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01-01-2009, 08:49 AM
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January 1, 2009
Driven by Instinct, Nets’ Harris Crashes Elite Rank
By JONATHAN ABRAMS
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Before the highlight-tape drives, his moves a batter of reaction and action, Devin Harris met over the summer for a dinner with Nets Coach Lawrence Frank (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/lawrence_frank/index.html?inline=nyt-per). They were conjoined through design and distress.
Frank’s team seemed to be heading downward. Harris, a promising young point guard who had been traded to the Nets (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/newjerseynets/index.html?inline=nyt-org) by the Dallas Mavericks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/dallasmavericks/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in February, was still searching for his role in his new home.
At the table, Frank shared the news: he would hand Harris the keys to his offense.
The results so far have been stunning.
Few players in the N.B.A. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_basketball_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org) have taken a leap comparable to the one made by Harris from one season to the next. After playing out the string after his trade, which placated a disgruntled Jason Kidd (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/jason_kidd/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Harris has emerged as a consistent scoring threat this season. Entering play Wednesday, he was sixth in the N.B.A. with an average of 23.8 points a game.
“It’s not a secret anymore that Devin Harris is one of the better players in our league,” said Keyon Dooling, Harris’s backup. “With the ball in his hands, he is pretty much indefensible.”
Against his former team in mid-December, Harris, who was often guarded by Kidd, scored 41 points. Afterward he admitted that he had played Dallas with added gusto. By the end of the masterpiece, the Nets’ home crowd was serenading the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/mark_cuban/index.html?inline=nyt-per), with chants of “Thank you, Cuban.” It was their way of showing gratitude for the deal that brought Harris here.
Terry Harris, Devin’s father, chanted with them.
“For him to be able to do what he was doing, he had to get out of Dallas,” Terry Harris said recently. “He’s a competitor. When somebody doubts him, he works hard to prove them wrong. That’s what you’re seeing now.”
Harris’s scoring is up by almost 10 points a game from last season. He is converting more free throws a game (8.6) than any other player. And although he is scoring more, he is also averaging 6.4 assists a game. Most important, his confidence is up.
“It’s always been there,” Harris said with a tone so forceful it suggested he took exception to those who would say otherwise. “It’s not like all of a sudden I reinvented myself over the summer. It’s just having the opportunity to do it. Anything that I’m doing now, I’ve had since I came into the league. It’s not like I couldn’t do it before. It’s just having the opportunity and the confidence.”
That comes from Frank. And it stems from their dinner.
Harris, 25, had been having a long summer. Exiled from the playoffs and nursing a sore ankle, he had time on his hands. Too much time. Most mornings, he woke up and worked out with the trainer Tim Grover, a favorite among N.B.A. players.
“There was nothing better to do,” Harris said. “I’ve never had that long of an off-season before.”
Frank met him at the gym before their dinner. They were in Chicago, and the Nets had just competed in their summer league with a new offense, the dribble-drive attack. It is predicated on the work of a quick, penetrating point guard.
At dinner, they spoke about the offense, about family and about how Harris could best lead a relatively young team.
“It’s hard to lead,” Frank recalled telling him. “No matter what’s going on with you or around you, you’ve got to be the same every day.”
That was not Harris’s worry in Dallas. There, most nights, he was a down-the-line option behind Dirk Nowitzki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/dirk_nowitzki/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Josh Howard or Jerry Stackhouse and Jason Terry.
He was brought along with restraints by the Mavericks’ former coach, Avery Johnson, a respected N.B.A. point guard for 16 years who earned the nickname the Little General.
Harris was the team’s point guard in the 2006 N.B.A. finals as well as in a deflating first-round loss to the Golden State Warriors the next year that followed a 67-win regular season. He showed progress in Dallas and earned more freedom in the offense.
Still, Harris said he felt that each mistake was magnified under Johnson’s microscope. Through his own experience as a player, Johnson always seemed to know where the point guard should deliver the ball and which gap to attack.
So Harris tried to make just the right decision, sometimes to his detriment.
“That was a part of it,” he said. “Probably the worst thing is having a coach that used to be a point guard, especially one that has championship experience.”
For his part, Johnson was well aware of Harris’s skills. There were nights when Harris more than held his own against the Western Conference’s elite point guards — Steve Nash, Chris Paul and Deron Williams.
