The Mike Harris Manifesto

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Mike Harris:




Mike Harris, for those who don't know, is a 6'6" 240 pound forward who spent played his college ball about 10 minutes from the Toyota Center at Rice, where he owns the school records for points and rebounds. He had a stint with the rockets in 2007-2008. Then he went to China and played for a couple years. He now plays for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.


We have an open roster spot. Giving that spot to Mike Harris would help this team immensely. Here's why:

1. Fits our team personality-- Mike Harris is a hustle machine. He runs the court. He crashes the offensive boards. He works hard on defense. He would up the energy of the second unit another notch. He would be a great practice player. He's a big, strong, athletic dude who goes to the basket with baaaad intentions. Let me submit this video to the record as evidence:

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2. Knows our system Mike has played for Adelman before, and currently plays for the Rocket's D league team running the Rockets offensive and defensive schemes. This means two things: first, his transition to game-readiness would be quick and easy. Second, It is empirically proven that he can score efficiently in our offense (see point 4 below).

3. Can play multiple positions The only reason Mike Harris hasn't stuck in the league yet is that he is perceived as a "tweener". I think this perception, while it was once accurate, no longer applies. Mike has expanded his range to make him a legitimate 3 point threat (see stats below), and worked on his handle enough to more than get by as an NBA 3.

He would be a plus rebounder at the 3, he would be a useful defender against physical 3s like Carmello, and has the strength to push around skinny 3s (Omri Caspi, martell webster, etc). His physicality and versatility at the 3 would make him a great enforcer for those small lineups featuring Brooks and Lowry.

At 4, he would work hard on defense, and he could spread the court and take the secondary-break-top-of-the-key three pointers that are always available in our offense (see: david andersen's shot selection), and also adds another wrinkle with his ability to get to the basket from the perimiter (see video below)

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He might not be big enough to defend bigger 4s who are low-post proficient (Duncan, Dirk, Boozer, Pau etc), but he could make life a living hell for the charmin-soft jump-shooting bigs that seem to be proliferating around the league (rashard lewis, barngani, channing frye, etc) with his strength and quickness. His versatility, combined with his willingness to work, makes him an ideal situational bench player.

4. He's statistically eviscerating the rest of the D league--Admittedly, this is a small sample size (9 games) but the numbers are still shockingly impressive:


-The stat that really jumps out: Despite taking 18 shots a game (including 3 3 pointers), and very obviously being the first option on RGV (scoring 26 ppg, 3rd most in the D league), he is shooting 57.8% from the field.

I don't care if it is the D league. He is playing against paid professionals-- within shouting distance of their lifelong NBA dreams-- who know the Mike Harris is going to shoot the ball the plurality of times down the court, and he still hits damn near 60%...that's seriously impressive.

-He's hitting about 35% from 3 on the year...which would put him 3rd on the Rockets (behind only brooks and battier). His accuracy from 3 has been on an upward trend--2 years ago in china, 24%. Last year, 33%. Now, 35%. He obviously knows that a good 3 point shot could get him to the NBA, and he's clearly been working on it.

-Also, despite being a volume scorer, Mike is averaging only 2 turnovers per game. As a point of comparison, Joey Dorsey is averaging 3.7...despite taking less than half as many shots as Harris.

-Oh, Mike is also 2nd on RGV in rebounds (7.5 per game, 3 of those being offensive boards).

--He also averaged something like 31 points and 15 rbs with 61% shooting during his season in china, for whatever that's worth.

5. Provides Adelman with more usable bench options--The Rockets have 14 players on their roster right now. One of those, Yao, is out for the season. Another, Dorsey, is indefinately relegated to the D league until he figures out how to catch the ball and defend without fouling. So that puts us down to 12 players. Of those 12, one (tracy) has his minutes radically limited as part of his rehabilitation, one (buddinger) is out for almost a month with a painful injury that aggravates easily, and one (Jermaine Taylor) is so far away from being ready that his coach would rather play Ariza 47 minutes than let him smell the court. Then there's Brian Cook, who is so useless we probably couldn't trade him for a can of baked beans.

That gives us only 8 players that are fully usable...if you count Landry, who is playing despite the fact that his face basically exploded 3 days ago. This seriously mitigates our ability to tailor matchups and lineups to our opposition or adjust for off-nights and foul trouble from our own players. We lack both options and a margin for error. This lack of bodies also forces certain players to play extra-long minutes, like Ariza's 47 on saturday. If our legs are dead at the end of a road trip, or at the end of the season, because certain guys had to log too many minutes, we will lose games we would otherwise win. You can't play all-hustle up-tempo on dead legs--Ariza's five- straight-foul-shot-failure-festival during his 47 minute stint is acute evidence of this. Rick is a brilliant coach, but a even a chess master can't win without pawns.

6. The price is right-- Minimum deal. 750k, pro-rated to account for the quarter of the season that has already passed. If we have 3 million dollars to spend on the draft rights to Sergio Llul, we sure as hell have 500k to pay Mike Harris.


The reality check/what Morey is probably thinking-- Morey mentioned that we would have called up Mike Harris were Landry unavailable for upcoming games, which means this move is certainly on his mind. I think Morey likes having the open roster spot in case we need to take on more players then we send out in any potential trade that we make. The open spot also enables us to be a trade facilitator (moving random contracts to make the money work as part of a three way deal), which is a way Morey can farm cash and draft picks. If the trade deadline comes and goes without any major action, I expect to see Harris in Rockets Red the next day.

The only possible downside to this plan is that another team could scoop up Harris before we get a chance to, which would be tragic given his Houston ties and knowledge of our system.

I know this is an intensely long post, but it's something that's been on my mind, and I feel as though it at least warrants further discussion. So...discuss! :grin:

 

In that world, there's still room for him as a situational bench player. Adelman likes playing guys according to matchups, and having harris on the bench would give him another arrow in his quiver. He could also probably find minutes at the 4, where him running the court, crashing the boards, and shooting 3s would make him a holy terror with the 2nd unit. He also provides insurance if somebody gets ejected, hurt, in foul trouble or is playing poorly.

And if he doesn't get a lot of minutes after guys get healthy, it's not the end of the world..we're not paying him a lot, and he's so happy to be in the nba that he keeps our guys sharp by working his ass off in practice. The only real downside to signing him, imo, is limiting our future roster flexibility.