Tobias Harris season in review and grade

Tobias Harris had the curious distinction of being the best offensive player for the Detroit Pistons and also their sixth man for much of the season.

Tobias Harris quietly had the most efficient season of anybody on the Detroit Pistons roster this past season. In a strange twist, Harris was the sixth man of one of the worst offensive teams in the NBA for much of the season, and his minutes were largely dictated by how Jon Leuer was performing.

Harris played four minutes per game fewer when coming off the bench than when he started, and his numbers were superior when coming off the bench due to playing reserve units, but even his less-impressive numbers as a starter had him near the top in almost every important category. He had a 59.5 percent true shooting rate as a reserve, but his 55 percent true shooting rate as a starter would still have been behind only Aron Baynes and Boban Marjanovic on the roster in that category.

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While it might be tempting to suggest that the Pistons should keep rolling him out off the bench in order to take advantage of reserve units, they had one of the worst starting lineups most of the season. A big part of the Pistons’ notorious slow starts was having poor offensive options on the floor to start games, and finding room for Harris in the starting lineup could rectify that situation.

Harris had his best shooting season from the field, hitting 48.1 percent of his attempts. He also had his second-best three-point shooting season, hitting 34.7 percent from behind the arc. As far as efficiency goes, he had a career-best true shooting rate of 56.8 percent.

As seen above, he was also in the league’s upper echelons in virtually every offensive category where he got any volume of note. On a team that struggled to get easy points (and points of any sort) for much of the season, Harris produced when he was on the floor in spite of having the team’s third-highest usage behind Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond.

Tobias Harris proved himself to be the Detroit Pistons’ most valuable player this past season. It’s worth noting that it took a poor season from just about everybody on the roster of any consequence to boost him to such an obvious standing, but his play was excellent for the majority of the campaign and he carried the team offensively.

Unless the Pistons make some surprise roster shakeup that nets them a star, unless Reggie Jackson or Andre Drummond take big leaps forward offensively, they may need to consider featuring Harris as their go-to scorer. At the very least, Harris should absolutely not be coming off the bench behind Jon Leuer.

Next: KCP's free agency options

Grade: B+