Five Graphs: How can Josh Hart help the Knicks going forward?

Josh Hart made an instant impact in his first action with the Knicks, but what do the stats say about him prior to joining the Knicks?

Welcome to another edition of Five Graphs. In today’s article, we are going to take a deep dive into the newest New York Knick, Josh Hart. He’s only been with the team for three days and he’s already stolen the… hearts… of the fans. He played well in his first game in the blue and orange at Madison Square Garden, helping defeat the SL,UT Jazz, 126–120. Hart had 11 points, seven rebounds, four steals, and four assists in just over 25 minutes. That’s what happens when you get reunited with your college teammate you won two Big East championships and a national title with. As an aside: we need Mikal Bridges on this team for the vibes.

Is this going to be how Hart is every night? I sure hope so. Do his numbers help support the case? Let’s find out.

Here is his shot chart for this season:

Hart may not be making a good percentage of his threes, but he does have a hot zone from behind the arc where he’s above league average on the right elbow. It makes that 31.3% from three overall this season somewhat palatable. Hart also rarely takes those crappy midrange shots and gets to the rim, where he is finishing at an efficient rate as well. This type of shot profile pairs quite well with a wing who can grab rebounds. You know who is not a good rebounder but an elite rebounder for his size? Take a look:

Not only is Josh Hart getting rebounds, he’s getting contested rebounds. And what is Hart doing when he gets those rebounds? Getting into transition offense, of course.

Since 2021–22, roughly a third of Hart’s offensive possessions are in transition while another rough quarter of the possessions are spot up. OK, OK, I’ll be more precise: 60.3% of Josh Hart’s offensive possessions since 2021–22 have been either transition or spot-up opportunities.

I could wrap up here with only these three visuals, as they do a pretty damn fine job capturing who Hart is as a player: He’s going to play defense, grab rebounds, push the pace, and spot up in the half court. Hart keeps things simple and moving. He should help this team quite a bit. But we are not going to end there. It shouldn’t be a surprise if you’re reading this on a decent sized screen because you can already see what the next graph is about. My favorite “all-in-one” metric: RAPM.

Hey look, our buddy RJ Barrett has made an appearance! The data here is sorted by the players’ 5-Year RAPM, which is why the blue line looks more “stable” compared to the 3-Year RAPM counterpart. One thing to keep in mind for RAPM is that it does not use any statistics in its estimation. It’s interesting to see that for effectively the length of his career, Hart rates out as “neutral,” while he’s a very slight net negative over the past three seasons. You obviously want to see the RAPM figures on the “plus” side, but when you look at the company of players above and below him, they range from “good” to “overrated.” I’m personally not worried, but to each their own when interpreting these “all-in-one” metrics.

Is he at least “hustling” though? Yes. Could it be better? Also yes.

“Hustle plays” are simply me summing up the totals for screen assists, deflections, loose ball recoveries, and charges drawn. I also kept the “under 6-foot-7” filter for these numbers as well so big men who rack up screen assists don’t distort the scatter plot. Draymond Green being so far to the right functions as representation of what would happen if all those bigs were added.

I’m going to be interested to see if Hart’s numbers go up over the next few seasons. Given his reputation, I was somewhat surprised to see Hart with a sub 0.10 hustle players per minute. Same with the RAPM figures above. The silver lining I’m going with is that at least these aren’t glaring negatives that need crazy rationalizations to explain away why a player’s statistical value in a metric doesn’t actually represent their play on the court.

Josh Hart should be a great pickup for this Knicks team. I’m looking forward to watching him beyond this year.