Stan Van Gundy worries about Tobias Harris the way parents worry about the kid who gets straight As, does all his household chores and volunteers at the local soup kitchen on weekend mornings.

He worries that Harris is so worry-free he doesn’t pay enough attention to him.

“I talk to him for 20 seconds every day. ‘How you doing this morning? How do you feel’ ” Van Gundy said. “He’s so low maintenance and so professional that you never end up talking to him. He comes in and does the same stuff every day. He’s doing his work and there’s never an issue, never a problem.”

Harris averaged 15.3 points, leading the Pistons, in 29 minutes a game and made half of his shots in a preseason where he was Van Gundy’s steadiest, surest thing.

None of that elicited the slightest surprise from anyone. Nobody had a better summer than Harris. Van Gundy saw it coming after dropping in on him in August and hearing reports prior to that of how hard Harris was pushing himself and how surgically he had zeroed in on boosting elements of his game he felt needed work. Harris arrived in Auburn Hills feeling immensely comfortable in his surroundings after joining the Pistons at the February trade deadline and expecting a career year.

“Consistent level, even-keeled attitude,” he said of his expectations and approach. “I just try to, every single game, evaluate how could I get better, how our team can get better and taking those steps forward to be the best team and really help us all flourish out there on the floor together.”

Harris and Marcus Morris, another player Van Gundy has found to be consummately professional, give the Pistons two versatile, interchangeable forwards that give Van Gundy wide latitude to tinker offensively and defensively. They present matchup problems for opponents and allow the Pistons to switch defensive assignments without fear of getting burned in mismatches.

Harris – still just 24 despite entering his sixth NBA season – is a threat at all three levels offensively. He shot .375 from the 3-point line with the Pistons last season, already above the league average, and made improvement a major summer focus. He’s got a sophisticated post-up game, a highly effective mid-range shot and is a skilled enough ballhandler that Van Gundy intended to make use of Harris in pick-and-roll situations even before Reggie Jackson was lost to injury for perhaps the first quarter of the regular season.

He’s prepared to shoulder whatever Van Gundy puts on him, aware everyone will have to a do a little more heavy lifting to make up for Jackson’s absence. But Harris isn’t thinking of it in terms of ascending to Jackson’s role as leading scorer.

“We have talked about it as a team and put in a bunch of stuff to have me and Marcus, also, get a little bit more play calls, a little bit more touches in certain areas,” he said. “Coach has told us to stay aggressive in a lot of those areas on the court, but I think our biggest asset as a team is moving the basketball side to side and getting a lot of mismatches, getting teams on the run and being able for them to guard us like that. That’s going to be key for us as we start the season.”

Because Van Gundy has a power forward behind Harris he views as more than just an 18-minute-a-game option to play when Harris sits in Jon Leuer, Van Gundy also wants Harris to be equally familiar with and ready to play at small forward. That, too, is just fine with Harris despite the significant differences within Van Gundy’s defensive schemes in those two spots.

“I was used to it when I got here last year. Even before, in Orlando, I played three/four, so I understand the terminology, the defensive calls,” he said. “You’ve just got to do your extra homework on the guys you’re defending.”

And if there’s anyone on the team Van Gundy knows will get all his homework done – on time and with great thought – it’s Harris.

“He really is a highly professional guy,” he said. “You’re never going to have to worry about being ready and never going to have to worry about his taking care of his body. You’re never going to have to worry about any of that stuff. So that’s a great thing.”