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    Team’s Sale Reflects Growing Links Between Pro Sports and Gambling

    The proposed purchase of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks by a casino operator is the latest sign of how fully leagues have embraced the gaming world.For years, professional sports organizations like the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball prohibited liquor companies from buying advertising in locations in stadiums and arenas that could be seen on television, in deference to efforts to curb drunken driving.But in 2009, during the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression, those same leagues found themselves scrambling for cash as their biggest sponsors — automakers, banks and others — cut back on marketing. Suddenly, they began signing multimillion-dollar deals with companies that made rum, tequila, vodka and other hard liquor, and the advertising was displayed for all to see.It was a sign of how justifications can change seemingly overnight, especially when money is involved. The sports world was reminded of that last week when Miriam Adelson and her trust sold $2 billion worth of shares in the Sands Corporation, a casino operator, to buy a professional sports team, which turned out to be the Dallas Mavericks. (The purchase still needs to be approved by the league’s board of governors before becoming official.)“The Adelson and Dumont families are honored to have the opportunity to be stewards of this great franchise,” they said in a statement.For decades, most major professional leagues largely kept the gaming world at arm’s length. They barred players, referees and owners from gambling on sports, to insulate game results from any hint of impropriety, a stance that dated back at least a century to the famed Black Sox scandal of 1919.Some leagues likewise forbid owners from holding stakes in casinos. In one instance, Dan Rooney, the principal owner of the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers, had to buy out his brothers’ stake in the team because the brothers owned racetracks in New York and Florida. The N.B.A. had no such rule and has had owners with ties to casinos, including Tilman Fertitta, the current owner of the Houston Rockets.The N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, long opposed the broad legalization of sports gambling.Adam Hunger/Associated Press“If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties and play calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust and accusations of point-shaving or game fixing,” the N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, said in 2012.Yet at a time when sports gambling — once done only in casino meccas like Las Vegas or through bookies — has been legalized in dozens of states, the leagues’ former approach seems quaint. While restrictions remain on players, referees and owners wagering on their own sports, gambling has otherwise been embraced by the mainstream sports establishment.They have removed restrictions on casinos and sports books advertising in stadiums and on television. Some stadiums, like FedEx Field in Landover, Md., the home of the N.F.L.’s Washington Commanders, have sports books inside. Sports wagering companies now plaster their names on sign boards in stadiums and buy TV commercials during games, including the Super Bowl, with all manner of promotions to woo new customers.The leagues have also done an about-face on operating in the home of sports wagering, Las Vegas, which was for years off limits. Now the National Hockey League, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the N.F.L. have teams in the city. Last month, Major League Baseball’s owners unanimously approved allowing the A’s to leave Oakland and head to Las Vegas. The N.B.A., which has held All-Star games, summer leagues and a new in-season tournament in Las Vegas, could add an expansion team in the city in the coming years, which would give every major pro sport a team in a locale the leagues once shunned.“The leagues are constantly re-evaluating their business as laws change, social mores change and different companies and categories become bigger,” said Marc Ganis, a consultant to numerous teams and leagues. “That includes look at ownership rules, sponsorships and advertising.”The N.F.L.’s embrace of Las Vegas has perhaps been most surprising, given the league’s conservative reputation. The Raiders won approval to move to the city in 2017. The league has held the Pro Bowl and college draft on The Strip. And in February, the league’s marquee event — the Super Bowl — will be played in Las Vegas, removing perhaps the last vestige of any distance between it and the city.The Super Bowl in February will be held at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.Kirby Lee/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConThe leagues’ reassessment has been both practical and strategic. The biggest break came in 2018 after the Supreme Court ruled that a law that prohibited sports gambling in most of the country was unconstitutional. Dozens of states quickly approved legalizing sports wagering, dwarfing the amount spent in Las Vegas. The N.F.L. now allows owners to hold stakes in casinos that have no sports betting, though it restricts owners from having more than a 5 percent stake in casinos that allow sports betting.“Las Vegas is acceptable not so much because of us but because gambling is almost everywhere now,” said Michael Green, a historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The Strip is as legit as any large business.”At the same time, Las Vegas’s image as a desert oasis with casinos and nightclubs under the thumb of the mob changed dramatically in the 1990s, when The Strip was turned into an urban theme park where parents could bring their children. Many visitors come now as much to see shows like U2 at the Sphere or the latest extravaganza by Cirque du Soleil as they do to visit the casinos.And while Las Vegas is relatively small, with a population of about 2.5 million in the region, it has been able to support teams like the Raiders and the Golden Knights of the N.H.L. because the city is a year-round destination, drawing roughly 40 million tourists annually.“There’s a whole new demographic being exposed to sports gambling by visiting Las Vegas,” said Jay Kornegay, the vice president of the Race and Sports Book Operations at Westgate Resorts.Mr. Green noted that the Smith Center for the Performing Arts and the Mob Museum, which both opened in 2012, also gave the city a glean of sophistication it had lacked. He recalled how just 20 years ago, the N.F.L. blocked Las Vegas from buying ads during the Super Bowl, a decision that now seems antiquated.“Remind me,” he said, “where’s the next Super Bowl?”Kevin Draper More

