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    N.B.A. Eastern Conference Preview: The Bucks Aren't Finished Yet

    The Bucks might be better, while the Sixers and Nets are playing wait-and-see with key stars. The Eastern Conference could play out in several ways.Here lie the N.B.A.’s most compelling story lines.Potential contenders in the Eastern Conference scrambled during the off-season to assemble teams fit to knock off Giannis Antetokounmpo — now with a new, improved jump shot? — and the reigning N.B.A. champion Milwaukee Bucks. Even the conference’s perennial bottom feeders built rosters that will demand attention from basketball devotees. Some teams are just hoping that distractions don’t derail their seasons before they start.Many wonder how the Ben Simmons situation in Philadelphia will end. The 76ers seemed locked in a stalemate with Simmons, a three-time All-Star, who has wanted to be traded for months. Simmons ended his holdout midway through the preseason and reported to the team but has not played. The 76ers have said they want him on their roster, but if they persuade him to stay, can they really go forward with business as usual?Meanwhile, the Nets have a bona fide championship roster. They know this, and even with the distraction of Kyrie Irving’s murky status because he’s not vaccinated, they expect to hoist the Larry O’Brien championship trophy at season’s end.Could the N.B.A.’s balance of power, which has long rested in the West, be shifting to the East? Here’s a look at how the Eastern Conference shapes up this season.Miami HeatIn some ways, it seems so long ago. But little more than a year has passed since the Heat plowed their way to the 2020 finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers. Was it a fluke, aided by playing under the unusual conditions of a bubble environment, with no fans? The Heat were up and down last season before the Milwaukee Bucks ejected them from the 2021 playoffs in a lopsided first-round series.Jimmy Butler needs to be efficient. Duncan Robinson needs to be consistent. Tyler Herro needs to recapture his assertiveness. And Bam Adebayo needs to keep making the sort of strides that have pushed him toward becoming a perennial All-Star.The team should benefit from two additions: Kyle Lowry, who at 35 left the Raptors after nine seasons, and P.J. Tucker, who helped the Bucks win the championship last season.Philadelphia 76ersThe Sixers don’t need Ben Simmons to be competitive (they do have Joel Embiid, pictured), but they are better with him.Matt Slocum/Associated PressBen Simmons is, for now, back in the City of Brotherly Love.Simmons, who reportedly demanded a trade in late August and missed training camp, reported to the 76ers ahead of their third preseason game but did not play. Simmons’s future in Philadelphia remains unclear, though. He still has four years left on his maximum contract.With or without him, Philadelphia is antsy to win now. Joel Embiid is coming off the best season of his career, when he finished second in the voting for the Most Valuable Player Award. The 76ers were the No. 1 seed in last season’s Eastern Conference playoffs but collapsed in the semifinals, continuing their inability to turn regular-season wins into deep postseason success.Philadelphia is a better team with Simmons, 25, despite his offensive shortcomings. But even if he doesn’t play anytime soon, Embiid, Seth Curry, Danny Green and Tobias Harris should be experienced enough to keep the Sixers in contention.New York KnicksThe Knicks doubled down on last season’s roster, which unexpectedly made the playoffs then flamed out — albeit after a brilliant flare — in the first round. The veterans Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson are back, but Elfrid Payton, who triggered an influx of gray hairs for fans, is not. The additions of Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker are significant, and should help take the offensive load off RJ Barrett and Julius Randle, who signed a four-year contract extension in the off-season.This feels like a make-or-break year for the 23-year-old Mitchell Robinson, the center who is up for an extension and can jump through the roof. At his best, he protects the rim and is an excellent roll man. But he has had difficulty staying healthy. Look for bigger roles for Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin, who each showed promise off the bench as rookies last season.The Knicks should easily make the playoffs, but their bench depth is a question mark.Milwaukee BucksThe Bucks kept the band together. Same coach. Same star. Same core — mostly. And why not? Fresh off their first championship since 1971, the Bucks seem poised for a title defense.The challenge could be fatigue. Because of the pandemic, their postseason run stretched into July, and two starters — Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday — helped the U.S. Olympic team win gold in August. The Bucks also lost P.J. Tucker, invaluable in the late stages of last season, to the Heat in free agency.But Giannis Antetokounmpo, the two-time M.V.P., is still the face of the franchise and the proud owner of a newly minted championship ring. And he may be better than ever, showing off an improved jump shot in the preseason. With a contract that runs through the 2025-26 season, he is not going anywhere anytime