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    He Thought He Made N.B.A. History. All He Got Was 3 Points.

    The N.B.A. introduced the 3-point shot in the 1979-80 season. Six players made 3s opening night, and for a decade, Kevin Grevey thought he’d made the first.For more than a decade, Kevin Grevey thought he was the first player in N.B.A. history to make a 3-pointer.“It’s pretty amazing that I didn’t make the first one,” Grevey, 68, said recently. “Because I think the first time I touched the ball I caught it in the corner and toed behind the line, shot it and made it.”It was Oct. 12, 1979, and Grevey’s Washington Bullets were opening their season against the Philadelphia 76ers. After the game, a reporter told him he’d “just set a record that would never be broken.”All these years later he still isn’t totally sure he didn’t.The league produced a news release, but only three days later to recap the first weekend of N.B.A. 3-pointers. It said Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics made the first 3-pointer in league history, by virtue of playing against the Houston Rockets in “the first games according to start time” that season. While it’s unclear exactly at what time each 3-pointer occurred, Ford’s game started 35 minutes before Grevey’s.It would be a while before the news reached Grevey.The 3-pointer was a novelty at the time. No one knew it would someday change the game. Decades later, Golden State guard Stephen Curry turned it into magic. This week he became the N.B.A.’s career leader in 3-pointers made, eclipsing Ray Allen, who had been the record-holder since 2011.“It’s an event, just watching him,” said Mike Dunleavy Sr., who took his grandchildren to watch Curry shoot 3s before a game this fall.The shot’s history in the N.B.A., though, began unceremoniously.“At one point I was on the rules and competition committee and everybody had different thoughts about it,” Dunleavy said. “But the very beginning, I think people were leery of it.”The 1979-80 season was intended to be a one-year trial for the 3-pointer in the N.B.A. The American Basketball Association had used it from its inception in 1967 until its merger with the N.B.A. in 1976.In the book “Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association” by Terry Pluto, Pat Boone, a part owner of the Oakland Oaks, recalled the team’s introductory news conference.“We had a demonstration of the 3-point shot and introduced a couple of the players we had signed, although I can’t recall who,” Boone said. “We then had a shooting contest and I won, which I guess should have told me we were in real trouble. Actually, the players weren’t used to shooting from 25 feet.”Boone liked 3s, he said, because he was too short to go inside. Curry recently told USA Today that he, too, initially began working on 3s because of his smaller stature.The A.B.A.’s adoption of the shot, though, wasn’t motivating for the N.B.A. The A.B.A. had all sorts of trappings then considered too absurd for the N.B.A. In addition to the 3-point shot, the A.B.A. had musical effects, a red, white and blue basketball, and cheerleaders.“The N.B.A. for years frowned on the 3-point shot because it was going to tell guys to go outside as opposed to historically it was, ‘Get as close to the basket as fast as you can for the easy shot,’ ” said M.L. Carr, a former Celtics forward. “That was what they did in that funny league called the A.B.A.”An article in The New York Times from June 21, 1979, about the N.B.A. instituting the 3-point shot.The New York TimesCarr started his career in the A.B.A., and felt proud when the N.B.A. finally accepted the 3-pointer. He played for the Celtics from 1979 to 1985 and remembered resistance, including from Red Auerbach, then a Celtics executive.Grevey said he remembered that some coaches were “appalled about it.”“They were like, ‘Well, the next thing they’re going to do is we’re going to be playing with that red, white and blue basketball,” he said.In some arenas, Grevey said, the 3-point line was taped onto the court, making it temporary. Sometimes, that tape was in the wrong place.“Somebody would say that looks farther,” said Rudy Tomjanovich, who played for the Houston Rockets throughout the 1970s and is now in the Hall of Fame. “They’d tell the coach or somebody. They’d look into it, have a measure and say, ‘Sure enough, it’s a foot longer than it used to be.’”It took a while before players became proficient at the shot; it took eight years before the league average improved to 30 percent. By contrast, today’s players make about a third of their 3s, with the best shooters converting better than 40 percent of their attempts.That meant rarely did teams run plays designed to end with a 3. Only in cases of double-digit deficits — desperate times — were 3-pointers acceptable to some coaches.“If you had taken it under normal circumstances, most coaches would put you on the bench,” said Rick Barry, who spent four seasons in the A.B.A. and attempted 237 3-pointers in 1971-72, his final year in that league.Barry, a Hall of Famer who was playing for the Rockets in 1979-80, said he remembered “nothing” about the first official 3-pointer, even though he played in that game against Ford’s Celtics. He hardly remembered his own 3-pointer that day. He was one of six players to make one on Oct. 12, 1979.Tomjanovich, when told recently that he was on the court for the first-ever N.B.A. 3-pointer, was delighted to learn that bit of trivia.Dunleavy knew.“For the guys that could shoot, it was kind of cool,” said Dunleavy, who led the league in 3-point percentage in the 1982-83 season, at 34.5 percent. “Like, OK, you’re going to come into the game and be the first guy to make the shot.”When Tomjanovich was told recently about Dunleavy’s plans, he quipped: “That ambitious son of a gun.”Dunleavy was guarding Boston’s Tiny Archibald, who passed the ball to Ford behind the arc. Ford elevated above the outstretched hand of Robert Reid and sank a 3-pointer with 3 minutes 48 seconds left in the first quarter.Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics shooting from the 3-point line in its first season in the N.B.A.Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images“The team was pretty excited that Chris opened a new era,” Carr said. “I guarantee if you interviewed Chris now he would say, ‘I didn’t realize what I was starting.’”The game, better known for Larry Bird’s N.B.A. debut, didn’t stop. Newspaper accounts barely mentioned the first 3. There weren’t daily N.B.A. shows or podcasts to debate the rule change.The Boston Globe noted the shot in a parenthetical, saying that “the Celtics led from 19-17 until the final buzzer (the lead coming on Ford’s history-making three-point bomb, the first ever for the Celtics).”Willie Smith also made one for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the New Jersey Nets, and Paul Westphal and Don Buse made two each for the Phoenix Suns against Golden State. The reports of their feats by The Associated Press and The Daily News made no mention of their historic nature.Grevey’s 3-pointer was described as “the first three-point play” by The Evening Sun, a Baltimore paper.Grevey said he didn’t think about his first N.B.A. 3-pointer again until more than a decade later when he ran into the reporter who had told him he’d made history in 1979. The reporter shared that Ford was being credited with the first N.B.A. 3-pointer and that he planned to investigate.Grevey shrugged.“I swear I don’t care,” Grevey said in a recent phone interview.He laughed, and then he marveled at how, at the time, few others cared much either. More

