NBA Draft Prospect of the Week: Gary Harris

The sophomore guard from Michigan State looks to feed off a successful first season.

Week Of: November 3 – November 9

Michigan State is entering the new campaign as a top three team with a chance to win a national championship.  Anchoring the backcourt for the Spartans will be senior PG Keith Appling, and the Lottery Mafia’s prospect of the week, SG Gary Harris. While young, Harris has a very polished arsenal of skills and a great feel for the game.

There’s not much Harris can’t do offensively.  He can drain jumpers from anywhere on the floor and is very good when it comes to attacking the rim. Last year as a true freshman Harris averaged 13 PPG for Sparty while shooting 46.3% from the field and 42.5% on three pointers. Harris’s true shooting percentage of 58.5% was good for seventh in the Big-10 and his offensive rating of 117.2 was ninth in the conference. Thanks to his outstanding freshman campaign Harris was awarded Big-10 freshman of the year.

As a sophomore scouts will be looking for even more out of Harris as he’s expected to be one of the catalysts on a team that people are expecting to make a run for a trip to Arlington. Harris is a great athlete; he’s incredibly quick which makes him really difficult to stop when attacking the rim. He also excels at creating his own shot and in catch-and-shoot opportunities.

Unlike some players as young as Harris, he’s very unselfish as he only took 9.7 shots per game last year despite being arguably the best offensive player on his team.  In fact I would like to see him get more aggressive on the offensive end this season.  Harris is tremendous in transition; he’s very explosive features great foot speed off the dribble which allows him to finish with authority at the rim.

Thanks to being so fast, Harris is also a very solid defender and should only improve on that end. His lateral quickness helps make him an outstanding perimeter defender and his impressive wingspan of 6’7″ has led to him being a good rebounder for an SG, averaging 2.5 per contest last year. Harris had a good, but not great defensive rating of 96.3 last year which is considerably lower than his offensive rating. I don’t think that should cause any concern however. He has all the tools to be a very good defender; in fact I expect his defense to be more improved than anything else in his sophomore season.

There isn’t one glaring weakness to be found in Harris which makes him even more promising. His ball handling does need some improvement; he noticeably played with a very loose handle last year which he needs to work on. On the bright side it didn’t lead to too many turnovers as Harris averaged only 1.5 turnovers per game last season.  For comparison’s sake Brad Beal averaged 2.1 per game in his lone season at Florida in 2011-2012 and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope averaged 2 per game last year as a sophomore at Georgia.

Some scouts are also saying that while Harris doesn’t have a very low basement, he doesn’t have that high of a ceiling either. A lot of scouts right now will agree that Harris should be a very good second or third scoring option on an NBA team but he’ll never be able to take the leap as a guy that can carry a team on a nightly basis.  One of the other concerns in Harris is his size. He stands at 6’4” which definitely is not ideal for an SG, but Bradley Beal is also about the same size and he’s been fine so far.

At the end of the day, Gary Harris is a guy you want on your NBA team. He has a great attitude and is a hard worker; he has all the makings to be a great team leader and won’t cause any team chemistry issues. Pending on what kind of sophomore season he has, I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see Harris sneak into the top-ten if he decides to enter the 2014 NBA Draft. I certainly see no way he would fall out of the top-20 as long as he doesn’t have a disastrous season.

It’s also safe to say Gary Harris is off and running this season. In Michigan State’s first game of the season tonight against McNeese St Harris led all scorers with 20 points on 7-15 shooting including a tally of 4-10 from behind the arch. He also pulled down 10 rebounds and dished out six assists helping the Spartans to a dominant 98-56 win.

Player Comparison: Brad Beal or a better O.J. Mayo

Next Week’s Report: Jabari Parker, SF, FR, Duke