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    Why Some Korean Basketball Players Love the Bank Shot

    Banked free throws, an unorthodox technique, have a cult following in the Korean Basketball League.As the basketball player steps to the free-throw line, the crowd watches in hushed anticipation. With one sweeping motion, he bounces the ball off the backboard and through the net.Wait, he banked it in? On purpose?The fans erupt in celebration. The shot is no fluke — just another free throw, South Korean style.The free throw is supposed to be an easy point after a foul: a direct, unguarded shot 15 feet from the backboard. But there’s an art to it. The ball, most players and fans would say, should leave the fingers gracefully, make a wide arc, avoid the rim — and “splash” straight into the net, as the N.B.A. sharpshooter Steph Curry called it.With the help of analytics, other shots have evolved in pro basketball. But not the free throw, and over the past 30 years, its success rate in the N.B.A. has barely budged from around 77.The shot’s stagnation stems from the mockery that awaits any variation to the “nothing but net” technique in the United States. Bank shots — bouncing the ball off the glass before it falls through the net — are derided as amateurish for anything but layups.But a devoted group of players in the Korean Basketball League, or K.B.L., have embraced the unorthodox technique.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Johnny Green, Jumpin’ Knicks All-Star, Dies at 89

    An All-Star forward — and an all-American at Michigan State — he was known as Jumpin’ Johnny, able to soar over taller opponents for 14 seasons in the N.B.A.Johnny Green, an All-Star forward for the Knicks in the 1960s who gained acclaim for his leaping ability and rebounding prowess through 14 National Basketball Association seasons, died on Thursday in Huntington, N.Y. He was 89.His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his son Johnny Jr., who said his father had had heart and kidney problems for about a year.Jumpin’ Johnny, as he came to be known, was 6-foot-5 and about 200 pounds, but he often bested taller and huskier frontline opponents, snaring rebounds, blocking shots and hitting short-range baskets.He was durable as well; he avoided serious injuries and had some of his best seasons late in his career. He played in the N.B.A. until he was 39, retiring after the 1972-73 season.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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    Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Seeks to Nullify His Purchase of Toronto House

