Josh Hart Media Availability – July 19, 2020
On Lonzo Ball’s ball movement and the pace he plays at:
“He makes us play at an unbelievable pace. I mean, being able to make pin-point pass from three-quarters court, whether that’s for a three for JJ (Redick) or ‘Twaun (E’Twaun Moore) or somebody in the corner, or a lob to Zion (Williamson). So it’s such an advantage for us being able to have that. I mean, if a team scores and two seconds later we get a lob to Zion for a dunk, I mean, for the other team that’s deflating and for us it’s a big – it helps with momentum.”
On competing for a playoff spot and how the rookies have handled this season:
“I’m very excited to compete for a playoff spot. I’ve never been. A lot of the guys in there haven’t been to the playoffs, so that’s the goal for us this season, is to make it to the playoffs and we think that’s a very reachable goal. The second part of that question, they’ve been so strong mentally. I mean, rookie year, it’s draining. You go from being one of the top options on your college team to playing big minutes to, you never know game-by-game what it’s going to be. Whether it be someone goes down with an injury or foul trouble, or you go in, and you make a couple shots, play well, and next thing you know you’re playing more minutes. So they’ve done an amazing job mentally just staying strong, because I was there. A lot of guys that were rookies will tell you man, it’s one of the hardest years you have in the league. So they’ve done an amazing job, and we’re going to definitely need them for this next 2-3 week stretch.”
On how excited he is to play against another team and how he will approach the scrimmages:
“I’ll say, one, very excited to play someone else besides us. I mean we’ve been going, scrimmaging five-on-five just about every day since we’ve been down here, so very excited to do that. But it’s difficult for us because we don’t have room to kind of slowly ramp things up. So we kind of just have to get it straight from the get-go. I think we’ll definitely play some guys, some of our big guys some decent minutes their first game to try to get them back into the rhythm of actually playing a game because we haven’t played a game in 3-4 months. So kind of get them back in the rhythm for there, and then maybe ramp it down a little bit the next two games. That’s my thought process. I don’t know what the coaches have got in store, but it’s about just kind of getting that rhythm as fast as we can, because when July 30th comes, we’ve got to hit the ground running.”
On if he will wear a social justice message on the back of his jersey and if so, which one:
“I am. Mine is going to be ‘Say Their Names.’ I was kind of disappointed that we only had a few to kind of pick from. I think a lot of us had specific either names or phrases that we wanted to put on our jersey to raise awareness for things that we really feel emotionally connected with. So, I will have ‘Say Their Names.'”
On why he choose to put ‘Say Their Names’ on the back of his jersey:
“I think it’s very important for those people to not be forgotten and what happened to them to not be forgotten. A lot of times each day keeps going and people slowly, slowly start being forgotten. I think that’s the biggest thing. For the ones that aren’t affected immediately on that, we don’t know what it feels like. We don’t have to fill a void, but those families have to fill a void, and it’s challenging and it’s hard for them. So we don’t want them to feel like they’ve been forgotten about, and we want to make sure that we know who they are and we’re there with them no matter what.”
On if he would have put a specific name on his jersey if the NBA allowed it:
“Yeah. I wanted to do, ‘Pamela Turner.’ For people who don’t know who she is, she was a diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic that was in Baytown, Texas, who was killed in an interaction with a cop. So that was kind of one that I wanted to put there just because, one, I wanted to give women and females a bigger platform because I feel like they haven’t had their stories told enough. Then, two, just to kind of go to the ‘defund the police’ aspect of it. Obviously, some people are misled by other people with the ‘defund the police’ phrase. They think it’s just no police. They just – it is what it is, but it’s just about putting people who are trained for certain situations in those situations. For her, maybe it wasn’t having the cops called on her, it’s knowing… The cop that ended up killing her actually had several run-ins (with her) and knew she was a diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic. So when that’s the case, I think someone who’s trained in mental illnesses should go there and resolve the situation or kind of help the situation out, not just police officers who are trained to arrest. I think that’s where the ‘defund the police’ thing goes. That’s something that definitely resonated with me. So, obviously, we weren’t able to do that, but hopefully a lot of the guys that had phrases and had people’s names talk about that and continue to help bring awareness to those people.”
