For nine NBA seasons, the latest guest on NBATV’s “#NBATogether” has been a solid player, who has gotten better and better. Despite that gradual improvement this Dix Hills, NY native has had over his career, for a while he just did not stick in one place moving from the Midwest to the Southeast, back to the Midwest, to the West Coast for a season and now back close to the Northeast part of the U.S. He grew up learning the game and about life from his father as well as being a well-rounded person, who took moving around a lot early on his NBA career and now has settled in the playing in the “City of Brotherly Love” hoping to aide in his team’s quest for an NBA championship.
The first question via video chat that NBA on TNT studio host and lead host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” Ernie Johnson asked Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris is what did his father Torrel teach him that he would never forget?
Mr. Harris taught his son, now 27 years old, who has played for the Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers and as mentioned now the 76ers from a young age to “respect yourself, respect others” and really work at whatever you want to achieve.
“My father was a basketball player, a basketball agent. First black man with an NBA license and NFL license to distribute and manufacture clothing,” Harris, who was chosen No. 19 overall by the then Charlotte Bobcats, now Hornets in 2011 draft added about what his father, who is his agent accomplished. “An amazing human being of faith. Always put faith first in everything that he did in life.”
“So, for myself, my brothers (Tyler, Terry, and Torrel, Jr.) and sisters (Tesia and Tori) it was taught as a young age to strive for whatever you wanted to get to. And he just taught me a really great groundwork of a base to become who I wanted to become. And from a young age I got that and I’ve been blessed, and really truly fortunate myself, brothers and sisters to have a father figure like my dad.”
Harris said about what makes having his father as his agent work is that he keeps a “really cool tone” when it comes to dealing with the “non-positives” of what he hears about his son from the front offices of the teams in the Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers and current with the aforementioned 76ers.
From the age of eight when he began playing basketball, when Harris said to Johnson that his dad has always been his agent. But he always told his, who always was “Michael Jordan” in his eyes the truth, and it is Harris who gives the real outlook of what he had to work on to be a better basketball player.
Having that back-and-forth where nothing is off limits and by having his dad, who also worked in the financial industry at one point in his life in his corner both as his agent and as his parent.
“So, it’s kind of like, it’s a collective thing that he brings to the table of having me understand where I’m at, and how to continue to push forward,” Harris said of what his dad is and the amazing skill set he is as an agent.”
It was Harris’ father that arranged for him to meet the six-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer of the Chicago Bulls at his last game at the New York Knicks gym of Madison Square Garden in New York, NY when he was playing for the Washington Wizards.
Harris attended that game with his dad and younger brother. Mr. Harris snuck his kids out from school early. Said that they were going to the gym. Took them to the game, and after the game Mr. Harris met with Jordan in the hallways of MSG and asked if he could autograph his kid’s basketball card. Jordan turned around and signed the card.
“It was a moment that I will never forget. We never forget,” Harris said of meeting Jordan and him autographing something for him. “And even watching ‘The Last Dance,’ it was like déjà vu of kind of the timing of everything and how it was. So, it was an amazing time to meet Michael Jordan.”
The unfortunate side of this story is that Harris said he lost the card MJ autographed, which he said that he had for a mere 60 minutes. But he said that it did not matter because he got to do something that very few people get to do and that is meet one of the greatest to ever play on the NBA hardwood.
Besides being a solid basketball player, Harris is a well-rounded person who has perspective that has been a major part in why he has had a solid NBA career to this point, despite not sticking in one place as mentioned early on in his NBA journey.
Earlier this month, he did a piece for “The Players’ Tribune” titled “Y’All Hear Us, But You Ain’t Listening” on June 3 where talked about how he went to schools that were mostly Caucasian and how he put a piece together talking about the systemic racism that our country is right in the grips of right now since the tragic death of George Floyd in late May by a Minneapolis, MN Policeman putting his knee on his neck.
Harris said that the piece was his thoughts and feelings about how those in law enforcement across this nation who killed unarmed minorities have not faced any consequences. How back in May when men with guns took to the steps of Michigan’s capitol to protest the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and President Donald Trump called them, “good people.” But when there are protest another African American life being taken unnecessarily, they are referred to as “Thugs.”
He also said that putting this story together took a true self-reflection of his own life. This moment that were in when it comes to dealing with systemic racism is when he was mentoring kids from kindergarten to First Grade one day while he was a member of the Orlando Magic (2013-16) and he asked one kids why he did not do his homework because his teacher asked Harris to pose that question to him?
The young man told Harris that the lights in his family’s home were not on after 5 p.m.
It suddenly hit Harris that a young man had a real circumstance that kid and what many kids, especially many minority children have to go through on a daily basis. That paled in comparison to the life Harris had growing up with a mother and father that always had solid paying jobs to pay for the electricity so that their children could do their homework and not have things like will they be able to have enough to eat or their parents have the income to pay the electricity bill to clog their ability to reach their full potential.
