Jazz Improve Perimeter Depth With Late Signing of Ex-Bull Harrison

The Jazz add defense and athleticism with a late signing (Photo via chicagobulls.com)

More than a week into training camp, the Jazz are still tweaking their roster. Utah reportedly added some perimeter depth by agreeing to terms with free agent guard Shaquille Harrison on Wednesday, per reports from Tony Jones and Shams Charania of The Athletic. The 6-foot-4 guard will shore up Utah’s rotation at point guard and on the wing.

This is an understated but shrewd move by Utah’s front office. Harrison has been a borderline rotation player in his three pro seasons and projects to have a similar deep bench role for the Jazz, so you’ll forgive the crew at ESPN if they don’t cut into regular programming to report this signing. But quietly, this was a clever addition that affords Utah more options for imagining how the back half of its rotation could look. 

Harrison can play some point guard, which means he can be an alternative to Nigel Williams-Goss as Utah’s emergency playmaker should Mike Conley or Donovan Mitchell miss time. He can also play on the wing, where his defensive abilities and an improving jump shot give the Jazz another 3-and-D option.

His raw stats are not much to write home about — 4.9 points and 2.0 rebounds last year — but he’s a plus-minus superstar, someone who played a small role but almost always gave the Bulls winning minutes. Offensively, he’s a wrecking ball, with strength and quickness to get to the rim for 59% of his shot attempts — an elite figure for a guard. He was a shaky shooter early in his career, but last season he brought his percentage up to 39% on catch-and-shoot threes. There are sample size concerns to be sure (only 33 attempts), but if he can keep that somewhere above 36% or so, then that’s good enough to end possessions as a spot-up shooter without dragging down the team’s efficiency.

Where he’ll really add value is on the defensive end of the court. He’s a frenetic and frisky defender who plays with a consistently high energy level. His steal rate (2.9%) and block rate (2.2%) are both elite for his positional grouping, and he’s an above-average rebounding guard as well. He’s in the 79th percentile for guarding plays that end with a P&R ball handler using the play, largely because he forces them to cough up the ball a remarkable 38% of the time. He’s a deflection machine, he’s good staying in front, and he’s just generally just going to annoy opposing ball handlers.

On the ball, he’s got great anticipation and seems to innately know when to use his quick hands.

As a helper, he has a nice understanding of where the ball is going. He reads opponent sets well and uses his athleticism to take measured risks at going after the basketball.

But some of his most impressive sequences have been as a lockdown guy at the point of attack. Watch here as he uses his body to deny even bigger wings their space. 

Now, the bad news: some smart offensive players have at times been able to use his aggression to get the better of him. Luka Doncic famously taunted Harrison after scoring 34 points in three quarters, largely against Shaq’s defense. And along those same lines, he can be a little foul-happy because of defensive aggressiveness. 

But overall, impact metrics paint the picture of a winning basketball player. Here is what Jason Patt, who covered Harrison in Chicago, had to say about the three-year vet.

[W]hile Harrison’s offense is limited, he brings legitimate value to the table on defense. His bulldog mentality on the defensive end is a thorn in the side of opposing guards, and any team could use that kind of spark on the back end of their roster.

Harrison’s defensive metrics are impressive. His 2.80 Defensive Real Plus-Minus places him 15th in the NBA, just a few places behind (fellow Bull guard Kris) Dunn. His Defensive RAPTOR just edges Dunn’s mark. His 4.9 deflections per 36 minutes and 2.3 loose balls recovered per 36 minutes rank toward the top of the league, per NBA.com’s hustle stats. He has always been good at racking up steals, and his block percentage also jumped this season.

Look, I’m a fan. All along, I had Harrison pegged all along as a nice low-cost target for the Jazz based on his great defensive impact numbers and his improving spot-up shot. The Jazz, it turns out, very much have a *type* when it comes to perimeter players in their rotation, and Harrison checks a lot of those boxes. It’s unclear whether he’ll get minutes right away or if he’ll merely replace Williams-Goss as an emergency fourth guard, but either way, the Jazz are getting a player who has shown an ability to impact games even in a small role. 

The Athletic’s John Hollinger had Harrison ranked as the seventh best free agent shooting guard before free agency began. Hollinger wrote of Harrison: “I think he’s the most underrated free agent in this class, somebody who might sign for the minimum or not much more but deliver significantly more value in a high-end bench role.” ESPN’s Zach Lowe put Shaq on his “Redeem Team,” a list of players he thinks are “better than they looked last season” and could be due for nice improvements in 2020-21.

