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Tobias Harris’ tenure with the Philadelphia 76ers has not gone as well as either he or the team hoped when they acquired him from the Clippers in a trade in 2019 and proceeded to give him a max contract the next summer while Jimmy Butler walked to Miami.
For two years in Detroit and Los Angeles, Harris had become one of the league’s most efficient wing scorers, shooting over 40 percent from three and over 48 percent from the field, which is why he became a coveted trade target for both the Clippers in the Blake Griffin trade and then the Sixers the year after. His first two years in Philly were rocky, but he had his best season with the Sixers last year when he seemed to regain his form under a familiar coach in Doc Rivers, shooting 51.2 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from three. That produced optimism that he could be that second or third star next to Joel Embiid, but he hasn’t come close to replicating that so far in 2021-22.
Harris is shooting just 45 percent from the field and a woeful 28.7 percent from three, posting his worst effective field goal percentage (48.5) since his rookie year in Milwaukee. Unsurprisingly, that has not endeared him to the Philly faithful, who have let him know how they feel about his struggles in the form of boo birds at home. That all came to a head on Monday night when he got booed going to the locker room after a poor close to the half against a bad Rockets team, which led to Harris gesturing to the crowd to boo him louder.
In the second half, after the Sixers pulled away from Houston, Harris hadn’t forgotten the boos and after a made bucket in the fourth quarter you could see him on the broadcast telling fans “don’t f**king clap.”
Tobias w a lil grown man bucket followed by what looks like,
“Don’t f***ing clap. Don’t f***ing clap.” pic.twitter.com/RfR72I1jYw
— Brock Landes (@LandesBrock) January 4, 2022
It’s not what you want to see if you are the Sixers, and it’s clear that the response from the home crowd is frustrating Harris. Philly crowds are not shy about giving it to anyone struggling on the home team, but it’s pretty obvious that Harris isn’t feeling the love when it comes his way after a positive play when he’s getting lit up for bad ones on the same night.
