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    Kobe Bryant’s Nike Contract Expired. The Implications Are Complex.

    The end of the deal has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history, opening a hole in the market as Bryant’s shoes have been used heavily by N.B.A. athletes and have seen high demand among the public since his death.The most popular shoes on the N.B.A. hardwood for the last several seasons were not the signature sneakers endorsed by the top active players, like Nike’s LeBron James or Adidas’s Damian Lillard. They were not the shoes endorsed by the man who practically invented the modern sneaker game, Michael Jordan.Instead they were Nike’s line of Kobe Bryant’s signature sneakers, which were worn by 103 players last season — about 20 percent of the league’s players — according to the sneaker website Baller Shoes DB. Many W.N.B.A. players, like the Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, also wear Bryant’s signature sneakers.But soon those players will need to find new shoes, at least if they want to play in brand-new pairs. Nike confirmed Monday that its contract with the estate of Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash last year, expired last week.“Kobe Bryant was an important part of Nike’s deep connection to consumers,” a Nike spokesman, Josh Benedek, said in a statement. “He pushed us and made everyone around him better. Though our contractual relationship has ended, he remains a deeply loved member of the Nike family.”In the uncertainty over Bryant’s continued endorsement deal for basketball shoes and apparel, a number of issues collide: what professional basketball players wear on the court, the demand from consumers for Bryant merchandise and how a person’s name and image are used, even after their death.Nike has a short window in which it can continue selling the shoes and apparel featuring Bryant that it has already manufactured, but soon that merchandise will disappear from Nike’s website and store shelves.Switching shoe companies is not uncommon for top basketball players, whose sneaker contracts can pay tens of millions of dollars annually and rival or even exceed their N.B.A. contracts in value. Bryant signed with Adidas before he entered the N.B.A., in 1996, then signed with Nike in 2003 after his Adidas deal ended. Even as some major sponsors dropped Bryant when he was accused of sexual assault, Nike, which had signed Bryant shortly before he was arrested, stood by him.The current situation with Bryant’s estate has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history. Signature basketball shoes really only began to gain prominence in the late 1980s, and barely any N.B.A. superstars from that era or later have died, let alone at a young age like Bryant, who was 41.Different versions of Nike shoes were left at a mural honoring Bryant shortly after his death.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesThe closest comparisons are perhaps Chuck Taylor, the namesake of Converse’s famed Chuck Taylor All-Stars, whose shoes remain popular 50 years after his death, or Maya Moore, the W.N.B.A. star and Jordan Brand endorser, who has sat out the past few seasons to focus on social justice. But the strained analogies suggest the past provides little hint of what will happen next.Almost all N.B.A. players are endorsed by one sneaker company or another. But only a handful have lines of shoes named after them, fewer have popular lines that sell tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of merchandise annually and even fewer stay popular in retirement. In the 1990s, a handful of W.N.B.A. stars had shoe deals, including Sheryl Swoopes, who was the first female athlete to have a signature basketball sneaker.Nike clearly believed that Bryant’s appeal extended into retirement, signing him to a new five-year agreement on the day of his final N.B.A. game: April 13, 2016. Bryant played his final season in the Kobe 11s, the 11th edition of his sneaker line. After his retirement, Nike released a new line of sneakers styled as Kobe A.D., or anno Domini, the Latin phrase that means “in the year of the Lord.”Nike’s Jordan brand, and its continued release of Air Jordan sneakers, remains quite popular, but as everyday fashion shoes; N.B.A. players rarely wear Air Jordans during games these days. Bryant attempted to buck that trend in retirement, with Nike releasing Bryant “protro” shoes: retro Bryant shoes updated with modern professional performance features.While they were popular with basketball players, Bryant’s sneakers were not always the most popular off the court, worn with jeans or sweats.Before Bryant’s death, the market for his shoes was fairly niche, said Chad Jones, the co-founder of Another Lane, a marketplace for sneaker collectors. “Performance wise, a lot of performance athletes loved Kobe shoes, but fashion wise is really the predictor for how well it will sell to the masses,” Jones said.Nike did not sign Bryant to what is effectively a lifetime contract, like it has done with Jordan and James, raising questions about how much continued value it saw in his name. The Kobe shoes N.B.A. players wore were often limited editions or unique colors that average consumers could not buy, partly explaining why their popularity on the court did not necessarily translate to popularity on the street.Since Bryant’s death, Nike has released new Bryant merchandise, but mostly in limited quantities through its SNKRS app. The shoes have sold out almost immediately, and then showed up for much higher prices on resale markets, leading to accusations that Nike was allowing resellers to profit from Bryant’s death.“When people don’t get them on retail, but on a resale platform for five times or two times the price, they are upset,” Jones said.In a statement posted to Instagram on Monday night, Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s widow, wrote that she was “hoping to forge a lifelong partnership with Nike that reflects my husband’s legacy,” and hinted that she will find a way to continue to sell Bryant’s products, perhaps in greater quantities.Vanessa Bryant during the memorial for her husband, Kobe Bryant, and their daughter Gianna Bryant last February.Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“My hope will always be to allow Kobe’s fans to get and wear his products,” she wrote. “Kobe’s products sell out in seconds. That says everything.”If Vanessa Bryant cannot come to an agreement with Nike on a new contract, building a new brand around Kobe could be a challenge. Nike, including brands it owns like Jordan Brand and Converse, controls more than half the sneaker market, with companies like Adidas and Puma as distant competitors. Under Armour, which is endorsed by Golden State’s Stephen Curry, has struggled to break through.Many sneakers are promoted through elaborate back stories about how the player inspired specific design details or guided the design process, and through player-focused advertising campaigns.But what really sells sneakers is players’ connection to culture, or the feelings they evoke in potential consumers, not necessarily winning N.B.A. championships or a shoe’s performance features. Allen Iverson’s rebellious, me-against-the-world persona made his “Answer” shoes from Reebok popular sellers in the 2000s, even though he never won an N.B.A. title.Bryant was not always a popular player, and his early shoes were not top sellers. Through repeated trips to China and success in the Olympics he found fame outside of America’s borders, and as he aged a generation of players entered an N.B.A. that revered him.If the year since his death has shown anything, it is that even into retirement Bryant’s popularity was growing as he made new connections in Hollywood, opened a sports academy and became a prominent and vocal supporter of women’s basketball. More

