Josh Hart or Lonzo Ball: Which one should the Pelicans keep?

New Orleans Pelicans: Contracts for Josh Hart and Lonzo Ball

This is another category that is pretty easy to call, as Lonzo Ball is going to get more money than Josh Hart whether it is from the Pelicans or someone else.

Lonzo could get a $20 million per year plus offer from someone, especially if the Bulls or Knicks want to make a big splash. Maybe that won’t happen, but Lonzo Ball’s combination of age, skill and marketability will make him appealing to a lot of teams, as we saw with the myriad trade deadline rumors.

What Josh Hart will get is a mystery. If he gets somewhere at or just above the MLE, he’ll be making around $11 million per season, which I think is a good price for the services of Josh Hart.

But he’s another guy who might draw interest from other teams, especially one of the lottery teams that miss out on the top tier free agents. Josh Hart is in the second or even third tier of free agents this offseason, so a team like the Detroit Pistons could offer him a bit more after the top guys are all signed.

I think late-season injuries to both players will hurt their value somewhat, as teams won’t have recent good games to bias their memory, but it is possible that both of these players will get offers the Pelicans don’t want to match.

Either way, Hart will be the much cheaper guy so one question you have to ask is whether you’d rather have Hart and another guy making ten million a year or would you rather have Lonzo Ball making 20 million a year?

If some team offers Hart $15-18 million per season and Lonzo is getting 20, it is going to be hard to keep them both.

The truth is that other teams are a going to have a lot more to do with this than the Pelicans would like.

Edge: Josh Hart