Free Agent Profile: Joe Harris
The Knicks struggled to find any type of offensive identity this season. Despite the optimism that surrounded a young team with some added offensive firepower in 2019 first-round pick RJ Barrett, a more refined Mitchell Robinson, and free agent acquisitions Julius Randle and Bobby Portis, New York sputtered. The young squad was dead last in the NBA in points per possession, transition points per possession, 3-pointers made, and free throw percentage, and second-to-last in points per game and points per possession in the half court, per Synergy Sports.
From an outsider’s perspective, it was quite clear that the culprit of the Knicks’ offensive struggles was a complete lack of spacing on the offensive end. No players had any game-changing 3-point shot gravity, which allowed defenders to pack it in and sag off inconsistent (or non-existent) shooters, such as Barrett, Frank Ntilikina, Taj Gibson, Elfrid Payton, and Kevin Knox. This took away cutting lanes and made it more difficult for the Knicks to score in isolation, ball handlers to create perimeter shots for wings, and for Robinson to navigate the lane as a roll man in the pick-and-roll. With a lack of shooting specialists, New York was unable to run a diverse collection of set plays in the half court for shooters that could open up the floor for Mitch in the paint, RJ driving the lane, or Julius Randle to operate in the midrange. Simply put, the Knicks were very easy to defend, relative to the rest of the league.
This sequence is the perfect example of the Knicks’ offensive issues last season. Barrett is a rugged player who is adept at getting downhill and finishing at the rim in traffic. Gibson initiates a hand-off action on the unloaded side of the floor, while Harkless, Randle, and Payton (none of whom are 3-point threats) are all bunched together in the corner. That enables the Wizards’ weakside defenders to all sag off and pack the lane, forcing Barrett to spin away from the help, without anyone to pass to, and force up a very tough contested layup.
So how do the Knicks combat this problem this offseason? It all starts with personnel. The offensive scheme cannot evolve beyond the arc without more shooting on this team next season. Luckily for Barrett and new head coach Tom Thibodeau, one of the league’s elite shooters is hitting the open market. Crosstown sniper Joe Harris is an unrestricted free agent this fall and will be one of the league’s most sought-after hired guns because of his ability to both directly and indirectly put pressure on the defense in a myriad of ways.
First and foremost, Harris is excellent without the ball in his hands.
Here, Spencer Dinwiddie is not looking for Harris off the flare screen, and Joe does a good job selling no secondary action by slowing down underneath the basket enough to slow down LeBron and give DeAndre Jordan enough time to lay down a solid screen on James. When Harris catches the ball, pause the video. His body, including his feet, is in the air and facing Caris LeVert. LeBron is essentially past Jordan, but Harris is able to perfectly plant his feet, square his shoulders, and knock down a tough three with a defender right in his airspace. Harris’s footwork is among the best in the league, and it is the primary reason why he has been very effectively weaponized as a specialist that Brooklyn can focus many of their offensive sets around.
Even when the first look is not there off a catch, or a teammate throws a bad pass, Harris is an added threat off the dribble because of his ability to attack close-outs and use a relocation dribble to tee up shots from behind the arc.
In this clip, Joe realizes that his defender is trying to go around a screen from Jordan, rather than going over it, so instead of raising up for a contested three, Harris takes one dribble to his right and elevates for a wide-open look that finds the bottom of the net. With a terrific, athletic screener like Mitch, Harris would be able to make plays like this on a nightly basis. Given Harris’s shot gravity, the Knicks could very easily have Mitch slip screens for easy looks in the paint if bigs hedge or show on screens. With a guy like Harris in the lineup, and potentially a second shooter in the corner, there is no question that there would be a needed opportunity for Robinson to evolve as a short-roll passer as well.
When he does not shoot a relocation three, Harris is also capable of putting it on the deck in certain situations. Harris is 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, and his compact frame helps him tremendously on plays like this. Given his comfortability defending in space, Ibaka is unafraid to show here, and Harris realizes that he has a thinner defender in Terance Davis guarding him. So he goes around the opposite side of the screen and puts his body into Davis’s, knowing that he can be physical without a rim defender in the play, and finishes with a soft touch inside.