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    Stephen Curry Breaks Kobe Bryant's Record for Consecutive 30-point Games

    It is not that Stephen Curry has not been good all season. He has had games of 62 and 57 points, after all. But with his Golden State Warriors mired in mediocrity and players like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid emerging as leading candidates for the Most Valuable Player Award, Curry had faded a bit into the background.That has changed in the last month. After five games away nursing a bruised tailbone, Curry returned and began a streak of 30-point games that has now reached 11, breaking Kobe Bryant’s record for a player who is 33 or older.The run has revived talk of a third M.V.P. trophy for Curry, and the Warriors look like they have a good chance of making the playoffs — as the team that no high seed wants to face.Here’s a look at the 11-game run that turned around Curry’s season, and perhaps Golden State’s, too.Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press1. March 29, vs. Bulls, 32 points, winReturning from his injury, Curry helped the Warriors end a four-game losing streak. “It wasn’t fun, but I got through it,” he said.Mary Holt/USA Today Sports, via Reuters2. April 1, at Heat, 36 points, lossThe attention fell on the Heat debut of Victor Oladipo, and Miami beat Golden State by 7. It would turn out to be the heaviest Warriors loss in their last 11 games, in which the team went 7-4. Curry still managed 11 rebounds, though, his best total of the run.Curry gave his jersey to the rapper Two Chainz after scoring 37 points against the Hawks.John Bazemore/Associated Press3. April 4, at Hawks, 37 points, lossAfter missing a game at Toronto because of the lingering tailbone injury (not coincidentally, the Warriors lost that game by 53 points), Curry was back, wearing protective padding. “He pretty much did whatever he wanted in that first half,” Hawks Coach Nate McMillan said.Jeff Chiu/Associated Press4. April 6, vs. Bucks, 41 points, winFor the first time in the streak the Warriors beat an elite team, getting a 1-point win with a late comeback. Of course, the Bucks badly missed their own star, Giannis Antetokounmpo.Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press5. April 9, vs. Wizards, 32 points, lossPerhaps the poorest performance of the run, despite the 32 points. Curry shot 11 of 25 from the field and his team lost to the middling Wizards at home. Curry missed a long 3-pointer to tie the score as time expired.Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press6. April 10, vs. Rockets, 38 points, winA sixth straight 30-point game made the scoring streak the longest of Curry’s career, and he wasn’t done. “He had a highlight reel worth of plays out there tonight,” Coach Steve Kerr said.Ezra Shaw/Getty Images7. April 12, vs. Nuggets, 53 points, winCurry’s best game thus far and his first 50-point night since February. He had 10 3-pointers, the most so far in his streak, and the start of a run of four of five games with at least 10. Curry also passed Wilt Chamberlain as the Warriors’ career scoring leader.Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press8. April 14, at Thunder, 42 points, winIn the biggest team win of the streak, Golden State beat Oklahoma City by 38 points. Curry shot 14 of 20 and had eight assists. Draymond Green said he knew a big Curry night was coming. “I can kind of tell when he comes out,” Green said. “Just the look in his eyes.” Another 11 3s gave Curry 29 over three games, an N.B.A. record.David Dermer/Associated Press9. April 15, at Cavaliers, 33 points, winA fourth straight win for the Warriors, for the first time this season. Curry was only 4 of 13 from behind the 3-point line but compensated with eight 2-pointers. The Warriors improved to 16-1 in their last 17 games against Cleveland.Michael Dwyer/Associated Press10. April 17, at Celtics, 47 points, lossThe Warriors’ winning streak ended in a closely contested game, and Curry kept scoring, with 11 3s. “It took everything,” said Kemba Walker of the Celtics, adding: “We knew it was going to be tough. These guys are playing so well. Obviously they’ve got one of the best players in the world. He’s incredible.”Matt Slocum/Associated Press11. April 19, at Sixers, 49 points, winThe Warriors took on one of the best teams in the N.B.A. and won. Ten more 3-pointers for Curry, who faced off against his brother, Seth. The 11th straight 30-point game is a record for players 33 and older, surpassing Kobe Bryant’s mark. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like the run he’s on,” Sixers Coach Doc Rivers said.Next up? A visit to Washington on Wednesday night. More

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    Why the Knicks Keep, Ahem, Winning

