Gary Harris

In his second season with Orlando, Harris played 61 games, averaging 11.1 points to go with very little else outside of his 1.0 steals per game. A seemingly constant battle with soft tissue injuries has seen his production dwindle over the past few years to the point where he is merely a role player. The woes continued this offseason, as Harris suffered a torn meniscus and underwent surgery in early September.

The start of Harris' season was half-decent at best as he averaged 10.1 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game in 30.8 minutes per game throughout the Nuggets' first 18 appearances. However, in what has become a somewhat recurring theme for the 6-foot-4 guard, his season was put on pause due to injury. After missing seven games due to an adductor injury, Harris returned to the rotation, only to re-aggravate it and find himself out due to injury once again. In fact, that game served to be his last appearance in a Nuggets uniform as the seven-year pro was shipped to Orlando as a part of the Aaron Gordon deal on the trade deadline. After finally getting fully healthy from his injury, Harris appeared in 20 games with his new team, averaging 10.2 points, 2.3 assists, 1.6 rebounds in 24.9 minutes per game while starting in all but one of the contests. As we enter the new year, Orlando's backcourt rotation is quite hard to predict due to their plethora of young guards on the roster. The team drafted Jalen Suggs out of Gonzaga with the fifth overall pick while also having Markelle Fultz, RJ Hampton and Cole Anthony all on the roster. While this will certainly be a fresh start for the Magic as they enter the year without Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic on the roster, it is still hard to imagine Harris stepping up and being one of the main options for the team this season. The Michigan State product's numbers did not improve in his first few games with the team last season, and a healthy backcourt puts Harris' minutes in jeopardy. While the 26-year-old guard is still young enough to take the next step as a player, his lack of a complete offensive game over the past few seasons and his uncertain spot in the rotation make Harris a difficult fantasy option to trust this season.

In terms of production, Harris is coming off one of the worst seasons of his career in which he averaged 10.4 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.3 three-pointers per game. The 26-year-old Denver guard shot the ball terribly last season, at 42% from two-point range and 33.3% from three-point land. Despite his poor offensive numbers, Harris still received plenty of minutes at 31.8 per game thanks to his defensive talents. The Nuggets have a plethora of skilled points guards and shooting guards as they showed in their run to the Western Conference Finals last season, so Harris will likely need to step it up if he's going to remain entrenched as the team's starting shooting guard. However, given his regression over the last few seasons it's difficult to be optimistic that the 26-year-old can regain the form that saw him average 17.5 points and shoot 48.5% from the field in the 2017-18 campaign. Harris has never played a full season, having dealt with various nagging injuries over the course of his six previous seasons in the league. A healthy 2020-21 season and improved shooting would do wonders for his fantasy value, which is currently rather unexciting.

Persistent lower-body injuries allowed Harris to appear in just 57 games last year, and he clearly wasn't himself when on the court. He posted four-year lows in minutes (28.8), field-goal percentage (42.4), three-point percentage (33.9) and steals (1.0) per game. Losing time to injury is nothing new for Harris, who is averaging just 64.3 games per season once becoming a full-time starter in 2015-16. But he demonstrated his potential in 2017-18, averaging 17.5 points, 2.9 assists, 2.6 rebounds, 2.3 threes and 1.8 steals across 34.4 minutes. Entering his age 25 season, Harris will look to bounce back to those numbers and continue his development within one of the top young cores in the NBA. While the Michigan State product won't provide much in terms of assists and rebounds, his upside as a three-and-D player is enough to be worth a late-round selection in most fantasy drafts.

Though injuries have limited Harris to 124 games over the past two years, he’s shown significant improvement across his first four campaigns. The soon-to-be 24-year-old out of Michigan State set career highs in points (17.5), steals (1.8), three-pointers per game (2.3) and free-throw percentage (82.7) last season. He doesn't provide much by way of supplementary stats (2.9 assists and 2.6 rebounds), but his efficient, high-volume shooting and defense paves the way to Fantasy relevance. Harris is still young enough to keep improving, and it’s possible he crosses the 20-point per game threshold if he can evolve as a ball handler and get more aggressive taking the ball to the rack -- not to mention continue hitting threes at a high volume. Considering that his stats don't jump off the page, Fantasy owners may be able to get Harris in drafts later than his value might indicate. Assuming he stays relatively healthy and improves even marginally, Harris is worthy of a fourth-round pick, if not a late third.