If you have been watching the NBA Playoffs, and more specifically the M**** H***, you will notice how dangerous Duncan Robinson is running off screens or playing in the hand-off game with Bam Adebayo. Often when the shot is not there, you will see Robinson elevate and pass out of his shot to Adebayo (who is either the screener or hand-off man), and come around a second screen for a cleaner look. Harris is capable of doing this as well and would be awesome doing this with someone as nimble and agile as Mitch. In this play, Harris has a much larger defender in Davis Bertans trailing him. Joe keeps in mind that a bigger guy like Bertans is not going to be able to move after his jump as quickly as he can, so he passes out of the shot and gets a wide open second look.
In the half court, the Knicks’ biggest pain point was their spot-up shooting efficiency. The most valuable team in the NBA shot a paltry 34.9% on spot-ups (0.922 points per possession), ranking 29th in the league this season. Almost 20% of New York’s offensive possessions ended with a spot-up shot, which only further highlights their need for efficient spot-up players. When Bobby Portis is the most efficient spot-up 3-point shooter currently on the roster, you are bound to be one of the worst offenses in the NBA (sorry, Knicks fans).
Per Synergy, Harris ranked in the 86th percentile in spot-up situations (which accounted for 27.5% of his possessions), shooting 46.8% on 233 attempts, which translates to a hyper-efficient 1.185 points per possession. In catch-and-shoot opportunities, the former Virginia Cavalier converted on 44% of his 273 attempts, good for 90th percentile in the league; if he was left unguarded, that clip ballooned up to 52.6%. The Knicks shot just 37.2% on 723 unguarded C&S looks, which was 29th in the NBA. For a team that struggled as much as they did with spacing, the Knicks absolutely need to connect on open triggers from deep at a higher rate if they want to take a step forward next season.
Whether it be in transition or the half court, Harris is a phenomenal knockdown shooter. His pre-shot work is usually flawless, and he is more than capable of stepping into shots, pulling up off the dribble in transition, or hunting open space on the floor and getting shot-ready for when a kick-out inevitably comes.
Below is such a simple play, but it would be such a welcomed breath of fresh air at MSG next season. With Harris stationed on the wing, Dinwiddie gets into the lane and kicks it back out to Wilson Chandler on the same wing. Rather than have a cluttered strong side of the floor, Joe flows to the open space left behind by Dinwiddie’s drive to make himself available at the end of the shot clock. Chandler finds him, and you know the rest. Harris easily could have left Chandler with a pulled-pin grenade at the end of the clock, but constantly works to get open if a teammate does not have a clean look. Those players transform a good offense into a great one and can take a bad offense and help evolve it into a functional one.
The part of Joe’s spot-up shooting game that has evolved the most is his pull-up game. When an immobile big switches onto him, he readily takes advantage of any space they give him, whether it be driving to the basket or making a rhythm three in the flow of the offense. Here, Theis gives him too much space and he drills a three to get himself going. When Harris is able to make confident shots early, he often has big nights that result in his team coming out with a W.
Perhaps the most underrated area of where Harris can elevate the Knicks out of the bottom of the barrel offensively is in transition. Joe has such an excellent understanding of spacing, filling lanes, and trailing the break, and he puts it on display night in and night out.
Here, Harris sees that LeVert and Allen fill the lane. While there is a lane for him to cut, he correctly decides to position himself above the break, makes himself available to Wilson Chandler, and knocks down an uncontested look.
One of my favorite aspects of Harris’s game is that he has a very good understanding of what he is great at and what he is not so great at. On this fast break, Harris flies directly to the corner, even when he could very easily cut across the lane for a look at the rim or probably get fouled by Siakam, because he knows he is far more valuable as a spot-up shooter in the corner than he is as a flasher in transition. He knows Dinwiddie is trailing behind him and, if Spencer gets the ball, can either A) shoot a pull-up three, B) attack the rim and try his luck with Siakam inside, or C) force Siakam to choose between the ball and Harris in the corner. Dinwiddie selects option C, and Harris drains an open look in a very well-spaced transition attack.