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    Steph Curry Sets NBA Career Record for 3-Pointers

    Golden State’s Curry surpassed Ray Allen, who finished his career with 2,973 made 3-pointers. Allen had held the record for 10 years and last played in 2014.It takes about a second and a half from the moment Stephen Curry releases the basketball until it reaches the hoop more than 22 feet away, a flicker of time that somehow feels frozen for an expectant crowd, for his defenders and teammates, for television viewers and front office executives.“Emotionally, he’ll take you on a journey,” said Bob Myers, the general manager of the Golden State Warriors. “And I’m not sure that exists for other players. It’s something to behold.”For 13 N.B.A. seasons, Curry has been cluttering box scores for Golden State, and on Tuesday, he became the N.B.A.’s most prolific 3-point shooter in regular-season history when he sailed past Ray Allen’s career record. The record-tying and record-breaking shots came early in the first quarter of a game against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, with Allen in attendance and the crowd buzzing every time Curry touched the ball.H I S T 3⃣ R YStephen Curry is officially the greatest shooter this game has ever seen 👏 pic.twitter.com/BmEhQFcJDH— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) December 15, 2021
    At 33, Curry is assembling one of the best seasons of his career, and he has helped position Golden State atop the Western Conference as the team awaits the return of Klay Thompson.In the process, Curry continues to refashion the 3-point line as his personal canvas, and with each week that passes, his record-setting total will grow: 2,974 career 3-pointers and counting. But beyond the gluttonous numbers is the artistry of an athlete capable of producing jolts of electricity whenever he lines up a long-distance jumper.“You can feel the frenetic kind of energy that he generates,” said Bruce Fraser, one of Golden State’s assistants. “And when he really gets going, you can see the ball spinning a little faster coming out of his hands, and the arc of his shot — it’s almost like a meteor shower. It’s a storm in the sky. And I’ve never felt that from anyone else.”Curry’s latest milestone comes as Golden State continues to stage its renaissance after having stumbled through the wilderness of two listless, injury-riddled seasons — struggles that made a one-time superpower appear mortal after five straight appearances in the N.B.A. finals, including three championship victories over LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers.How much of a sensation has Curry become? After he made nine 3-pointers and scored 40 points in a lopsided victory last month, he was serenaded with “M.V.P.” chants — which was no big deal, except that Curry was in Cleveland.“When 30 got going, he got going,” the Cavaliers’ Darius Garland told reporters, referring to Curry’s uniform number. “Nothing else you can really say.”That is debatable. Over the course of a recent 15-minute telephone interview, Myers compared Curry to art by Rembrandt and Picasso, the Hall of Fame baseball player Ken Griffey Jr., and the Golden Gate Bridge.Hyperbole from a member of the same organization? Perhaps. Then again, Allen Iverson has described Curry as one of his favorite players, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal routinely use the adjective “Stephortless,” and social media spirals toward chaos whenever Curry goes on one of his molten flurries.Why? Because Curry does not merely shoot 3-pointers. No, he makes them with three defenders draped all over him like a cheap tablecloth. He beats buzzers and crushes hope. He drains 3s on the run and from the general vicinity of the food court. He smiles and dances and points and preens, turning each field-goal attempt into a telenovela.“He’s a master at what he does,” said the Nets’ Kevin Durant, a former teammate.Curry leads the N.B.A. in 3-pointers, made and attempted, this season.