Brooklyn’s Joe Harris visited @NBA for a Twitter Q&A on Wednesday afternoon, covering his best NBA experiences, his influences as a young player, and his community efforts.
Harris is in his fourth season with the Nets after being drafted in the second round by Cleveland in 2014. In 2019-20, he led the NBA in 3-point shooting at 47.4 percent, and won the 3-Point Content at All-Star Weekend. This season, he’s averaging a career-high 13.9 points and started 63 of the Nets’ 64 games before the season was paused in mid-March.
Here’s some of what Joe had to say:
On his advice for younger players who might not have access to basketball courts and facilities right now:
“Utilize the space that you have inside. There’s still a lot of ball-handling drills that you can do, sort of Pete Maravich-esque. We can afford the luxury of having an app like Homecourt where you can practice and work on your game and not need a ton of space. There’s a lot of different ball-handling, agility drills that you can do through that.”
On his experience in the G League, where he played for the Canton Charge while on assignment from the Cleveland Cavaliers:
“Just allowed me the opportunity to play. Obviously playing on a team like the Cavs in 2014, they were championship contenders, not allowing a ton of young guys to come in and play through mistakes. If you weren’t helping the team have success you weren’t really afforded a lot of different opportunities. For me, it was a great chance to be able to go and play, compete. Looking back on it, I was really looking to play for somebody like Jordi Fernandez, who’s an assistant coach in Denver now; Mike Batiste, who actually had a stint here in Brooklyn and is now in Orlando. A lot of the teammates I had, Quinn Cook, Alex Kirk, Stephen Holt, all great players that have gone on to have success, whether overseas or here in the NBA. I looked at it as a development opportunity and I was fortunate to have such great people around that allowed me to grow as a player and as a person.”
On his favorite player growing up:
“Ray Allen. I grew up in the Northwest, so I was always a really big Sonics fan. I loved Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, a lot of those players who were really good through the ‘90s. When I became more of a basketball fan and more tuned in, it was mid, early 2000s and Ray Allen had just come from the Bucks. He was sort of at the peak of his career before he went to Boston. I loved the way that he played. He was a great shooter. He always conducted himself in a professional manner. Was humble, great in the community. I always idolized him growing up.”
On choosing No. 12 because of his father, who also coached in him high school in Chelan, Wash:
“He wore No. 12 when he played basketball in high school and his brief college playing career. He’s the primary inspiration for that, along with a cousin of mine. She was a great player when she was in high school and played in college at Lewis and Clark State University. She wore No. 12 as well. That’s where my inspiration to wear No. 12 comes from.”
On traveling to Tanzania last summer with his college teammates Malcolm Brogdon and Justin Anderson:
“Malcolm is the one that got us involved in the clean water initiative, called Hoops2O. It’s under the umbrella of Chris Long’s foundation. The goal is to bring clean drinking water to different parts of rural Africa. We were able to go and see some of the project sites where we raised money to build some of these deep boring wells. It was a life-changing experience and something I’m looking forward to continuing to be involved with.”
On his favorite moment in the NBA:
“I was lucky in my rookie year to play in the NBA Finals, to have that experience, to see what it was like to get to that stage. And then here most recently in Brooklyn, getting to a point where the Barclays is hosting playoff games. They’re always unbelievable atmospheres and I think that’s what every player in the NBA looks forward to the most, just getting an opportunity to play in the playoffs. That’s definitely the highlight for me.”