Joe "Captain America" Harris

While I'm glad Harris had a good game, it kind of irks me when a rookie outplays two veterans in Miller and Jones that are making close to a combined $7 million.

He has no scouting report on him. Can't emphasize this enough. We'll have to see if he's able to make a difference when teams account for him. DX was pretty clear there were a lot concerns about his lack of length and footspeed on defense so my guess is that teams will try to put in a pick and roll with whoever is Kyrie is guarding. Since Kyrie has a hard enough time keeping people on him, teams will try to get their PG going against I'd imagine more then they now.

If he can hang in terms of keeping his man in front of him then that will really open up the options. May still be better to start Marion: we need as much defense as possible with Love and Irivng in the same lineup. Bench scoring has been an issue and Dion/Marion off the bench should help with that. Their games should mesh if Dion takes over the backup PG duties with Delly out.

Welcome to the NBA Joe Harris. You look like you might be able to play. This kid was able to come in with only his his stubby arms & four years of college play on his resume and not only replace Waiters, but make Waiters look expendable. It shows that the team's problem isn't too little talent, but is actually too many selfish habits.

Just re-looking at the this game. Harris gave trouble to Evans, Gordon, and Anderson.

They couldn't make shots when he guarded them. Harris even succesfully boxed out Asik on a play.

I'm impressed.

easy guys.... Harris is a great match for our group and I really like the kid but he does not make Dion expendable

we have LeBron and Kyrie out there playing over 40 mins b/c w/o Dion we have no one else able to score off the Bench by them selves ...

Joe is a great young version of Mike Miller really but I think Dion is still needed for our 6 man in order to lessen the mins for the Bron and Kyrie so they dont need to be out there starting the offense all the time

gratefuldead said:

they need to really think about starting joe harris

his defense is decent and marion should be backing up lebron

if lebron is going to play less minutes, marion should be out there

11 man rotation

kyrie/delly
harris/dion/miller
lebron/marion/miller
love/tt/lebron or marion
andy/tt/love

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Right now it looks like Marion is the starting SF and LBJ is handling the SG duties. Also, right now it doesn't look like we have a starting rotation other than Andy and TT. Everyone else gets scrap minutes when LBJ, Love, and Kyrie try and catch their breath for a minute or two.

nt

shoes22 said:

While I'm glad Harris had a good game, it kind of irks me when a rookie outplays two veterans in Miller and Jones that are making close to a combined $7 million.

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Huh? Miller makes 2.7M and Jones makes 900K. Also, Jones wasn't brought here to play, but to just be a good locker room guy that could show our young guys how to prepare like a veteran.

The George said:

we have LeBron and Kyrie out there playing over 40 mins b/c w/o Dion we have no one else able to score off the Bench by them selves ...

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That's the whole problem. The Cavs don't need more guys trying to score by themselves. The Cavs have so much talent that they can leave a least two all star on the floor at all times and not play any of them over 35 minutes. In order to do that, they need someone like Joe College to walk in and make the system work when one of the big 3 sits. So maybe I should have said that Harris's success shows how badly the team needs hard working smart role players right now who still have gas in the tank.

It might come to a point this winter where the Cavs have to trade away good talent for a steady role player, as un-sexy as that is.

We dont need to have LeBron and Kyrie on the floor the whole game is my point... and anytime they are off the floor we really suffer scoring or running the offense... Those two on one the floor damn near the whole night

thats the role of a 6th man.... he doesnt need to play super man when on the floor all the time but it Delly and Dion have ball skills to run an offense that IMO Harris currently does not

Jack Brickman said:

I'd like to see him prove himself a bit more before throwing him to the wolves with the starting line-up. He just logged his first meaningful NBA minutes last night. He looked good, but we need a larger sample size. Hopefully he starts getting some rotation minutes, though, so we can get that sample size.

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totally agree so far he has shown that he deserves to get some of Miller's minutes and for a rookie who was picked in the 2nd round that's pretty nice. to be honest i was surprised how good he looked on defense i thought that would be the area where he would really struggle.
i also like that he doesn't hesitate taking a shot when he's open even he's not hitting everything (like yesterday).

*L-Train* said:

totally agree so far he has shown that he deserves to get some of Miller's minutes and for a rookie who was picked in the 2nd round that's pretty nice. to be honest i was surprised how good he looked on defense i thought that would be the area where he would really struggle.
i also like that he doesn't hesitate taking a shot when he's open even he's not hitting everything (like yesterday).

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He is good at denying the ball. He seems to be able to keep guys in front of him for the most part too. I think he is very strong at team defense. He was helping right away and similar to Delly he will bang in teh post with guys much bigger than him.

I have been very impressed with his defense. I suggested starting him in the game thread last night because I want Marion to take more of Lebron's minutes. Lebron can still cover 2's, but he is better at hanging back and denying the drive. Sg's shoot so many 3's these days we need someone to get more up on them.

I too think he needs to be tested a little more, but if his D is really as good as I think, I think he can be a positive contributor to the starting unit. His driving ability is fine, very nice. His shot really looks great, and a true threat at the 2 from 3 would be great for the starters. It's not that Marion cannot shoot the 3, it's that he is reluctant to shoot it kind of like Deng was. Marion only really shoots it when he really is wide open and can't make up an excuse not too.

Douglar said:

That's the whole problem. The Cavs don't need more guys trying to score by themselves. The Cavs have so much talent that they can leave a least two all star on the floor at all times and not play any of them over 35 minutes. In order to do that, they need someone like Joe College to walk in and make the system work when one of the big 3 sits. So maybe I should have said that Harris's success shows how badly the team needs hard working smart role players right now who still have gas in the tank.

It might come to a point this winter where the Cavs have to trade away good talent for a steady role player, as un-sexy as that is.

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I'm totally going to go with George on this one. I don't think we need to go get more guy who create their own shot, but I think we really only realistically have 3 as Kevin Love needs the assist. 2 in the starting lineup that seem to be jiving right now, and a 3rd off the bench.

I don't think trading Dion for a 3 and D guy is just not sexy, I think it seriously limits our window for contention in the next 3 years. We need some young guys with high upside and guys like Harris and Delly who can fit in and complement those guys. We need both. Trading a dollar for a dime isn't going to get us anywhere except in the short term. Plus, it looks like Harris is probably our 3 and D guy who will not need tons of development. He looks ready to contribute far more than Karasev did last year.

Hard to believe we are having this discussion all over the forum today when we saw what a lack of talent will do for 4 years. Now people are worrying we have too much?

The George said:

We dont need to have LeBron and Kyrie on the floor the whole game is my point... and anytime they are off the floor we really suffer scoring or running the offense... Those two on one the floor damn near the whole night

thats the role of a 6th man.... he doesnt need to play super man when on the floor all the time but it Delly and Dion have ball skills to run an offense that IMO Harris currently does not

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Harris ball skills are a bit underrated, but that is beside the point. We want Joe Harris to come in the game to be able to hit open shots, move the basketball when a shot isn't there, hustle, and play as tough as he can on defense; he has done all of that. What does it matter if he doesn't have the ball skills of Dion and Delly? We don't need anymore guys with ball skills, there is only one basketball.

Joe (but he is L'dorable) Harris