    The recently awful Knicks have won six straight behind the All-Star Julius Randle, vintage play from Derrick Rose and tough team defense.It was only an overtime victory over the New Orleans Pelicans, the kind of win even pessimistic Knicks fans would have thought possible going into the season.But the win on Sunday was something more: It was the Knicks’ sixth straight; the team hadn’t even won five in a row since 2014.Pessimistic Knicks fans? Who remembers them? New York fans are over the moon about their team and are eagerly looking forward to its first playoff appearance in eight long years.While the streak has included two wins over the Pelicans and one over the Raptors, there were also wins over three legitimate playoff teams, the Grizzlies, the Mavericks and the (admittedly depleted) Lakers.That puts the Knicks at 31-27, sitting in sixth in the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference and, let’s just say it out loud, only a half-game out of fourth place and home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs.The eminently respectable season is all the more surprising because the Knicks were expected to be one of the worst teams in the league. They were a league-worst 17-65 in 2018-19 and 21-45 in the shortened 2019-20 season.Bookmakers this time set their over-under at 22.5 wins for the 72-game season. Over bettors cashed that ticket in March. If the Knicks go .500 the rest of the way, they will finish 38-34, a .528 winning percentage that would be the best since their last playoff appearance in 2013.While the playoffs will be an uphill climb for the Pelicans, they can take heart from the performance of Zion Williamson, whose second season has brought 27 points a game and an All-Star selection. He had 34 against the Knicks on Sunday in his first game at Madison Square Garden as a pro.With the Knicks trailing by 103-100 with 7.8 seconds to go, Derrick Rose drove to the basket, then passed to Reggie Bullock, who made a 3-pointer to tie the score. Pelicans Coach Stan Van Gundy, displeased afterward, confirmed that he had told his team to foul, but it did not manage to. The Knicks pulled away to win comfortably in overtime, 122-112.As for the reasons for the Knicks’ resurgence, No. 1 has to be Julius Randle, who had 33 points on Sunday. He has career highs in points (23.7 per game), rebounds (10.5) and assists (6.1) and made his first All-Star Game. Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets is the only other player in the top 12 in total points, rebounds and assists.The much-traveled Rose, acquired in February, has played well in his second stint with the Knicks, and RJ Barrett could be on his way to stardom, especially if he more consistently hits his 3s.While the team’s offense has its strong points — a .380 3-point percentage ranks sixth in the league — the improvement can be credited in large part to defense.The team ranks third in defensive rating, allowing just 108 points per 100 possessions, trailing only the heralded defenses of the Lakers and the 76ers. Last season, it was 23rd.Although the scale of the transformation is surprising, many did expect a focus on defense this season after the team hired Coach Tom Thibodeau, a defensive specialist, last summer.The 3-point defense has been especially notable. With the Knicks aggressively defending on the perimeter, the team is allowing opponents to shoot just .334 from 3, best in the league. Last season, with more time to shoot, Knicks opponents made 38 percent of their 3s, and the Knicks ranked an abysmal 28th in that category.Nerlens Noel ranks second to only Rudy Gobert of the Jazz in Basketball Reference’s defensive rating, which measures things like blocks (Noel is in the top five), steals, defensive rebounds and forced turnovers. Randle is in the top 10 of defensive rating as well.And the team is doing it all with a payroll under $100 million, the second lowest in the league. Even Knicks haters, who have been dormant for want of a target in recent years, are starting to emerge on social media to duel with exuberant Knicks fans.After years of anger, despair and, even worse, apathy, New Yorkers, and the rest of the league, are starting to take notice of the action at the Garden again. More

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    Regular People Keep Challenging N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. Players

    There’s confidence, and then there’s thinking you can beat one of the 500 (N.B.A.) or 150 (W.N.B.A.) best basketball players in the world.Of the millions of people around the world who play basketball, fewer than 500 are in the N.B.A. at any given time. Fewer than 150 are in the W.N.B.A. Before retiring in 2012, Brian Scalabrine spent 11 seasons in the N.B.A., far more than the majority of players who have made it to that level. He won a championship as a reserve for the Boston Celtics in 2008. He is 6-foot-9 and roughly 250 pounds.Yet strangers cannot seem to stop challenging Scalabrine to one-on-one games. Last month, a video that went viral showed Scalabrine being challenged at a gym by an overeager high schooler in Taunton, Mass. Scalabrine, playing the teenager for a pair of sneakers, beat him 11-0.These high school kids bet Brian Scalabrine a pair of shoes they could beat him 1-on-1 😅 @brkicks(via joshlopesss/IG) pic.twitter.com/FX2NjbD4Sa— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 23, 2021
    Scalabrine, who averaged 3.1 points per game for his career, said this happens to him regularly, and conversations with other unheralded former players revealed that it’s the same for them. By his own account, Scalabrine, 43, looked “pudgy on television compared to some of the best athletes in the world” and wasn’t known as much of a rebounder or scorer.Even so, Scalabrine survived in the league by developing a reputation for rarely making mistakes, being versatile on defense and shooting the 3.“Being a white N.B.A. player from the suburbs, I have to level up,” said Scalabrine, who is from Long Beach, Calif., and was often referred to as the White Mamba, a play on Kobe Bryant’s Black Mamba nickname.