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesFred Kast, who spent 57 years as the Warriors’ official scorer before he retired last season, was the person responsible for documenting all of the 3-pointers that Curry made at home games. Kast, 82, took his job seriously, which meant that he tried hard to block out the emotion of the crowd whenever Curry started doing Curry things.Now, as a fan watching the games from his couch, Kast has a bit of a different perspective. Because he can focus entirely on the action, his appreciation for Curry has only grown.“You find it surprising when he does what most players do with far more frequency,” Kast said, “which is miss.”Curry does have off nights. In a recent loss to the San Antonio Spurs, he shot 7 of 28 from the field and 5 of 17 from 3-point range. He showed up at practice the next day looking particularly determined, Fraser said. Curry concluded his workout the same way he always does: by attempting 100 3-pointers.“He made 93 of them,” said Fraser, who feeds Curry the ball as he moves around the perimeter.A friend recently asked Fraser how many passes he had thrown to Curry over the past eight seasons (without getting credited with any assists). Had it topped 100,000? At first, that total sounded absurd to Fraser, who joined Golden State before the start of the 2014-15 season, but then he crunched the numbers. As a part of his post-practice work, Curry typically takes between 300 to 500 jumpers. And there are morning shootarounds. And pregame warm-ups. The total, Fraser said, works out to nearly 200,000 passes — each season.“So I’m at well over a million,” Fraser said.At the same time, there is an Everyman aspect to Curry, said Rick Welts, who retired as the Golden State’s president after last season. Curry’s size — he is listed at 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, which is almost Lilliputian by N.B.A. standards — makes him more identifiable to fans, Welts said. And while players like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo cram games with high-flying feats, Curry has elevated the humble jump shot into something special.“I can’t relate to what it feels like when Giannis dunks a ball,” Welts said. “But I can go out in my driveway right now and at least get a sense of what it feels like when Steph makes that shot.”Fellow 3-point shooters, past and present, say they take vicarious pleasure in Curry’s pyrotechnics. They know what it feels like to shed a defender, find the 3-point line and let the ball fly.“It’s an adrenaline rush every time,” said Chelsie Schweers, 32, who set the record for career 3-pointers among Division III women’s players during her career at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. “There’s nothing like draining a step-back jumper. It’s my favorite thing on Earth.”Schweers, who made 415 3-pointers at Christopher Newport while shooting 46.1 percent from deep, has considered Curry her favorite player since he was emerging as a mid-major college star down the road at Davidson. At 5-foot-7, Schweers said she could relate to Curry since they were both relatively undersized. And they both could shoot.“He just brings so much joy,” said Schweers, who has spent the past 10 years playing overseas, most recently in Portugal.In 2004, ahead of his senior year of high school, John Grotberg went on a recruiting visit to Davidson. But after he sustained a knee injury, Grotberg opted to go the Division III route and enrolled at Grinnell College in Iowa. It turned out for the best: Grotberg wound up making more 3-pointers than any men’s player in N.C.A.A. history, and the backcourt at Davidson would have been crowded.“Steph was a year behind me,” Grotberg said.Grotberg, 34, went on to play in Europe before he studied medicine at Yale, and is now a physician in St. Louis. Now more than ever, Grotberg said, he appreciates his tangential connection to Curry, citing the 3-point record that he still owns, he said, only because Curry left Davidson a year early for the N.B.A.Grotberg continues to marvel, along with countless other basketball fans, at how Curry has transformed the game by stretching the court beyond comprehension. For a shooter, it is the stuff of dreams.“You get into this repetition where your body knows what to do,” Grotberg said, “and all you need to do is find the space to do it.”Curry has spent the past 13 seasons carving out that space. Now, on a stage of his own creation, he is there alone. More

