UVA alum Joe Harris is being traded to Detroit, ending his seven-year run with the Brooklyn Nets, who are in the midst of another teardown and rebuild.
Harris, a 2014 UVA alum, averaged 11.6 points per game in 432 games with the Nets, including a career-high 14.5 points per game in 2019-2020, and during his time with the team, he twice led the NBA in three-point shooting – in 2018-2019 (47.4 percent) and 2020-2021 (47.5 percent).
An ankle injury cut his 2021-2022 season to 14 games, and though Harris, a 2014 second-round pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers, appeared in 74 games for the Nets in 2022-2023, his playing time was significantly reduced – to 20.6 minutes per game, more than 10 minutes per game less than he averaged before the injury.
With the Nets trying to rebuild after the trades of stars James Harden, Kryie Irving and Kevin Durant, Harris, at 31, became expendable.
It’s basically a salary dump. The Nets had to send two down-the-road second-round picks to the Pistons, and are getting just a small amount of cash back – $110,000.
The trade creates a $19.9 million traded-player salary exception for the Nets, the value of Harris’ 2023-2024 salary.
Coinciding with the trade of Harris, the Nets re-signed former Pitt and UNC shooter Cam Johnson, who had been acquired in the trade of Durant to the Phoenix Suns, to a four-year, $108 million deal.
The signing of Johnson, 27, who averaged 16.6 points per game in Brooklyn after the mid-season trade from Phoenix, and the trade of Harris to Detroit for almost literally nothing is essentially a one-for-one swap.
Meanwhile, Harris, who is in the final year of the four-year, $75 million contract he signed in 2020, gives the rebuilding Pistons a year of a veteran sharpshooter with an expiring contract that creates cap space heading into the 2024-2025 offseason.
In four seasons at Virginia, Harris averaged 12.6 points per game, shooting 44.5 percent from the floor and 40.7 percent from three-point range.
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Chris Graham
