With the 2017-18 NBA regular season fast approaching, here are five goals for Portland Trail Blazers small forward Maurice Harkless.
Last season, Portland Trail Blazers wingman Maurice Harkless averaged career highs in points (10.0 per game), rebounds (2.8), assists (1.1), steals (1.1) and field goal percentage (50.3 percent) in a career-high 28.9 minutes per game. He also started 69 out of the 77 games he played, earning the top spot on the depth chart above Evan Turner, Jake Layman and former Blazers swingman, Allen Crabbe.
In addition, Harkless has continually improved since joining the Blazers in 2015, and it’s unlikely that we’ll see a significant drop in his upward trajectory any time soon. Standing 6’9″ at just 24 years of age, Harkless hasn’t even begun to touch his prime yet.
This season, Harkless has a prime opportunity to be the difference-maker on a fringe-playoff team like the Trail Blazers. After trading away Crabbe — the second most efficient 3-point shooter in the NBA — the Blazers will definitely look to Harkless to fill the scoring vacancy on the wing, among other things.
But if he’s to fill his role properly, there’s a couple things on which he’ll definitely need to improve. Here are five goals that can help him get to where he needs to be.
5. Improve on last year’s 3-point percentage
Last season, the Portland Trail Blazers posted the sixth-best 3-point percentage in the NBA at 37.5 percent. Moe Harkless was a huge part of that effort, shooting 35.1 percent from behind the arc on 2.5 attempts per game.
While this didn’t beat his career-high of 38.3 percent on 1.9 attempts, he still ended up improving on his 27.9 3-point percentage from the season before. This year, the goal should be to shoot within the realm of 38.3 percent on roughly 3.5 attempts.
The reason for this is simple: Allen Crabbe posted the NBA’s second-best mark from three at 46.8 percent on 3.8 attempts, and now he’s no longer residing in Rip City. If the Blazers want to see some continuity or improvement with their spacing, someone is going to have to pick up the slack from outside, and God forbid that be Meyers Leonard.
4. Improve free throw shooting
It’s strange to see a player who is a relatively good 3-point shooter despite being a poor free throw shooter. Andre Iguodala comes to mind, as does LeBron James, Austin Rivers, Bruce Bowen and Jason Richardson.
Moe Harkless is the latest among that bunch, holding a career average of 59.6 percent from the charity stripe on 1.5 attempts per game. Last season, he shot 62.1 percent from the free throw line — 0.1 percent below his career-high.
If Harkless wants to improve as a scorer, adding a free throw shot to his tool box would do wonders to his versatility. If Harkless doesn’t end up significantly improving his 3-point shooting, then the next best thing would be improving his chances of scoring three points the old fashioned way.
3. Shoot at least 50 percent from the field
Harkless shot 50.3 percent from the field while starting at the small forward position last season, which is impressive by all accounts. His list of goals this season should include meeting that mark again.
Harkless shot 57.2 percent from 2-point range, and 62.9 percent of his shots last season came from within 10 feet of the basket. Considering his subpar shooting from behind the arc, it’s clear that Harkless’ strengths as a scorer stem from his length, his athleticism, his hustle and his overall ability to score in traffic.
While the Blazers could definitely benefit from Harkless spacing the floor a tad bit more, it isn’t entirely necessary for Harkless to complete abandon his game as a cutter, slasher and pick-and-roll finisher.
Simply put: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
2. Average more than 10 points per game
Harkless finished in double-digit scoring last season for the first time in his career, averaging 10.0 points in 28.6 minutes per game and 69 starts. These numbers were all career-highs.
It’s safe to say that Evan Turner will remain on the bench as one of Terry Stotts’ primary second unit scorers, so the much of the burden of scoring from the wing befalls Harkless. Unless Jake Layman or Pat Connaughton make the jump this season, both Turner and Harkless will be called upon to fill the scoring absence of Allen Crabbe.
That being said, Harkless is in a great position to become Portland’s fourth scorer. Proving capable of being the fourth scorer alongside Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic should most definitely be one of Harkless’ goals heading into the 2017-18 season.
1. Tighten up on defense
The Blazers’ overall defense has been rather nonexistent the past few seasons. If the team wishes to contend in the West, then they most definitely need to be able to defend at a much higher level. In addition, the Western Conference has some of the best wings the league has to offer: Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler and Paul George, to name a few.
Harkless has the tools to become a solid wing defender. He’s long, he’s athletic, he hustles and he has great instincts defensively. Per 36 minutes, Harkless averaged 5.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.1 blocks last season.
Coming out of St. John’s, Harkless was highly regarded due to his versatility, and he was widely projected to be a solid defender. He’s shown in spurts that he can be the defender everyone thought he would become, but it hasn’t exactly all come together in such a way as to consider him a lockdown defender.
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Therefore, one of Harkless’ goals this season should be to earn the title of lockdown defender.