    Irate investors looking for a bankrupt “crypto king” were regular visitors to the new Toronto-area home of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder.The six bedroom, 10,000 square-foot house on Lake Ontario that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a star player with the Oklahoma City Thunder, bought for just over 8.4 million Canadian dollars, or $6.1 million, should have been a dream home.But in May, two days after Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander, 25, moved into the house, near Toronto, with his partner, it became a nightmare, according to a lawsuit seeking to nullify the sale. A menacing visitor appeared looking for a previous occupant. The couple left the next day and haven’t returned.The young N.B.A. player’s house, described in the real estate listing as an “elegant, resort-like estate,” had been the home of Aiden Pleterski, a self-styled “crypto king” who declared bankruptcy in 2022, while owing 26.8 million Canadian dollars to more than 150 investment clients.Court records show that the home received a steady stream of angry visitors seeking to talk to Mr. Pleterski while he was living there and after he moved out.Last December, court documents show, Mr. Pleterski was kidnapped by one of his aggrieved investors and four other men, then beaten and tortured over three days.Testimony in the bankruptcy case reveals that Mr. Pleterski had a security guard to ward off angry investors and was eventually moved out of the house for his own safety. Another resident also fled, fearing for his safety after angry visitors continued to turn up every day.A holding company owned by Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander is now asking a court to reverse the purchase of the Burlington, Ontario, house because the seller did not disclose its link to Mr. Pleterski and the home’s potential security threat.Aiden Pleterski was beaten by his kidnappers, according to court records.CBC NewsCiting the kidnapping, the holding company, in its filing, said the people who had been showing up at the upscale home “were not making idle threats.”The property’s former owner, the head of a Toronto real estate company with holdings that include apartments, retirement homes and hotels, hid the information about alarming visitors from potential buyers because “any purchaser who could afford to spend in excess of $8 million on a luxury home would value privacy and would also in any case want no part of a property that had a history of threatening visits to the past two occupants.”Through his lawyer, Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander declined to comment.The Halton Regional Police, which has authority over Burlington, declined to provide any more information and a spokesman refused to say if Mr. Pleterski was the target of a criminal investigation.A banking analysis by a bankruptcy trustee shows that Mr. Pleterski was not the investment prodigy many of his investors believed him to be.It found that of the 41.6 million Canadian dollars he took in, just 1.6 percent of the money was actually invested. He used about 38 percent of the money to repay redemptions — supposed investment gains — to some clients and spent about the same percentage on private jet travel, a fleet of luxury cars, watches, including one costing more than $300,000, and a lease on the Burlington house.The trustee concluded that “the extravagant lifestyle that Pleterski lived, which was funded by his investors,” had “ultimately led to his bankruptcy.”During a sworn 2022 interview with lawyers for the trustee, Mr. Pleterski said he first became interested in cryptocurrency after using it to make purchases for video games and began trading it when he was still in high school.He started out with money from his family and his earnings as a part-time baseball umpire. His knowledge of trading and financial markets, he said, came from “YouTube videos, Google, quick Google searches.”The business, Mr. Pleterski said, operated through his personal bank accounts until December 2021, when he set up his company at the suggestion of a former landlord.His only record keeping, he said, consisted of his texts and WhatsApp messages with customers. While Mr. Pleterski did create spreadsheets for a handful of customers who demanded them, he acknowledged that the investment return they showed was just “a general ballpark figure” he came up with after looking at his bank accounts.The home that Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander bought was located between Toronto, where he was born, and Hamilton, Ontario, where he was raised. It came fully furnished and included a gym, three car garage and a home theater. The bedrooms, reached by an elevator, offered sweeping lake views, including the property’s private dock.In his lawsuit, Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander said that two days after he moved in a man appeared demanding to see someone he had never heard of — Mr. Pleterski. Rather than leave when told that no one by that name was there, the uninvited visitor looked around the property and then sat in his car in the driveway.Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander’s partner, Hailey Summers, called the nonemergency number for the police and was told that the agency “had received several reports about threats to the property, including that there was a threat to burn the home down,” the lawsuit said.In the spring of 2021, Mr. Pleterski agreed to lease-to-own the Burlington house from a company controlled by Ray Gupta, who also controls the Sunray Group real estate holding company in Toronto. But when Mr. Pleterski’s trading business began collapsing, he stopped making his monthly 45,000 Canadian dollar rent payments and moved to a hotel owned by Sunray, where he wasn’t charged rent.In a response to Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander’s complaint, Mr. Gupta’s company downplayed the frequency and potential danger brought by the uninvited visitors and argued that it had no obligation to disclose the persistence of the unwelcome guests.“Notwithstanding the fact that Aiden was abducted, any visit to the Property by an individual inquiring about its former occupant would be viewed as an entirely normal occurrence,” it said.But during a sworn interview for Mr. Pleterski’s bankruptcy case, Sandeep Gupta, Ray’s son, who handled all the dealings with Mr. Pleterski, painted a different picture.“People were coming up to the house every single day, looking for Aiden,” Mr. Gupta said.He said the unwanted visits continued when a Sunray employee moved in to keep the furnished home occupied and the employee asked for a security guard. “His wife refused to stay there,” Mr. Gupta said. “It was a very bad situation.” More

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    Gary Colson, Who Lobbied for 3-Point Shot in College Ball, Dies at 89