“People don’t understand how a little bit nuts you have to be to sustain an N.B.A. career,” Scalabrine said. “Especially when you’re not that talented. You have to be ready. You have to be up for the fight. You have to be like that every day. And if you’re not, you lose your livelihood.”Scalabrine has, to some degree, invited the ongoing challenges. Shortly after retiring, he took part in a Boston radio station’s “Scallenges” promotion in which top local players played him one on one. Scalabrine won every game by a large margin.Of course, even the top players in the N.B.A. get challenged, often at youth camps they run. Those clips go viral as well, with the stars gleefully blocking shots of children and teenagers several feet shorter than them. Rarely, the challenger will win, as in 2003, when John Rogers, who was then the 45-year-old chief executive of an investment firm, beat the recently retired Michael Jordan in a game of one on one at Jordan’s camp after Jordan had beaten 20 other people in a row.But for players who aren’t, or weren’t, the face of a franchise, they get challenged in a different way, as Michael Sweetney can attest. The former Knick, who played in the N.B.A. for four seasons from 2003 to 2007, said in an interview that he was challenged “all the time.” In fact, Sweetney, 38, said it happened just a few weeks ago by two former high school basketball players who happened to be at a gym in Florida where he was working out with children at a basketball camp.Michael Sweetney playing for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden in 2005.Frank Franklin II/Associated Press“I guess they were thinking that since I was far removed and retired that, ‘Hey, I can probably challenge him,’” said Sweetney, who averaged 6.5 points a game in 233 games. “It was funny because they tried to catch me off guard.”Sweetney added: “I was like: ‘I’m just letting you know, I’m not going to take it easy. You challenge me, it’s going to be competitive. It ended up being a situation like Scalabrine. I beat one like 11-2 and the other one was like 11-1.”The two challengers were surprised, said Sweetney, who is now an assistant coach at Yeshiva University. It was another reminder: When a player makes the N.B.A., no matter for how long, he is, in that moment, one of the 500 best basketball players in the world.“Yes, I’m removed,” Sweetney said. “I’m probably not in N.B.A. shape. But you still have talent and people just think if you’re not a superstar, they might have a chance against you.“They don’t know that even the 15th guy on the bench is better than the average person walking down the street.”Scalabrine, who is a television analyst for the Celtics, has taken pleasure in reminding the public of that. End-of-the-bench N.B.A. players may even have to work harder than stars to stay in the league because one missed assignment could be the difference between having a job or not.“I can go into any gym right now and I can find some of the best players going through the motions sometimes,” Scalabrine said. “Can you imagine 15 straight years? Maybe even more like 17, 18 straight years of never going through the motions?”He said professional athletes, even retired ones, have an extra gear that an average person cannot tap into. He referred to it as the “dark place.”“I would always say things, like in a game, ‘If I miss this next shot, my kids are going to die,’” Scalabrine said. “I would say that to myself, just to get through, just to put the pressure so I can lock in and make the shot.”Many W.N.B.A. teams bring in nonprofessional men to play against in practice, which Cheyenne Parker, a 28-year-old forward for the Atlanta Dream entering her seventh season, diplomatically described as “great competition” because “they are strong and fast.”She added, with a laugh: “But skillwise? Yeah.”Parker said she was challenged often — “especially being a tall woman.” She was playing pickup last month in Chicago, where she lives, when a cocky man started trash-talking her.Cheyenne Parker, left, said unfounded confidence leads some people to think they could outplay professional athletes.Mike Carlson/Associated Press“We start the game and I get my first chance to touch the ball. I like to work on my moves during pickup so I do this nice little Kyrie move. I juked him real bad,” Parker said, referring to Kyrie Irving, the Nets star known for his ball-handling skills. “I scored it in his face. Everybody went, ‘Ohhh!’ It was funny.”When asked why amateurs were so willing to challenge journeymen basketball players, Parker said: “The same reason why a guy that I would never, ever give a chance to, still has that confidence to come and approach me and ask for my number. You know? It’s the same type of confidence that these people have to even think that they can beat a professional.”Adonal Foyle, who played in the N.B.A. from 1997 to 2009, mostly as a reserve for Golden State, said he has faced similar challenges in retirement when he goes home to the Caribbean. Basketball players are more likely to be challenged than other athletes, Foyle said, because they are more visible. They don’t wear masks while playing, and fans can sit courtside. But there’s also a misconception among amateurs that athleticism keeps players in the league, he said.“Basketball players at the end of their career are like Chinese movies,” Foyle, 46, said. “You have this Silver Fox. He walks in and he looks like he’s the one from the grave. And then he starts doing karate. And you’re like: ‘Oh my goodness. I didn’t know he could do all that.’”What Scalabrine referred to as “the dark place,” Foyle calls “the stupid gene” — the switch that professional athletes have when their competitiveness is tested.“You go to the gym. You try to play with regular folks. You’re having a good time,” Foyle said. “Somebody tries to dunk over you. Immediately, you flip that switch of, ‘OK, you’re going down.’ To me, what I always worry about is not beating the other person. It is how much my body can take of this stupid gene.”Foyle said he hasn’t played pickup basketball in seven years. Instead, he prefers racquetball, where he “gets beat by 75-year-olds who see themselves as geniuses.”Adonal Foyle during a game against the Denver Nuggets in 2000.Jon Ferrey /Allsport, via Getty Images“Part of the reason for doing it is because I got hurt almost every time I went out and played pickup ball because of that stupid gene,” Foyle said. “You think you can do the things you did 15, 20 years ago and you can’t. You don’t get to turn that person off that has defined your life. I thought it was best not to enter the field.”For Scalabrine, the reason he gets his skills continually questioned goes beyond the confidence of the challengers.“Joakim Noah said it best,” Scalabrine said, referring to his former teammate on the Chicago Bulls. “He said, ‘Scal, you look like you suck, but you don’t suck.’” More

