When Knicks level guard Jalen Brunson was once requested if Josh Hart had modified a lot within the 8 years they might recognized every different, he feigned exasperation and temporarily mentioned no. Then somewhat smile crept onto his face.
“He’s still a 2-year-old,” Brunson mentioned. “Loves candy. It’s like having — he’s older than me — it’s like having a little brother.”
This was all news to Hart, also a Knicks guard, who countered that Brunson, too, hasn’t changed a bit since college.
“He’s a child, that’s what he is,” Hart said. “He’s the child. I’m like the parent.”
The playful ribbing belies a relationship that was nurtured at Villanova and has remained strong even as the two have taken divergent paths in the NBA
Brunson, 26, was a freshman at Villanova in 2015-16 when Hart, 28, was a junior and they won an NCAA championship together. Hart made it to the NBA a year later as a first-round pick for the Lakers in a draft-day deal with the Jazz. The next year, it was Brunson’s turn: The Mavericks drafted him in the second round. While Brunson spent the next four years in Dallas, Hart played on three different teams.
This year, Brunson joined the Knicks in free agency and has blossomed into a star who has helped carry the team to its best record since 2013. Hart arrived in February in a trade from Portland and has brought a tenacity off the bench that has helped the The Knicks finished the season with optimism despite working through injuries.
Hart and Brunson will have very different but important roles for the Knicks, the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, as they prepare for a first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, which starts on Saturday.
“I think that they had a mutual respect for each other just because they’re competitive assassins,” mentioned Kyle Neptune, Villanova’s males’s basketball trainer, who was once an assistant trainer at the crew from 2013 to 2021. He added: “They have just a sense of humanity and a sense of purpose and being good human beings. But then when you get them both on the floor they’re just absolute killers.”
The ways Hart and Brunson have excelled with the Knicks reflect who they were as players in college.
Brunson was able to connect well with his teammates back then, too.
“His ability to adapt to new people is partly because he’s the son of a player and a coach that moved around like a military family,” said Baker Dunleavy, who was an assistant coach for Villanova from 2010 to 2017.
He remembered Brunson having a sense of professionalism early on that was rare for someone his age.
But, like he did in his NBA career, Brunson had to wait before he could take ownership of Villanova’s locker room. Jay Wright, the former longtime Villanova head coach, remembered feeling that Brunson was a bit uncomfortable in his first year and that he held back some of his leadership ability because the team already had a point guard — Ryan Arcidiacono, who was a senior at the time. The next year, Brunson seemed more at ease as he took on a leadership role.
“A born leader and just a guy that loved having everybody count on him,” Wright said.
Hart had been named the most outstanding player of the Big East tournament during his sophomore year, and was a third-team all-American his junior year. He sometimes shocked his coaches with the audacity of the shots he took, but they happily accepted the results.
Wright recounted several examples of Hart making big plays in high-pressure situations: regular-season games against top-ranked opponents, pivotal Big East tournament matchups and NCAA tournament games.
“You just kind of knew this guy fears nothing,” Wright said.
And he did love candy. Once, during a pause in one of Hart’s high school practices, Dunleavy saw Hart reach into a sock, pull out a bag of sour candy and tilt the bag so a few pieces fell into his mouth as if he was taking a sip of Gatorade.
Villanova stressed the importance of good nutrition for its players, Wright said, but he was sure Hart found a way to hide candy in the locker room.
“Don’t even get me started,” he said.
Wright described Hart as more carefree than Brunson, and Brunson as a little more mature.
Brunson spent his first four seasons with the Mavericks. He joined the Knicks as a prized free agent last summer, about a month after the team hired his father, Rick Brunson, who had worked with Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau before as an assistant coach.
The Knicks were penalized a second-round draft pick in 2025 for beginning free agent discussions with Brunson before the league allowed.
Brunson had been an emerging player in Dallas, playing alongside Luka Doncic, but he has thrived being featured more with the Knicks. His per-game scoring average has risen to 24 this season from 16.3 last season, and he is dishing out 6.2 assists per game compared to 4.8 last season.
Part of what has made him fit so well with the Knicks is the mixture of humility and confidence with which he plays and leads.
“He’s an honest leader,” Knicks heart Mitchell Robinson mentioned. “He is aware of when he is proper and he is mistaken, so he isn’t afraid to confess stuff like that. And you more or less want that.
Robinson said Brunson texted him last summer to join him in New York for off-season workouts. He didn’t know Brunson before that, but they quickly developed the rapport of longtime friends.
Hart has had an effect on his teams through his versatility on defense and on hustle plays — rebounding, chasing loose balls. He was traded twice before arriving in New York, first to the Pelicans as part of the deal that sent Anthony Davis to the Lakers, and then to Portland.
For most of this season, Hart relished Brunson’s success from afar.
“I believe he more or less exceeded everybody’s expectancies however his personal,” Hart said, adding: “For me it is simply cool as a result of I’ve observed all of the paintings that he is installed to get to this degree.”
On Feb. 8, their paths converge.
Brunson was at Villanova for a ceremony to have his college jersey retired. Someone showed him the news over a phone that the Knicks had traded for Hart. Brunson shouted an expletive and then said “YESSS!” as he raised his arms victoriously. The people around him started to clap.
“Like his older brother was once coming house from school or one thing,” Wright said. “He was so excited. It was genuine, you know. After he saw, he just still kept walking around like: ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe. I can’t believe we have Josh. I’m so pumped we got Josh. He didn’t stop the whole night.
Hart, who had his own jersey retired by Villanova in 2022, had just spoken with Brunson that morning.
“Neither folks, clearly, had any concept that was once going to occur,” Hart said. “I texted him just about congrats on getting the jersey retirement. And he actually didn’t even say thank you.”
In New York, Hart are compatible in right away. He is now making higher than 50 p.c of his 3-point makes an attempt, the place in Portland he made just a 3rd. His scoring has long gone up, although his mins have long gone down. The Knicks went on a nine-game successful streak beginning with the primary sport Hart performed for them.
“I think his game could fit in well anywhere just because of all the things he does,” Thibodeau mentioned. He added: “There’s no schedule rather then successful. If you might be open, he hits you. If we want a large shot. He’s what I name a playmaker. Whatever the sport wishes.
Now, Hart and Brunson frequently do their postgame interview classes in combination, buying and selling off questions if considered one of them will get stumped. They sit down in combination at the crew airplane, and, in line with Robinson, inform inside of jokes that their teammates do not perceive. Together, they’re going to attempt to lend a hand this Knicks crew grow to be the primary in a decade to win a playoff sequence.