Gary Harris deserves some consideration for Most Improved Player of the Year.
While the race for Most Improved Player of the Year heats up, one sleeper for the award is Gary Harris. While Jokic is one of the front runners, Harris had a remarkable year that deserves some recognition.
Is Harris going to win the award? Most likely not. However, it is still worth making a case for him. His defensive numbers took a bit of a hit this year, but when you are guarding the best perimeter player every game and missing a few games due to injury, that is bound to occur.
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His offensive statistics on the other hand, were off the charts. According to Basketball-reference.com, his player efficiency rating was at 16.5 while he shot an effective field goal percentage of 58.7%. Harris’ career effective field goal percentage is 53.2%. He also increased his three point shooting by improving from 35.4% shooting to becoming a 42% three point shooter this year. This earned him a spot within the top 10 three point shooters in the entire league.
He also shot 90% from shots that were three to 10 feet from the basket. In other words, he was money when he got to the rim or had an open mid range jumper. Another area where Harris dramatically improved was his offensive box plus/minus. Last season, he was only at 0.9 in that area. This season, it skyrocketed to 3.1. Harris also maintained an offensive win share of 3.9 which is an increase from his 2.8 rating from the year before.
Despite his quote on quote “down,” year on the defensive side, he still averaged a steal percentage of 1.9% and grabbed 1.4 steals per 36 minutes. Harris also decreased his fouls. He committed no blocking fouls and decreased his shooting fouls from 51 to 43.
The most impressive statistic of his though? How about improving his plus/minus net per 100 possessions from -2.9 to 1.5. Now that stat should get the voters attention, especially with that high of a jump in an advanced analytic category.
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While guys like Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the front runners for the Most Improved Player of the Year award, Gary Harris should at least get recognition for the impact he provided this season.