While a foot injury ultimately limited him to 57 games last year, Harris put together another solid campaign overall. He averaged 14.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.2 steals across 31.0 minutes. More impressively, Harris showed vast improvement with his deep ball and made the jump from 35.4 percent shooting from the three-point line in 2015-16 to an impressive 42 percent, making him the team's top threat from distance. Harris also shot 50 percent from the field, which was one of the best percentages for guards in the entire league. With very little depth on this team at the shooting guard position, Harris will remain in the top unit once again and should see a similar workload to last season. The addition of superstar Paul Millsap in the offseason could ultimately drop Harris' overall usage, though that shouldn't hurt Harris' numbers much. Harris likely won't be able to keep pace with his stellar shooting percentages from last year, but otherwise, his production should remain relatively unchanged as a whole. Harris should do most of his work as the team's third option behind Millsap and rising star Nikola Jokic, though his efficiency and points should give him plenty of potential as a late-round pick.

After a quiet rookie season, Harris was among the NBA's more improved players in 2015-16, nearly tripling his minutes and starting all 76 games in which he appeared. Harris averaged 12.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.3 treys and 1.3 steals per game, while shooting 46.9 percent from the floor and 35.4 percent from three-point range. As Harris enters his age-22 season, he should only continue to progress from an individual standpoint. However, the Nuggets' extreme depth on the wing may stand in the way of a full-on breakout. Denver added a pair of promising shooting guards, Jamal Murray and Malik Beasley, through the draft, while wings Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari return to full health after missing significant time with injuries last season. Harris' grip on the starting shooting guard spot doesn't appear to be in much jeopardy, but the team will have to find room to develop the rookies, particularly Murray, whose long-term upside is arguably higher than that of Harris. At the end of the day, Harris should remain an adequate source of efficient scoring at the shooting guard position, but he's probably best left untouched until the later rounds of most drafts.

Harris made a splash in his rookie debut with the Nuggets last season by throwing down a nasty dunk against the Pacers, and Denver fans will hope for more of that this season, but Harris may be stuck on the bench due to the Nuggets' depth on the wing.. In 55 games last season, Harris got six starts and averaged 13 minutes per game. In his limited playing time, Harris averaged 3.4 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 0.7 steals. His percentages were lacking though, as he shot 30 percent from the field, 20 percent from three-point range, and 75 percent from the free-throw line. These types of percentages simply don't get it done in fantasy, but they seem a bit fluky as he proved to be a better shooter in his college days. He has great defensive potential, as he was trained under hard-nosed Michigan State coach Tom Izzo. In order to be a player at Michigan State, you have to hustle and you have to play defense, and that's what Harris does with his elite athleticism. Even with these nice attributes, it will be tough for Harris to carve out a significant role with the Nuggets as the depth at guard is far too deep. Harris will likely be behind Wilson Chandler, Will Barton, and Randy Foye on the depth chart, so it will take some injuries for him to play any significant minutes this season. With all that said, it's still believed that Harris' skill set could lead to him playing a significant role in the NBA someday, and with new coach Mike Malone in Denver, it's worth watching what happens with Harris in training camp before completely writing him off.

The Nuggets selected Harris with the 19th-overall pick in the 2014 draft. The Michigan State product was one of the top players in the country, averaging 16.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.7 assists as a sophomore last season. While he's one of the draft's top outside shooters, Harris fell out of the lottery, partially due to the fact that he's a bit undersized (6-4) for the shooting guard spot. Size wasn't an issue at Michigan State, but against the bigger, stronger bodies of the NBA, it's certainly a concern. With Arron Afflalo returning to Denver to team with Ty Lawson, Harris stands little-to-no chance of cracking the starting backcourt, barring an injury. He'll compete with 2013 second-round pick Erick Green and veteran Randy Foye for minutes off the bench.