Harris ready to take on any challenge
CAMDEN, N.J. >> With 28 regular-season games left, not 29, not 30, not one period more, the 76ers acquired three players Wednesday.
One was Tobias Harris … who is not signed for next season.
One was Boban Marjanovic … who is not signed for next season.
One was Mike Scott … who, well, that. Hmmm?
“I don’t care about that (stuff),” Harris snarled. “I just want to play and win.”
His bluntness, his vocabulary, his willingness to turn a press conference a little blue Thursday at the Sixers Training Complex generated some laughs. It also generated the essential message of the moment: All of the parties, including the Sixers and the players they acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers, share Scott’s fundamental passion: Whatever was done, it was done to win this season. And in Harris, a developing star with every professional quality of the modern-game NBA fourman, they put themselves in that position.
While Elton Brand, who yet has to surface to discuss the matter, almost certainly will re-sign Harris and perhaps the other two, the urgency of the trade and the opportunities it yields are thick. If the template for NBA championship contention in 2019 is for four true stars to coexist, the Sixers have that in Harris, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler.
“And don’t forget Redick,” Scott warned.
Though no one did, really, that comment, too, crystallized the situation: The three new Sixers were aware of the situation … and the depth of talent with which they have to make it work.
“We can be really dangerous,” Harris said. “We have the total package, if you ask me. You see guys on team who can create and make defenses shift. Playmaking and unselfishness will be key to us. And building that chemistry is going to be a determining factor. I am excited about it. I am excited for it. I am excited for the fans.
“And everyone else in the league is taking notice.”
Some in the league may look at Golden State, or Toronto, or Milwaukee, or Houston and wonder where the Sixers fit among what Brett Brown calls the league’s royalty. And with Butler, who arrived in November, yet to have fully appeared comfortable, it will be a challenge for Brown to make his new four-star lineup click in time for the postseason.
But all the three former Clippers promised Thursday was that they would be willing to try.
“First off, I am excited to be here and be part of an organization and a culture,” Harris said. “But I see myself J.J. bringing a winning attitude, a winning nature. I am a competitor, a leader, someone who will play his heart out for team and try to win as many games as possible. I take my craft very diligently. And I am here to work.”
In addition to the haul from L.A., the Sixers in recent days have acquired veteran forward Jonathon Simmons in a trade with Orlando for Markelle Fultz. Also, Brand reportedly has added veteran forward James Ennis in a minor deal with Houston.
That is a massive roster overhaul since Tuesday, when the Sixers last played and lost to the Toronto Raptors. But it will all be put in place Friday at the Wells Fargo Center, where at 7 they will face the Denver Nuggets. And if the lineup Brand has assembled gives the Sixers their best chance to win a championship in 36 years, there will be some pregame, coincidental poetry when the franchise retires the No. 2 of 1983 difference-maker Moses Malone.
The Wednesday trade costing the Sixers Mike Muscala, Landry Shamet and Wilson Chandler, along with two first-round and two second-round draft choices, it necessarily will jumble the established playing rotation. And in the 2019 NBA, where agents rule, the most difficult chore of any coach is to author a rotation able to satisfy every ego.
But if the attitude displayed Thursday by Harris, Scott and Marjanovic is a hint, Brand has added a threesome determined to fit in.
Harris, who averages 20.7 points and is the kind of stretch-four necessary for Brown to run his preferred system, will start. Scott can provide some of the threepoint shots lost with the departure of Shamet. And Marjanovic, with his 7-10 wingspan, can be a helpful supplement to Embiid, who will need some rest over the final couple of months.
“I think I bring toughness,” Marjanovic said. “I like to play tough and strong any time a team needs me. When I am in the game, I use my height to help. This team already has height and toughness. I just want to add to that.”
Brand will face questioning Friday morning. After that, his new pile of players will be responsible for doing the answering.
“It’s going to come down to figuring out each other on the floor and on the fly,” Harris said. “We have a team of a lot of young talent, and smart talent, too. It will be a challenge. I will just put that out there: To have this much firepower, there has to be good balance all around. That will be a challenge for us. But it is not a bad challenge to have.
“We have to build a chemistry as soon as we can. That might take guys giving up a shot they might have. But we have to have fun and impose our will on other teams. Because we want people coming out of that arena and thinking, ‘Those guys are good.’”