This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.
In one of his first years at Villanova, coach Jay Wright read a passage from a speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. at a Philadelphia junior high school in 1967.
“Set out to do a good job,” King told the students at Barratt Junior High, “and do that job so well that the living, the dead and the unborn couldn’t do it any better.
“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.”
As the leader of the Villanova men’s basketball program, Wright always worried about his players’ self-esteem. They were gifted players and blue-chip recruits, but not everyone in the program was destined to play in the NBA. The message of the street sweeper, Wright thought, emphasized what was really important, so every January, around MLK Day, he often recited it aloud.
“Be the best at whatever you can be,” Wright would say. “You might get to be your best, and it might not be an NBA player. That doesn’t mean you failed.”
In time, the “street sweeper” became an allegory, a symbol of everything Wright wanted his players to be: passionate about their work, focused on their craft, concerned with the journey rather than the destination.
Everyone knows someone who takes pride in the unglamorous: the crossing guard who is exuberant, the fast-food manager who runs a tight ship, the electrician who takes pride in their craftsmanship. Their worth isn’t tied to their job title, nor is their dignity determined by how society views their status. Rather, their excellence derives from the standards they uphold and the care they give.
They turn every role into art.
Four years into retirement, Wright still points to one of his players in particular who best embodies that mentality: Josh Hart, the beating heart of the New York Knicks. A tenacious defender, superb rebounder for his size and active cutter, Hart is a former Eagle scout willing to do the dirty work for a team with a 1-0 lead over the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“I’ve had other guys who were first-round picks and thought they deserved to be the leading scorer because of that,” Wright said last week. “Josh just figured out what he did well, and then he does it extremely well.”
Hart is not the classic glue guy — an overachiever or worker bee who hustled his way into the starting lineup. For those who knew Hart at Villanova, there’s a rich irony that he became the model street sweeper.
“Coach Wright was on his ass all the damn time to practice harder,” said Ryan Arcidiacono, a former college teammate.
At Villanova, Hart was a top-100 recruit and the leading scorer on the 2016 NCAA championship team, with which he played alongside future Knicks Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges (as well as former Knick Donte DiVincenzo). He possessed a charismatic charm and an unorthodox game that confounded defenders. He was strong with exceptional body control and a knack for clearing space. (“A quirky kind of player,” Arcidiacono said.) But that didn’t mean he always practiced hard.
“Josh is such a freak athlete that he didn’t need to play as hard in practice, and it was still better than everyone else once he decided to turn it on,” Arcidiacono said.
Drafted at the end of the first round in 2017, Hart spent his first four seasons playing for losing teams with the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans. Traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2022, he finished the season averaging 19.9 points in 13 games. But in his second season in Portland, his mentality began to shift.
Playing alongside Damian Lillard and Jerami Grant, his shot attempts and offensive touches began to dry up. One day, he expressed dissatisfaction to Mark Tyndale, a young assistant coach from Philadelphia.
“We’re not saying you can’t score,” Hart recalled Tyndale saying. “But we have guys that are able to score the ball better.”
Taking the message to heart, Hart began to focus on how to create opportunities for others. He possessed the humility (and awareness) to fully embrace the role. He became, like so many others, a man who took immense pride in his work.
“I used to love scoring,” Hart told reporters earlier this season. “Now I love getting guys shots.”
Hart was at his best in the Knicks’ first-round victory against the Atlanta Hawks. He neutralized Atlanta’s C.J. McCollum defensively and was a menace on the boards. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, he filled up the stat sheet against the Sixers with 8 points, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals and one block. And he remains a comedic foil for Brunson, his longtime friend, who isn’t shy about poking fun at his practice habits to this day.
“Everyone views themselves as wanting to be NBA players or leading scorers of a team, but it doesn’t happen for 99.9 percent of players,” Arcidiacono said. “So, finding yourself within a team and really finding value in yourself and acceptance of yourself is so important.”
To Wright, Hart remains an example of the street sweeper. He does not need the ball to make an impact. He understands who he is. His conscientiousness about his role has lifted the Knicks and tapped into an idea.
“It’s really made him the best player he could be,” Wright said, “and also really happy in his skin.”
— Jayson Jenks contributed to this story.
