Tobias Harris Is Elton Brand Now and That's Cool
Call him the 2000 Toyota Corolla.
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I knew it would come at some point in the fourth. It materialized with 10 minutes to go and the Nets surging to cut the lead to six, the closest it had been in the half. The Sixers' offense was stagnant, and we really needed something that slowed the surging Nets' roll for a possession. Tobias Harris didn't exactly have an advantage on the possession, dancing around the perimeter with the shot clock dwindling and Yuta Watanabe getting pretty well up in his space. But Tobi drove Watanabe to the free-throw line, stepped back to get just the separation he needed, put up the rainbow jumper and drained it. There it was. Next possession, he took the ball length of the court, running over Watanabe for a layup and getting an and-one in the process. Crisis (temporarily) averted.
That's basically what Tobias has done all year for this team. We're at the point where his responsibility is not to carry the load so much as to make sure the load doesn't get dropped and shatter into a million tiny load pieces. Really, you could almost whittle down the essential parts of his per-night requirements to making one shot in the second quarter and one shot in the fourth quarter, both of which just kinda stave off disaster for a possession or two while the rest of the team gets its shit together. It's not necessarily the sum total of the services you'd hope to be provided for a $36 million a year price tag, but it's still a crucial function for any team that's gonna amount to anything serious over the course of an NBA season -- and it's all that we really want or need from Tobias at this point.
And so the cycle is complete: Tobias Harris is now the Elton Brand of this Sixers generation.
For those who came to the Process too late to understand Elton's Sixers legacy in its totality, a quick history lesson. Brand was a dominant power forward during the mid-'00s, making second-team All-NBA leading the Los Angeles Clippers to their first playoff victory since the FDR administration in '06. He lost his entire '07-'08 season to an Achilles tear, and unfortunately, it was immediately after that that the rebuilding post-Iverson Sixers decided to make him their prized free agency acquisition, following their own surprise '08 run to the playoffs. Brand signed for five years and near-max money, but was badly compromised athletically and disappointed wildly his first two seasons in Philly, his contract looking like an albatross. However, by the Doug Collins years of 2010-'12, he'd reinvented his game, became more of a gritty defensive specialist, offensive role player, and team stabilizing force, helping them make the playoffs twice. By the time his Philly run ended, the man Malik Rose affectionately dubbed "Old-School Chevy" (and who Doug Callins called "Sugar Bear" for some reason) had been largely forgiven for not living up to the expectations of his massive contract -- and was welcomed back to the fold with mostly open arms during his brief second Sixers stint in 2016, and then his improbable move to the team's front office in 2018.
There was a time when such a career evolution would've seemed unlikely, if not downright impossible, for Tobias Harris. Dealt for at a hefty cost at the 2019 trade deadline and then inked to what was essentially a use-it-or-lose-it near-max deal that summer -- while Jimmy Butler was controversially dealt to the Heat, leading them to the finals the next season -- Tobias failed to produce at the star or near-star levels fans hoped, as the lopsided 2020 team crumpled under its own weight. He shook off a slow start and had a better 2021 -- and a mostly excellent playoff run -- but the Sixers' collapse against the Hawks and Tobi's own no-show in that series' pivotal Game Five (four points on 2-11 shooting) undid a lot of the positives there. He frustrated for most of 2022, as his slow processing speed, questionable decision-making and peerless inability to pick up a loose ball had fans begging for him to be jettisoned before the trade deadline. But following the mid-season acquisition of James Harden (and the offensive ascendance of Tyrese Maxey), his game started to change shape, as he (somewhat reluctantly) embraced being more of a catch-and-shoot offensive threat and a primary wing defender, smoothing out the lumps in his play and becoming the dude we kinda needed him to be.
Now, after years of Tobias scapegoating and contract bitching -- from me as much as anyone, of course, though it's still the trade that brought him here that I found more inexcusable than anything he's done for the team since (still love and miss u Landry Shamet) -- his approval rating is probably higher than it's ever been. He's scoring less than he ever has for us, but he's making quick decisions, he's shooting at a high level, he's defending well (at least by this team's suddenly crappy standards), he's not doing anything to gum up the works on either end, and he's a reliable producer of what we need him to reliably produce. He even dove on the floor that one time. We still couldn't exactly justify his $36 mil a year cap hit, but like EB, he's been around long enough and done enough to make his time here worthwhile that reflexive anger over his price tag isn't really our first reaction when we think of him anymore. If Alaa wanted to call him "2000 Toyota Corolla" for his sturdiness and unflashy dependability, we'd probably be cool with it.
That said, it's still worth remembering that Elton didn't actually make it to the end of his five-year Sixers deal. After the amnesty clause was introduced to the post-lockout CBA in 2012, the Sixers decided to use it to put the Old-School Chevy back on the market, saving the $18 mil cap hit and allowing them to be aggressive in signing... Kwame Brown, I guess it was? That was kind of a bummer ending to the Elton Brand experience, but the Sixers were looking to raise their upside following their Uncut Gems playoff run, and they thought it would be easier to do that without Brand and his contract locking them in to being a certain type of team. It's not impossible that we still reach that point with Tobi as well -- where despite his current productivity and solidness, we decide he could be worth more to us as a soon-to-be-expiring contract in a trade, either for better-fitting or higher-ceilinged players. If the Sixers crap out in the second round against this postseason, it might even prove a necessity.
Whether or not that happens, though, we should be grateful to get to spend this time with Tobi -- while the Sixers are winning, the roster is in pretty good shape, and he's scoring his 11-20 points a night, shooting well and playing solid defense, and making those two key buckets a game to keep things from ever getting out of hand. It's the part he was meant to play for us, and it's all we ever should have had to ask for from him, so it's a joy that it's finally all we actually need from him. And hell, if he really keps on down the EB path, maybe he'll be running the team by the end of the decade. Maybe he can finally get us Shamet back.