AUGUST 19: Hart’s new contract with the Pelicans is now official, per NBA.com’s transactions log.
AUGUST 16: The Pelicans are nearing an agreement to re-sign restricted free agent wing Josh Hart, Hart’s agents at CAA inform Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Woj reports that the contract will be a three-year, $38MM deal. New Orleans had Hart’s Bird rights, so no cap room maneuvering or exceptions are necessary to make the deal work.
The 6’5″ wing was part of the loaded package of young players and draft picks that arrived in New Orleans in the deal that sent All-Star big man Anthony Davis to the Lakers in the summer of 2019.
Hart, 26, was selected with the No. 30 pick in the 2017 NBA draft out of Villanova. He spent his first two seasons in Los Angeles, showing promising flashes as an intriguing two-way swingman.
Hart has seen his touches on offense improve as a reserve for the Pelicans from his tenure in Los Angeles. During his most recent season in 2020/21, Hart appeared in 47 of 72 possible contests. Across 28.7 MPG, he averaged 9.2 PPG on 43.9% shooting with 8.0 RPG, 2.3 APG and 0.8 SPG.
Hart will be the Pelicans’ 15th player on a guaranteed contract, which means that power forward Wenyen Gabriel, currently on a non-guaranteed $1,762,796 contract for the 2021/22 season, looks like the odd man out.
Woj adds that the deal looks set to be concluded soon. Will Guillory of The Athletic echoes this sentiment, tweeting that “a few details” in the contract still need to be finessed.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
@alex, you spelled Sixers wrong :(
This is great news for my Pels, Josh Hart is such an important part of the Pelicans future success. Hart is not as talented as Zion or BI but make no mistake he is the heart (no pun intended) and soul of this team. I always say every team needs a Josh Hart and we got him, also is it me or do Naji Marshall look like a Josh Hart 2.0? I’m talking about the way he hustles and play D now we have two dirty work players who plays awesome defense. I can’t wait to see how Willie Green utilizes these players on his defensive minded team, it’s going to be very interesting.
As a Lakers fan you could always see it but those Lakers teams were hard to excel and show out on –
It’s interesting that I’ve heard that NO wanted Hart in the AD package over Kuzma but also Lakers wanted to Keep Kuzma more than Hart…. somebody was lying ! I just wonder who, not that it matters now, personally Ida told LAL to give me both or lose my number and then gotten Kuzma as well 5 mins later when Lakers obliged !
He seems like a good role player on a winning team rather than a stat collector on a bad team. Gotta appreciate that today as most players seem to think about #1 first second and third
Great! Nice organization
Ball = $85M
Graham + Hart = $85M
Graham $47M
Hart $38M
Who are better?
Could have used kept Ball and Hart. That would have been best case scenario. There is no reason to be paying Satoransky and McGruder that much money. Griff should be fired.
I liked Lonzo Ball especially after Fred Vinson fixed his jump shot but come on man not at $20 mill a year. Besides Ball wanted out of NOLA so they had to get something for him. And let’s face it during clutch time Lonzo was fricking horrible and late in games his FT shooting disappeared. Now that’s the difference between Ball and new PG Devonte’ Graham, Graham is extremely better in clutch time than Ball and late in games he’s a much better FT shooter. Do y’all remember how many close games we lost, how many games we lost leading in the final minutes last season? If we were better in clutch time last year we make the playoffs. So Ball is out and Graham and Satoransky is in and at 6-7 he gives us some of the things we lost with Ball, now I’m not saying Sat is better than Ball because he’s not but I think the way Willie Green coach players who didn’t play defense before will play defense now.
Actually not a half bad point.
The guy needs 3 agents?
Josh Hart signing for three years is the best Pelican related news in a long time. Class guy with strong basketball skills who plays with a consistently great energy that the team needs. Now, hopefully he will take more of a leadership role moving forward.
But let Ball go tô Chicago, so who cares?
A lineup of Graham, BI, Hart, Zion, JV isn’t a disaster. It’s flawed but there’s enough talent there that if Zion continues to level up they could potentially make it work.
Not like contender make it work. But competitive team in the 5-9 range in the West make it work.
Same level of defense
Pelicans
Wolves
Kings
10-12 seed
The Pelicans are a 10-12 seed, but the Wolves and Kings are 13-15.
I’ve been saying since before last year that keeping Josh Hart was extremely important, and they did that, so good job by them. He got about what I expected, maybe slightly less
Beyond retaining Hart, it just becomes figuring out their rotation and how they use Zion b/c I feel like that will help everything else fall into place…you could tell they loaded their summer league team with guys that could defend b/c that has been an issue for a good while now
New Orleans badly needed wing help, and Trey Murphy should definitely help there. They also grabbed some more defenders with Herb Jones. I am a bit curious why they kept Hernangomez, after getting Valanciunas, and how they’ll use their depth at the 4 in conjunction with Zion. Naji Marshall and Herb Jones are both 4s, although maybe they might be able to play different spots depending on the rest of the lineup. I cpuld see Marshall as a 4/3, and Jones as a 4/5. That also brings up the question of smaller lineups with Ingram at the 4. I also liked what I saw from Moses Wright as a 5/4 with their summer league team, and think he would be worth the add, but Hernangomez taking up that roster spot makes that less likely.
is it just me or the pels overpaid him? pelicans already have naji and trey to replace him. Besides, it seems no team willing to use his service, so the front office should be able to negotiate the contract better…