USC left behind as Hart coaches in G League
Andy Enfield has said it a few times publicly and a few dozen times privately: “The fact that Jason Hart isn’t a head coach right now is kind of a joke.”
Almost five months after USC reached the NCAA Tournament regional finals, the joke is on college basketball.
Hart, Enfield’s lead assistant and a prized recruiter and teacher since 2013, has left the Trojans, but not for another school.
He is coaching G
League Ignite, the NBAsponsored haven for high school seniors who neither want nor need to play college basketball.
The experiment began last year, with former Lakers player and assistant coach Brian Shaw running the show. Jalen Green of the Ignite was selected second in the NBA draft, by Houston. Jonathan Kuminga went seventh, to Golden State. Isaiah Todd was taken at the beginning of the second round, by Washington.
Daishen Nix, who had committed to UCLA, was not drafted but is playing for the 76ers’ Summer League team.
Dyson Daniels of Australia is already on board
for 2021-22, with Jaden Hardy, Scoot Henderson, Michael Foster and Chinese starlet Fanbo Zeng.
In one 2022 NBA mock draft — alas, such things already exist — Hardy is projected to go fifth, Daniels 16th and Foster 34th. And the Ignite kids are getting real money. The Athletic reported that Henderson will pull down $1 million next year and Foster $300,000.
In return, they will practice with pros and play against pros. While their collegiate classmates land at 4 a.m. after a road game and shuffle off to class at 8 a.m., just to maintain the student-athlete charade, the Ignite kids will be learning practical things, like protecting their money. When the basketball quits bouncing, the league will pay for their education at Arizona State.
So it’s not just that college basketball is a step that’s being skipped. Losing coaches like Hart can be as damaging as losing players like Green and Kuminga.
“I wasn’t getting restless,” Hart said. “I inquired about this job. I’m not doing this because I’m mad that I didn’t get a college job.
“This is an opportunity and a dream, to coach the next group of NBA stars. I talked to Brian Shaw and he had nothing but good things to say.”
Hart remembers the G League when it had a shorter acronym and a lower profile. He played for the Asheville (N.C.) Altitude of the NBDL, which became known as the D League. He played for a year in Greece and then boarded a numbing NBA treadmill, drawing a check from 10 different teams.
Hart had played three years at Westchester High, his senior season at Inglewood High and then four years at Syracuse, where he became a summa cum laude student in zone defense. After he quit chasing NBA rainbows, he became an AAU coach and also coached Taft High to an L.A. City Section Division I championship and a 10-0 conference record.
“He had the will to keep pushing, even when all those doors were slammed in his face,” said Marty Wilson, an assistant coach at Cal who was the head man at Pepperdine and hired Hart.
“As a coach, he had no problem jumping in on the scout team and showing what had to be done. And as a player he always had to deal with that uncertainty of where he was going to be next year. You have to be tough to do that.”
USC basketball has averaged 22.3 wins the past six seasons and has recruited ambitiously and well. “They weren’t at that level when they tried to recruit me,” Hart said. “They were still playing at the Sports Arena.
Now they’re a consistent winner, and they’re keeping really good players at home. You’ve seen a brand start to develop.”
College basketball began to regain its brand when Gonzaga and UCLA played one of the most arresting Final Four games in decades. But now it is just one avenue, and not even the NIL money will keep those whose hoop dreams have nothing to do with confetti and one shining moment.
“I remember when Kevin Garnett went straight to the pros,” said Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the G League commissioner. “It was mind-blowing. The NBA seemed so far away from us. But now there’s so much access. Jalen Green would drive down from Fresno and play pickup with the pros when he was in high school.
“Talent like Jalen or Kuminga, that just pops. You know it when you see it. But the NBA teams liked seeing them play against pros. There was no need for projection, no mystery about how their skills translated. It helped their evaluation.”
Coaches like Hart get evaluated, too. Sometimes they graduate.