Joe Harris is basically the same player he was last year. Same insane three-point percentage, same scoring, slightly fewer assists (before tonight, that is), same meager rebounding, nearly the same playing time. It’s actually rare to see a player be so consistent year-over-year. But if he’s just as good as he was last season, why do I feel like he’s not?
The answer is twofold.
Fold one: my enjoyment of the Nets has been significantly lessened with the addition of Kyrie Irving (and DeAndre Jordan). This negative development has colored my view of everyone on the roster, rightfully or wrongfully. Last year’s Nets squad was fun, and Harris by association became part of that fun. Now they’re not, so he’s not.
Fold two: I hadn’t made a highlight video for him until now. You can just ignore fold one, this is the real reason. If a player eligible for my channel isn’t getting vids, I basically assume that they’re scoring 0 points in all those games. In Harris’ case, his points threshold for a vid is 20 (thanks to all those god-damn 19-point games he had last season), and he hadn’t hit that yet. But he scored in double-figures in the first 8 Nets games, while hitting a decent amount of shots. I just didn’t notice.
I’ll try to keep in mind that Harris is the same Harris that won the three-point shootout and as a reward had a very sick three-ilation made for him. But there’s a lot of players to keep track of, and by a week from now, if he has continued his trend of scoring in the mid-teens, I’ll be back to thinking that he’s slumping.