3. Mo Harkless
It feels like Mo Harkless is a 15-year vet at the end of his career, but he’s surprisingly only 27 years old. The current Miami Heat benchwarmer is averaging a career-low 10 minutes per game, stuck behind a litany of good wing players in Erik Spoelstra’s rotation.
Coupled with his contract being worth $3.6 million over one year, Harkless is the first player on this list who should be relatively easy to acquire through buy-out or trade.
Despite being an above-average defender his whole career, Harkless had a down defensive year in 2019-20 by his lofty standards, ranking in the 53rd percentile according to BBall Index’s new defensive LEBRON metric. However, he was a dominant defender in Portland the two seasons prior, grading in the 92nd and 85th percentile those two years.
On the Trailblazers, Harkless was truly a swiss-army knife on defense, spending approximately equal time defending shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards. In an NBA that’s becoming increasingly positionless, having the ability to guard Kevin Durant and James Harden on the same possession is invaluable.
He’s not an over-the-hill 35-year-old veteran, so there’s no reason for Harkless’s athleticism to have declined. Therefore within the right system and scheme, it’s easy to envision him as a plus defender again.
Harkless isn’t a consistent outside shooter but is only two seasons removed from a 41.5% mark from distance with Portland. Over the last 5 seasons, he’s been a 34.9% three-point shooter, not particularly impressive, but far more respectable as a floor-spacer than both Dunn and Young.
While I think the former two are better defenders than Harkless, I think he’s a more realistic target for the front-office to pursue. His price and versatility should firmly entrench him on Rob Pelinka’s radar.