Detroit Pistons: Tobias Harris supplies the Pistons with uncapped potential

The Detroit Pistons acquired Tobias Harris from the Orlando Magic virtually for free. Now that he has a postseason and an offseason under his belt with Stan Van Gundy and his teammates, his potential may be limitless.

February 16, 2016

The Detroit Pistons sat alone in ninth place in Eastern Conference with a 27-27 record, a full game behind the eighth-seeded Chicago Bulls. The Pistons had lost three straight games, four of their last five and six of their last eight. The season that began with such promise as the Pistons roared out of the gate with a 5-1 record seemed to be slipping away from their grasp before February was even over.

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Things changed early in the afternoon of February 16th when news came from the NBA that the Pistons had acquired Tobias Harris from the Orlando Magic for Brandon Jennings‘ expiring contract and Ersan Ilyasova‘s non-guaranteed contract. It was a couple of hours before the news was official, that there were no other elements in motion for this trade. The Magic didn’t even want a draft pick in return for Harris.

The Magic let Jennings go in free agency, and they flipped Ilyasova to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Serge Ibaka, who will either likely leave via free agency after next season or become a massively cumbersome weight on their cap space. Either way, they let Harris go for a bargain-basement price.

With the acquisition of Harris and a fairly quiet deadline period across the NBA aside from that, the Pistons were crowned the winners of the trade deadline before the final day even came to pass.

Harris came off the bench behind Anthony Tolliver in his first two games with the Pistons, both losses.

An injury to Tolliver forced Harris into the starting lineup sooner than president of basketball operations and head coach Stan Van Gundy had planned, but it’s a good thing he was forced into action when he was.

Now 27-29, losers of five straight, six of seven, and eight of their last ten games, the Pistons sat two games behind the Bulls for the eight seed. They were just a game and a half ahead of the charging Washington Wizards, and just two and a half ahead of the Orlando Magic. There wasn’t much to be optimistic about.

Tobias Harris scored 14 points on 14 shots in his first game as a Piston starter, a 96-88 road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He followed that up with a 22 point, eight rebound effort against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Detroit Pistons were about to begin a tear that would wrest the eight seed away from the Bulls as they would close the season on a 17-11 run, and they went 16-9 in games Tobias Harris started.

Harris was splendid from a statistical standpoint, scoring 16.6 points per game, adding 6.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists with shooting splits of .477/.375/.911. He had an excellent true shooting percentage of 57.7 percent.

Per NBAWowy, with Harris on the floor, the Pistons outscored their opponents 109.5 to 106.8 points per 100 possessions, good for a +2.7 net rating.

Harris also provided the Pistons an excellent post presence. In an admittedly miniscule sample of 35 post possessions, he scored 1.11 points per possession and had an effective field goal percentage of 56.7 percent.

Unfortunately, we only have his post possessions with the Pistons to choose from as stats.nba.com only displays those statistics for the team he finished the season with, but that sample alone is good enough to place him in the 96.4 percentile of post-up leaders.

April 17, 2016

Ten weeks earlier, the Pistons were a ninth-place team on an ugly losing streak. Tobias Harris was hopelessly mired in Orlando. Neither party had realistic playoff expectations.

But now, here they were in Cleveland, about to take on the mighty Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs. It was a big deal to the Pistons and to the city of Detroit. It had been seven years since the Pistons had been in the playoffs, and no matter how this series went, it was about time.

We all know that the Pistons got swept in four bitterly-hard-fought games at the hands of the soon-to-be NBA champion Cavs, but it was an emphatic emergence on to the national scene for the young Pistons and Tobias Harris.

In those four games, Harris averaged 14.5 points and 9.5 rebounds per game to go along with three assists, 0.8 steals and 0.8 blocks. He turned the ball over just six times in the series while averaging 39 minutes per game. He shot 45.7 percent from the floor and 92.3 percent from the free throw line. His true shooting percentage remained strong at 56.1 percent.

The Pistons were outscored by just five points in the 156 minutes he was on the floor (out of a possible 192). In a four game sweep against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Present day

The Detroit Pistons have their preseason in the books and it’s finally time to start looking forward to real basketball. Tobias Harris had an excellent preseason, to nobody’s surprise. He led the Pistons in scoring with 15.3 points per game, adding 5.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists. He played 29.5 minutes and had shooting splits of .500/.353/.923.

Per NBAWowy, the Pistons outscored their opponents 105.5 to 96.5 points per 100 possessions when Tobias Harris was on the floor this preseason. That’s good for a net rating of +9. We’re not going to get worked up about preseason numbers, but it’s consistent with how the Pistons play when he’s on the floor. The Pistons are just better than most teams when Tobias Harris is out there.

Next: Should the Pistons try to trade for LaMarcus Aldridge?

Harris is working with uncapped potential this season. With an offseason and training camp under his belt to get to know his Piston teammates, time to work with Stan Van Gundy and time on the floor with Andre Drummond and Ish Smith, we may be about to see a version of Tobias Harris nobody has seen before. It’s certainly one that the Orlando Magic never imagined existed.

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