soon.Atlanta HawksAtlanta guard Trae Young led the Hawks on a surprising run through the first two rounds of the playoffs last season.Brett Davis/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAfter a surprising run to the Eastern Conference finals last year, the Hawks enter the season with the burden of expectations and the benefit of continuity. This team is deep and should compete to be one of the best in the East.Most of the key players are back. The Hawks locked in their two best players, Trae Young and John Collins, with long-term extensions. Coach Nate McMillan will be running the team from opening night, as opposed to being thrust into the job midseason as he was during the last campaign after Lloyd Pierce was fired.Atlanta almost pulled off a miracle run to the N.B.A. finals last season, after taking down the Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers, but were bedeviled by injuries against the eventual champions, the Milwaukee Bucks. Players who were unavailable or not 100 percent, like De’Andre Hunter, Cam Reddish and Bogdan Bogdanovic, are expected to start the season with clean bills of health. The Hawks also added some quality veteran bench pieces in Gorgui Dieng and Delon Wright, and an intriguing rookie they drafted late in this year’s first round, Jalen Johnson.Charlotte HornetsLaMelo Ball, last season’s rookie of the year, highlights Charlotte’s promising young core. He’ll likely be the Hornets’ primary facilitator and already has great court vision and playmaking ability, and he is continuing to improve his jump shot.Ball and forward Miles Bridges in the pick-and-roll were elite last season, with Bridges’s power at the basket and Ball’s precise lob placement on display. That pairing should only be better this season.The Hornets already had solid veterans in Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward, and they added Kelly Oubre Jr. and Mason Plumlee. Oubre is an inconsistent shooter, but could be impactful in transition. Plumlee is a versatile big man.This group won’t be knocking at the door of the N.B.A. finals this season, but the Hornets will be a fun team to watch, and have a real chance at a playoff berth.Brooklyn NetsWith the addition of Patty Mills and Paul Millsap, as well as the return of Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge, the Nets, on paper, are one of the best teams in N.B.A. history. In normal circumstances, they would be title favorites, given their Big Three of Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant. But that was the case last year too, and the Nets bowed out in the second round of the playoffs.Health will be the principle factor for determining how far the Nets go. All of the Nets’ top players have significant miles on their legs and have missed substantial time in recent years.If there is a potentially weak point for other teams to exploit, it is defensively, where the Nets struggled last season, and their off-season additions didn’t seriously address that. This could come back to bite them in the postseason, particularly in the frontcourt against players like Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored at will during last year’s playoffs, or Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid.But the offensive firepower is top notch. It’s hard to see the Nets being beaten in a seven-game series if they’re healthy.Chicago BullsDeMar DeRozan gives the new-look Chicago Bulls a threat from the mid-range.Kamil Krzaczynski/USA Today Sports, via ReutersChicago could be a sneaky-good team this season.Arturas Karnisovas, the Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations, voiced displeasure with the team’s 31-41 record shortly after last season. Since then, he’s added DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso and Tony Bradley to a roster with Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic, whom Chicago acquired from Orlando at the March trade deadline.DeRozan is lethal in the midrange, but some have questioned how he’ll fit with LaVine, as both players are most effective with the ball in their hands. Chicago will have an upgrade at point guard with Ball, who is a deft passer. And Caruso will add a rugged spark off the bench. Coach Billy Donovan will have to figure out how they all fit on the court.In any event, Michael Jordan said that with the changes the Bulls made, they could compete in the East. How long has it been since those words were last spoken?Toronto RaptorsIt’s a new era in Toronto basketball. Kyle Lowry, perhaps the most lauded Raptor in franchise history, has gone to Miami. Without him, the Raptors are likely stuck between being too talented to get a top draft pick and not being so good that they’ll contend for a top seed in the conference.But there may be an opening for Toronto in the turbulent East: Scottie Barnes, whom the team surprisingly drafted at No. 4 this year, showed potential in the preseason. And the Raptors’ frontcourt, helmed by Chris Boucher and the newly acquired Precious Achiuwa, will be a force.There are lots of questions for the Raptors entering the season: Is Pascal Siakam, who is expected to miss the start of the season as he recovers from shoulder surgery, a true franchise cornerstone? Will Lowry’s replacement at guard, the 35-year-old Goran Dragic, last the season in Toronto? Or will Masai Ujiri, the