Q&A: Tobias Harris explains the Sixers' playoff struggles and Nick Nurse's new offense

Tobias Harris has only known high expectations in Philadelphia. He was added to the Sixers as one last piece to try to put them over the top in 2019, and the Sixers haven’t moved a game closer to their team goal in the years since. Frustration has set in amongst the locals, who are ready for something, perhaps anything to change at the moment. And there’s a good chance that change will involve Harris, a constant presence in trade rumors whose contract expires after this season.

For now, however, Harris is one of the central figures of the team. With James Harden’s status up in the air, Harris enters another year with a short list of tasks: adapt on offense, lead in the locker room, and help the team deal with the offseason trade request cycle.

PHLY sat down with Harris recently to discuss a number of topics, including Nick Nurse’s vision for him, the team’s inability to get out of the second round, and keeping together a locker room filled with guys on one-year deals. The interview below has been edited only slightly for clarity and concision.

PHLY: James still seems to be on good terms with you guys and has gotten public support from multiple teammates. How do you guys navigate this as teammates and balance the brotherhood vs. what’s best for the team? 

HARRIS: Honestly, as teammates, we can only control what we can control. We don’t necessarily know everything going on. But for us as a group, there’s media day and then we start our first day of practice and camp. That’s everybody’s focus. Get out on the floor, figure out ways we can become the best team we can be, and everything else is pretty much irrelevant to what actually has to be dealt with.

We can’t go into camp thinking about if this happens or that happens, we have to go out and play basketball. That’s the mentality of the group. Obviously, I’d be lying to say it’s not prevalent, but at the same time, we’ll just wait and see what happens at that point. For some of the guys here, this isn’t the first rodeo [laughs], we already have some of the script so we kind of know how to kind of deal with it.

Having to cover for the point guard spot in this instance makes it trickier than if you were asking guys to fill in for another position. How much does going through this experience with Ben help you to prepare for what would be an adjustment in play style?

It’s a different team, different staff, guys have been with each other throughout the summer here the last couple of weeks and working out. This is a great staff that we have. Everyone has great energy in the gym, it’s a great emphasis on things we can get better at as a collective group. We’re enjoying it, we’re excited to get ready for training camp and get out there and figure out ways to grow our chemistry and excel how we want to.

Tyrese was very young the last time he was put in a position like this to potentially run a team. What have you seen from him in workouts this summer, and where do you think he can grow next?

I’ve seen a lot of patience from him. Growth in terms of being able to really set up guys on the basketball court and still be able to get to his scoring package. I think that’s the next evolution of Tyrese Maxey as a basketball player is becoming an even better playmaker, and he’s extremely capable of doing it. He’s shown all of us here. Doing both, [playmaking], scoring, defending.

You are typically the guy who is asked to do something different with your approach depending on what the roster looks like. What have your conversations been like with the new staff about your role, and how did you prepare for the season?

First day on the job we sat down and talked, and I asked him where he saw me in different situations on the floor, what he expected of me, and what type of actions he wanted me to get better in. And from there I put it into my whole summer workout. That’s figuring out within the offense that there are a lot of different actions that he ran in Toronto that he’s going to have me in. Post-ups, DHOs, different pick-and-roll actions, and whatnot.

All those things made sense to me, things I have in my game, and just to be able to hear that is amazing. And then lastly, he wants me to be able to get up as many threes as I can on a nightly basis. All those things I just took to my summer workouts and had a very productive summer — healthy, working out, my body feels great. Mentally, physically, everything. So I’m excited for this year.

Has he apologized to the team yet for 2019? 

He’s not doing that.

Has he at least admitted Kawhi traveled?

He’s not doing that either.

The Game 6 & 7 performances against Boston last season were more shocking because of how well you guys played on the road in a pivotal Game 5. What do you think happened having had time to reflect on it? Maybe more specifically in Game 7, since Game 6 was a coinflip game.

We just had too many breakdowns. In playoff basketball, you can only have so few of them, and it’s always this emphasis on every possession counts. Too many breakdowns lead to a lot of like, for us as a group mental breakdowns as well. You live and you learn from all those Game 7s what’s important, but it comes down to the little things. Little things and full-on effort.

I feel like in those games it’s easier to discourage a team. You go on a run, and the other team is starting to think about everything else. Right? And it’s kind of like in those moments just weathering the storm.

As we go into this season, this all occurs during the year. In the games where you just don’t got it and you’re down 16 points in the third quarter, how do you will yourself back? Understanding the long-term picture of the game. I think for us, we lost sight of that. Numerous times, during the year, in the playoffs, that we need to be better at for sure.

Do you think baggage has built up over time with that? A team like Boston hasn’t won the title but they’ve broken through and been a regular conference finals team, made a Finals two years ago. There’s some shared belief that they’ll rally when it counts. Is it fair to say you guys are waiting for a moment that’ll lift that off of you?  

Yeah for sure. I mean we’ve been bounced in the second round consecutively, so there is that burden for us. But we also know, every guy can tell you that’s on the roster something they would have done differently so that we would have been able to move on [to the next round]. So as we go into this year, it’s taking all of those mistakes that have happened, learning from them, and growing with it. We will have an opportunity, I truly believe that.

We also know we have to take advantage of that. We’ve had many missed opportunities, and I can think back to the day that I got here, missed opportunities where you say, if we had that team or we had this…so we’ve got to figure that out for sure.

Aside from team success, if there was one thing you wanted to accomplish individually this year, what would it be?

To be the best team in the East and win a championship. This is my 13th year, going to be my 13th year in the NBA. From early stages, I’ve been on teams that have been lottery teams, I’ve been on teams that are on the cusp of making the playoffs, and I’ve been on the Sixers where each and every year we think we have a chance to win a championship.

So for me, the individual goal is to play at the best level I can play at to propel our team to help fight for a championship. So I go into every single year and that’s how I look at it going into this year as well.

Nick Nurse gets a lot of attention for defensive schemes but came up with a reputation as an offensive guy. Is there something about his system or reputation there you’re excited about?

I think you guys are going to see this year an offense that is going really to be created through movement. Body movement, ball movement, actions, cutting, DHOs, the ball swinging side-to-side. I think this is going to be a very good year of seeing a real offensive flow on the floor. And you can ask anybody in here, they’re really excited for that.

There are a lot of opportunities for different guys to step up, a lot of opportunities for guys to get to their spots, be productive, and play off of one another a little bit more.

To the point about focusing on team goals, a lot of guys including you are on expiring/one-year contracts. What do you think the key is to keeping everyone focused on the bigger team goals and not playing for stats and their next contract?

I think on this team with the talent level we have, it makes it a little bit easier for a lot of guys to figure out their roles, avoid those predicaments. But most guys, if you’re a basketball player and can hoop, stay healthy, and impact winning basketball, everybody sees and understands. It’s the guys who are in losing situations that people have to look at and say I don’t see a winner, I see a loser.

Being in a situation like this where we have enough talent, we have the makeup to have a very good team, it’s just going out there and making winning plays and playing impactful basketball. That’s the message to everybody, and different guys [act differently] in different situations. When you’re on some losing teams, that’s where you get guys number-hunting. But when you’re on a winning team, it’s more about playing winning basketball, being efficient in how you play, and impacting the game in a winning way.

So the guys that are free agents, that’s always the message. Don’t get caught up in the numbers game, just get caught up in being the best you on the floor and making winning plays.