“For me, my potential wasn’t blocked,” Harris said of how he grew up. “It took me a while to grasp that but once I saw it first-hand and was able to kind of relate to it in a way of, ‘Wow. I understand what this kid is going through because I’m this dialogue and this conversation with them.”
Along with being able to go to the best schools growing up as well as play basketball at Half Hollow Hills West in Dix Hills, NY until 2008, then transferring to Long Island Lutheran Middle and High School in Brookville, NY for his junior year, and back to Half Hollow Hills West, Harris also had a great mentor in Hall of Famer George “Ice Man” Gervin, who he first met at around age seven, eight.
In their time together, Harris learned from Gervin the fundamentals of the game from proper footwork and how to shoot layups properly.
One thing that Harris said that he knew about Gervin was his immense love for basketball and that he loves teaching the game that he was exceptional at.
It was those same principles as Harris got older on that he held onto and grasp them in a “more detailed” way of incorporating his game with them.
“It’s been a true honor to be able to have George Gervin as a mentor, as a family friend and somebody that I can really call at anytime to get advice on in anything of life,” Harris said of being mentored by the legend of the San Antonio Spurs.
Amongst the advice Gervin Harris said he gave him was to enjoy your life and what you have.
It is a mentorship Harris has with Gervin that goes beyond the basketball court, which he also said that he relays to him to play the game with true joy. Compete at a high level every time you take the court. Enjoy everyone meaningful to you around you from your family and your friends.
Those moments are even more important when the sport that you play for a living like basketball can bring you to your knees crying tears of serious pain like when now Los Angeles Clippers perennial All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard hit the game-winning fallaway jumper right in front of the Toronto Raptors bench in Game 7 of the 2019 Eastern Conference Semifinals that sent the 76ers home short of their goal of reaching The Finals.
Harris saw up close the four-bounce game-winning jumper while he was trying to boxout All-Star center Marc Gasol.
In the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic, former teammate JJ Redick, now with the New Orleans Pelicans texted Harris and said that Leonard traveled on that last second shot.
When Harris got a chance to look at that play again, he agreed that Leonard, the 2019 Finals MVP of the eventual NBA champion Raptors that he took too many steps.
“Needles to say when he got to the baseline and he’s shooting this rainbow shot I was just like, ‘Na, no way,’” Harris said. “So, I was trying to get Marc off the board and when it bounced and the second bounce I was like, ‘All right, this is coming to me. I’m going to just go get it.’ And it just didn’t stop and it goes in, and I was like, ‘You gotta be kidding me?’”
“It was just unreal about how the trajectory of the basketball bounced like that. It’s hard to talk about.”
The 76ers had thought that whoever came out of the Eastern Conference last season was going to be holding the Larry O’Brien trophy, even though the five-time reigning Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors were still formidable before the eventual Achilles tear sustained by two-time Finals MVP of the now Brooklyn Nets Kevin Durant, and a calf strain prior to that.
Harris said that the 76ers wanted to be that team to come out of the East and Leonard’s shot shattered those dreams.
The Sixers hope to get another opportunity to win it all when the NBA restarts its season this summer at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, FL on July 31.
They are at 39-26 currently in the No. 6 spot in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, just two games behind the No. 4 Seeded Miami Heat.
There have been a number of players who have expressed their doubts of returning to play out the rest of this season because of their fears of catching COVID-19, especially with the spike in cases of the Coronavirus in Florida recently.
Other players like perennial All-Star guard Kyrie Irving, who is also the Vice President of the National Basketball Players’ Association (NBPA) and fellow perennial All-Star center Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers have expressed their feelings about not continuing the season because that it might take the focus away from the social unrest and social issues that need to remain in the consciousness of the country.
Harris said he has heard the opinions from his NBA brethren on all sides about the pandemic and the need for series police and social reform and believes that they are all valid. No one should have their feelings about what is going taken from them. It is all having an affect on the mental state of all of us, especially minorities that you cannot understand unless you are that individual.
“For me and my standpoint, I believe that if we are suited up to play, I’ll be ready to play,” Harris said about resuming this season with the 76ers in Disneyworld. “Like if my guys, my team is ready to play and I truly believe we have a chance to win a championship, I’m with my guys and I’m ready.”
Harris said that he has kept his mind in the state that the 2019-20 NBA campaign would resume at some point.
One of things that he has done since the NBA’s hiatus back on Mar. 11 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic is getting nine hours of sleep, which he said to Johnson is a part of his regiment even before the pandemic, which he has been getting plenty of during this pandemic. The only issue with that is when the team is on the road when the 76ers travel to different cities and they arrive late into the night.
“But I aim for eight to nine hours of sleep a night and I definitely feel great when I’m able to do it,” Harris said. “Sleep is the best form of recovery.”
