As pitchers and catchers get set to report to spring training this week, the newest Knick credits his days as a baseball outfielder growing up in Maryland — and his connection to a Yankees legend — for his ability to read and track rebounds.
“I was amazing,” Josh Hart said of his diamond skills after his Knicks debut Saturday night. “I probably could’ve been in MLB if I pursued it, man.”
The 6-foot-5 Hart, who Tom Thibodeau has called “the best rebounding guard in the league,” grabbed four offensive rebounds and seven overall in the Knicks’ win over Utah at the Garden. He is averaging 8.2 boards overall this season in 51 games with Portland and one with the Knicks, second only to Dallas superstar Luka Doncic (8.9) among all NBA guards.
“I think it’s something I’ve always had,” Hart said. “I think something that really helped me, I played baseball when I was a kid and I played outfield, so pop flies, you gotta try to judge it to see where it’s going, see where the ball’s going and make reactions to that.
“So, I think that definitely helped me growing up and I just used that aspect towards rebounding.”
The Garden crowd already has embraced the 27-year-old Hart for a gritty debut in which he also contributed 11 points, four steals and two key 3-pointers in 25 minutes off the bench, including the final 16:24 of crunch time.
New York sports fans also might like to know that Hart has local baseball royalty in his blood. His great uncle was 12-time All-Star catcher Elston Howard, the first black player to play for the Yankees and the American League MVP in 1963.
“I never got to meet him,” Hart said earlier in his career about Howard, who died in 1980, 15 years before his great nephew was born. “Someone who’s in your family who got to the highest level, who won six World Series championships, was an MVP, is someone you look up to, is somebody you aspire to be in your respective sport.”
Hart’s father, Moses, was Howard’s nephew and often told Josh tales of attending his uncle’s games.
“I used him as a role model, just everything he was able to do,” Hart said of Howard in 2016. “The first black player to play for the Yankees. The character that he had is something that I try to resemble. Dad was always telling me stories about when he used to go to the ballpark and watch him play and just learn from him. It’s someone that I look up to, someone that I always wished I was able to meet.
“Hopefully, a couple of generations down, someone in my family will be saying the same thing about me.”
The New York portion of Hart’s career — alongside former Villanova championship teammate Jalen Brunson — is off to a strong start entering Monday’s game against the Nets. Brooklyn also acquired a member of Villanova’s title teams at the deadline, Mikal Bridges, in the blockbuster deal that sent Kevin Durant to Phoenix.
The Garden crowd always has been drawn to lunch-pail players — think Charles Oakley, John Starks and Anthony Mason from the 1990s — and Hart’s relationship with the MSG fans already has featured multiple standing ovations and a clear appreciation of his playing style.
“I think so. JB and I obviously played at Villanova and plays like that — again, those deflections, getting loose balls, offensive rebounds, kicking out for a 3, we always viewed those as momentum plays, plays that break teams,” Hart said. “That’s something that we have ingrained in us and making those big plays, making the steal, an offensive rebound, kick out for a 3, make those little tough, gritty plays — it breathes life into your team. And it takes life out of other teams.
“Those plays help win games, and I think that’s the biggest thing. I think we have that, and I think we represent the city that way. … That’s what this city is about and what the city builds off of. I take that with pride. I’m just a blue-collar guy. I think that’s really going to work well here.”