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    Vanessa Bryant Uses Her Platform to Battle the Powerful

    Through social media and a lawsuit, she is trying to hold law enforcement to account in ways that are uncommon for women, and especially for women of color.For years, under the power dynamics of Los Angeles policing, many victims who have accused powerful law enforcement institutions of wrongdoing have found their charges batted aside or buried in bureaucratic inertia.But in recent months the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has faced a new, potent adversary: Vanessa Bryant.By leveraging her wealth and celebrity, Bryant, 38, is flipping the usual script. Through social media posts and a lawsuit, she is holding authorities to account in ways that are uncommon for women, and especially for women of color. And she has done it all while she navigates her grief after the deaths of her 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and her husband, Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star, who were killed in a helicopter crash near Calabasas, Calif., in January 2020.She filed the suit in September against the Sheriff’s Department, four deputies, the county and its fire department for invasion of privacy and negligence after deputies used personal cellphones to take pictures of the site that included the remains of her husband, their daughter and the seven others who died.In mid-March, Vanessa Bryant shared an amended complaint and the names of the four accused deputies — Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell and Raul Versales — to her more than 14 million Instagram followers. County lawyers had tried to keep the identities of the deputies hidden, arguing, in part, that they could be the target of hackers. It was an odd argument, considering that the lawyers had said the images had been deleted. A federal judge sided with Bryant.In the month since Bryant shared the names of the deputies, the call for law enforcement accountability has remained at the forefront of public debate through the murder trail of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd.Bryant’s public campaign against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a high-profile but long-troubled institution, has caught the attention of community activists and legal experts who are accustomed to families, especially those of color, silently hoping for but not receiving what they would consider justice. Vanessa Bryant is Mexican-American, and her husband was Black.“She has the ability to speak out and highlight what have been deep-seated and pervasive problems in the Sheriff’s Department around corruption, secrecy and lack of accountability,” said Priscilla Ocen, a member of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission and a professor at Loyola Law School. “She has the means. She has the visibility and, importantly, she has the protection that is afforded based on her wealth and celebrity in ways that families in East Los Angeles or Compton just don’t.”Bryant, through her lawyer, declined to comment for this article. She has also filed a wrongful-death suit against Island Express Helicopters, the company that operated the helicopter that crashed.“Transparency promotes accountability,” said Luis Li, one of Bryant’s lawyers. “We look forward to presenting Mrs. Bryant’s case in open court.”The Sheriff’s Department, in response to a request for comment, referred to a tweet from Sheriff Alex Villanueva: “We will refrain from trying this case in the media and will wait for the appropriate venue. Our hearts go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.”The department released a statement last fall that said, “As a result of the swift actions we took under extraordinary circumstances, no pictures made it into the public arena.”The sheriff had assured Bryant that deputies had secured the crash scene to ensure her privacy, according to Bryant’s suit.The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2020 that a citizen filed a complaint after a deputy showed graphic photos of the crash victims at a bar. Instead of the complaint starting a formal inquiry, according to the suit, the deputies were told “that if they came clean and deleted the photos, they would not face any discipline.”The suit stated that Bryant “privately sought information from the Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department to assess whether she should brace for her loved ones’ remains to surface on the internet.”Firefighters worked the scene of a helicopter crash.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressShe asked if the photos had been secured and how far they had ventured. According to the suit, each department “refused to respond to all but one of Mrs. Bryant’s questions and asserted they had no legal obligation to assist.”The suit stated that Cruz, then a deputy trainee, received copies of the photos from Mejia. Cruz is accused of showing them to his niece at his mother’s house, while making a crude remark about the images of the bodies, and of showing the images at a restaurant in Norwalk, Calif., where he could be seen zooming in and out of the pictures on a security camera.“Many of us are on the receiving end of police mistreatment and we just have to swallow those indignities,” said Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California, whose father, Fred, used criminal law he taught himself in prison to be released after a significant portion of his sentence. “Grin and bear it, because we don’t have the social kind of capital to be taken as seriously as she’s being taken.”Law enforcement officials, Ocen said, typically shape the narratives that filter out of debated interactions. As a result, public opinion is often split about whom to sympathize with. Not in this case, she said.“There’s universal sympathy, universal outrage for the conduct of the Sheriff’s Department in trivializing, minimizing and desecrating the memory of Kobe Bryant and their daughter,” Ocen said.Villanueva, the sheriff, announced an investigation into the sharing of the photos in March 2020, before the suit was filed, and asked the county’s Office of Inspector General to monitor it.“That was a sham,” said Max Huntsman, the inspector general.By that point, Huntsman said, his office had started an inquiry into Villanueva’s announcement that the photos were ordered to be deleted. Additional efforts to monitor the investigation were stymied by the Sheriff’s Department, which only offered him periodic, redacted updates, Huntsman said.“You can’t really rely on an organization to investigate itself when it’s the one that may have behaved improperly,” he said. “And when an elected official is the person who may have behaved improperly, then somebody else needs to investigate them if you want it to be at all credible and have real accountability.”The watchdog positions of the oversight committee and inspector general were created as checks in the aftermath of department scandals before Villanueva’s tenure as sheriff.Ocen and eight other civilians make up the commission, which recommends department improvements. But the group does not have the authority to force the department to adopt policies or discipline personnel. Recently, voters granted the commission the power to subpoena records.The relationship between the Sheriff’s Department and the committee and inspector general is adversarial. Two years ago, the Sheriff’s Department began a criminal investigation into whether Huntsman had illegally obtained internal records.The issues highlighted by Bryant’s suit represent a broader pattern within the Sheriff’s Department, Huntsman said. In December, his office released a 17-page report highlighting what it called “unlawful conduct” by the department, such as threatening county officials, failing to disclose the names of officers involved in shootings and not enforcing Covid-19 safety directives.A month earlier, the commission unanimously approved a resolution that condemned Villanueva’s leadership and called for his resignation.In February, Sheriff Alex Villanueva answered questions about Tiger Woods’s car crash.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“I’m on record saying that I think he’s a criminal, and I’m on record as identifying a bunch of conduct by the Sheriff’s Department under his watch that is completely unlawful,” Huntsman said. “We have a rogue law enforcement agency as a result of what they’re doing, but that doesn’t mean he has to resign. He has to start following the law.”In September, Bryant took notice when Villanueva called on LeBron James to double the reward leading to information on a gunman who had ambushed and shot two deputies.In response, Bryant posted screenshots from a Twitter user onto her Instagram story that read: “He shouldn’t be challenging LeBron James to match a reward or ‘to step up to the plate.’ He couldn’t even ‘step up to the plate’ and hold his deputies accountable for photographing dead children.”The suits, including ones from the families of the crash’s victims, are ongoing. Some change has already occurred.In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed into law a bill making it a misdemeanor for law enforcement and emergency medical workers to take photos of scenes that do not involve their work. The bill, H.R. 2655, was introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, Democrat of Carson, and violations carry fines of up to $1,000. Gipson named it the Kobe Bryant Bill.“Emergency medical workers not only have a responsibility to the victims, but also I believe to the family,” Gipson said. “There’s an obligation to protect the situation and not try to expose the family to further grief.”He added: “Hopefully this is a deterrent that will prevent this from happening again.” More

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    John Grisham Leaves the Courtroom for Basketball, and Sudan