During the pandemic though, Harris said he has been getting about eight hours of sleep, hitting the bed at 12:30 a.m., 1 a.m. But he has been getting plenty of naps in during the day. Once the season restarts, Harris said he plans to be getting to sleep by 10:30 p.m.
But does believe this is an important time to each NBA player to use their platform to produce real change.
The biggest platform that the players on the 22 teams, the eight playoff teams in the Eastern and Western Conference and the six teams that are on the within striking distance of being above the playoff line will be in Orlando to say this is what happened to the aforementioned George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and most recently Rayshard Brooks and why it cannot be permitted to continue.
It is a chance for Harris and those that come to Orlando for the restart of the season as a collective group a real opportunity on a national stage where everybody will be glued to their televisions and media devices and see how the players play on the hardwood and how they will demonstrate their feelings about what is happening to minorities at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve all of the public.
The players have been using their platforms recently from joining the protestors in their peaceful marches against police brutality.
No matter what the players decide to do, whether they go to Orlando to be a part of the restart or not, they all either individually and/or collectively have to take that next step and come to a consensus of what they really want to come out of this.
Harris said he wants justice to be served to those in law enforcement or Caucasians that harm or kill minorities they deem to be a threat when they have not done anything wrong. Also, the social equality of people being able to truly listen to others without first stating their own opinions.
Along with taking keeping the public informed about what is happening in our nation, the players once they get to Orlando have to know the protocols of keeping one another safe, which they got recently in a 100-page handbook about the rules and regulations of being on the Wide World of Sports campus in Orlando.
Harris said that he has read the handbook but he will let head coach Brett Brown and the top brass of the 76ers point out the main points that they need to follow while on campus.
One thing that Harris did point out that he saw in the handbook is the rule that no player can be in another players room. He said jokingly that while the team will be staying in the same hotel as the Dallas Mavericks and Harris said that his former teammate with the Clippers and 76ers Boban Marjanovic will be trying to communicate and hang out with him, which he will have hotel security keep the other half of tandem of the former social media mini-reality series “Bobi and Toby Show” apart.
At least Harris will be able to see someone and be within six feet of in Marjanovic, and that is something a lot of people who have lost someone of great significance because of this pandemic.
It is in moments like this that we all have to find something to lean on to give us a sense of hope that we all will make it out of this on the other side.
That is something Harris began when he tweeted @tobias31 in the early morning of Apr. 25, “Your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts.”
Harris said that his strongest thoughts now are positivity, to win an NBA title, mediate, which he does everyday when he wakes up, which allows him to go deep into his mind to figure out what kind of person he wants to be on that day.
“For me it’s really about love,” Harris said. “About having that light in the world to spread love. To really have people that you come into contact with just feel okay.”
“I think especially during these times with COVID-19, with everything going on in the world, it’s being able to really open up and really ask someone how they’re doing?”
It is something that Harris said he has asked people whether he is at the grocery store or simply coming into an interaction with somebody saying that while we are in a tough time in our world that is important to have a conversation, no matter if it just for a moment or longer. That at this time it matters greatly that each person to find the light in all of this darkness, while also standing up for what you believe in and be the person that will play a role in making serious change.
If there is anything that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has taught any of us that life is very fragile and that the difference between a lot us reaching our full potential and having to really dig in to get there is our circumstances that we grow up in.
Tobias Harris grew up in the greatest of circumstances with two loving hardworking parents, and a close-knit family of brothers and sisters who went to the best schools, receiving the best education you can ask for. He used that education and commitment to basketball to make it to the University of Tennessee and then the NBA.
Along for the ride has been Harris father Torrel, whose been his agent, biggest cheerleader and presence that has guided his son and given him an understanding to never take his talent for playing basketball for granted and his life experience of being a mentor to young kids has opened his mind to the understanding that not everyone grew up like him but he can have a seismic impact that can be the driving force they need to be as successful like him in whatever they want to do. They just have to put in the work on a daily basis, especially when it comes to getting an education and to always be kind to those you are around.
“I think education is the most vital thing in the world, especially for our youth,” Harris said. “Its’s having our youth educated in many different ways. I think that if I had to get to the root of it, there’s a lot of things in school systems and education that have been able to really hinder a lot success for a lot of young people. And I think that I want to be a part of that type of change where our young kids coming up understand that there is more, and here’s ways to achieve it. And I think that’s a big mission for myself.”
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 11/7/2018 www.slamonline.com story, “Bobi and Tobi Discuss Their Friendship, Online Show And More,” by Isaiah Freedman; 6/3/2020 www.theplayerstribune.com piece “Y’All Hear Us, But You Ain’t Listening,” by Tobias Harris; 6/20/2020 8 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson: Tobias Harris;” www.google.com; https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/harrito02.html; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Harris.
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