The farewell was every bit as symbolic as it was emotional. Without Gary Harris, the Nuggets don’t make the ascent over the last six years to where they are now.
And in order to optimize their next climb, they had to move on without him.
“It actually hit me when I came to the locker room (Friday), because he was sitting next to me for six years on the road,” Nuggets center Nikola Jokic reflected after Denver’s 113-108 win over New Orleans, wrapping up a three-game road swing with a 2-1 mark. “So I’m kind of, ‘Wow.’”
The Nuggets’ entourage boarded a flight west from Tampa to New Orleans on Thursday. And it did so minus Harris, who had been — until the deal that sent him to Orlando — the active player with the longest tenure in a Denver uniform.
“And if you could have witnessed the scene at the airport when we arrived,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone recalled. “Everyone got off the four buses and didn’t rush onto the plane. They all stayed there (to say good-bye).”
A stretch of three games over four days didn’t given the Nuggets much time to reflect on the NBA Trade Deadline, which netted athletic forward Aaron Gordon and backup center JaVale McGee.
But after their first victory of the season over the Pelicans, some of the veterans on the roster took a few minutes to look back on what they lost. Or rather, who.
Center Isaiah Hartenstein was shipped out with draft picks to Cleveland to land McGee. A combo of a 2025 first-round draft pick, R.J. Hampton and Harris brought Gordon and Gary Clark from Orlando in return.
It was the loss of the 26-year-old Harris, a 6-foot-4 guard who’d played 387 games over seven seasons with the Nuggets, that landed the hardest. The Nuggets likely don’t get out of their opening-round playoffs series against Utah last August without him. Or, for that matter, out of the Western Conference semis vs. the Los Angeles Clippers.
Drafted in 2014 out of Michigan State, the former Spartan star was one of the first pieces of a rebuilding process that began a half-dozen years earlier.
“And I go back to my first year (2015-16) and when I got the job, there was actually a question mark: Is Gary Harris an NBA player?” Malone recounted.
“I think his rookie (season), when he did not play as much, (he) didn’t appear in too many games. And I was a huge Gary Harris fan from watching him at Michigan State. And when I got the job, he earned that starting job … he was the first player that really identified (that), ‘Hey, Nikola Jokic is a great player and a great passer, I’m gonna play off of him and thrive.’ And Gary did that and other guys followed suit.”
The rest is Denver basketball history. But Harris’ spell with the Nuggets, in which he averaged 12.0 points, 2.1 assists, 2.6 boards and brought a dogged defensive presence to the backcourt, is now history, too.
Although he won’t be gone long, in all likelihood. Harris’ new squad, the Magic, is slated to visit Ball Arena on April 4.
“He was my vet. He was truly my vet,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray mused on Friday. “So I learned a lot from him, on and off the court. And it (stinks) to see him go, but I know he’s going to do well in his next chapter.”
With that, Murray smiled.
“Let’s see what happens,” the Canadian sharpshooter added, “when he guards me.”
The Link LonkMarch 27, 2021 at 07:03PM
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/03/27/nikola-jokic-jamal-murray-gary-harris-denver-nuggets-orlando-magic-trade/
Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray: After all those Nuggets memories, it’s hard to let Gary Harris go - The Denver Post
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
No comments:
Post a Comment