Orlando Magic Starting Five Breakdown: Tobias Harris
By Luke Duffy
About Last Year
Last year was a contract year for Harris, and he tried his best to put himself in the shop window. In doing so, he averaged a career high in points (17.1) while becoming much more involved in the offensive schemes of this team.
With his ball usage when on the court also a career high (22.5 percent), it was encouraging to see him post the best effective field goal percentage of his career as well (51.2 percent). That ranked 33rd in the league and is an encouraging sign for a team that needs all the offensive firepower it can get.
Defensively there is work to be done, with his defensive +/- score of minus-0.7 his worst since his second season with the Milwaukee Bucks when he averaged 13 minutes per game (Harris played 34.8 last year). The hope is that new Skiles can and will help in this department, but the fact is likely won’t ever be a strength for Harris.
Certainly to post a poor number like that in a contract year tells us that, although he’s athletic and can follow fellow wing players around the court, he’s not doing much to put them off.
One area where Harris could have done more last season was with his driving to the basket. For an athletic guy with quick feet, scoring only three points per game in this way isn’t good enough for a team that needs to find more creative ways to score.
Watching Harris it’s clear he likes to shoot the pull-up jumper, and while that shot has evolved nicely during his time with this team, he did only shoot 36 percent from pull-up jumpers last year. He’ll continue to improve, but varying the offensive output would be great to see.
Next: Great Expectations