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    NBA Says It Will ‘Follow the Science’ as Coronavirus Cases Rise

    Outbreaks and exposures on multiple teams led the league this week to postpone games for the first time this season, with a series of marquee matchups looming.For the first couple of months of the N.B.A. season, the league operated with something that approximated business as usual: full arenas and full rosters as teams adapted to the new normal of playing through the coronavirus pandemic.But amid a recent surge of players and coaches who have landed in the N.B.A.’s Covid-19 health and safety protocols, the league finds itself contending with some familiar challenges and concerns.Positive tests. Canceled practices. And the looming possibility of more postponed games, just as the N.B.A. approaches what some fans consider its real opening day: a five-game slate on Christmas Day.On Tuesday, the Nets announced that six more players, including James Harden, had joined Paul Millsap in the protocols, meaning they had tested positive for the coronavirus or had been in close contact with someone who had. That left the Nets with a very short rotation for their home game against the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night. The Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, canceled their practice after Talen Horton-Tucker entered the protocols ahead of the team’s flight to Dallas for a game against the Mavericks on Wednesday.Once in the protocols, players cannot return to play until they have isolated for 10 days or returned two negative test results at least 24 hours apart.Those developments came one day after the league announced that it was postponing a pair of Chicago Bulls games this week after 10 of the team’s players, as well as other staff members, landed in the protocols. Those two games — against the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday and the Raptors on Thursday — were the league’s first postponements of the season.“Like the rest of the country, and as was predicted by our infectious disease specialists, we have seen an increase of cases around the league,” said Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman. “As we have since the pandemic began in March 2020, we will continue to follow the science and data, and will, in close partnership with the players’ association, update our protocols as deemed appropriate by our medical experts.”All of the Bulls’ players have been vaccinated, according to two league sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the players’ vaccination statuses.The league has said that more than 97 percent of its players are fully vaccinated, and that more than 60 percent of those eligible have received booster shots. The players’ union did not agree to a vaccine mandate before the start of the season. A few players, such as the Nets’ Kyrie Irving and Washington’s Bradley Beal, have spoken out about not wanting to get vaccinated.Last season, the league and the players’ union reported more than 75 positive tests among players, most of them before vaccines were widely available. More than 30 games were postponed.Given the possibility that players might have been exposed to the virus during Thanksgiving gatherings this year, the league and union agreed to institute mandatory testing on Nov. 28, 29 and 30. Before then, vaccinated players were being tested only if they exhibited symptoms or had been around someone who had tested positive.CJ McCollum, the president of the players’ union, told The New York Times recently that he was encouraging players to get vaccines and booster shots, and that he doesn’t allow unvaccinated people into his home. Extra testing, he said, “just makes sense.”The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 5Pfizer’s Covid pill. More

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    McCollum on Simmons Trade Rumors, Vaccines and Blazers Firing

