Nets get creative with Twitter video promoting Joe Harris for three-point contest
Nets forward Joe Harris, here against the Pelicans on Jan. 2, got to perform some tongue-in-cheek marksmanship in a Nets video promoting him as a candidate for the three-point contest during All-Star Weekend. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
TORONTO — Nets marksman Joe Harris, who ranks second in the NBA in three-point percentage, is proving he can shoot lights out and with the klieg lights on. Harris recently made a corner three for an NBA Productions video while wearing a blindfold, then filmed a hilarious promotional video with the Nets’ public relations department hyping him as a candidate for the three-point shooting contest on All-Star Weekend.
The NBA Productions video was based on the so-called “Bird Box challenge” related to the Netflix movie. But if you get points for creativity, the Nets’ video takes the cake. Harris visited everyday venues around Brooklyn such as a grocery store, where he tossed oranges into a shopping cart; a laundromat, where he threw clothes into a hamper, and a kitchen, where he tossed eggs into a hot frying pan.
“We went out in different parts of Brooklyn and had a lot of fun with it,” Harris said before the Nets faced the Raptors on Friday night at Scotiabank Arena.
“Those were the easier ones, the oranges into the grocery cart. [The eggs], we did that for real. The quarter into the tip jar is a little more difficult.”
The coin into a tip jar at a street vendor stand may have required special effects, but the finished product is nothing if not entertaining.
“I thought it was hilarious,” Harris said. “That was the whole point was to kind of make light of the situation and just have some fun with it.”
Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said he’d love to see Harris invited to the three-point contest. “What do I have to do? Do I have to carry a sign around Manhattan and Brooklyn?” Atkinson asked. “I just think it’d be wonderful for him. I’m on the bandwagon.”
Harris knows he’s not a marquee NBA name, but he’d welcome the opportunity if it came.
“It would be an honor,” he said. “But it would be more for the fun just to take part in the weekend festivities.”
Greg Logan has worked for Newsday since 1982 covering a wide array of sports and events, currently including the Brooklyn Nets beat.