“He had some breakout games against them,” said Johnson, now an ESPN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/espn/index.html?inline=nyt-org) analyst. “I gave him more responsibility last year, and he rose to the challenge.”
But with the Mavericks, Harris often thought twice in a game decided by split-second decisions.
“I didn’t worry, but I had a short leash,” he said. “That made me double-think things. Should I attack this gap or should I not? I was thinking a little too much instead of reacting.”
The game’s best players brush aside video, scouting reports and diagrams. They play on instinct and compete without worry. They make plays that are inconceivable because they do not conceive them beforehand.
It is a status marker of the elite, a group Harris is joining.
“I’m just playing reckless,” he said, in this instance a positive. “Really without a care, almost. People ask me how I come up with stuff. I don’t really know what I’m about to do. I’m just trying to see how a defense plays, and it’s been working out for the best. It’s not really thinking, it’s just more of a reaction. Everybody plays better that way.”
Before Harris reinvented himself on the court, he did so in a tattoo parlor over the summer. His tattoos include angels and skulls, reflecting his belief that people are both good and bad.
“He still looks like he’s 16,” said Bo Ryan, Harris’s coach at the University of Wisconsin (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “When he was here, he looked like he was 12. But behind that smile, he’s an assassin. With him, it’s obvious. He doesn’t settle with being O.K. He doesn’t settle with being good. He wants to be great.”
Terry Harris saw that early on with his son, whom he described as a clumsy boy who took time to grow into his body and was “always tripping over his feet.”
The athleticism became evident midway through Harris’s time at Wauwatosa East High School in Wisconsin, where he began to dominate on the basketball court. Then he turned to volleyball for a year.
“He was bored,” his father said. “His coach didn’t want him playing football. Baseball season was too long. So he found something to do, and he was very good at it. It was kind of strange. He never really showed any interest in it. All of a sudden he says he’s going to play volleyball.”
Now, he is making what many predicted to be a bad Nets team competitive most nights and is starring with Vince Carter (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/vince_carter/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
“He’s going from a player that was a nice player, to now, he’s the focal point of a scouting report,” Frank said. “Now the level is, you have to defend your crown every night.”
That reputation is growing with every game, but it is something that Harris insists he had in him all along.
January 1, 2009
Driven by Instinct, Nets’ Harris Crashes Elite Rank
By JONATHAN ABRAMS
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Before the highlight-tape drives, his moves a batter of reaction and action, Devin Harris met over the summer for a dinner with Nets Coach Lawrence Frank (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/lawrence_frank/index.html?inline=nyt-per). They were conjoined through design and distress.
Frank’s team seemed to be heading downward. Harris, a promising young point guard who had been traded to the Nets (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/newjerseynets/index.html?inline=nyt-org) by the Dallas Mavericks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/dallasmavericks/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in February, was still searching for his role in his new home.
At the table, Frank shared the news: he would hand Harris the keys to his offense.
The results so far have been stunning.
Few players in the N.B.A. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_basketball_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org) have taken a leap comparable to the one made by Harris from one season to the next. After playing out the string after his trade, which placated a disgruntled Jason Kidd (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/jason_kidd/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Harris has emerged as a consistent scoring threat this season. Entering play Wednesday, he was sixth in the N.B.A. with an average of 23.8 points a game.
“It’s not a secret anymore that Devin Harris is one of the better players in our league,” said Keyon Dooling, Harris’s backup. “With the ball in his hands, he is pretty much indefensible.”
Against his former team in mid-December, Harris, who was often guarded by Kidd, scored 41 points. Afterward he admitted that he had played Dallas with added gusto. By the end of the masterpiece, the Nets’ home crowd was serenading the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/mark_cuban/index.html?inline=nyt-per), with chants of “Thank you, Cuban.” It was their way of showing gratitude for the deal that brought Harris here.
Terry Harris, Devin’s father, chanted with them.
“For him to be able to do what he was doing, he had to get out of Dallas,” Terry Harris said recently. “He’s a competitor. When somebody doubts him, he works hard to prove them wrong. That’s what you’re seeing now.”
Harris’s scoring is up by almost 10 points a game from last season. He is converting more free throws a game (8.6) than any other player. And although he is scoring more, he is also averaging 6.4 assists a game. Most important, his confidence is up.