    Portland guard CJ McCollum is facing challenges both personal and professional in his first year as president of the players’ union. “It’s the life I chose,” he said.Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum has been interested in the business machinations of the N.B.A. since early in his career. He was a team representative and vice president in the players’ union, the National Basketball Players Association, before he was elected to succeed Chris Paul as its president this year.The job pays nothing. It adds phone calls and video conferences to his already busy schedule with his day job. His wife is due to deliver their first child any day now. He has a fledgling wine business.Why would McCollum want to take this on?“I’m ready for the next step, the next evolution of myself,” he said in a recent phone interview. “And that’s being more mature, having more responsibility, but also figuring out ways to help more people. Figuring out ways to provide leadership, counsel, guidance.”Since he started, more challenges have faced him and the Trail Blazers. McCollum, who is in his ninth season playing in Portland, has been the subject of trade rumors. As the team struggled on the court in recent weeks, its then president and general manager, Neil Olshey, was fired for improper workplace conduct. And McCollum is now sidelined as he recovers from a partially collapsed lung.On top of that, the union is navigating the coronavirus pandemic, with McCollum — who has said he doesn’t allow unvaccinated people into his home — and the league encouraging vaccines. The players do not have a vaccine mandate, but McCollum said, “We were at 98, we might even be around 99 percent vaccinated right now, which is a big deal.”He’s sought advice from Paul, other veteran players and lawyers and executives who work for the union. He’s learning to advocate for players while building relationships with teams and the league office. The next collective bargaining agreement will be negotiated during his term, and he’d like to help players with financial literacy.He recently spoke with The New York Times about being the players’ union president during a pandemic, how he handles trade rumors and his relationship with Olshey.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.Have you had to explain to others why the extra coronavirus testing is a good thing? [The league and union agreed to require additional testing, even for vaccinated players, after Thanksgiving, which has coincided with an uptick in positive tests.]I think when we explain to people the importance of knowing — there’s a lot of things that go under the radar in terms of being positive, but being asymptomatic. So I think testing around the holidays when people are flying or traveling, families are coming in from out of town, you’re gathering, you’re more exposed. It just makes sense and the only bad thing that can come from it is finding out that you are positive. But the good news is you’re finding out early and you can save and not expose some of your friends and family.As training camps opened, there was a lot of attention on the small number of unvaccinated players. Did that annoy you?Yeah, it did. I feel like we were targeted. Obviously, people look up to us. We play a sport for a living. It’s entertainment. People looked at us as the bar. In reality, we are kind of the bar: We got 98 percent of our league volunteered to be vaccinated, whereas the public was 55 percent or 60 percent at that point. No one was talking about corporate America going through the same problem, no one was talking about how there were health care workers going through the same issues. It was us in the spotlight, and I thought it was unfair because we were doing such a great job of educating our players.There was a lot of conversation about vaccine hesitancy in the Black community as being a problem for the N.B.A. How did you view that?There was hesitancy, but I think there’s hesitancy from everyone. We wanted to know more, we wanted more data. Understanding historically Blacks and African Americans have been taken advantage of, especially in similar circumstances and situations. Historically, we’ve been used almost as guinea pigs at times for experimental medicine. There was caution, there was pause, but for good reason.I think as we’ve continued to educate ourselves and ask the right questions from experts, we’ve learned that there was a shift.As union president, you have to think about the welfare of other players, but some of their situations impact you too. I’m thinking about Ben Simmons, who hasn’t played this year and how your name gets mentioned in trade rumors with him. How do you process your dual role in that?The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 5The Omicron variant. More

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    New Filings Suggest Kobe Bryant Crash Photos Spread Widely Among Workers

