Josh Hart and Lonzo Ball are two of the Los Angeles Lakers newest players but their respective paths to the NBA were vastly different. Ball was a highly touted recruit coming out of Chino Hills who played at UCLA for one season as his boisterous father brought more attention to the talented point guard before he was drafted second overall. For Hart, he was a less renowned prospect who took the four-year path at Villanova seeing great success with the Wildcats, of course, highlighted by their National Championship game victory in 2016. He was drafted late in the first round by the Utah Jazz and acquired by the Lakers in a draft day deal.
The rookies are already connecting as they went through their first Summer League together ending with a Summer League championship. Ball and Hart might be the backcourt of the future for the Lakers and Josh is already gushing about the ability Lonzo possesses but their music choices aren’t exactly on the same page.
On the recent episode of the ‘Road Trippin’ podcast, Richard Jefferson and his special co-hosts welcomed Josh Hart to the show. While RJ was granting a ton of advice for Hart to use, one interesting part of their conversation came when they touched on the topic of his new teammate Lonzo Ball and the media circus that surrounds him. Hart noted that Lonzo is a tremendously talented player but he recalled one situation in particular that started a social media firestorm.
Ball tweeted out that he preferred the 21 Savage project ‘Issa album’ over the new Jay Z album ‘4:44’. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion even if it is incorrect. Hart, who is signed to Roc Nation Sports, wasn’t caught off guard by Lonzo picking 21 Savage over Jay Z, he was more shocked about the attention Ball received for sending that tweet out.
Issa > 4:44
— Lonzo Ball (@ZO2_) July 9, 2017
The discussion about the Ball begins around the 28 minutes mark of the show.
“I feel bad for him sometimes because he gets so much, criticism and that kinda thing. Obviously, you know with his dad. But just him as a person, he’s a great kid. You know me and him cool. We kick it. And it’s like…he’s a regular 19-year-old kid. The same that I was. He’s just under such a microscope, you know. Everything he does is viral.
Like we were on the bus one day, obviously, I’m with Roc Nation. It was right after…it was when Hov dropped 4:44. So I’m like ‘yea, this Hov jawn is bumpin’ blahzay, blahzay, blah’ and then we all got in an argument about, ya know, ‘who’s a better rapper?’ They all saying like Hov and J.Cole…I like more, ya know, content. I don’t like all this random stuff. So then they was talking about 21 savage and all them.
So he was like talking about the album ‘Issa’. Is that what it’s called? “Issa”? Do y’all know what it is?
RJ – By who?
JH – My point exactly. Anyways…
RJ – The fact that someone said 21 Savage…I turned off that conversation.
JH – I don’t want to hear that. So then I was messing with him. I was like ‘you ain’t gonna tweet that it’s better’. He was like ‘yeah I will!’. I was like ‘do it’. He did it and it went viral. People were tweeting about it, people were Instagramming about it. And I’m just like… this is just messing with him on the bus and it goes viral. I’m just like ‘man, this kid has a microscope’.
It’s hard to argue with Hart considering Ball racked up over 25,000 retweets and 46,000 likes for a tweet with only 11 characters.
