BK 50
JOE HARRIS
Brooklyn Nets guard/forward
Jun 16, 2022
In January 2019, the Brooklyn Nets made a video to promote Joe Harris, who was being considered for inclusion in that year’s NBA three-point shooting contest. It showed him demonstrating his shooting prowess — in humorous fashion — throughout his day-to-day life: He shot his clothes into a laundry basket, a couple of eggs into a frying pan and some oranges into a shopping cart in a market. In the middle of the montage, he ordered some food from an empanada truck near the Barclays Center. The message: This Joe is just a regular Joe.
Harris would go on to win the three-point contest and establish himself as one of the best sharpshooters in the game. But he was already a fan favorite — in part because of his hustle and skills on the court, and in part because of his wholehearted embrace of living in Brooklyn.
For several years now, Harris has been known as the Net who rides the subway to practice with a backpack. The New York Times called him an “accidental hipster” who blends into local coffee shops with a beanie and facial hair.
He represents the ethos of a scrappy team that steadily rose from the doldrums to the talk of the league. Even after the roster became packed with big-name superstars like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, and after he scored himself a four-year, $72 million contract, Harris has stayed grounded in Brooklyn. Just before this past season, he gave Grub Street an eating diary for a typical week in the borough — name-checking restaurants in Prospect Heights (Prospect Butcher Co.), Boerum Hill (Rucola), Park Slope (Miriam) and Clinton Hill (Mekelburg’s).
It’s rare for a marquee professional to be seen walking around a big city neighborhood so often. But not all athletes get to live on Vanderbilt Ave., where, in his words, “It’s not hard to eat at a new spot every night.”