Orlando Magic: Will We Ever See Joe Harris?

The Orlando Magic have acquired Joe Harris from the Cleveland Cavaliers, but will he ever play for the team?

In a move that barely registered with even the most hardcore NBA fans, the Orlando Magic acquired shooting guard Joe Harris from the Cleveland Cavaliers late on Tuesday. For Cleveland, the move was made to free up room on their roster after guaranteeing Jared Cunningham for the remainder of the season. For Orlando, well it’s not immediately obvious why they made the deal.

The Magic gave up a 2017 second round draft pick to acquire the player, as well as a protected second round pick in 2020. If this team continues on their current trajectory, they hope to be at best a contending team by 2017, or at the very least a playoff regular by that point. So moving a second round pick is no issue as for this team it’s no longer about stockpiling talent.

Where it gets a little more confusing is the fact Harris just underwent what could turn out to be season ending foot surgery the other day. He may get back for the tail end of the regular season, but if the Magic are still in the playoff hunt at that point like many feel they have a chance to be, cracking the rotation will be hard for Harris. So what was the point exactly in getting him?

On one hand it’s a low risk, medium reward move. Again moving second round picks for an up and coming team is no problem, and the Magic in particular have done a great job in recent times of hanging onto their own first round picks. So part of you thinks, why not? Why not see if this guy can maybe contribute to this team and be added to the tail end of this rotation down the road.

There really is no point in looking too deeply into the numbers Harris has put up this year (he played in five games for Cleveland, averaging less than a point per contest) as they don’t tell us anything about the kind of player he is. Then again, when playing with LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, shots are going to be hard to come by, even if much of his game time came with the second unit of the Cavaliers.

One number that does pique interest however, came from Harris’s rookie year. He played in 51 games and started one, a nice little achievement given that the Cavaliers have been most people’s pick as the best team in the Eastern conference since Harris has been a part of the team. During that period, he shot 37 percent from three point range.

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We live in a time where the league is obsessed with three point shooting, and Harris demonstrated over a reasonable length of time that he could shoot the ball well from long range. When you consider both Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton aren’t exactly long range marksmen themselves, perhaps the organization felt he could be a specialist within their roster.

Using Harris in certain line-ups (such as playing him with the three point shooting big Channing Frye to create problems for opponents, or else alongside Payton and Harris to space the floor) could actually work quite well in theory for this team. The more ways a team has to hurt their opponent the better, and Harris could bring a certain type of versatility to the team, albeit a specialised one.

Yet I can’t shake the fact that we may never actually see Harris turn out for this team, which poses more questions than answers. With the Magic having that team option on him for next season, they can hold onto him unless something better comes along to fill out their roster. He’s due to make under a million dollars as well, a drop in the ocean when you consider the new television rights money that has begun flooding the league.

Keeping Harris around financially isn’t the issue, and as of right now it’s better to have a player who can contribute something, anything, than to not. But because of the injury, Harris may never get a chance to show this team what he can do in the environment of an NBA game. If they do keep him beyond this season he could be used as an expiring contract in any potential trades the team becomes involved in.

But with every team having additional cap room and general managers being smarter about signing players to long term deals these days, expiring contracts aren’t the sweetener they once were. So by taking Harris off Cleveland’s hands, they allowed a conference rival to get better, while potentially getting nothing in return.

We’d be kidding ourselves to call the Cavaliers a direct rival right now, but the Magic should have the mentality that sooner rather than later they will be. Maybe I’m wrong to think in this way, but if you want to be a contending team in the NBA you have to think ambitiously and with the big picture in mind. Is helping a team like Cleveland get even a small bit better the best way to achieve those goals?

This would be different if the Magic got a player of real value in return, but right now it’s hard to see that being the case. Harris has a place in this league, but with Oladipo and Evan Fournier both far more accomplished two guards, it’s tough to see him ever being given a fair chance to make it with this team. One final plus worth mentioning though is the fact he’s been on a contending team, a conference finals winner and is used to winning. Many members of the Magic roster have never had that.

Ultimately though, there’s a reason this move hardly registered a tremor in the world of the NBA. If Harris was healthy now, it would have been interesting to see how head coach Scott Skiles would have implemented him into the team, if at all. There’s only so many minutes to go round with even prized rookies like Mario Hezonja vying for playing time. Don’t get too excited, because it’s likely we’ll never see Joe Harris in an Orlando Magic uniform.