    On a rules committee, he got fellow coaches to vote for the shot that changed the game. In 34 years as a college coach, he won 563 games with four teams.Gary Colson, who successfully lobbied to introduce the 3-point shot to college basketball during a 34-year coaching career that included stops at Fresno State, New Mexico and Pepperdine, died on Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 89.The cause was complications of lymphoma, said Bob Rose, a friend, who said he had been told of the death by Colson’s wife.Colson, who had a career win-loss record of 563-385, was a member of the N.C.A.A. rules committee in 1986 when he sought a straw vote from the members to see who was in favor of adding the 3-point shot.He said he was discouraged by a number of his fellow coaches from asking for a vote. But he did anyway, and the proposal passed.The rule, which originally awarded three points for baskets made from a distance of 19 feet 9 inches or more, had little effect at first. But the 3-point shot (the current distance is 22 feet 1¾ inches) has since become an important part of the game. It had been adopted by the National Basketball Association in 1979.Colson began his head coaching career at Valdosta State College (now Valdosta State University) in Georgia when he was only 24. He led the team to a 188-69 record from 1958 to 1968 and took it to two appearances in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ national tournament.He next coached at Pepperdine, a small Christian school in Malibu, Calif., from 1968 to 1979, leading the team to the 1976 West Coast Athletic Conference title. The Waves went 153-137 and earned two N.C.A.A. tournament berths during his tenure.“Coach Colson put Pepperdine men’s basketball on the national college basketball map,” the school’s current athletic director, Steve Potts, said in a statement.Colson left Pepperdine in 1980 to take over at New Mexico, which was reeling after a gambling scandal that resulted in the firing of the head coach, Norm Ellenberger, and the program’s being placed on N.C.A.A. probation for three years.After probation ended in 1983, the Lobos averaged 21 wins over the next five seasons, qualifying for the National Invitational Tournament each of those years. Colson went 146-106 at New Mexico from 1980 to 1988 and was the Western Athletic Conference coach of the year in 1984.He was 76-73 at Fresno State from 1990 to 1995.Gary Colson was born in Logansport, Ind., on April 30, 1934. He graduated from David Lipscomb College (now Lipscomb University) in Nashville in 1956 and earned a master’s degree in education at Vanderbilt in 1958. He was an all-conference player at Lipscomb and was named the Volunteer State Athletic Conference M.V.P. as a senior.He later worked as assistant to the president of the Memphis Grizzlies.He is survived by wife, Mary Katherine; his sons, Rick and Wade; his daughter, Garianne; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. More

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    Walter Davis, Basketball Star With a Velvet Touch, Dies at 69

