Gary Harris spent the first sixteen games of the season fading into offensive irrelevance at the end of the bench. When a veteran guard refuses to look at the rim, the hidden cost is a stagnant half-court offense forced to play four-on-five. Look at the 12/06 vs PHI disaster. Harris logged 21 empty minutes, attempting just a single shot for zero points and dragging his team down with a catastrophic -16.7 Impact. Even his highest-scoring night on 11/15 vs CHA yielded a negative return. Despite an efficient 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting in 23 minutes, his complete lack of playmaking—registering zero assists—kept his overall Impact at a negative -1.7. He occasionally salvaged his shifts through peripheral hustle. During a scoreless outing on 11/30 vs BKN, he crashed the glass for 5 rebounds and dished 4 assists to keep his Impact at a manageable -3.3, but grit alone cannot mask his vanishing scoring touch.

This 16-game stretch was defined by Gary Harris becoming an absolute offensive ghost off the bench. Look no further than his brutal outing on 12/12 vs BOS, where he logged 33 minutes but failed to score a single point on 0-for-3 shooting, resulting in a disastrous -14.6 Impact score. When a veteran guard plays over a half-hour without generating any scoring gravity, the floor shrinks for his teammates, heavily penalizing his overall value. He occasionally found a brief rhythm, like on 12/27 vs MEM when he tallied a stretch-high 8 points on perfect 3-of-3 shooting. That rare burst of efficiency earned him a +3.8 Impact score, revealing that he can still be a net positive when he actually looks at the rim. Unfortunately, those moments were fleeting anomalies in a sea of passivity. By the time he posted zero points and zero field goal attempts in 11 minutes on 12/22 vs MIN for a -12.1 Impact score, it was obvious his extreme reluctance to shoot was bleeding the second unit dry.