    Lawyers for Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, who is suing Los Angeles County over the photos, charted how emergency workers shared the images on cellphones. The county has denied wrongdoing.A fire department officer flashed the disturbing photos to a group of people during cocktail hour before a gala. A sheriff’s deputy shared the images with a bartender, who grimaced and made a slashing gesture over his neck. Another deputy, who could not believe how gruesome the pictures were, forwarded them to a colleague while playing online video games with his friends.Photos of the bodies of the Lakers star Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others who died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles in January 2020 were shared on at least 28 devices owned by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department personnel and by at least a dozen Los Angeles County firefighters, according to the latest legal filings submitted by the legal team for Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant’s widow.The court papers, based on depositions and the forensic investigation of cellphones, attempt to demonstrate the chain that formed to disseminate the images and how widely they were shared. Bryant is suing the county and some of its agencies and employees, claiming to have experienced emotional distress over the sharing of the photos, while the county has denied any wrongdoing and says it worked to keep the photos out of public hands when officials became aware of them.Several of those who viewed the photos described the remains in crude terms, a point Bryant said in the filings made the situation worse. “I imagine Kobe watching over what occurred at that crash scene, and I am overcome with anger and emotion,” Bryant wrote in a declaration accompanying the filings.She added: “I also feel extreme sadness and anger knowing that photos of my husband’s and daughter’s bodies were laughed about while shown at a bar and an awards banquet.”The filings were submitted in response to Los Angeles County’s motion in November for summary judgment, requesting the lawsuit be dismissed.A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 27.Louis Miller, the lawyer known as Skip whom the county hired for the case, said in a statement that the county sympathized with Bryant’s losses, but that it is not at fault.County emergency workers, he said, “responded to that crash and, at her specific request, set up a no-fly zone, undertook extensive efforts to keep the public and paparazzi away, and made sure none of the investigative photos were ever publicly disseminated. The County did its job and believes there is no merit to this lawsuit.”Bryant’s legal team has disputed the county’s statements, saying the sharing of the photos among workers without any discernible investigative purpose amounted to public dissemination. The lawyers’ submission includes depositions from workers who shared the photos as well as forensic evidence from the phones to chart the sharing of the photos.Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant’s widow, is suing Los Angeles County, some of its agencies and some of its employees.David Butler II/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTony Imbrenda, a Los Angeles County Fire Department public information officer, shared the images with a group of firefighters and a few other people at a gala honoring emergency medical workers, according to the filings.“I just saw Kobe’s body all burnt up before I’m about to eat,” one bystander remarked, according to the filing. Last year, Imbrenda, who has not commented on the case, filed a lawsuit against the county after he was demoted for refusing to turn over his personal cellphone. Imbrenda had received some of the images on his work cellphone from Brian Jordan, a safety officer, who misrepresented himself at the crash scene as a fire chief in charge of media relations, according to Bryant’s legal team. Jordan sent pictures to several others, according to the filings. He faced termination by the department before retiring early. A message left with his lawyer was not returned.The images coursed among sheriff’s department personnel like a chain message.Doug Johnson, a sheriff’s deputy who isn’t named as a defendant in Bryant’s lawsuit, captured pictures of the remains with his personal cellphone, according to the documents, and at least four images focused closely on the body parts of Kobe and Gianna Bryant. He sent the pictures to another deputy, Raul Versales, who testified that “he did not need to have the photographs,” but sent them along to four other members of the department.Deputy Michael Russell, who testified that he had asked for the pictures out of curiosity, shared them with another deputy while playing a video game. Deputy Joey Cruz displayed them to a bartender, which prompted a citizen’s complaint to the sheriff’s department in February 2020.Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva in response instructed his staff members to immediately delete the photos upon learning of the complaint. They did not face discipline, according to the county’s filing, because, in the county’s view, the photos were not publicly disseminated. “I can tell you I did exactly what was needed to be done to ensure there was no further harm to the family,” Villanueva testified, adding, “if I had to do it all over again, I’d probably make the exact same decision.”Vanessa Bryant had asked Villanueva to secure the site the day of the crash and to ensure that no photos of the deceased would leak.Bryant’s legal team maintains that the photos may already be in the public domain and the ones taken by emergency workers were deleted in order to destroy evidence. The county contends that ordering employees to delete the photos was in fact complying with Bryant’s wishes that they not be disseminated any further.But the lawyers representing Bryant said they have been notified by citizens of other instances of the photos spreading. An Orange County law enforcement officer who was not part of the response to the crash showed the photos at a bar, the lawyers said in a filing. An unknown person forwarded Bryant a Twitter post that purported to be a photo of Kobe Bryant’s remains that matched authentic images of the crash site, the lawyers said. The filings are the latest in a highly contested case. In previous rulings, a judge decided that Villanueva and Daryl Osby, the Los Angeles County fire chief, must sit for depositions — Villanueva has done so, and Osby’s is pending — and Bryant and her therapist were compelled to produce documents relating to their sessions.Kevin Draper More

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    Trail Blazers Fire Team President Neil Olshey

