In case you haven't heard by now, Philadelphia sports fans will boo when they're unhappy with the performance of their players. They're not alone in doing so, and yet a lot of national scrutiny is angled their way when these stories develop. There's Ben Simmons. There's Jalen Reagor. There are seemingly more examples in Philly than anywhere else, and the majority of the time, the subsequent reaction is a plea to stop how they're acting.
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In the latest case, the opposite occurred.
76ers forward Tobias Harris, who fits the bill as a "solid player on a max contract," had another poor display of shooting in the first half of Monday night's game against the Rockets in Philadelphia, and the fans let him hear it. After all, with the team trailing after the first half and Harris's -5 plus/minus ranking as the worst on the team after a 3-10 shooting performance, there was little to commend him for. But instead of asking fans to stop, Tobi took another route.
Harris had a stronger performance in the second half — as did the 76ers as a whole — with a 3-5 shooting performance and a +25 plus/minus in the box score. One of those made shots was a turnaround jumper to extend Philly's lead to 16 points, and the crowd reacted with cheers... which apparently wasn't what Harris wanted to hear, reacting with an NSFW response.
While we didn't get to hear Doc Rivers' take on the matter, as he is still in COVID-19 protocols, acting head coach Dan Burke discussed how Harris responded to the initial boos with a little bit of surprise.
"He really leads by example — not very vocal. So when I saw him raise his hands when they were booing … we talked about it at halftime: The only thing that matters is what’s in that locker room and who’s in that locker room," Burke said (via Noah Levick of NBC Sports). "Part of where we have to grow, from my experience last year, is our focus. Shut out that noise. When we’re between those lines, it can’t be the officials, it can’t be the fans, it can’t be anything like that. So we talked about it at halftime."
Joel Embiid, on the other hand, didn't think as though the interaction between Harris and the fans was worth too much time exploring, saying that he thought it was "nothing." After all, he's not exactly a stranger to stories like this one.
"Two years ago I did the same thing, so it’s whatever. But like I always say, fans are going to be fans," Embiid said. "It doesn’t matter if we just went on a 15-0 run. If the other team scores, they’re going to boo. That’s Philly. I love it. And like I always say, if you give it, you’ve got to to be able to take it, too. I did that in the past and it’s all fun. It’s nothing. It’s nothing special."
With that said, Embiid is just a bit more productive on the floor than Harris is. When it's all said and done and his career has come to a close, Embiid could very well be on the franchise's Mount Rushmore. Harris? Not so much, considering he's raking in nearly $80 million over the next two seasons but doesn't quite have the numbers to back that up. Since the start of December, he's shooting an unimpressive 41.5 percent from the field and 25 percent from deep. He averaged 16.8 points during the month of December, which is fine... but is a little less "fine" when you consider that it ranks outside the top 60 in the league in that span, all while making a top-15 amount of money.
And when this is the case, Philadelphia will boo. You can guarantee that. We'll just have to see how he deals with it and whether or not his play can return to a level that will satisfy the ravenous fan base.
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