Former Sixers head coach Brett Brown was fond of saying, “The gym will speak.”
With Nick Nurse in charge, the practice gym sings.
Before his first training camp leading the Sixers, Nurse asked for a DJ.
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Josh Barrett, known professionally as DJ Ghost, is now a fixture at the Sixers’ morning shootarounds and practices, and he's still at the home games themselves. He’s a full-time presence with many balls to juggle.
An eclectic mix
Nurse brings his guitar along on road trips. He loves music and believes it can boost joy, cohesion and other things much less tangible than deflections or points per possession.
“It’s calming for me, almost like meditation,” Nurse wrote in “Rapture,” his book with Michael Sokolove. “I don’t think about basketball when I’m playing music, but I’m pretty sure it helps free the creative part of my brain.”
NBA
Among the song requests thrown Barrett’s way, Nurse’s will always take precedence.
“Some Prince, some Santigold, Michael Jackson … he likes that kind of stuff,” Barrett told NBC Sports Philadelphia in an interview. “He’ll come over and just be in a mood — because he’s a musical guy. He’ll say, ‘Play a little bit of Santigold,’ so I played some Santigold today.”
Barrett has become familiar with the players’ tastes as well.
“(Patrick Beverley) likes the Goo Goo Dolls,” he said. “Tobias (Harris) likes Marvin Gaye. And the younger guys like NBA YoungBoy. The older guys do not like NBA YoungBoy, so there’s a clashing of the music.”
Harris, who's in his 13th NBA season, had never experienced music throughout practices before this year. Once a session kicks off, coaches typically want their voices to be the gym's singular instruments.
That’s not the case at the Sixers’ training complex in Camden, New Jersey.
“What I like about Ghost is he takes requests,” Harris said to NBC Sports Philadelphia with a smile. “Some days I’ll walk in and be like, ‘Hey, we need the ‘80s vibe, let’s get it going.’ And he’ll get it on.
“Overall, I just think it brings great energy to the whole group. He’s mixing it up during practice as well, so it always keeps us active with our voices to be able to speak over the music and whatnot. It just keep us upbeat and live.”
Danuel House Jr.’s pregame workout features songs like “Do Yo Thing” … by himself.
House and Barrett have also performed together off the court.
“It brings energy,” House said. “Shout out to DJ Ghost — for the house, for the team. It brings a lot of energy and excitement. It lightens the mood and prepares you for what we’re about to do.”
Though Paul Reed doesn’t make requests, he’s confident he’ll like whatever he hears.
“I feel like he does a good job of switching it up,” Reed said. “Some days it’s old school, some days it’s new school. And then he kind of goes off what type of person you are.
“If I’m the first one in the gym, he’ll start playing some Kodak (Black) or some Pooh Shiesty or something. And then as more people come in, different age groups, he’ll go throwbacks.”
All sorts of sounds
The Sixers’ practices aren’t just perpetually flowing tunes.
In addition to the nitty-gritty basketball talk you'd expect, you’ll hear the sound of a slot machine, the screech of an eagle, and other noises that Barrett is responsible for peppering in at the appropriate moments.
“The slot (noise) for slot cuts. The eagle sound for good defensive plays, because (Nurse) wants your hands to be out like an eagle. It’s almost like being inside of a video game,” Barrett said. “I’m playing the video game, and I’m just watching the TV and I’m hitting the buttons as the game goes along.
“I guess for the players, it kind of makes them feel like, ‘Oh, I did a good job.’ It’s like an instant gratification for you doing something good in practice — for things you don’t (usually) really get rewarded for. … But now you do it and you hear the sound effect.”
Nurse described the sounds as “an enhancement feature.”
“There are times when we’re saying, ‘These are our pillars. These are the things we’re focusing on.’ And sometimes in the NBA, there’s so much stuff going on that you can even lose your focus on your main things,” Nurse told NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I think (the sound effects) kind of always are there, making it a constant focus for those guys.
“And it’s meant to be somewhat on the energy side — positive reinforcement. Sometimes it’s funny. … It’s just a way of making our workplace sometimes a place of enjoyment. I mean, it is basketball. We should be having some enjoyment out there playing the game.”
Harris highlighted the freight train sound effect, which he said Barrett rolls out “if you drive into the lane and basically run over somebody for a layup or dunk.”
Both Harris and Reed also mentioned the Sixers’ staple song on free throws. Whenever a player goes to the line at practice, Barrett plays a snippet of “Automatic” by The Pointer Sisters.
“When you’re at the free-throw line, he’ll play the song ‘Automatic.’ And then I’ve been peeping that at the home games, he’ll play it (before) our free throws,” Reed said. “It’s kind of instinctual where it’s like, ‘Ooh, this is getting me in my zone.’”
‘It’s changed me into a morning person’
Barrett grew up in Bensalem and Philadelphia rooting for the Sixers.
He was happy to join the team, although his initial work wasn’t exactly what he envisioned.
“When I started with the Sixers 11 years ago, I got a call to come and fill in for somebody. … It ended up being DJing for the walk-in on the concourse,” Barrett said. “I was like, ‘This isn’t what I thought it was.’ And we’ve grown together, and it’s turned into something nice.”
The rhythm of his life has dramatically shifted.
“Yeah, it’s full time,” Barrett said with a laugh. “I wake up at 6:30 in the morning now. I used to go to bed around 5 a.m., get done in the club. Now I get up at 6:30, so it’s changed me into a morning person … I was never a morning person.
“But you wake up every morning and even if you’re tired, you enjoy going to work. It’s not like I’m tired and think of an excuse not to go to work. I get up and am happy to go to work every day.”
While there’s plenty of routine, predictable elements to Barrett’s job, he’s also taking instructions from a coach who appreciates fluid, clever, jazz-like improvisation.
“I really think there’s a good comparison there,” Nurse said. “I’m certainly not the first person to compare (basketball) to jazz or to music. But there’s five guys out there, and there is a hymn sheet or a song that we’re on. But in jazz, we leave enough space and freedom for guys to do something really spectacular, right? Which would be similar to a solo in a jazz group.
“I just always want to let them know that there is freedom to explore, do some things they’ve been working on, but still within that same team framework or same hymn sheet we’re all singing from.”
For Barrett, that artistic space to explore looks like constantly fine-tuning the Sixers’ day-to-day soundtrack.
“I’ll sprinkle stuff in and see their reaction,” he said. “Usually, they’ll bob their head. It’s different than playing in the club. Either way (in the club), you get an instant reaction — people are either dancing or they’ll walk off and go to the bar if they don’t like the song. Here, if it’s a new song, you can see them bobbing their head to it or tapping their feet while they’re waiting for their turn to get the ball.
“Or if it’s an older song that I just haven’t played in a while and I see them (mouthing the lyrics), then I know that they like the song. There’s little tells, almost like you’re playing poker, and I watch what they’re doing to see if they like it.
“Or they’ll turn around and be like, ‘Turn it up! Turn it up!’ Obviously, that’s the easiest one. ‘Turn that s--- up!’”