After questions about whether 6-foot-8, 217-pound Taurean Prince was too small to handle power forward, now he’s being used at center. After Joe Harris came into the NBA as a shooting guard, now the Nets are deploying him as a stretch four.
Welcome to the new NBA.
“I think the way the NBA is sort of shifting, there’s a lot of like sizes in this locker room, a lot of guys that are capable of guarding bigger players,” Harris said. “A lot of it is coming back, rebounding, being able to understand the coverages when you are in a four or five position.”
Harris got some time late in Sunday’s game at power forward in a small-ball lineup with Prince at center. Kenny Atkinson used it to combat Memphis deploying Jaren Jackson Jr. at the five spot. But it doesn’t sound like a one-off.
“I liked it. It’s something we’ll look at,” Atkinson said. “I think you’ll see games, with as many good perimeter players as we have, there’s going to be different guys in there. Sometimes, we go super small with Taurean at the five. We need that in our package.”
It does put a greater rebounding burden on the entire lineup, with Prince likely closer to 6-6 than his listed height. But on defense, it lets the Nets switch, and on offense, it forces teams to chase Prince and opens up space for Kyrie Irving to drive.
“It allows us to switch one through five when Taurean’s out there at the five. We’ve got to do a better job rebounding as a unit when he’s at the five, but I think it can work for us,” Caris LeVert said.
“It allowed [Irving and LeVert] to have a lot of space, attack downhill,” Harris said. “It seemed like they both did a good job [Sunday] to be able to get into the paint, make plays for themselves and teammates.”
Harris’ .429 career 3-point percentage passed Steve Nash for 10th all-time and he is almost in a virtual tie with Kyle Korver.
“Obviously that’s the goal when you come into the NBA,” Harris said. “I was pretty self-aware as to what type of player I was going to be and which guys I was trying to emulate and play like.
“Korver, that’s a guy I watched a lot of film of as somebody I tried to really model my game after. But … he’s played for a long time and been consistent. I think he might be in his 16th, 17th season, so that’s the ultimate goal. Obviously right now I’m only in my sixth year and I’m just trying to be as consistent a player for as long as I can.”