    Neil Olshey, who has been with Portland since 2012, was fired for “violations” of the team’s code of conduct related to the workplace environment at the team’s practice facility.The Portland Trail Blazers fired Neil Olshey, the general manager and head of basketball operations, on Friday, citing “an independent review of concerns and complaints around our workplace environment at the practice facility.”In a statement posted on social media, the Blazers did not provide further details, saying, “Out of respect for those who candidly participated in that privileged investigation, we will not release or discuss it.”The Blazers did not immediately respond to a request from The New York Times seeking more details about the nature of the concerns and complaints that prompted Olshey’s firing.Statement from the Portland Trail Blazers pic.twitter.com/W9j4V3nNl2— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) December 3, 2021
    Olshey, who also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, was hired as general manager of the Blazers in 2012 and was promoted to president of basketball operations in 2015. During his tenure, Portland made the playoffs eight straight years, but won only four playoff series.Olshey, who grew up in Queens, began his N.B.A. career working for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2003 as their director of player development. He then rose steadily through the organization until he was named vice president of basketball operations in 2010. His most noted move was acquiring the star point guard Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets in 2011.In July, Olshey and the Blazers were criticized for hiring Chauncey Billups, the former point guard, as Portland’s head coach because Billups had been accused of sexual assault in 1997. The organization conducted what many felt was an incomplete investigation into the allegation against Billups as part of the hiring process.When asked about the investigation at the news conference announcing Billups’s hiring, Olshey said, “The findings of that incident corroborated Chauncey’s recollection of the events that nothing non-consensual happened. We stand by Chauncey.”After a reporter pressed for details, Olshey called the findings “proprietary” and added, “You’re just going to have to take our word that we hired an experienced firm that ran an investigation that gave us the results we’ve already discussed.”In early November, the Blazers announced that they were conducting a workplace investigation related to “concerns” at their practice facility but did not say who was the focus of the concerns. Multiple news reports, including from The Athletic and Yahoo Sports, cited anonymous sources who said the investigation was focused on Olshey, but a team spokesperson declined to comment when asked if it did.In Friday’s statement about Olshey’s firing, the team said, “We are confident that these changes will help build a more positive and respectful working environment.”The Blazers also cited unspecified “violations” of the team’s code of conduct.Olshey’s most consequential basketball move for the Blazers was drafting Damian Lillard, now one of the N.B.A.’s biggest stars, with the sixth pick of the 2012 draft. But the franchise has struggled to put championship-level talent around Lillard, which Lillard publicly expressed frustration about over the summer.The Blazers have tapped Joe Cronin, the team’s director of player personnel who joined the franchise as an intern in 2006, to be the interim general manager. More

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    Oklahoma City Thunder Lose by an NBA-Record 73 Points

    In a 152-79 loss, a rebuilding Oklahoma City team took record-setting lumps from the Memphis Grizzlies.Bookmakers took a look at the Grizzlies-Thunder game in Memphis on Thursday night, weighed all the factors, and decided that the Grizzlies should be 9-point favorites.Yeah, I think they covered.The Grizzlies led by 15 after a quarter, 36 at the half, and 51 after three quarters on their way to a 152-79 win. The 73-point margin of victory was the largest in N.B.A. history.Even an arithmophobe could find some amazing numbers in the box score.The Thunder, for instance, were outscored by 56 points when Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (2 points on 0-7 shooting) was on the floor. Oklahoma City was outrebounded, 53-26, and had two steals against 19 turnovers.On the plus side, they made 82 percent of their free throws, better than the Grizzlies’ 72 percent. Good thing too, or it might have really turned into a blowout.The happier-looking Grizzlies numbers included 27 points on 9 of 11 shooting for Jaren Jackson Jr. and nine assists in 21 minutes for Tyus Jones. Santi Aldama put up a plus-52 despite coming off the bench.“Tonight’s not necessarily who we are,” Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault said. Not necessarily, he said. Yikes.He went on the philosophize a bit. “When you compete, you have exposure to the highs and lows of competition. And competition comes with great joy. It also comes with grief and frustration and anger.”Tre Mann had 12 points in 27 minutes for the Thunder. Oklahoma City was outscored by 47 points when he was on the floor. Brandon Dill/Associated PressIn the Thunder’s favor, they were missing their leading scorer, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who entered the concussion protocol on Thursday. Still, the Grizzlies were without their own star, Ja Morant, who has a knee injury.The Thunder have now lost eight straight and sit 6-16 in what was always expected to be another rebuilding year (last season they were 22-50). They still have a better record than the Pelicans, Rockets, Magic and Pistons (4-18!). But none of those teams, not even the Pistons, has lost by 73.The Thunder now have three nights off before a game on Monday at … the Pistons. Get your tickets now.The previous record blowout was set by the 1991-92 Cavaliers, who beat the Heat, an eventual playoff team, by 68, 148-80. “I don’t know what we played, but it wasn’t basketball,” Glen Rice of the Heat said afterward.That eclipsed an earlier record margin of 63, which was set in 1972 by the eventual champion Lakers, who beat the Warriors behind 30 points from Gail Goodrich.Going back still further, on Christmas Day in 1960, the Syracuse Nats of Dolph Schayes and Hal Greer beat the Knicks, 162-100.Ty Jerome, a former Virginia player who started Thursday’s game for Oklahoma City, tried to find a silver lining on Thursday night. “My sophomore year in college, we were the first seed to ever lose to a 16 seed,” he told The Oklahoman after the game. “Like, that’s way more embarrassing than this N.B.A. game.” More

