Long before Jason Kidd was intentionally spilling drinks on the court to give his team an extra timeout at the end of a game, Del Harris was pulling the same move. How do we know? Mark Cuban reminded us.
The Dallas Mavericks owner tweeted a link to a video of Harris spilling a drink with 2.9 seconds left in overtime of a Mavericks-Chicago Bulls game in the 2008-2009 NBA season. The situation was almost identical — Dirk Nowitzki was at the line and made a free throw to put the Mavs up 114-111. Harris, then an assistant coach with the Bulls, spilled his drink to ice Dirk and give his team some extra time. Kidd was a guard on the Mavs at the time and must have taken note of the move.
Harris told ESPN’s Marc Stein he estimates he used the move three or four times during his career without ever being fined. He told Stein that Kidd’s big mistake was his poor acting skills.
“Jason has got to understand that I have been a SAG member for 17 years. You have to learn how to look sorry for clumsiness instead of clever,” Harris joked to Stein.
Harris wasn’t joking about his SAG membership; he got his SAG card by playing himself in “Space Jam.”
And now that we know Frank Drebin Del Harris of all people pulled off this move, it makes Kidd look less impressive for his creativity.
