Philadelphia 76ers: Tobias Harris is finally finding his place

It’s been a struggle for Tobias Harris with the Philadelphia 76ers. But an individual turnaround has both trending in the right direction.

Tobias Harris has only been a member of the Philadelphia 76ers for a season and a half, though that time certainly feels longer on account of all the different positions he’s been put into since his arrival.

After landing in Philadelphia ahead of the 2019 trade deadline, Harris completed one of the top starting-units in the NBA. Despite previously averaging north of 20 points as the leading man for the LA Clippers, playing alongside Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons forced Harris to take a step back and make do with the touches sporadically afforded to him.

His first full season with the 76ers was somehow even bumpier. Harris saw more minutes at small forward during the 2019-20 season than he had since the 2016-17 campaign he spent with the Detroit Pistons. With Butler gone, thrust onto Harris was the role of primary perimeter creator.

The scoring numbers wound up solid (19.6 points per game on 47.1 percent shooting) but were not put to good use on an underachieving Sixers team.

Lost amid thoughts of what shooters like Seth Curry and Danny Green would do for Philly’s two All-Stars this season is the impact it would have on the franchise’s highest-paid player. Harris could reassume the position that ideally suits him in the modern NBA and let the offense come to him instead of having to drive it to success. The last four games have shown us some of the best of what that might look like.

Philly has gone 3-1 in its last four outings. Harris has averaged 21.5 points during that stretch on 55.9 percent shooting from the field and 59.1 percent on over five 3-point attempts a night. He’s also chipping in 9.5 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 2.5 steals and 1.5 blocks per game.

Harris is at his best when playing off others. Without anyone who could consistently create their own perimeter shot, that luxury was rarely afforded to him last season. He had to do most of the grunt work to create offense, which is why his true-shooting percentage (55.6) was at its lowest since his third season in the league.

The 76ers remain depleted of perimeter creators in 2021 but added spacing mitigates those woes. Simmons, in particular, has far more room to move defenses out of place with his drives to the bucket and Harris has been a primary benefactor.

No Sixer receives more passes from Simmons per game than Harris, who is shooting 55.0 percent off those catches, highest on the team. Several of those dishes have led to your basic catch-and-shoot triples, but Harris is making an effort to capitalize on the favorable situations the gravity of his teammates put him in.

With Alex Len dropping down off a Dwight Howard screen, Kyle Lowry rotates over to try and cut off Simmons’ drive. Simmons makes the pass to the open Harris, who uses Lowry’s momentum trying to close out moving right against him, driving right before finishing with a soft left-handed layup.

A similar circumstance was created by the attention Embiid commands after he gets a driving angle on Aron Baynes. OG Anunoby comes off Harris to cut off a drive. Embiid dishes to Harris, who gets Anunoby in the air with a pump-fake and pulls up to drill an elbow jumper.

57.0 percent of Harris’ made field goals from last season were assisted on. That number has spiked to 69.7 in these last four games. Not exactly the type of self-reliance you’d expect from the 15th highest-paid player in the NBA. It’s a bit ironic he’s sandwiched between two of the greatest isolation scorers in Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving. But maximizing what Harris does best is far better than unsuccessfully trying to mold him into someone he isn’t.

An added bonus for the Sixers has been watching Harris further leverage the space his star teammates create to get even better looks for those around him. He averaged a career-high 3.2 assists per game last season and is up to over four a night in this four-game stretch.

The beauty of the play below is that Harris could’ve easily swung this ball to Curry immediately for the same result. But by pumping and going past Markelle Fultz, Harris draws the attention of Aaron Gordon, who would’ve been responsible for closing out on Curry. With Gordon preoccupied, the sniper’s life is made that much easier on a catch-and-shoot triple.

It’s been a great start to the season for the 76ers. They’re 5-1 — their lone defeat came in the absence of Embiid — good for No. 1 in the Eastern Conference and tied for the top mark in the entire NBA. Harris has been a big part of that early success, playing off his superior teammates instead of being awkwardly shoehorned alongside them to form an underwhelming trio. Though never a stout individual defender, active hands have him racking up steals and blocks at an elite rate to add at least some value at that end.

And yet through these six games, only once have the Sixers faced a playoff team from a season ago. Those tests will arrive soon enough, with the first real one coming Jan. 7 against the Nets in Brooklyn.

When that date comes and the measuring stick is broken out to assess Philly’s legitimacy as title contenders, Harris will finally in the place to properly step to the challenge.