Having dinner at home with family and friends in Chelan, Washington, Joe Harris heard from his agency that his name was about to be called during Thursday night’s NBA Draft. The Virginia Cavalier star tried to hide the news for a moment from those gathered at his home but there was a small problem. ESPN was in a commercial break and Harris was just too excited to keep his cool.
“My agent shot me text and gave me a call letting me know Cleveland was taking me. I didn’t say anything to anybody in the room, I just kind of kept it to myself,” Harris said. “It went to commercial break. I was pretty happy and everybody could tell the excitement and stuff on my face so I let them know that Cleveland was going to pick me. It came back from commercial break and they called my name. That was pretty cool.”
Yes with the 33rd pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Cleveland made a Cavalier to Cavalier connection by selecting Harris. “It’s pretty funny. I’ve gotten a lot of messages and stuff from family and friends saying ‘Once a Cavalier, always a Cavalier,'” Harris said. That made Harris the first UVa player selected since Mike Scott in 2012 (No. 43 by the Atlanta Hawks) and the highest UVa selection since Roger Mason Jr. in 2002 (31st by the Chicago Bulls).
Mason went on to play for multiple NBA teams and is currently vice president of the NBA Players Association, but as a second round pick nothing is guaranteed. Harris expected to speak with team officials again Friday to discuss the next step, which likely will be a spot with Cleveland’s summer league team in Las Vegas from July 11-21.
For Harris, however, that fits right into his driven personality that got him to NBA Draft night in the first place. When he was younger, he wrote motivational tidbits on his wall in marker. Among the goals in life scribbled on his Chelan walls were phrases like “become a pro,” “prove people wrong,” and “dedication.”
“I’m really excited for the opportunity. There’s nothing guaranteed. There’s a lot to prove, a lot for me to prove to the organization, the team, my teammates,” Harris said. “I’m excited to get going. I’m going to get right to work. This is not something that you can settle and be satisfied. I know I have a lot of areas and room to improve, a lot of things I need to work on.”
“I think I have a unique skill set. … I’m going to come in and be extremely hungry and try to be an extremely solid role player at the next level,” Harris added. “I’m very understanding of that. I don’t think too highly of myself but at the same time I don’t think too lowly of myself. I’m just very excited for this opportunity. I’m excited to prove to Cleveland, my teammates, the organization, and everybody that they made the right decision in picking you with the picks they have. I’m excited to get to work and try to help this organization win some games.”
That’s part of what drew the NBA Cavaliers to Harris too. General Manager David Griffin said that the front office liked his demeanor and work ethic as well as his ability to shoot. None of which is surprising to Virginia Cavalier fans who saw Harris play through a broken hand as a sophomore and finish second all-time to only Curtis Staples in 3-pointers made. With David Blatt, who played at Princeton, now the coach, Harris could carve out a niche with those toughness and shooting skills.
“Joe Harris is a very good complementary piece for us as a shooter, somebody we had rated very highly, much higher than 33 overall, and somebody we believe is one of the better if not the best shooter in this draft off of screens, screen action, and movement. That’s also a big part of what Coach Blatt likes to do. So from a fit standpoint he’s ideal. From a human standpoint, from a working standpoint he’s going to be everything we want our culture to be about. Very, very similar maybe to a [Matthew] Dellavedova. An overachieving, gritty kid who’s going to leave everything he has on the court.”
Harris will also bring a team-first, unselfish attitude to the Cleveland culture. After earning first-team All-ACC honors as a junior while averaging 16.3 points per game, Harris didn’t mind when his usage percentage and scoring went down as a senior to 12.0 points. That sacrifice of shots and spotlight was a major reason UVa won its first outright ACC Regular Season Championship since 1981 and its first ACC Tournament title since 1976.
Virginia coach Tony Bennett told reporters several times throughout the season that that unselfishness from a leadership standpoint played a huge role in that team success. It may have deterred some teams from picking Harris on Thursday night, but the UVa star never worried that it would impact his professional career while playing for the Hoos.
“I didn’t worry about it at all to be honest. I felt like I did a pretty good job of not looking too far ahead of things or worrying about things that are really out of your control,” Harris said. “What I worried about during the season was winning games and trying to help Virginia and our team have success in whatever way that was possible. A lot of teams did have a question mark as to why I didn’t produce as much from a statistical standpoint as the last year, but I think the teams that didn’t have question marks and really believed in me and what they think I’m capable of going forward showed the most interest like the Cleveland Cavaliers.”
As a result of that belief from Cleveland, which Harris has “never really experienced” as a city other than his workout trip, the Wahoo standout is now in the middle of one of the NBA’s biggest offseason stories. LeBron James, an Akron native, opted out of his contract with the Miami Heat and will be in search of a new contract this summer. While that could land him back in South Beach, there have been rumors flying for months about James returning to Cleveland where he started his NBA career just miles from his hometown.
Harris, who called the whole draft experience hard to believe and overwhelming, had not given much thought to the LeBron James storyline.
“It hits you so hard. It’s hard to even believe it’s happening so I haven’t had a chance to sit back and soak it all in to think about stuff like that,” Harris said. “The next couple of days it will sink in, especially when I get a chance to go to Cleveland and discuss with the team what is going on and what kind of moves they’re making. I really haven’t given a whole lot of thought to that.”
Note: It looks like Virginia’s Akil Mitchell, who was not drafted, will be with the Houston Rockets during the NBA Summer League.
Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and best wishes for the draft! Can't wait to get down to Houston and get to work!
— Akil Mitchell (@ajmitchell25) June 27, 2014