Raptors head of basketball operations, flip Dragic’s expiring contract?Detroit PistonsYou’d be hard pressed to find any Pistons fans who haven’t already crowned the rookie guard Cade Cunningham as their Magic Johnson. Johnson, of course, won an N.B.A. title as a rookie after the Lakers drafted him No. 1 overall in 1979.Detroit drafted Cunningham, a savvy scorer and shot creator, No. 1 overall earlier this year to hopefully lift itself out of years of irrelevancy. An ankle injury sidelined him in the preseason, and the team is being cautious.Detroit’s young group showed promise last season, despite finishing with the worst record in the East, but the Pistons are another team in rebuilding mode. Coach Dwane Casey has said that this season’s goal is to earn a spot in the postseason play-in tournament.Cleveland CavaliersOnly someone like LeBron James could render an entire franchise into an afterthought. But that was what he effectively did when he departed the Cavaliers for the glamour of Hollywood in 2018, leaving them to rummage through the wilderness without him. The Cavaliers instantly went from title contender to lightweight, though the team has some up-and-comers — highlighted by Collin Sexton and Darius Garland in the backcourt — who are cause for cautious optimism.None of this is to suggest that the Cavaliers will come anywhere close to sniffing the playoffs. But a slow, steady rebuild — augmented by smart draft picks — is the way back to respectability. And there is more good news: Kevin Love (remember him?) has just two seasons remaining on his gargantuan deal, which could make him a more appealing target on the trade market.Boston CelticsJayson Tatum has shown promise with Boston, but postseason success has so far eluded him.Jasen Vinlove/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFrom the start of training camp, Ime Udoka, the Celtics’ first-year coach, has had a particular emphasis: ball movement. He does not want the ball to stick. He wants his players to work together to generate the best shots.This must have been welcome news to fans who got tired of watching the Celtics’ offense devolve into isolation sets last season. Jayson Tatum, 23, and Jaylen Brown, who will turn 25 this month, form one of the most talented young tandems in the league, but fulfilling their promise in the postseason has so far eluded them.Perhaps Udoka can help them deliver. He replaced Brad Stevens, who moved to the front office after a posting .500 record and losing in the first round of the playoffs in his eighth season as the team’s coach.Washington WizardsWes Unseld Jr., Washington’s new head coach, has a tall task ahead of him.The Wizards are not a championship-caliber team, even after adding solid veterans like Spencer Dinwiddie, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell. So this season will be mostly about persuading Bradley Beal, who can become a free agent next summer, to make a long-term commitment to the franchise.It’s hard to win without multiple elite playmakers, and the Wizards have just one in Beal after trading Russell Westbrook to the Los Angeles Lakers. But even in a yet another bridge year, the Wizards should, at the very least, have a playoff team. They’ll have the promising center Thomas Bryant back from injury, and the team can hope for some growth from its last two lottery picks, Deni Avdija (2020) and Rui Hachimura (2019).Orlando MagicThe Magic have a young team with a first-year head coach in Jamahl Mosley. They’ve made just two playoff appearances in the past nine seasons, and traded away their best players, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic, in the middle of last season. Then they landed Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs at No. 5 in this year’s draft.Suggs joined a roster that is crowded at guard, with Markelle Fultz, who will return from a knee injury, RJ Hampton, Terrence Ross, Cole Anthony and Gary Harris. Suggs probably has the highest ceiling of those players, though, and he was solid in the summer league before injuring his thumb.The Magic will not be legitimate contenders for a while, so they have plenty of time to sort out their roster.Indiana PacersRick Carlisle, back for his second stint with the Pacers, is the team’s third coach in three seasons. Indiana could use some stability to help develop a young core that includes Malcolm Brogdon, Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis, already a two-time All-Star at 25.But the Pacers, who have not advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2014, are coming off a 34-38 season, and Caris LeVert is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his back.Carlisle coached the Pacers for four seasons, from 2003 to 2007, while guiding them to three postseason appearances. It will take some hard work to get them there again. More

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    Chicago Sky Beat Phoenix Mercury for First W.N.B.A. Championship