    “Walter is a good shooter until the fourth period,” one coach said of Davis, a standout in both college and the N.B.A. “Then he becomes a great shooter.”Walter Davis of the University of North Carolina in action against Duke in 1976. He averaged 15.7 points a game over four seasons there.Harold Valentine/Associated PressWalter Davis, whose smooth shooting propelled him to basketball stardom with the University of North Carolina and the Phoenix Suns, but who late in his career struggled with drug addiction, died on Thursday while visiting family in Charlotte, N.C. He was 69.The university announced his death but did not specify a cause.Davis, a 6-foot-6 forward, played at North Carolina from 1973 to 1977 for Dean Smith, one of the most successful coaches in college history. He averaged 15.7 points a game over four seasons on Tar Heels teams that also included Bobby Jones, Phil Ford and Mitch Kupchak.In one of Davis’s signature games, in March 1974, North Carolina was losing to Duke, 86-78, with 17 seconds left. After North Carolina closed the deficit to two points with time expiring, Davis tied it with a shot from a distance estimated at between 30 and 35 feet. (The basket would have counted for three points and won the game today, but the three-point shot was not officially introduced by the N.C.A.A. until 1986.) North Carolina went on to win in overtime, 96-92.“I wasn’t trying to bank it in,” Davis, then a freshman, said afterward. “It wasn’t a desperation shot. I was just trying to do my part, that’s all. I didn’t allow myself to think about anything. I just told myself it could only do two things, go in or come back out.”In 1976 he was a member of the United States team, also coached by Dean Smith, that won a gold medal at the Olympics in Montreal. A year later, he led North Carolina with 20 points — and 10 of his team’s last 12 — when it lost to Marquette, 67-59, in the final game of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament.He was twice selected for all-Atlantic Coast Conference teams.His nephew Hubert is currently the North Carolina coach.Walter Davis was born on Sept. 9, 1954, in Pineville, N.C. His high school in Charlotte won three state titles in basketball before he left to attend prep school in Delaware. He arrived at North Carolina in 1973.In 1977, Davis had surgery on a broken finger after North Carolina won the A.C.C. tournament in his senior year. “Before they put me out, I remember looking up and Coach Smith was right there,” he told Ken Rosenthal for his book “Dean Smith: A Tribute” (2001). “I remember seeing him and having the screws drilled into my finger.”Davis was drafted by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the 1977 N.B.A. draft. After averaging 24.2 points a game — the highest average of any season in his career — he was voted the league’s Rookie of the Year. He remained a steady performer throughout his 11 seasons with Phoenix, averaging 20.5 points a game as a small forward and shooting guard.Davis was a steady performer in his 11 seasons with the Phoenix Suns, averaging 20.5 points a game as a small forward and shooting guard.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesDuring a game in 1983, he set a league record by scoring 34 points (on 15 field goals and four free throws) against Seattle before missing a shot.“I don’t remember a sweeter shot,” Alvan Adams, one of his teammates, told NBA.com in 2015. “He was a feared shooter. The other team knew it, too.”Chuck Daly, then the Detroit Pistons’ coach, told The New York Times in 1987: “Walter is a good shooter until the fourth period. Then he becomes a great shooter.”Davis had two nicknames: Sweet D and Greyhound.In his later years in Phoenix, Davis dealt with drug problems. In 1986, he spent a month in a drug rehabilitation center to treat cocaine and alcohol dependency. Early the next year he told The Times, “The scariest part is knowing that it is a disease that I will have to work on for the rest of my life.”When he relapsed in 1987, Davis was suspended by the league and once again entered a drug rehabilitation facility. He also received immunity from prosecution when he agreed to testify against several current and former Suns teammates, who were indicted on drug charges.In his testimony, The Arizona Republic reported, Davis said that he had first used cocaine in his second season in the league after being introduced to it by a teammate, Gar Heard. When asked by a prosecutor who else was there, he said, “Pretty much the whole team.”Later that year, Davis said that prosecutors had forced him to testify against his teammates.“I had no choice,” he told Sports Illustrated. “The last thing I wanted to do was get my teammates and friends indicted. If I’d known I was going to do that, I’d have probably gone to jail instead.”Davis left the Suns in 1988 to sign as a free agent with the Denver Nuggets. He was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in 1991 and then re-signed with Denver, where he played in the 1991-92 season before retiring.Davis was honored by the Suns and the Black Chamber of Arizona during a Black History Month celebration in Phoenix in 2016. Barry Gossage/NBAE, via Getty ImagesDavis averaged 18.9 points a game for his career and played in six All-Star Games.After his retirement, he worked as an announcer and community ambassador for the Nuggets and a scout for the Washington Wizards.Information on survivors was not immediately available. More

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    For Bobby Knight, a Basketball Legend, Baseball Provided a Comforting Coda