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    Lakers Search for Answers, With and Without LeBron James

    James could miss multiple games because of coronavirus protocols, but the Lakers have struggled even when he has played.Before the start of the N.B.A. season, LeBron James acknowledged one of the hard realities facing the Los Angeles Lakers. The team had once again rebuilt its roster in pursuit of a championship, and James said he knew that forming chemistry would be a process, that nothing would come easily — at least not right away. James illustrated his point by making an analogy.“I don’t think it’s going to be like peanut butter and jelly to start the season,” he said in September.James seemed to be carefully managing expectations rather than hyping them up after the Lakers acquired Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and several other aging stars. The Lakers had the potential for boom or bust as one of the league’s most curious experiments.Sure enough, a quarter of the way through the season, they are not exactly making sandwiches.The latest obstacle for the Lakers surfaced on Tuesday when the team said that James had entered the N.B.A.’s coronavirus health and safety protocols, which apply to players who have tested positive or potentially been exposed to someone who has. The Lakers declined to comment when asked whether James had tested positive for the virus, but after the team defeated the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night without James, the Lakers’ Anthony Davis made comments that could suggest that he had.“Scary situation,” Davis told reporters. “He’s said he’s good. I think he’s asymptomatic, which is a good sign. We want to make sure that he gets back. Health is most important. It’s bigger than basketball.”James, 36, who said before the season that he had been vaccinated against Covid-19, could be forced to sit out for at least 10 days unless he is able to return two negative tests 24 hours apart, according to league guidelines. The Lakers have a relatively light schedule over the next week and a half, which means that James could miss a total of four games if he is absent for the full 10 days.Typically, players who are vaccinated face less stringent requirements than unvaccinated players. After Thanksgiving, though, the N.B.A. implemented enhanced testing requirements even for vaccinated players, according to documents sent by league officials to each of the 30 teams. They did so with the expectation that the holiday would increase players’ potential exposure to the virus.The league, which has said that 97 percent of its players have been vaccinated, has also been urging eligible players to get booster shots as breakthrough cases create disruptions and additional health concerns. On Tuesday, Lakers Coach Frank Vogel said James’s health was the top priority.“We just want the best for him right now,” Vogel said. “That’s where our thoughts are. We have a next man up mind-set. It’s an 82-game season. You got to deal with guys being in and out of the lineup. We’ve been without him some already this season.”It has not been a seamless season for James, who, largely because of injuries, has missed more than half of the team’s games, or for Los Angeles, which improved its middle-of-the-pack record to 12-11 with Tuesday’s 117-92 win over Sacramento.One of the big questions for the Lakers entering the season was their durability, and it was unavoidable because the Lakers are, by average age, the oldest team in the league.At the center of it all is James, who will turn 37 on Dec. 30. For so many years, he operated as a seemingly indestructible force. Seldom injured, he almost never missed games — until he joined the Lakers in 2018. He has since labored with injuries, and a sprained ankle hindered him as the Phoenix Suns bounced the Lakers from the first round of last season’s playoffs.Russell Westbrook averaged 25.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 8.5 assists over the past six games, a streak in which he never scored fewer than 20 points.Kyle Terada/USA TODAY SportsThis season, James has been sidelined for 10 games because of ankle and abdominal injuries, and he also missed a game because of a suspension. When active, he has been solid and occasionally brilliant, averaging 25.8 points while shooting 48.4 percent from the field, numbers that are not far off his career averages. His production is remarkable considering he is the fourth-oldest player in the league.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 5The Omicron variant. More