordan?

What if the mystery player Daryl Morey discussed potentially becoming available wasn’t the one-time All-Star who played under Doc Rivers in Los Angeles and was instead a player at a position of need, be that in the backcourt, on the wings, or a more complementary forward capable of playing alongside and in place of Joel Embiid.

Now granted, adding one more rotation player probably wouldn’t have magically thrust the Sixers into the NBA finals, let alone allowed them to best the Miami Heat in a seven-game series, but goodness, after watching the Sixers struggle to get much going in Games 5 and 6 while both Jordan, Paul Millsap, and, unfortunately, Charles Bassey, wasted away on the bench for all but 46 minutes of the team’s second-round series.

*sigh* why didn’t Gary Harris ask for a buyout from the Orlando Magic?

The Philadelphia 76ers could have used a wing like Gary Harris in the playoffs.

When news broke that Matisse Thybulle would be unable to travel to Toronto due to his incomplete vaccination regiment, it spelled disaster for the Philadelphia 76ers’ playoff chances.

Say what you will about Thybulle’s game, about his ineffective outside shot, or his near-total lack of overall offensive development, but when he was on the court with the Sixers’ other starters, the team had a Net Rating of 20.2, which is the third-best mark association-wide among lineups that played at least 125 minutes. That number dropped to 9.0 when Thybulle was swapped out for Danny Green, and even in the playoffs, the Sixers’ starting lineup failed to match the Net Rating of their regular season iteration.

Had the Sixers been able to rely on the duo with roughly a 50-50 split a la the regular season, maybe things would have been different; maybe the Sixers would have been able to field at least one solid defensive wing at all times and *gasp* maybe the duo would have even been able to actually share the court together, as, theoretically, their switchability could have been incredibly valuable against Miami.

But what if the Sixers had another player who could sort of split the difference between Green and Thybulle? What if the team’s second guard coming off the bench wasn’t Furkan Korkmaz – who failed to crack the playoff rotation – and was instead Gary Harris, the 6-foot-4 guard who was traded to the Orlando Magic in the spring of 2021?

Goodness, could you even imagine? Having another shooting guard/small forward who could cover the likes of Max Strus, Gabe Vincent, and Tyler Herro; a shooting guard/small forward who Doc Rivers would actually play because of his wealth of experience at the NBA level? I mean, just think about the lineups the team could have trotted out with Harris at shooting guard, heck, at small forward. Harris could have shared a backcourt with either Tyrese Maxey or James Harden or even played the three spot alongside both of those players, presumably in a Harris squared frontcourt alongside Tobias.

The presence of Harris could have eased the loss of Thybulle in Toronto, let alone the loss of Green in the final game of the season, and his ability to play alongside either player would have made things a good bit easier too, when all three were fully available.

What could have been, what could have been.

Inserting a rotational wing like Gary Harris, who connected on 38.4 percent of his five 3 point shots attempted per game in 2021-22, would have made the Philadelphia 76ers’ collective lives a whole lot easier. He could have looked at home alongside any of the team’s rotational players, provided plus defense at the frontcourt or back, and most importantly of all, soaked up minutes when the starters needed a rest. Unfortunately, Harris never pushed for a buyout and thus, sat at home when he could have been on the court fighting for his first NBA Championship appearance; an appearance both he and the Sixers will have to wait at least one more season to achieve.