    As his memory declined, Bobby Knight, the volatile former Indiana University basketball coach, found some solace in the Cleveland baseball team of his youth.Luke Epplin answered a phone call two years ago. He didn’t recognize the Indiana number, but the voice on the other end of the line was unmistakable.“Luke,” the man said, “this is Coach Knight.”His voice had grown fainter, but the intimidating tenor of Bobby Knight, the former basketball coach, was still there.Epplin had sent Knight a copy of his book, “Our Team,” after learning that he was a huge fan of the Cleveland baseball team, now called the Guardians. So he tracked down Knight’s address, sent him a copy of the book and included his contact information.Epplin, who grew up in a household with strong ties to the University of Illinois, a sworn enemy of Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers, was surprised to hear from Knight. He was also slightly concerned about which way the conversation would go: Knight sounded frail, but he was known as a chair-throwing, unrepentant, volcanic personality on the basketball court.Instead, Knight wanted to talk about the book, which details the journey of four figures who helped Cleveland become the first American League team to integrate Black players in 1947. Knight, who grew up in nearby Orville, Ohio, was about 7 years old then.But Epplin thought Knight sounded confused.“You could tell there was a fog, that I wasn’t connecting,” Epplin said. “I didn’t know what to make of it. I just figured he seemed a little distracted and out of it.”A week later, Epplin would learn that Knight had Alzheimer’s disease. Bob Hammel, a friend of Knight’s, called Epplin to let him know that Knight had lost nearly all his memory, including of his decades spent coaching basketball. But one memory remained: that of the Cleveland baseball team of his youth.Hammel had read the book aloud to Knight, who would stop him to talk about specific players or games. The book brought both of them comfort, Hammel said.Epplin had kept that story to himself for two years until this week, when Knight died at age 83; he shared the exchanges on X.Knight was known as a brilliant coach but one of the most polarizing characters in sports when he led the Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000, winning three national championships and 11 Big Ten titles. He ranted and cursed, and he was convicted of assault. His bombastic approach was ultimately his downfall. He was fired from Indiana after he choked a player during practice and had an altercation with another student.Epplin grappled with how to reconcile the persona he grew up with and the shell of a man who was clinging to childhood memories. Perhaps, he thought, “we can hold both of these ideas together.”Bobby Knight, right, had many allegiances, including to the Yankees. He chatted with Joe Torre, center, a former manager, and Derek Jeter, a shortstop, during an All-Star event in St. Louis in 2009.Elsa/Getty Images“He did have a complicated legacy that we should not discard,” Epplin said. “My story doesn’t do anything to erase that. But he also had these moments of humanity and had friends he interacted with.”Many of those moments came in the form of baseball.Hammel, 87, a longtime friend, a journalist and a co-author of Knight’s autobiography, said that Knight grew up as a Cleveland fan. His mother used to walk around the house with a portable radio held to her ear listening to Jimmy Dudley calling the games.Just a year ago, Hammel said, Knight could recite the entire starting lineup of Cleveland’s team from 1948, the last time the franchise won a World Series. Hammel said Knight began to lose his memory when he stopped coaching at Texas Tech, where he led the men’s basketball team from 2001 to 2008.But baseball was a constant, and his coaching approach — a combination of ferocious intensity and upholding academic standards — was admired by many of his cohort, including George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the Yankees; Sparky Anderson, the former manager of the Cincinnati Reds; and Tony La Russa, who managed the Oakland Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox.In 1988, La Russa got an unexpected call from Knight. La Russa, who was coaching the A’s, had been using a quote from Knight as a way to encourage his players. Knight was worried that La Russa had been misquoting him, so La Russa invited him to spring training that year.Knight would continue to visit each of La Russa’s spring trainings through 2011, earning new allegiance to whichever team he was coaching.La Russa’s players looked forward to Knight’s visits, La Russa said; the basketball coach forged relationships through his own brand of back-seat coaching. La Russa even let Knight write the starting lineup for an A’s spring training game.La Russa said that Knight’s love of both basketball and baseball made sense.“A lot of what he saw in basketball and baseball was the attention to detail and the thin edge of expert, elite execution,” La Russa said.La Russa acknowledged that his friend “wasn’t perfect.”“He had a short fuse,” he said. “But most often you saw the fun, the intelligence, the respect. You were lucky to be his friend.” More

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    Need a Restaurant Recommendation? Ask an N.B.A. Player.

