Josh “Hartstone” Hart just came back from some kind of injury that took him out for the month of March (I can’t keep track of all these injuries but I’m assuming it was something serious and not something made up like “big toe infarction”), and he’s back to getting the big minutes he was seeing before the injury. Is he the low-usage, non-ball-handling point guard of the future? Or is he the mini Kobe replacement? Or Charlie Bell 2.0? It’s hard to tell because I don’t watch a lot of Laker games.
All I know is that the Lakers really hit it out of the park with their pair of late-first-round rookies. Kyle Kuzma is obviously killing it (although he went 1-of-6 this game because Jimmy Butler had him shook), but Josh Hart has been a pleasant surprise as well. Hart’s success might be even more surprising because it’s not like he dominated Summer League as far as I can remember. Hart also started the regular season very slowly and unimpressively, but eventually rounded into shape. Good thing I decided against publishing my 500-page-long screed “Josh Hart is a Huge Bust” which I wrote two weeks into the season.