    Grisham has spent the past 30 years churning out legal thrillers, but the pandemic’s impact on college sports prompted him to shift his focus to a basketball novel called “Sooley.”There is a basketball term to describe the author John Grisham: volume shooter.Since releasing his first hit novel, “The Firm,” in 1991, Grisham hasn’t gone a year without publishing a book. This includes the dozens of easy-to-digest legal thrillers that have brought Grisham, a former lawyer, hundreds of millions of dollars in book sales, as well as film and television deals. There are seven children’s books, a Christmas novel (“Skipping Christmas,” which was turned into the 2004 film “Christmas With the Kranks”) and three sports novels.For his 46th book, “Sooley,” Grisham is bringing volume shooting to print, with his first basketball novel.It tracks a 17-year-old named Sam­uel Sooleymon, who leaves Sudan for the first time to play college basketball in the United States. While he is stateside, a civil war in Sudan rages on, leaving members of his family stranded in a refugee camp. He vows to rescue his family, especially as hopes grow that he will be drafted by an N.B.A. team.In an interview, Grisham, who played baseball and basketball at South Haven High School in Mississippi, said the idea for the story began three years ago, when he read an article about the South Sudanese national team competing in Hawaii at the World Youth Basketball Tournament. He combined their story with that of Mamadi Diakite, who is from Guinea and played four seasons at the University of Virginia. Diakite signed a two-way contract with the Milwaukee Bucks in November. (There is a familiar third source of inspiration, which would require a major spoiler.)“I’ve been wanting to write a book about college basketball for a long time,” said Grisham, 66. “I love sports. I love sports stories. I especially love college sports, and I especially love sad sports stories.”Grisham, who was a Democratic state legislator in Mississippi from 1983 to 1990, has begun branching out in recent years from his signature Southern legal thrillers.In a phone call, he discussed his research process, why the civil war in Sudan was a central story line and hating Duke University. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Doubleday PublishingDid you start writing this in 2020?I was sitting in a bar with a friend having a drink and they flashed on television, “March Madness is canceled!” And I thought that was the end of the world. I never thought they could cancel March Madness. And so I took it pretty hard. I thought, “You know, we’re all depressed about it.” And I said: “I’m going to think real hard. I’ve got some ideas about a novel for college basketball. So I’m going to start and then get it done this year.”What is it about the Sudanese civil war that interested you enough to include it as a major story line in this book?Just the sheer tragedy of that poor country. That they were fighting the civil war back in the early 1960s, when the south of Sudan hated the north. Religious differences. Ethnic differences. Language differences. And they just always were fighting each other. And the south was always the short end of the stick. And then in 2011, a deal brokered by the United States, primarily Susan Rice, did a great job. We intervened. Europe intervened.We all sided with the rebels, and then in 2011, there was a sort of peace deal, and they were given the right to vote in the South, and 99 percent of the South Sudanese voted for independence. I remember it vividly. It was a great day. It was the newest nation on earth, and it was going to be democratic, and it was going to be all these wonderful things, and people are going to get along and prosper and blah, blah, blah. And it lasted barely two years and a horrible civil war broke out again. Anyway, it’s just the tragedy of what those people have gone through and are still enduring.You very vividly describe some of the horrors that the refugees endure. Did you talk to refugees? How were you able to describe that?Well, first of all, I was able to pull together probably a dozen books. There’s some great books written by people who know the country, refugees, people who escaped, people who are still there, children. There’s just some phenomenal memoirs written by the South Sudanese. There’s tons of stuff online. I mean, you can watch YouTube videos all night long of the refugee camps, and it doesn’t take much to get the flavor of what’s going on there. It’s so awful and tragic, and the people are so resilient. But it’s also heartbreaking to see how they live and how dire their circumstances still are. So, no, I didn’t leave the computer. You know, honestly, the internet and Google have made book research so much easier because everything is there.I’m a huge reader. I love to read about places like that, as sad as they were. So I didn’t have to go chasing around to talk to refugees or refugee groups. I did chase down some basketball guys I know. I played the sport as a white kid in Mississippi in the late 1960s; that was one brand of basketball. It’s nothing like today. I don’t know the game inside now, like players and coaches do today.Tony Bennett [coach of the Virginia men’s team] is one of my heroes in life, and he knows so much about basketball. I love watching the games. I have no idea what’s really happening. He does. Coaches do. So I talked to coaches. I talked to a couple of former players, just about the ins and outs of college basketball.I couldn’t help but notice in the story that Sooley’s team at one point upsets Duke. You come from a University of North Carolina family. Was that a purposeful decision? (Grisham’s wife, daughter and son-in-law are U.N.C. alumni.)Very purposeful.I thought as much.We’re Tar Heels, OK? It’s an intense rivalry. You know, each team has a lot of respect for the other, great coaches and all that, but you know, we’re Tar Heel fans, and hey, they had to beat somebody, OK? It was so much fun.Most of your books take place in environments you grew up in. What was your level of comfort in centering a story on a trauma that, as a wealthy white person, is not something you ever saw firsthand?Well, I think I approach it differently. I hope to bring awareness to their problem, to their plight. I hope that people will, who maybe had not thought about it before, will show some interest in that, and then understand what these people are going through and maybe help in some way, maybe send a check.I’ve had several of my books, most of them dealing with wrongful convictions, where at the end in my author’s note, I would say: “These organizations are doing God’s work. If you’ve got a spare buck, send them a check.” And the money pours in. So, I mean, I do have that level of influence with some people. So I’m always aware of trying to help people along the way. Yeah, I mean, I’m a wealthy white person, so I’m not going to apologize for that. I’ve got to write something, OK? [Laughter.]What’s next for you?Halfway through the next legal thriller. I’ll finish it in July, wrote a thousand words this morning. That’s my routine.Is there another sport you’d like to write about?I have a golf book. I started playing golf at the age of 55, which was 11 years ago, which is insanity. It’s just very difficult to learn the game, as hard as it is, when you take it up at the age of 55, and it’s been a real struggle. It’s also been quite humorous.Are you an N.B.A. fan?Not at all. I have not followed the N.B.A. in 50 years. More

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    Chelsea Dungee Was Ready for Her W.N.B.A. (and Yacht?) Moment

