Brooklyn loses out on another target after Harris dealt
The Nets may have just lost two All-Star caliber power-forward targets this week. Or at least will have to try and pry them from different teams.
Brooklyn had interest in both Kristaps Porzingis and Tobias Harris, and after the Knicks shipped the wounded Unicorn to Dallas, the Clippers traded Tobias Harris to the 76ers on Wednesday in a deal first reported by ESPN.
Harris has long been at the very top of the Nets’ target list, and The Post wrote about them targeting him in November and again last month. And right after the trade, Zach Harper of The Athletic had tweeted the Clippers were likely losing Harris to the Nets.
It’s not surprising, with Harris being a perfect positional fit and coach Kenny Atkinson and Harris growing up just 14 miles apart on Long Island. Atkinson has known the forward since his days at Half Hollow Hills West High School.
“He’s an excellent player,” Atkinson said of Harris, averaging 20.7 points, 7.9 rebounds and shooting 42.2 percent from 3-point range.
“His brother [Steve] coached at my high school. He coached my little brother,” Harris told The Post in November. “They have a big family, a couple times I ran into another one of the brothers he has. ... I know coach Kenny.”
And Atkinson knows him, although he adamantly refused to get drawn into discussing Harris’ move to Philadelphia.
“No, I’m not going to comment on that. I love our team, I love our guys,” Atkinson said. “I’m focused on our internal improvement. That’s where my focus is right now.”
Right now, but July 1 will be a different story. While sources have told The Post that Nets general manager Sean Marks was looking to target Harris in free agency, Wednesday’s trade may make that harder, though not impossible.
Don’t expect the Nets to give up, especially not with the list of power forwards they’ve cycled through (Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Jared Dudley and now Treveon Graham) all underwhelming due to injuries, inconsistent shooting, or both.
“We talk all the time, just about the roster in general,” Atkinson said. “I don’t send him a Christmas wish list, ‘Hey Sean, here’s all the things I want.’ It doesn’t happen like that. We’re in constant conversation talking about the roster.”
Harris would change the look of that roster, Porzingis perhaps even moreso.
Sixers owner Josh Harris is worth $3.5 billion and has not only the financial wherewithal but the appetite to pay both Harris and Jimmy Butler this summer. ESPN reported the 76ers plan to budget for just that.
But both players could have interest in the Nets, with Butler reportedly having put Brooklyn on his initial short list of teams to which he wanted to be traded. And Butler isn’t the only one to short-list the Nets.
Porzingis’ brother/agent Janis gave the Knicks a list of four teams they’d accept being traded to, and the Nets made the list, but Dallas didn’t, according to Marc Stein.
A game after getting held to a season-worst 5-of-42 from 3-point range, the Nets snapped out of their shooting slump. No coincidence they also got their shooters back, with the return of Allen Crabbe and Joe Harris.
Harris returned after missing Monday’s loss to Milwaukee, and Allen Crabbe came back after missing 25 consecutive games. And right on cue, the Nets went a seasonhigh 19-of-34 from deep Wednesday, their best percentage since March 4, 2016.
“We broke out of our shooting slump. We really shot the heck out of the ball. Just good collective effort,” Kenny Atkinson said.
“It felt good to be out there with the team again, just to get up and down the court in a real NBA game again,” said Crabbe, who hadn’t played since Dec. 12 due to a sore knee. “It felt good, glad I came back and we beat a tough contender in the West. We played really good.”
Crabbe checked in with the Nets down 35-30 to start the second quarter, but promptly hit a 3 to knot it at 35-all. He helped spark a 42-25 quarter when the Nets went 7-of-9 from behind the arc.
“I’ll take the credit for that,” laughed Crabbe, who had five points in 13:24.
Harris scored 17 points on 3-of-6 from deep.
The Nets won despite letting the Nuggets shoot 50.5 percent. They’re 7-8 when allowing over 50 percent shooting, after being just 3-75 in such games from 2015-18.
DeMarre Carroll matched his career-high with six assists, and set careerhighs for free throws (10). He finished plus-24.
The Nets were rated the sixth-most valuable team in the NBA according to Forbes. Brooklyn was valued at $2.35 million, the exact figure the Post reported they were valued at for Mikhail Prokhorov’s sale of 49 percent of the team to Joe Tsai.