    The best basketball players on the planet travel regularly, embrace local cultures and have deep pockets — making them very credible reviewers of restaurants across the country.Pick a city, any city, on the National Basketball Association’s 30-team circuit, and Kelly Olynyk, a forward for the Utah Jazz, has deep knowledge of the local restaurant scene.If you are searching for top-tier sushi in Boston, where he spent his first four N.B.A. seasons, he recommends Fuji at Ink Block in the South End. In Charlotte, N.C., he will most likely suggest the smoked wings at Rooster’s Wood-Fired Kitchen. Whether you are craving the best Italian in San Francisco or in pursuit of tasty treats in Indianapolis — Mr. Olynyk knows a place. He is a 6-foot-11 human version of Yelp.“You have spots in each city that you love and know you can count on,” said Mr. Olynyk, 32, after eating at thousands of restaurants over the 10 years he has played professionally on five N.B.A. teams. “But part of having an interest in different cultures and cuisines and restaurants is trying new ones.”In a league that consists of 28 cities, roughly 450 players and 1,230 regular season games each year, N.B.A. business travel is frequent and first-class. Teams fly private and stay in five-star hotel chains like the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton. But they also eat, a lot, and by embracing local culture and institutions with their deep pockets, they have become very credible restaurant authorities.Karl-Anthony Towns, of the Timberwolves, at Fratelli’s Pizza & Cafe in his hometown, Piscataway, N.J. Mr. Towns grew up eating Fratelli’s pizza. When they started dating, he told his girlfriend: “‘All you need is a cheese slice and I promise you it will change your life.”via Karl-Anthony TownsN.B.A. players are larger-than-normal humans (average height is 6-foot-6) with equally large salaries (average annual pay is $8.32 million), a combination that results in voracious appetites and often in reservations at the country’s most renowned restaurants. Each player also receives a $133 food per diem for days on the road.“Sometimes, if we’re only in a city one night, I’ll go to two dinners,” admitted Mr. Olynyk.The 2023-24 N.B.A. season just tipped off on Oct. 24, and in a typical season, each team plays 41 games on the road, visiting each opposing market (that includes 27 U.S. cities and Toronto) at least once. There are additional preseason and playoff games also to consider. The Golden State Warriors, for example, traveled to Los Angeles — home of the Lakers and Clippers — seven times last season. That means many meals and time to bond.“We travel so much around the country that going out to restaurants has always been the greatest way to bring everyone together,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, a three-time N.B.A. All-Star center with the Minnesota Timberwolves.Regardless of which teammates or coaches they choose to dine with, players take notice of the food, service and settings: Word-of-mouth recommendations between players are a major part of N.B.A. restaurant culture.“We’re a brotherhood, so you’re going to definitely have some honest reviews from your 449 brothers,” said Mr. Towns, 27.Rudy Gobert, a Timberwolves teammate, frequent gives Mr. Towns tips on lesser-known eateries with little fanfare on Yelp, Tripadvisor or other recommendation websites. Mr. Olynyk, of the Jazz, enjoys introducing his younger teammates to top restaurants in different cities (and picking up the bill), much as his former teammate Rajon Rondo did for him, treating Mr. Olynyk to Strega Italiano in Boston when Mr. Olynyk was a rookie with the Celtics.“It’s kind of like a rite of passage,” Mr. Olynyk, a native of Toronto, said.Kevin Love, a veteran forward for the Miami Heat, grew up in Portland, Ore., a city known for its creative dining scene. As his basketball career — one that has included five All-Star selections and a championship ring with the Cleveland Cavaliers — has advanced, his food knowledge has improved and his network of fellow food lovers has expanded (The Times documented his passion for travel in 2019).“Having a love for food, as well as wine, has brought me into a number of circles where I’ve made really good friends with restaurateurs, chefs and people who have similar interests,” said Mr. Love, 35, who is a partner (along with his former teammate Channing Frye) in Chosen Family Wines, a wine brand based out of Willamette Valley, Ore. “That’s a fun world to be in.”He has leveraged connections in the restaurant industry to organize team dinners, key to building team camaraderie. Before the Heat visit New York City, Mr. Love will call area restaurants and design unique dining experiences for his teammates.“I’m going to take these guys out and show them great food and introduce them to maybe a different cuisine,” Mr. Love said.He still considers Portland one of his top food destinations, naming Kann and RingSide Steakhouse (he strongly suggests the onion rings) as his hometown favorites. In New York City, where he lived in the off-season before recently moving to Long Island, Mr. Love lists as favorites Carbone, Sadelle’s, Hometown Bar-B-Que, Fini Pizza and Misi (Sean Feeney, the restaurateur, is a good friend of his), and Eleven Madison Park (Daniel Humm, the chef and owner, is also a friend).Kevin Love, a veteran forward for the Miami Heat, has leveraged his connections in the restaurant industry to organize team dinners.Michael Dwyer/Associated Press“It’s one of the most unbelievably beautiful kitchens I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Love said of Eleven Madison Park.For many N.B.A. players, supporting minority-owned businesses can be as important as finding establishments with Michelin stars. Mr. Towns, of the Timberwolves, will also approach local residents to seek restaurant recommendations.“I’ve always been intrigued by people and cultures,” said Mr. Towns, who has Dominican and African American roots. “And the best way to learn about people and cultures is to sit down and enjoy their food.”In Minneapolis, Mr. Towns recommends Soul Bowl, a soul food and Caribbean-inspired restaurant in the city’s North Loop. But it was Fratelli’s Pizza Cafe, in his hometown, Piscataway, N.J., where he took his girlfriend when they first started dating.“‘I got to take you home to a pizzeria that I grew up on,’” Mr. Towns recalled saying. “I said, ‘All you need is a cheese slice and I promise you it will change your life.’”“She agrees with me,” he said with a laugh.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More