Josh Hart's Odyssey
A 10-Year Journey Back to the Promised Land
And, I’m back. Thank you, everyone, for sticking with me these last two weeks as I took a break from writing new content to get married! We had a wonderful weekend with family and friends, and I hope you enjoyed the stories from my archive in the meantime on the WNBA’s rookies, schedule, and nicknames.
Next week, I’ll have more charts for you, highlighting a breakout season from a certain budding WNBA star, but today I’m leaning into the most exciting (non-League Pass) media event of the summer: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The three-hour epic came out last week, and it had me thinking, which basketball player’s journey has been most like Odysseus’s return home?
Josh Hart.
The Trojan War
For those who skipped the reading assignment in high school, The Odyssey is a sequel of sorts, picking up where Homer’s other epic, The Iliad, leaves off at the end of the Trojan War.1 Odysseus is a main figure in that myth as well, notably for devising the plan for the famed trojan horse that ultimately won the Achaeans the war.
Just like when Josh Hart (Odysseus) helped his Villanova team (the Achaeans) win the national championship (Trojan War) over North Carolina (Troy).2 Like Odysseus, Josh Hart’s NBA prequel ended with a stunning victory, as Nova won that final battle of the season-long campaign with a play almost as famous as the trojan horse gambit, the Ryan Arcidiacono-to-Kris Jenkins buzzer beater.
After the victory, Odysseus moved on to raid the Cicones, just as Josh Hart moved on to the NBA. Both encountered difficulties there, setting them on a decade-long diversion before they finally returned to the promised land.
Island of the Lotus-Eaters
The first stop on Odysseus’s odyssey was to an island of lotus-eaters, whose intoxicating fruit made him and his men forget about reaching home. For Josh Hart, it was the bright lights and big stage of Los Angeles, playing alongside NBA legends like LeBron James and Rajon Rondo, that made Josh Hart forget about winning another championship. The Lakers finished under 0.500 and missed the Playoffs in each of Hart’s two seasons in the purple and gold.
The Cyclops
Once Odysseus came to his senses and sailed on from the island of lotus-eaters, he was quickly swept up by Polyphemus, aka the Cyclops. And who is the cyclops of the NBA? Well it has to be The Unibrow himself, Anthony Davis, who the Lakers traded for after Hart’s second season.
Odysseus escaped the wrath of the cyclops by deceptively calling himself “Nobody”, just as Josh Hart avoided actually playing with Davis by being tossed into the trade as filler. The Lakers trade package that landed AD included much bigger names3 than Hart, who was certainly the last player anyone focused on in the deal.
The Bag of Winds
After escaping the Cyclops’s lair / Los Angeles, Odysseus was almost back to his home in Ithaca, but was blown off course after opening a bag of winds received from Aeolus, divine controller of the winds. Similarly, Josh Hart’s NBA career took an unexpected, undesired turn in New Orleans when an injury to his right thumb ended his second season with the Pelicans prematurely.
Circe
The winds directed Odysseus’s ship to Aeaea, home of the goddess Circe, who turned Odysseus’s men into pigs. Meanwhile in the ancient-Greece parallel world that takes place in the modern NBA, New Orleans turned Josh Hart into a hawk, a Shetland pony, and a wolf in the forms of CJ McCollum (who played his college ball for the Lehigh Hawks), Larry Nance Jr. (Wyoming Cowboys), and Tony Snell (New Mexico Lobos).
Odysseus and Circe / Josh Hart and Chauncey (Billups, his new head coach in Portland) became lovers for a year, until they remembered it was about time they went home.
Oceanus
Odysseus ended up on the edge of Oceanus, where the living can speak with the dead. There he met the spirits of his mother Anticleia and former comrades Agamemnon and Achilles, as well as the prophet Tiresias, who told Odysseus he will return home soon, but must first undertake another journey.
Josh Hart ended up in New York City, eventually with Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns’s mother very sadly passed away from Covid complications in 2020, but remained a major source of inspiration and strength for Karl, and in turn Hart and the entire Knicks team throughout their journey together in New York.
The Sirens
Despite having renewed faith that they would one day accomplish their goals of returning home or winning a championship, Odysseus and Josh Hart both had more obstacles to overcome, starting with the Sirens. Odysseus and his crew had to endure and resist the enticing songs that had lured many previous sailors to their deaths, while Hart and the Knicks had to endure and resist the vitriolic criticism from sports talk shows and New York fans alike that had dismantled previous teams. Calls to bench Hart abounded throughout the season, but then just as quickly were replaced by praise. This meme from Mike Shearer of Basketball Poetry succinctly captures the fan relationship with Josh Hart.
Scylla & The Whirlpool
Hart and the Knicks made it through the Regular Season media circus, only to have to face a scary lineup of Eastern Conference foes in the Playoffs: CJ McCollum, Jalen Johnson, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, Donovan Mitchell, and James Harden to name a few. They got past them all, with relative ease, just as Odysseus skirts the many-headed monster Scylla.
Helios & His Cattle
Having gotten past the whirlpool and multi-headed monster, Odysseus faced his final enemy, the sun god Helios, who asked Zeus to punish Odysseus and his men after they ate his sacred cattle. Victor Wembanyama, another towering, otherworldly figure like Helios, from the cattle-raising city of San Antonio, Texas, tried to punish the Knicks as well, but Hart’s team ultimately prevailed.
Calypso
Finally, Odysseus washed up on the shore of Ogygia where he met Calypso, who took him captive as her lover until Athena (Jalen Brunson) helped to free her old friend (Josh Hart). Athena always had an affinity for Odysseus, dating back to the Trojan War a decade before, and served as his fiercest advocate on Mount Olympus. She appreciated that, unlike other Greek heroes who relied primarily on brute strength, Odysseus succeeded through intellect, adaptability, and persistence. Sound like a certain player you know?
Return Home
Together Athena and Odysseus / Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart returned to the promised land. 10 years after the end of the Trojan War Odysseus made it home.4 Exactly 10 years after winning a college championship, Josh Hart won an NBA championship. It was a long road, full of twists and turns, friends and foes for Josh Hart.
It was the NBA’s odyssey.
Please note, I am not by any means an Odyssey expert and relied heavily on Wikipedia to jog my memory of the epic’s many twists and turns. So don’t get mad at me mythology buffs!
Get ready for lots of strained analogies.
Lonzo Ball, De’Andre Hunter, and Brandon Ingram.
Sorry! Spoilers!
Congrats on getting married! Did you end up watching the movie and if so what did you think?