    CHICAGO — At the final buzzer, Candace Parker sprinted down the court in triumph.The tears had already started coming moments before, as the Chicago Sky, the team she’d joined just eight months ago after a 13-year career in Los Angeles, took a 4-point lead over the Phoenix Mercury in Game 4 of the W.N.B.A. finals.Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot then nailed two free throws. Phoenix center Brittney Griner missed a jumper on the other end of the floor, and it was over. The Sky had beaten the Mercury, 80-74, in Game 4 and three games to one in the series for the franchise’s first-ever championship.Chicago players barreled onto their home court at Wintrust Arena, their sweat-soaked faces now also dripping with tears. Parker embraced her family, and looked up at the crowd.“Look at the city, man. They all showed up,” she said. “They all showed up.”Fans packed Wintrust Arena in Chicago for the decisive Game 4 of the W.N.B.A. finals.During a postgame news conference, Parker said she was happy her family could be there.“It’s just an amazing feeling to be from here and see so many people in the stands who have been supporting you since you started,” said Parker, who grew up in Naperville, Ill., a Chicago suburb.It was the second W.N.B.A. title for Parker, who signed with Chicago as a free agent in February.She turned in a dominant performance on both ends of the court, finishing with 16 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals. She was active on defense and knocked down a game-tying 3-pointer in the fourth quarter that gave Chicago game-clinching momentum after the Mercury had led for most of the game.The sixth-seeded Sky were unlikely champions after finishing the regular season with a .500 record. But they were the best team in the playoffs. They had to win single-elimination games against Dallas and Minnesota to reach the semifinals, where they earned a finals berth by knocking off the top-seeded Connecticut Sun and their star forward Jonquel Jones, who won the regular-season Most Valuable Player Award.The Sky won Game 1 of the finals in Phoenix thanks to a 21-point outing from forward Kahleah Copper, who was named the most valuable player of the finals. They dropped a close one in Game 2 then blew out Phoenix by 36 points in Game 3.The Sky struggled during the regular season, but were the best team throughout the playoffs.In Game 4, Griner nearly willed Phoenix to victory by herself. The Mercury consistently got her the ball in the paint, and she made the Sky pay every time they didn’t send a double team, and sometimes, even when they did. Griner finished with 28 points, 18 of which came in the first quarter.But the Sky had Parker, 35, one of the most decorated basketball players ever. She won two N.C.A.A. championships at the University of Tennessee, has two Olympic gold medals and won her first W.N.B.A. championship in 2016 with the Sparks. She was finals M.V.P. that year and has two regular-season M.V.P. Awards. This year, she became the first woman featured on the cover of NBA 2K, the popular basketball video game.The only thing she hadn’t done was, in part, why she came to Chicago: bring a championship to her hometown.“Going home has given me a sense of peace,” Parker said in an Instagram post in February. “I believe things come full circle.”Her arrival in Chicago put the Sky into title contention, even if an inconsistent regular season had many questioning how far they could go in the playoffs. That’s when Chicago relied on key performances from its other stars and role players.Fans cheer during Game 4 of the W.N.B.A. finals. The Sky’s Candace Parker, who grew up in a suburb of Chicago, said she was glad to play in front of people who watched her grow up.Guard Diamond DeShields shifted to coming off the bench late in the regular season, but Parker said after Game 3 of the finals that the team depended on her athleticism. DeShields was an essential part of the Sky’s dominant defensive effort in their 86-50 win over Phoenix in that game.“I wanted to guard everything. I wanted to guard everybody,” DeShields said after Game 3, in which Chicago held the Mercury to 25.8 percent shooting.Vandersloot, the Sky’s point guard who led the league in assists for the fifth straight year, averaged 10.2 assists per game in this year’s playoffs.Vandersloot logged a triple double in a double-overtime win over Connecticut — the league’s best defense in the regular season — in the first game of the semifinals, joining the Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes as the only players in W.N.B.A. history with a triple-double in the playoffs. She was a rebound away from another triple double in Game 4, finishing with 10 points, 15 assists and 9 rebounds.Other Sky players have come through in big ways, too.Their top scorer was Copper, who averaged 17.7 points per game in the playoffs. Vandersloot’s wife, Sky guard Allie Quigley, was averaging 14 points per game in the playoffs before Sunday, the second most on the team. And she saved her best performance for the title game. She scored 26 points on 9 of 14 shooting. She was 5 of 10 from 3-point range.“Allie really changed the momentum of the game there, and we just missed a few,” Phoenix Coach Sandy Brondello said. “Maybe if we’d made a few of them, it would be a way more happier press conference, wouldn’t it?”In an unusual move, none of Phoenix’s players showed up for their postgame news conference.Chicago’s Kahleah Copper, center, was named the most valuable player of the finals.Sunday’s championship culminated a remarkable rise for Copper, the No. 7 overall draft pick by the Washington Mystics in 2016. She was traded to Chicago ahead of the 2017 season in a deal that sent Elena Delle Donne, the Sky’s former superstar forward, to the Mystics. Copper started in just 12 games from 2017 to 2019, fading behind Vandersloot, Quigley and DeShields.She had a breakout season in 2020 as she shifted to a starting role, more than doubling her minutes per game — to 31.3 in 2020 from 14.8 in 2019 — and points per game — to 14.9 from 6.7. Copper has since established herself as a star on the Sky and was the difference in this championship series.