“It’s always been there,” Harris said with a tone so forceful it suggested he took exception to those who would say otherwise. “It’s not like all of a sudden I reinvented myself over the summer. It’s just having the opportunity to do it. Anything that I’m doing now, I’ve had since I came into the league. It’s not like I couldn’t do it before. It’s just having the opportunity and the confidence.”
That comes from Frank. And it stems from their dinner.
Harris, 25, had been having a long summer. Exiled from the playoffs and nursing a sore ankle, he had time on his hands. Too much time. Most mornings, he woke up and worked out with the trainer Tim Grover, a favorite among N.B.A. players.
“There was nothing better to do,” Harris said. “I’ve never had that long of an off-season before.”
Frank met him at the gym before their dinner. They were in Chicago, and the Nets had just competed in their summer league with a new offense, the dribble-drive attack. It is predicated on the work of a quick, penetrating point guard.
At dinner, they spoke about the offense, about family and about how Harris could best lead a relatively young team.
“It’s hard to lead,” Frank recalled telling him. “No matter what’s going on with you or around you, you’ve got to be the same every day.”
That was not Harris’s worry in Dallas. There, most nights, he was a down-the-line option behind Dirk Nowitzki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/dirk_nowitzki/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Josh Howard or Jerry Stackhouse and Jason Terry.
He was brought along with restraints by the Mavericks’ former coach, Avery Johnson, a respected N.B.A. point guard for 16 years who earned the nickname the Little General.
Harris was the team’s point guard in the 2006 N.B.A. finals as well as in a deflating first-round loss to the Golden State Warriors the next year that followed a 67-win regular season. He showed progress in Dallas and earned more freedom in the offense.
Still, Harris said he felt that each mistake was magnified under Johnson’s microscope. Through his own experience as a player, Johnson always seemed to know where the point guard should deliver the ball and which gap to attack.
So Harris tried to make just the right decision, sometimes to his detriment.
“That was a part of it,” he said. “Probably the worst thing is having a coach that used to be a point guard, especially one that has championship experience.”
For his part, Johnson was well aware of Harris’s skills. There were nights when Harris more than held his own against the Western Conference’s elite point guards — Steve Nash, Chris Paul and Deron Williams.
“He had some breakout games against them,” said Johnson, now an ESPN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/espn/index.html?inline=nyt-org) analyst. “I gave him more responsibility last year, and he rose to the challenge.”
But with the Mavericks, Harris often thought twice in a game decided by split-second decisions.
“I didn’t worry, but I had a short leash,” he said. “That made me double-think things. Should I attack this gap or should I not? I was thinking a little too much instead of reacting.”
The game’s best players brush aside video, scouting reports and diagrams. They play on instinct and compete without worry. They make plays that are inconceivable because they do not conceive them beforehand.
It is a status marker of the elite, a group Harris is joining.
“I’m just playing reckless,” he said, in this instance a positive. “Really without a care, almost. People ask me how I come up with stuff. I don’t really know what I’m about to do. I’m just trying to see how a defense plays, and it’s been working out for the best. It’s not really thinking, it’s just more of a reaction. Everybody plays better that way.”
Before Harris reinvented himself on the court, he did so in a tattoo parlor over the summer. His tattoos include angels and skulls, reflecting his belief that people are both good and bad.
“He still looks like he’s 16,” said Bo Ryan, Harris’s coach at the University of Wisconsin (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “When he was here, he looked like he was 12. But behind that smile, he’s an assassin. With him, it’s obvious. He doesn’t settle with being O.K. He doesn’t settle with being good. He wants to be great.”
Terry Harris saw that early on with his son, whom he described as a clumsy boy who took time to grow into his body and was “always tripping over his feet.”
The athleticism became evident midway through Harris’s time at Wauwatosa East High School in Wisconsin, where he began to dominate on the basketball court. Then he turned to volleyball for a year.
“He was bored,” his father said. “His coach didn’t want him playing football. Baseball season was too long. So he found something to do, and he was very good at it. It was kind of strange. He never really showed any interest in it. All of a sudden he says he’s going to play volleyball.”
Now, he is making what many predicted to be a bad Nets team competitive most nights and is starring with Vince Carter (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/vince_carter/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
“He’s going from a player that was a nice player, to now, he’s the focal point of a scouting report,” Frank said. “Now the level is, you have to defend your crown every night.”
That reputation is growing with every game, but it is something that Harris insists he had in him all along.