Tobias Harris Has Been The Sixers’ Unsung Hero In 2023-24

The Philadelphia 76ers have gotten off to an eventful start to the 2023-24 NBA season. They resolved James Harden’s trade demand, Tyrese Maxey is breaking out as an All-Star (if not better?), and Kelly Oubre Jr. looked like one of the early steals of free agency before suffering multiple injuries in an alleged hit-and-run earlier this month.

Lost in all of that has been the quietly steady play of Tobias Harris, who’s off to his best start in years.

Through 17 games, Harris is averaging 18.6 points—his highest mark since the 2020-21 season—on a career-high 52.7% shooting. He’s shooting only 32.2% from deep, but he’s knocking down 59.9% of his two-point attempts, shattering his previous best mark (57.0%, set last year).

Harris scored 15 or more points in 15 of the Sixers’ first 16 games before finishing with a season-low eight points on 3-of-12 shooting in Monday’s blowout win over the Los Angeles Lakers. (He played only 23 minutes in that game, which limited his impact.) He’s already topped 20 points seven times this season after doing so only 18 times across 74 appearances last year.

New head coach Nick Nurse has clearly empowered Harris to attack mismatches, particularly in transition, and Harris is taking that opportunity to heart. He’s averaging 3.8 free-throw attempts per game and has a free-throw rate of .288, both of which are his best marks since he joined the Sixers midway through the 2018-19 campaign.

While Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey remain the primary engines of the Sixers’ offense, Harris has been a wild card who can score in a variety of ways. Not only is he being more aggressive in transition and serving as a catch-and-shoot threat along the perimeter, but his post-up game is a relic of past NBA eras.

Harris is averaging 1.6 post-ups per game, which puts him in a tie with Miami Heat wing Jimmy Butler and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James for 26th leaguewide. He’s averaging 1.2 points per game on post-ups, which is tied with Portland Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton, Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker and Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis for 15th in the NBA.

“First and foremost, I think he’s being more aggressive in the open floor, and he’s getting into semi-transition and he’s attacking with some confidence,” Nurse told reporters after the Sixers’ Nov. 2 win over the Toronto Raptors. “He’s posted, it doesn’t really have to be a mismatch for him. He’s got a good post-up game even on a guy his size… Those two things were both pretty efficient areas to operate in. He’s playing well there.”

Harris has long had the post-up game in his bag, but he seems more comfortable using post-ups to get to specific spots on the floor. From there, he typically turns around, rises and fires. That self-creation ability helps prevent the Sixers offense from becoming overly reliant on Maxey and Embiid to manufacture shot attempts both for themselves and their teammates.

While the uptick in Harris’ scoring and efficiency might come as a surprise to most, it likely doesn’t to Torrel Harris, who is both Harris’ agent and father. This offseason, Torrel said on Bloomberg’s Business of Sports podcast that he didn’t think the Sixers had been utilizing his son correctly (h/t Dave Early of Liberty Ballers).

“Personally, I don’t think so,” Harris said. “The reason I say that, well, Tobias is an assassin scorer. I mean, they can’t stop him. Nobody in the league can stop him. So he’s proven that over his career, even when he was with the Clippers, he was an assassin scorer.”

Nurse apparently agrees. Heading into the season, he told Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire that he wanted Harris to “dream outside” of the role that he had been playing in recent years.

“I kind of believe in roles, too,” Nurse said. “They’re important, but I always throw a little bit of ‘roles for now.’ This is your role now. I think Tobias is a great example. There’s so much more he could possibly do and I kind of want him to settle in and play this role that he’s capable of playing that he’s got experience playing, but I do kind of want him to dream outside that role or expand outside that role eventually.”

Harris is bound to come back down to earth at some point. After shooting 57.3% overall across his first 12 games, he’s down to 40.3% overall and 19.0% from three-point range over his past five. He hasn’t allowed those shooting struggles to affect his aggressiveness, though. He jacked up a few quick-trigger three-pointers against the Lakers, and he had a season-high eight trips to the free-throw line in the Embiid-less loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves last Wednesday.

Harris’ scalability might be his greatest asset for the Sixers. Whenever Embiid and Maxey aren’t in the game, Harris can take over as more of a featured scorer. When both stars are on the floor, he can scale down to a more ancillary threat. He’s also battling on the glass and holding his own defensively, giving the Sixers well-rounded production even when he isn’t pouring in buckets.

Harris has been a subject of scorn from Sixers fans ever since he signed his five-year, $180 million contract back in the summer of 2019. He never lived up to that deal, but that doesn’t mean he’s a total negative, either. If he were earning half as much, he’d likely be trumpeted as one of the better-value contracts in the NBA.

Harris will be a free agent after this season, which raises questions about his long-term future in Philadelphia. It’s unclear whether this early-season surge is a contract-year push or sustainable production in the post-Harden era, but the next 60-plus games should go a long way toward answering that question.

And if this does prove to be sustainable, the Sixers might have to seriously consider re-signing Harris next summer, albeit at a far more reasonable price.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac or RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.