So the Jazz potentially got a smart and cheap upgrade their options for reserve guard minutes.

Tax implications

Charania reports that this is a one-year deal for Harrison at the league minimum. That makes sense, since the league partially subsidizes one-year contracts for vets, but not multi-year deals. Harrison will earn $1,678,854 as a fourth-year player, but the Jazz will only have to pay $1,620,564 of that. That’s a small difference, but relevant since Utah is currently just above the luxury tax threshold, so those extra dollars would be even costlier. It’s unclear how much of Harrison’s contract is guaranteed, but I’m guessing the Jazz had to guarantee at least a chunk of it.

The Jazz were already going to have a hard time dodging the tax this year, and this deal doesn’t really change that. Harrison will count against the tax for exactly the same amount that Juwan Morgan would if the Jazz kept him all season, and only $102K and change more than Williams-Goss and Miye Oni will count. But since teams mostly have to keep their roster at a league-mandated minimum of 14 guys, it’s pretty unlikely the Jazz can evade the tax man without trading one of their main eight guys — something they obviously don’t want to do just weeks after brining Derrick Favors back to complement last seasons great 7-man core.

So unless they engage in some cap gymnastics at the trade deadline, it’s increasingly likely that the Jazz will pay the NBA’s luxury tax for the first time in club history.

If Harrison’s deal is indeed guaranteed, that brings Utah within $1.15M of the tax line with just 12 guaranteed contracts. Whichever guys they keep for the 13th and 14th roster spots — likely any two of Oni, Morgan or Williams — would trigger the tax. There is one way they could stay under without trading a major piece, but it would come with a competitive cost. (Warning: it’s about to get a little mathy.)

Teams are allowed to dip below 14 for up to two weeks at a time, so technically Utah could trade away whomever they view as their 13th and 14th men at the March 25 trade deadline. That means keeping only one of Harrison, Oni, Morgan and NWG past the deadline. Frankly, the Harrison signing might signal Utah’s readiness to move on from Williams-Goss, but in this cost-saving scenario they still have to send two players away out of Shaq/Oni/Morgan. During a playoff run. Not ideal.

Then, they’d have to wait the maximum amount of time before replacing them with 10-day contracts on April 8. When those 10-days ran out on April 17, they would again wait the maximum amount of time again to ink two more 10-day deals on May 1 (with the same players or different ones). That would get them to the end of the season legally. The two players they traded would come off their books completely, and the four 10-day contracts they’d sign at strategic moments would cost them a total of $444K, keepting them barely below the tax threshold of $132.6M. 

But that would mean sending away two players they ostensibly like, and heading into the stretch run of the season with a compromised bench. Having to dump two of Harrison/Oni/Morgan in late March just to fudge the tax is less than idea from a competitive standpoint. Although in fairness, Utah barely used its 13th and 14th men last season, so perhaps that is palatable to them depending on how those guys’ seasons go.

That’s a lot of spreadsheet gymnastics, but it also has an impact to what’s actually available to Quin Snyder as the Jazz approach the playoffs. It’s just as likely that Utah will monitor the market value of players elsewhere on the depth chart — or that they’ll just bite the bullet and pay the tax. Even if they end the year over the tax by a just few hundred thousand, they’ll miss out on millions of dollars of disbursements from the league. So those 13th and 14th roster spots could actually wind up costing the Jazz literally millions.

Rotation implications

It will be interesting to see how the pecking order lands among Harrison, Oni, Morgan, Georges Niang and even rookies Udoka Azubuike and Elijah Hughes. The Jazz have a pretty clear top eight, but Snyder likes to use a 9-man rotation. That means there is likely a 12-16 minute rotation role available for one of those deep bench guys, as well as spot duty for others when needs arise due to injuries, struggles, foul trouble and whatever else.

It’s pretty likely that the battle for that 9th man spot is rather fluid, and that we’ll see different guys play their way into regular minutes over the course of the season. Sometimes Harrison or Oni will win those minutes, which means playing smaller and pushing someone like Royce O’Neale to the 4. Other times, Niang or Morgan might play his way past him, making the Jazz bigger and pushing O’Neale back to the win.

But they have more options now because of the Harrison signing, and I suspect his pesky defense will make it hard for Snyder not to play him. Jazz folks have also been raving about Oni’s and Morgan’s progress during camp. so there are definitely some interesting questions to ponder as it relates to Utah’s 9-through-14 depth. Harrison makes that process all the more interesting, and gives Snyder more options as far as how to flex those bench lineups.