Reggie Jackson and Tobias Harris spent their off-seasons in opposite corners of the country – Jackson in Southern California, Harris back home on Long Island – but news travels far and fast on the NBA grapevine.

So Jackson heard all about the impressive body of work Harris logged over the summer and expects him to have a big year in his first full season with the Pistons.

“Coach came to me and raved about how well he thinks Tobias is going to be able to shoot it this season,” Jackson said. “It’s looking good to date. Hopefully he keeps it up. He’s always in here, one of the hardest workers on the team. He is always trying to get better.”

The Pistons field one of the NBA’s youngest starting lineups and have any number of breakout candidates this season – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Andre Drummond and Stanley Johnson, all 23 or younger, leap to mind – but don’t forget that Harris only recently turned 24. From Stan Van Gundy on down, there’s the sense that the best of Harris has yet to be seen but is right around the corner.

Harris focused on improving his 3-point shooting during daily summer workouts, on handling the ball with either hand and on his conditioning and his body. To hone his stroke, he spent time working with fellow Tennessee Vol alum Dale Ellis, one of the NBA’s greatest shooters during his 17-year career. In an attempt to improve his flexibility, Harris got on a five-days-a-week yoga regimen. He’s never been in better shape, in a more stable NBA environment or a better frame of mind entering a season.

It might have been jarring to be traded seven months after signing a four-year contract to stay in Orlando, as Harris was last winter, but it gave him the season’s final 27 games to get acclimated with the Pistons. He now returns along with all four other starters and the entire young core of the roster Van Gundy and general manager Jeff Bower have cobbled together.

“That’s a good feeling when you can really just focus on basketball, focus on your role, on how you can help the team. Those have been my big focuses all summer in working out – not for myself, but to come back here and be ready for all the guys that I’m going to be around and be ready to go to war with these guys when we start playing. That’s a good feeling to see it back from the guys and to know this is a spot where everybody cares and wants to help each other.”

Harris had such a rewarding final one-third of the season after the Pistons sent Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova to Orlando at the trade deadline that he aggressively sold the Pistons to an old friend and teammate, Jon Leuer, in free agency.

“I think the best thing about our team is we have good character guys and guys who really care about winning and care about each other,” Harris said.

Despite his youth, Harris is already entering his sixth NBA season – time enough for him to understand the value of team chemistry and appreciate the benefits of a roster filled with players of a single mind. This is the first year, he says, where his team has returned its entire starting lineup plus key reserves.

“With the guys we have coming back and the guys we added, it’s a good blend,” Harris said after a group voluntary workout this week at the team’s Auburn Hills practice facility. “Now it’s how we continue to build and to gain chemistry. I came on pretty much halfway through the year and it was trying to speed up the process of chemistry, but now we’re getting a lot of time to be here and work together. We communicated a lot throughout the summer, have fun, joke around, group text and stuff like that. Those types of things go a long way. Interacting with each other now, all this stuff adds up. The tighter we are as a team, the better bond we have as a team, that’ll push us through all these games.”

Jackson’s pick-and-roll game with Andre Drummond remains the foundation of Van Gundy’s offense, but Harris figures to be a prominent part of the attack given his size, shooting range and ability to score off the dribble. That’s a pretty potent package and the expectation is that Harris is poised for his best NBA season yet.

“He showed last year he can put up baskets in a hurry,” Jackson said. “Guys better be ready to run out to him and the scary thing about that is if you run out and get too off balance, he can get into his one-dribble pull-ups. Off of bad closeouts, he can get to the rim and finish or make plays for his teammates. We understand the base of our offense is pick and roll to get downhill in the paint, but the way he’s shooting it I won’t be surprised if he has some big nights this year.”