The joy Harris brought to Bayern fans almost wasn’t to be. Even though he is the product of a basketball family - both of his parents played professionally, Harris wasn’t interested in the sport at first.
"I don’t know why, but for some reason, soccer was my first love in a way," Harris said. "But after going to soccer practice once or twice, I realized that it’s not really my thing. Then after that, I went to basketball practices and slowly fell in love with it and stuck with it.
"My parents weren’t too sad about it either," he added.
Alongside basketball, Harris played another sport that looking back he credited for a lot of his physical development on the hardwood.
"I did [track and field] simultaneously with basketball for quite some time, but after basketball picked up and practices got more, I had to choose at the end of the day which one I’d like to do more,” Harris explained. “I think [track and field] really benefitted me, movement-wise. I didn’t specify in any one thing, I just did overall. As a kid, you do everything – long distance, jump, running, just everything. That helped me in a way towards athleticism and movement."
Harris said he started to take basketball more seriously as a pre-teen when, through the basketball federation in his state, he understood that he was not just one of the best players in his age group, but also among the better player in the class ahead of him. That inspired him to work even harder and chase his dream of becoming a professional. At that point, his parents’ guidance started to play an important role in his growth, especially when things would occasionally get tough.
"As a kid, it’s easy to quit if things don’t go your way. That’s one thing they taught me – just to fight through adversity and just stick with it because what happens a lot of time is kids don’t like it anymore, don’t like the coach, don’t like the system, don’t get enough playing time and they just want to quit. So that was never an option," Harris said. "They said if I want to play basketball, then I have to do it the right way. There are going to be ups, there are going to be downs. So that was really beneficial having them on my side."