“This is how you make household names in your city,” Chicago Coach James Wade said after the game Sunday. “People are going to go around, they’re going to know who Sloot is, they’re going to know who Kah is. They already know who Candace is, but there’s so many stories out there on the floor that are unique.”During Wade’s post-championship news conference, Copper trotted toward him, gripping an empty Champagne class in her hand.“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said into a microphone on Wade’s left, adding that the team was waiting for him, “so we can celebrate.”Parker had 16 points, 5 assists and 4 steals in the Sky’s Game 4 victory.But before that, Copper had a few words of her own. “I knew we were going to win this championship yesterday when Allie was the only one in the gym shooting,” Copper said. She added: “When the playoffs started, we gave ourselves a clean slate. We totally forgot about the regular season.”It was a disappointing finish to the season for the Mercury, who last won a championship in 2014, when they swept the Sky for their third franchise title.Phoenix had a strong season behind Diana Taurasi, the W.N.B.A.’s career scoring leader, Griner, one of the best centers in the league, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, who has been a fearless scorer and playmaker her entire career since entering the league in 2013.Taurasi, who had been inconsistent throughout the series, had 16 points on Sunday, as did Diggins-Smith.But though they had kept Phoenix alive in so many critical games up to this point, on Sunday they couldn’t do enough to extend their season for one more game.The Mercury held a 63-54 lead heading into the fourth quarter, but were outscored by the Sky, 26-11, in the final period.“It’s just so crazy what we’ve been through,” Vandersloot said after the game. “No one knows.” More

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    The Nets Had a Chance to Win Over New York. Now, They’ll Try Again.

    Right after the final buzzer sounded on Game 7 between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Nets during the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals last spring, Giovannie Cruz had to leave his house in Elizabeth, N.J., and go to a nearby park. Cruz, an avowed Nets fan for most of his 39 years, had watched the game with his 4-year-old son and “acted like a lunatic” until the end, when the Nets lost in heartbreaking fashion.“I literally walked around that park for almost an hour from the sheer disappointment,” Cruz said. “I didn’t want my son to see me too animated and use too much colorful language.”Last season was supposed to be the year, the season when the Nets and their fans — both the long suffering and the newcomers — would no longer be an afterthought in the N.B.A. The last time a pro sports team from Brooklyn won a championship, Jackie Robinson was wearing a uniform for the Dodgers in Major League Baseball. It was 1955.But there was more at stake for the Nets last season than simply winning a championship. In a city dominated by Knicks fans, a title could have allowed the Nets to plant a basketball-shaped flag (and raise a banner) in their efforts to shift the balance of power away from Madison Square Garden and put Knicks fans in their place. Just ask one of the Nets’ most prominent backers, the mayor of New York.Giovannie Cruz was so overwhelmed by the Nets’ elimination in the playoffs last season that he left his home in Elizabeth, N.J., to take a walk.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“I really feel like this is the final act in the renaissance of Brooklyn and giving Brooklyn its rightful place in the world, and that has tremendous importance for the city going forward,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime Brooklyn resident before his 2014 inauguration, said in an interview before Game 3 of the semifinals series, when the Nets were up 2-0 and a championship run seemed inevitable.The renaissance will have to wait. This summer, the Nets retooled their roster, somehow managing to add talent to one of the best on-paper assemblies in N.B.A. history. With veterans like Patty Mills and Paul Millsap now coming off the bench and healthy versions of Kevin Durant and James Harden ready to take the floor, the expectations for the Nets will be sky high. That’s true even if Kyrie Irving, barred from games until he gets vaccinated, doesn’t play for a while. But if the Nets don’t win at least one ring, this era most likely will be considered one of the biggest flops ever — and the Nets will have blown their best chance to cut into the suddenly resurgent Knicks’ hold on the city.