The only real holes in Joe Harris’s game, other than his lack of plus-athleticism, are the lack of on-ball creation for others, and his rather timid finishing around the rim. The latter is a product of his spotty ball-handling, coupled with slow feet on the drive. This combination can lead to lethargic, awkward takes and weak off-leg layup attempts. As you would expect from a player who spends most of his time roaming the perimeter for looks from deep, Harris does not seek out contact on the drive, and often opts to cross the key and try to use his body as a shield from bigs. But because he lacks quickness and is not a particularly good or creative finisher, he is susceptible to getting blocked.
In this clip, you see Harris struggle to get past a familiar face on the drive by crossing the key and attempting an off-leg layup, which Mitch turns away with ease at the rim. You can tell that Joe is having trouble deciding if he wants to pull up or take it to the rim when he turns the corner, but the second he hits a crossover to his left, Robinson does an excellent job sliding his feet, staying disciplined and timing his jump perfectly.
Harris would be much better off coming to a jump stop and pump faking before going up with a big on his back. If the big bites, he gets free throws; if the big stays down, he can simply kick it out and sprint around for a hand-off with a big on his back. Joe shot just 55.8% around the rim, and 38.5% on floaters, which ranked in the 46th and 39th percentiles, respectively. He is not a threat off the dribble when he is not attacking closeouts and is most effective around the rim when he sets up a back cut and gets an open look underneath the basket.
The other area where Harris can improve is his ball-handling when trying to turn the corner on showing defenders. LeBron James is a completely different animal when it comes to these defenders, but he perfectly exhibits what can happen when a smaller player with a soft handle and limited athleticism tries to make plays in open space off the dribble. Harris is off-balanced when he tries to put the ball on the deck, which leads to an easy steal for LeBron and a nice throwdown for Kuzma on the other end.
In order to get a better sense of what a player like Harris might fetch on the free agent market, I wrote a program that essentially creates a similarity score (on a scale of 0-99.9 percent) comparing a player’s output in the season leading up to their free agency to the pre-FA season of every free agent of the last five years (2016-2020). I got the idea from Wizzy, who wrote a similar program for NBA Draft prospect. He has made some awesome draft tools over at https://nbadraftcomp.herokuapp.com/.
I essentially took an average of the top five most similar players in order to get a neighborhood contract price for Harris, which you can see here:
Here are the averages of these six players in the pre-free agency seasons (note that Harris’s stats do not include his performance in the NBA Bubble):
Harris is seen most commonly as a one-trick pony — an elite shooter who does not offer much else outside of that. In today’s NBA, these types of players rarely fetch contracts that become unpalatable for the teams they sign with and rarely exceed the full mid-level exception.
Think about Seth Curry, for example, who was just signed last summer. Curry is an elite shooter, much like Harris, but also provides valuable PnR playmaking and ancillary scoring in the mid-range and at the rim. The Mavericks signed him to a four-year, $32 million contract last summer. That figure is important to keep in mind, perhaps more so than the average ballpark that my program provided, because Joe Harris offers similar production to a guy like Curry, but does not offer a secondary skill set on par with Curry’s.
My best guess is that Harris signs a deal in between where Curry signed for ($8 million per season) and where my program has him ($14.3 million per season). The full non-taxpayer mid-level exception is projected to be $9.775 million for this upcoming season, but is definitely TBD with the financial impact of COVID-19 yet to be announced. I would be rather surprised if a team shells out more than $12 million annually for Harris given that he is an average/neutral defender, rather than a true 3-and-D player, and fully expect the Knicks to be able to offer him a contract that he could not refuse if he valued money over wins.
Overall, Harris is a very solid player whose shot gravity would do wonders for opening up the floor for key foundational Knicks pieces in RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson. RJ showed legit flashes off the dribble getting into the lane and finishing, even with the putrid spacing in the Knicks’ offense, which should excite Knicks fans who may be skeptical of his development in year 1. Surprisingly, New York ranked fifth in offensive efficiency on plays run through the PnR roll man, averaging 1.212 points per possession and scoring on nearly 60% of possessions, despite defenses packing the lane and the Knicks not having a threatening point guard in the PnR. If the Knicks were to put their development first by bringing talent to make their lives easier, and acquired Chris Paul in a trade and signed Harris in free agency, I would fully expect to see playoff games next season at the Garden.
