In between this game, where he scored nineteen points, and the game on December 23 where he dropped 22 on the Lakers, Moe Harkless has gotten the following statlines:
Vs Phi: 8/2/2/1/1
At Atl: 6/1/0/1/0
At Chi: 0/1/0/1/0
At Cle: 3/1/1/0/1
Sure, his average minutes per game was in the upper teens for that span, but it still illustrates my point: for some reason, Harkless rarely is part of the Blazers’ offense. It could be the fault of the axis of chuckage (Lillard/McCollum/Nurkic), or it could be Harkless’ fault for not being assertive, or it could be Terry Stotts’ fault for having an offense that doesn’t play to Harkless’ strengths (whatever those strengths are), or it could be the fans’ fault for not cheering loudly enough when Harkless gets the ball, or it could be Harkless’ entourage’s fault for telling him that he needs to play really passively so he gets traded to a team where he can be the number one option.
P.S. Harkless is getting paid ten million dollars this year to not do anything, but he’s not even a top three worst contract on the team, because they’re apparently still paying Andrew Nicholson until the 2023-24 season.