    Dungee, a guard from the University of Arkansas, was drafted fifth overall by the Dallas Wings after a whirlwind few days (that’s the yacht) and a lifetime in the gym.Chelsea Dungee was flying on Thursday, the day of the W.N.B.A. draft. She wasn’t on the court, where the ambidextrous guard is used to getting airtime on both sides of the basket. She was getting on a plane, returning to Fayetteville, Ark. She was also euphoric.“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Dungee said in a telephone interview during her layover in Atlanta. “I worked my entire life for today.”The 23-year-old star Arkansas guard was returning from Florida, where she had posed for her first photo shoot as one of the female athletes endorsed by Nike’s Jordan Brand. The shoot required Dungee to sip champagne on a yacht with an assortment of her soon-to-be-peers, W.N.B.A. players like Kia Nurse and Crystal Dangerfield, who won the Rookie of the Year Award last season. The Instagram chronicles of the glamorous evening became Dungee’s de facto announcement of her first endorsement.WNBA Prospect Chelsea Dungee is currently hanging out with Te’a Cooper (Sparks), Aerial Powers (Lynx), Jordin Canada (Storm), Dearica Hamby (Aces), Crystal Dangerfield (Lynx), and Kia Nurse (Mercury) on a boat. 👀 #WNBA pic.twitter.com/4Xa7HngE6X— Women’s Hoopz (@WomensHoopz) April 15, 2021
    From there, she was heading to her own draft party to celebrate making it to the league — and being a first-round draft choice, if the mock draft consensus held up. It made sense that she was so excited that she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. What she didn’t realize, though, was just how much better her day was going to get.Dungee was one of the players for whom the draft’s unpredictability meant good news, instead of a long, painful wait to hear her name called. She was the fifth overall pick, going higher than expected to the Dallas Wings — a squad full of compelling young stars that happens to be the closest W.N.B.A. team to both Dungee’s hometown Okmulgee, Okla., and her school, the University of Arkansas.“My mom has never missed a home game,” Dungee told reporters after celebrating her pick. “I’m only about three-and-a-half hours from her and about five from Arkansas, so it couldn’t be a better situation.”Her mother, Chi Dungee, a social worker, raised her alone in their tiny town of less than 12,000. Chi played basketball and softball in high school, and introduced Chelsea to sports.“We lived in the country,” Chi said as she sat with her daughter in the Arkansas athletics conference room where they, the women’s basketball coaches, Chelsea’s teammates and a few fans would watch the draft. “We had the outdoor hoop that was just old school. It was a 10-foot pipe with a basket welded to it, and you played on dirt.”The W.N.B.A., now heading into its 25th season, was new when Chelsea was learning the game, but she can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to make it to the league. Unlike so many of her predecessors, Dungee is younger than the league itself. It was nearby, too: The Detroit Shock became the Tulsa Shock when she was in middle school. Now, they’re the Dallas Wings.Dungee’s ability was evident early. An Oklahoma journalist at her draft night news conference, for example, recalled covering her when she was just 14 years old. Though that meant Chi had to take her to more and more games and tournaments, the mother said she found comfort in the grind of parenting a high-level athlete. “From this month to this month, you’re going to see these people, your kids are going to compete,” Chi said. “There was a lot of support system in that.”Dungee was the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer last season, averaging more than 20 points per game.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe beamed at her daughter as she spoke of all the work it took for both of them to get to this place, clad in television-ready outfits picked a few days before while waiting to hear life-changing, history-shaping news. “Whatever we decided to do, we did together — and we were all in, I mean 100 percent,” Chi said, her voice shaking slightly. “Here we are, again.”Chelsea Dungee is now preparing to meet a whole new group of teammates, and spent much of her time on set with her Jordan Brand colleagues asking them about life in the league. “Like, what’s training camp look like? What’s housing look like? What’s traveling look like?” Dungee said of the questions she asked some of the W.N.B.A. veterans. “Just getting a lot of knowledge from them, and asking about what to expect.”It was only right that she watched the draft at Arkansas, next to the gym where she spent so many hours trying to make sure that she would have her draft moment. Dungee’s mother and her Arkansas coach, Mike Neighbors, were by her side. Neighbors kept track of all 12 team hats the W.N.B.A. sent her, so that the right one would be handy for Dungee to put on as soon as she got picked. The three of them watched the broadcast quietly, until Dungee’s name was called. Neighbors handed her the Wings hat, Dungee hugged her mother, and then she did her national television interview.“I was surprised,” she said afterward. “I don’t think anyone would have thought that, coming from a small town, I’d be the fifth pick.”She went around the room, taking selfies with the teammates, coaches and fans. Arkansas, where she transferred after spending her freshman year at Oklahoma, was where she found her identity — a relentless shooter whose offensive creativity made her the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference in the 2020-21 season, averaging 22.3 points per game. Then there’s her razor-sharp crossover, the move that she hopes will become her W.N.B.A. signature.“I think this system has absolutely been great for me,” Dungee said of Neighbors’ program. “It’s fast paced, there’s a lot of pick-and-rolls, a lot of screening actions, and you see that a lot in the W.N.B.A.”The draft night party served as a more fitting conclusion to her time with the Razorbacks than their last game, in which Arkansas became the seventh No. 4 seed ever to be upset by a No. 13 seed in the first round of the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament. “It was disappointing,” Dungee said. “I had to come to terms with that, let it go and move on.”The coaching she received at Arkansas, and the community that was as willing to encourage her to shoot her shot as it was supportive of her on draft night, may have helped raise her draft stock. Before the draft, Chicago Sky Coach James Wade said that both she and her Arkansas teammate Destiny Slocum had “progressed a lot in their maturity and the way they approach the game, playing for a coach that gives them a lot of freedom and that plays a W.N.B.A. style.” Slocum was drafted in the second round by the Las Vegas Aces.After seemingly endless rounds of interviews on Thursday, Dungee finally had time to digest her wild 24 hours. “My dream actually just came true,” Dungee said. “I’m still in shock.” She pledged that she would be back in the gym the next day, getting ready for training camp on April 25, and hopefully her first W.N.B.A. season on May 15.“This is a celebration,” she added, not ruling out the possibility of having a little more champagne. “Afterwards, I’ll have my mind right and be ready to work.” More

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    ‘Do I Really Belong Here?’: Korean Americans in the N.B.A. Wonder

