Heading into his senior season at Gonzaga, Elias Harris is a player who we have profiled extensively in the past. After a pair of underwhelming seasons that cooled the interest he earned after a surprising freshman season, seeing his numbers fall off in many key categories, Harris has rebounded to post a very good start to his senior season, both from a team and individual perspective.
Harris is producing at an all-time high, seeing his scoring rate jump from 18.0 points per 40 minutes pace adjusted to 22.4, while his Gonzaga Bulldogs have had a strong start to the season, sitting with a record of 15-1 to this point with strong wins over Kansas State, Baylor, and Oklahoma State recently.
From a skills perspective, however, Harris is largely the same player we've been profiling for quite some time. He's most comfortable creating for himself in the post, which with the departure of Robert Sacre, he's found some extra room to operate with. At 23 years old, Harris does a good job of using his physical maturity, strength, and reasonably long arms to score with regularity on the blocks at the collegiate level. He combines that with his soft hands, excellent ability to move without the ball, and deceptive quickness in the open court to create an effective option for the Gonzaga offense and provide a good impact at the collegiate level. He's also getting to the line at a much better rate so far this year, over 9 times per-40, which is by far the best of his 4 year career.
Many of the question marks about his ability to translate that to the next level, however, remain.
While it looked like Harris was beginning to make progress on his jump shot last year, he's regressed quite a bit this year, albeit on limited sample size. According to Synergy Sports Technology, Harris has only made 7 of his 28 (25%) jumpers so far this year, taking a huge step back by connecting on just 16% of his three point attempts (down from 41% last year on just 2 attempts per game), and still showing a lack of any sort of comfort in the midrange game.
From a mechanical perspective, Harris' release doesn't appear to be entirely broken, although it is a little bit deliberate and with a bit of extra movement, which could explain some of the inconsistency in the results. He's looked hesitant to take open jumpers that have been created for him in Gonzaga's free-flowing offense, which are shots he'll likely need to be comfortable taking and making at the pro level.
The bigger concern for Harris on the perimeter is his shot-creating ability, as it's still an adventure any time he has to put the ball on the floor and meets resistance. While capable of facing up and attacking opposing big men in a straight line from 17 feet, Harris is not someone who can be expected to do much ball-handling in the half-court outside of these short forays. He shows a high and loose dribble, and struggles to change directions with it if he encounters a defender, which makes him relatively ineffective when he tries to do anything too fancy off the bounce.
On the defensive side of the court Harris has many questions on which forward position he will be able to adequately defend. While Harris' body is developed and physically mature, he is somewhat undersized to play the power forward position at the next level. He also struggles to move his feet on the perimeter even for a power forward, regularly over-extending himself on the perimeter and getting caught defending with his hands because of that. While he seems to have lost some of the weight that plagued him earlier in his college career, his awareness and focus level haven't improved much at all, which makes him a regular target for opposing coaches to pick at in pick and roll situations.
On the positive side, Harris has become a solid defensive rebounder at the power forward position, pulling down 7.3 per 40 minutes this season and 8.7 last year. Harris shows good natural instincts, ability to track the ball, soft hands and a willingness to battle for position, even if his rebounding production on the offensive end is nothing to write home about.
Elias Harris is having the most productive season of his college career thus far, and depending on how the Bulldogs perform the rest of the year, will likely get his fair share of NBA looks. His effort level also appears to be more consistent, something which should help ease some of the concerns expressed over the last few years.
That being said, the main reasons for Harris' increased productivity has been an improvement on his already existing skill sets, ones that are somewhat dubious whether they will translate to the next level. Other areas that were crucial to alleviating the fears of decision makers still remain, which makes it tough to project a definitive role for Harris at the next level, a major concern for somebody who will be just a few days shy of 24 years old on draft night. With that said, it's not out of the question that someone decides to take a flyer on him in the second round or in training camp, as he's a player who seemingly knows his role and would not look out of place as the second or third power forward on a team's roster.
