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    Don’t Be Mad at Alex ‘Bald Eagle’ Caruso

    Want more basketball in your inbox? Sign up for Marc Stein’s weekly N.B.A. newsletter here. Alex Caruso of the Los Angeles Lakers certainly isn’t gloating about, at last count, accruing more All-Star votes in the Western Conference than Utah’s Donovan Mitchell and Phoenix’s Devin Booker — as well as a pretty popular veteran in Portland […] More

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    W.N.B.A. Makes ‘Big Bet on Women’ With a New Contract

    The W.N.B.A. and its players’ union have signaled a radical shift in how female athletes are to be compensated with a tentative contract agreement that would sharply increase salaries and provide generous maternal benefits in a move Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called “a big bet on women.” The implications of the agreement stretch far beyond basketball […] More

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    Kyrie Irving Is Back, as if He Never Left

    Do not be alarmed by the gusts of wind you heard on Sunday evening. Sighs of relief from an entire borough of New York City can be jarring. Kyrie Irving made his return to the Nets at home against the Atlanta Hawks, and it was almost as if he had never left. The mixture of […] More

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    UConn Loses to Baylor, and Home Winning Streak Ends at 98

    HARTFORD, Conn. — Kim Mulkey and Baylor are making a habit of ending Connecticut’s streaks. Teá Cooper scored 27 points and No. 6 Baylor used a dominant fourth quarter to beat top-ranked UConn, 74-58, on Thursday night, ending the Huskies’ 98-game home winning streak. It was the second consecutive year that the Lady Bears (12-1) […] More

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    The N.B.A. Elite Are Now From Everywhere

    Want more basketball in your inbox? Sign up for Marc Stein’s weekly N.B.A. newsletter here. It was at the 2018 All-Star Game in Los Angeles that I asked Steve Nash, one of the foremost imports in N.B.A. history, if the league would ever be ready — really ready — for a Rest of the World […] More

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    The Knicks Were 0-for-Los Angeles, but There May Be Signs of Hope

    LOS ANGELES — R.J. Barrett, the Knicks’ 6-foot-6 teenage rookie, dribbled into the lane on Tuesday evening and confronted the Man Wall that is Lakers center Dwight Howard. Barrett tossed up a high floater, and Howard rose higher still and swatted the ball as if slapping a housefly. Barrett is 19 and not easily flustered, […] More

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    Kyrie Irving Says He May Need Shoulder Surgery

    Nets guard Kyrie Irving, addressing the media for the first time in two months, said on Saturday that he had taken a cortisone shot in an attempt to avoid surgery on an ailing shoulder that has kept him out of games since Nov. 14. He did not give a concrete timetable for his return but […] More

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    Believe in Giannis Antetokounmpo. But the Milwaukee Bucks?

    I’d usually wait until after the N.B.A. season to take stock of all the basketball takes I got wrong and issue a mea culpa. But with slightly less than half of this campaign completed, I am finding that the season has flummoxed me more than any other in my years of watching basketball. So many […] More