The Josh Hart Mystery

What do y'all think is happening with Josh Hart? I can think of several scenarios:

1) A tentative deal to send Hart to another team in a sign-and-trade is already in place, but that deal has been held up by something else (maybe on the other team's end).

2) Griffin is still trying to negotiate such a deal.

3) Hart was unable to get any offers that were attractive enough, so he's going to sign the $5.2 million qualifying offer and become a UFA after this season (this seems unlikely to me).


Josh Hart came to the Pelicans enthusiastically in the Lakers trade. David Griffin had three offers for Hart that year for picks between 20 and 30 in the first round, but Hart asked Griffin to keep him.

Hart has been tough and physical, and he plays hard every night, but there's some evidence that he has recently soured on the franchise. He and JJ Redick share the same agent, and Redick said that his agent would never trust David Griffin again. Hart also made a couple of social media posts indicating that he was unhappy with how we treated Redick. There was also the bit at the beginning of last season where he expressed disappointment that he couldn't get time last summer with Fred Vinson to work on his shot.

I would say that Josh Hart has a very limited role in our offense. His one-man fast breaks are legendary, but all he can do in the halfcourt is shoot 3s at a 33% rate ... and we have other players who can do that significantly better.

Defensively, he's an elite rebounder for his position -- both of the last two years, he's been in the top 5 non-big players for total rebound percentage. He's tough and willing to dive for loose balls, but he is only an average on-ball defender.

Overall, according to Cleaning the Glass, Hart had an on/off differential of negative 0.7 points per 100 possessions, meaning that we were better off last season with him off the court than on it. Hart's other advanced stats are mixed: positive VORP and WS, but a negative BPM.

I really believe that we have replaced Hart and don't have much use for him. Sato is a better offensive player who can play 1-3, and Naji and Didi are better defenders. When we talk about the primary backup SF for Ingram, I would really like that to be Trey Murphy.

Last season, I really liked for Hart to play with Jaxson, because Hart made up for Jaxson's poor rebounding, but I think that Jaxson is gong to improve his strength and rebounding this offseason (assuming his legal issues are resolved, blah, blah, blah).

Even though he is only 26, I also felt that he was a valuable veteran presence last season, injecting some intensity and grit into the team, but I now feel that we replaced that with Garrett Temple.

I have personally come around to the opinion that our front office extended the $5.2 million QO this offseason strictly to work a S&T and get something back for Hart. I think a team like Sacramento could really use his toughness and grit, so I still like the idea of using him in a Hield trade, but we'll see.