A Philly street artist installed a LeBron James mirror mosaic on an old Burger King wall. Why? ‘It explains itself.’
“I love the slogans that Burger King uses,” said irregular., the artist behind the new LeBron tribute in Center City. “... One of them is, ‘There’s a new king and it’s you.’”
Street artist irregular. rarely cries. But when LeBron James announced he was going to end his NBA career with the Sixers, he shed a single tear — and then got to work.
Within 48 hours, after a sleepless Friday night, his mirrored tribute to James was up on the side of a Center City building.
“Someone said, ‘Oh, that was so fast!’” irregular., whose full name is Sean Hassett, said Tuesday. “I don’t think it was fast enough. Actually, I think it could have been a little quicker.”
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As soon as rumors began to swirl that James could potentially join the Sixers, the 37-year-old artist began to pull reference images, knowing that if it happened, he’d want to make art of it. He had a gut feeling it was going to happen.
“Philly just felt like — why would they even say it if it wasn’t going to be true?" Hassett said. “I was a firm believer three weeks ago.”
As the weeks wore on, his hope started to dim, but that changed late last week. Within two hours of James announcing his decision, Hassett had already drawn out what he wanted the piece to look like, and then spent the night cutting out each piece of mirror.
Hassett usually sells art at Rittenhouse Square on Saturdays, but instead spent most of this past Saturday afternoon walking around Center City to scout potential locations for the piece. He ultimately settled on a building at 8th and Market, the site of a former Burger King.
“King James, Burger King, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a weird tie. I love the slogans that Burger King uses, which is what I used as my captions on my Instagram. One of them is ‘There’s a new king and it’s you.’ That makes perfect sense for exactly what I did. I mirrored LeBron James. Their classic slogan is ‘Have it your way,’ and I felt like that’s what the Sixers chose this year, is to have it our way, and we’re going to just put all the chips in and go for it all.”
Hassett has been creating mirror art for 11 years. He started as a painter, but as he developed his skills, he yearned to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Working with mirrors became his medium.
“The viewer can see themselves in the art,” he said. “It explains itself. It speaks for itself, truly, I would say.”
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Hassett estimated that, at this point, an average project takes him six hours to finish, but the James project ended up taking closer to 10.
It’s not his first tribute to a Philly athlete either.
Hassett created a mirrored Saquon Barkley and put it up a week before Super Bowl LIX, since he was that confident the Birds would win. His Allen Iverson mirror art, created after the Sixers unveiled their small practice facility statue, is still up on 3rd and South Street.
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“I see [sports] as the true glue of the city,” he said. “I remember the Eagles parade, and I have a bit of social anxiety. I don’t like large groups, but [at] that parade I was literally shoulder-to-shoulder, toe-to-toe with people, and there was nothing better than the energy there.
“I think we’re going to get that back. We think this year was great, but I think there’s just more great years to come here in Philly.”
Purchase a front page reprint of The Philadelphia Inquirer from Saturday, July 25, 2026, featuring LeBron James following the news that he was joining the 76ers. Buy it here.