    A small network of Korean Americans working throughout basketball are helping one another grow professionally and feel understood personally, while hoping to add to their ranks.Early this season, Evan Scott was officiating an N.B.A. game in Portland when a member of the Trail Blazers’ coaching staff approached him during a timeout.As a second-year referee in the league, Scott is accustomed to coaches complaining about calls during timeouts.Jon Yim had sought him out for a different reason.For much of Yim’s nine years as the Blazers’ video coordinator and player development coach, he has rarely shared the court with another Korean American. Scott, 28, is believed to be the first Korean American to officiate in the N.B.A.“It was a nice little interaction to feel recognized and recognize him, as well,” said Scott, who was born in South Korea and adopted by an American family. “We talked about how there are a couple of others around the league.”Recently, a small contingent of Korean-Americans have been hired for notable positions in the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. and the G League. But for decades, Korean Americans in basketball have privately assisted younger colleagues, toiling to create more representation at the highest levels of the sport.Early in Yim’s tenure with the Blazers, he was contacted by John Cho, who worked for 19 years as the Houston Rockets’ director of basketball technology.“If you need anything, let me know,” Yim recalled Cho telling him.Jon Yim is a player development coach and video coordinator for the Portland Trail Blazers, and he says he rarely runs across other Korean Americans in the N.B.A.Abbie Parr/Getty ImagesYim extended a similar offer in 2018, when Yale Kim began working in basketball operations with the Phoenix Suns. Like many of his Korean-American colleagues, Kim finished his playing career around middle school; in Phoenix, he was suddenly asked to scout college players. To ease the learning curve, Yim advised Kim on various video scouting technologies.“You’re always kind of reaching for people to look up to,” said Kim, 28. “I technically knew it’s possible to be a Korean American in basketball operations, but until you’re exposed to those people and find out about them, that’s when it feels attainable.”In Major League Baseball, a group of Black athletes created a similar network based on mentorship and discussing shared experiences in a professional sport where their representation has fallen well below what it is in the general population.There is believed to be only one player of Korean heritage who has suited up for an N.B.A. team. Ha Seung-jin, now a popular YouTube personality in South Korea, played 46 games for the Blazers in the 2004-5 and 2005-6 seasons. From 2018 to 2019, Ji-Su Park played for the W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces, and she is expected to be in camp for the upcoming season.Recently, there have been efforts to bring more players of Korean descent into the N.B.A.Milton Lee, the Nets’ director of basketball operations from 2010 to ’14, housed the Korean guard Daesung Lee in his New York apartment while Daesung Lee trained to prepare for the 2017 G League draft. They were introduced by Kiwook Kim, a Nets season-ticket holder from South Korea.Although Daesung Lee played one year with the Erie BayHawks of the G League before returning to South Korea, renewed hope surrounds the Davidson sophomore Hyunjung Lee, who was second on the Wildcats in scoring this past season.Eugene Park, the N.B.A.’s senior manager for elite basketball talent identification, scouted Hyunjung Lee at the league’s 2017 Asia Pacific Team Camp, then invited him to the N.B.A. Global Academy program for select young talent. In the off-season, Hyunjung Lee trains in South Korea with Brian Kim, who recently coached the G League’s Grand Rapids Drive and is another Park disciple.Park, who also plays pickup basketball with Milton Lee, wrote in an email that while he holds the same standard for every player he scouts, he keeps “a close eye on grass-roots basketball competitions in Korea with the hope of identifying more Korean prospects” to potentially recruit to the Global Academy.Davidson forward Hyunjung Lee was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer in the 2020-21 season, raising hopes that he can find a place in the N.B.A.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersPark added that more basketball employees of Korean heritage would “showcase a more complete picture of our history.”The news media and education systems in the United States have long struggled to properly characterize the depths of the Korean-American experience, the diversity of which is evident in the family histories of Park and his colleagues.Yim’s ancestors were among the first Koreans to come to the United States, arriving in 1905 and working as pineapple farmers in Hawaii. Scott was one of an estimated 200,000 children placed for adoption after wars and their resulting economic turmoil devastated the Korean Peninsula during much of the 20th century.Milton Lee said his father had escaped North Korea during the Korean War, never seeing his mother or sisters again; he immigrated to the United States and became a doctor. Arnold Lee, an assistant trainer with the Chicago Bulls, saw parallels between his family’s journey and the story told in the Oscar-nominated film “Minari.” His father was in his 20s when he visited America in the 1980s and decided to move here, looking to escape the financial uncertainty that gripped South Korea as it struggled to establish a democracy after decades of coups and military rule.“I hope others find strength in these Korean-American journeys and use that to propel out of their comfort zone,” said Marshall Cho, the boys’ basketball coach at Lake Oswego High School in Oregon. Cho, who previously worked in the N.B.A.’s Basketball Without Borders program, co-founded the Kimchi Family speaker series on YouTube to highlight the stories of Korean Americans in basketball.Rachael Joo, a professor at Middlebury College whose research focuses on how the sports media connects South Korean and Korean-American communities, called Korean N.B.A. employees “mavericks” for not having played professionally yet still breaking into a field dominated by former athletes.Because of their lack of playing experience, many Korean Americans in the N.B.A. say they have experienced impostor syndrome at various stages in their career.“Every day I feel like, do I really belong here?” said Arnold Lee, who has worked for the Bulls since 2016.Many of the Korean-American staff members interviewed said they had experienced racism within the game.Isaac Barnett, who is of Korean descent, officiated a W.N.B.A. game last season that involved Candace Parker and the Los Angeles Sparks. Barnett’s brother, Jacob, also officiates in the league.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressScott said that fans in high school gyms and pro arenas had hurled slurs at him and that he had discussed the incidents with Isaac and Jacob Barnett, brothers of Korean descent who referee in the W.N.B.A. and the G League. The three of them grew up together in Northern Virginia, and the Barnetts encouraged Scott to become a referee.Microaggressions are also common. Yim recalled being introduced to an N.B.A. general manager during the summer league and that a colleague had reported back that the executive perceived Yim as passive and soft and as someone who should be “happy you have a job.”Yim, 36, is now well-regarded around the league. At 28, he gave up a teaching career to take an internship with the Los Angeles Clippers, getting to work at 6:30 a.m. to do everything from “wiping up sweat during pickup games” to training with players.Blazers Coach Terry Stotts has called Yim an “instrumental” part of his staff, and Yim has built a strong rapport with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, Portland’s star guards.Yim is also willing to be confrontational with referees. When he approached Scott this season, he started their conversation by arguing about what he thought was a missed foul on McCollum, before offering congratulations.“I was proud of him as a Korean for being the first Korean referee in the league,” Yim said. “Seeing him do it gave me some inspiration that I could be the first Korean head coach in the N.B.A. Evan thanked me and then said, ‘When you are a head coach, I will be the first to give you a technical.’“I said, ‘That’s a deal.’” More