“We don’t want to be just the most popular N.B.A. team in New York City,” John Abbamondi, the chief executive of the Nets, said in an interview at Barclays before that Game 7. “We want to be a global sporting icon on the level of a Real Madrid or Barcelona. That’s our aspiration.”Nine years ago, the Nets played their first season in Brooklyn, after being in New Jersey since 1977 following the merger with the A.B.A. The team had some success with the fast-paced teams of Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Kenyon Martin in the early 2000s, but it spent most of its history in the basketball wilderness, rarely attracting stars or playing in important games.“It was kind of rough at that time,” said Trenton Hassell, a guard who ended his career with the Nets in New Jersey from 2008 to 2010. “We had true fans still coming, but we were doing a lot of losing so that was tough.”The Nets have drawn increasing numbers of fans to home games, helped by the recent addition of three marquee players: Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMoving to Brooklyn was a new start on many levels. They had a shiny new arena, new branding and a spotlight-grabbing minority owner in Jay-Z, who was often on the sidelines with his megastar wife, Beyoncé.Old and new Nets fans are blending and forging a new collective identity. The cheers at Barclays Center are often most prominent from 96 or so fans who sit in Section 114. The die-hards there, called the Brooklyn Brigades, are sponsored by the team and are known for their creative chants. That’s a far cry from the early days in Brooklyn, when rival fans often outnumbered those of the Nets and Barclays had middling attendance overall.Richard Bearak has been a Nets fan since the 1970s and was at the championship in 1976. He’s the director of land use for Eric Adams, who is the Brooklyn borough president and the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. When Barclays first opened to the public, Bearak said, the arena was a “tourist attraction” that drew fans of winning, opposing teams.“A third of the crowd could have been supporting Golden State,” Bearak, 63, said. “At Madison Square Garden, it’s really hard to be a fan of another team and expect to be there in droves.”When the Nets first arrived from the Meadowlands in 2012, they did so as an interloper in some eyes. First, there were the fans in New Jersey who resented losing their team. And in Brooklyn, there were those who believed Barclays, which was part of a $6 billion commercial and residential redevelopment, would do more harm to the area than good — particularly with concerns about gentrification and congestion.A 2014 study by The New York Times based on Facebook data showed that after two seasons in Brooklyn, the Knicks were the more popular team in every New York City ZIP code, except the neighborhoods surrounding Barclays — in part because of the new residents who had moved to the remade downtown area. In response, the Village Voice referred to the Nets as “Gentrification’s Team.”Durant, who wears No. 7 for the Nets, Harden and Irving had three of the top-10 selling jerseys in each half of last season.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“We didn’t have a fan base for New York or Brooklyn at all,” said Irina Pavlova, then a top executive with the company of the team’s owner at the time, Mikhail Prokhorov. “It was zero. It was starting from scratch, especially in a city like New York, where the Knicks are such an institution.”Pavlova said the franchise focused on using “Brooklyn” as the main calling card to recruit new fans instead of the team name, as other franchises do. The fruits of that marketing effort can still be seen today, when the most common team chant is a drawn out “Broooooklyn!”“That was done to appeal to the residents of the borough since they didn’t have a team to root for,” Pavlova said.The people cheering for the Nets these days can generally be placed in four boxes. 1. Fans since the Nets were in the A.B.A. and playing in Long Island, like Bearak. 2. New Jersey-era fans like Cruz. 3. New, Brooklyn-era fans. 4. Those who root for specific stars, no matter their team.That last group is the hardest to track and may be the most crucial for the future of the Nets in the N.B.A., where star players are more influential than in other team sports. Irving, Durant and Harden brought in an uncertain number of transient fans. In the first and second halves of last season, the A-list trio had three of the league’s 10 highest selling jerseys.Dawn Risueno, 53, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, became a Nets fan in 1990 because her ex-boyfriend preferred them over the Knicks.Nets fans Justin Messier and Dawn Risueno.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesBrittainy Newman for The New York TimesShe has spent several years following the team across the country as part of an annual road trip. She converted her sports-agnostic husband of 18 years to the cause, and brought along her two children and seven grandchildren.“They didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Risueno said of her children and grandchildren. “Since they came literally out of the womb, I’ve had them in Nets outfits.”Bobby Edemeka, 46, a portfolio manager who was born and raised in Brooklyn, said he used to follow players instead of teams. But the Nets’ relocation to his hometown instilled pride, and Edemeka founded the Brooklyn Brigades group, which was unofficial until the Nets began sponsoring it in 2018. (Edemeka used to buy bundles of tickets and offer them for free to prospective Nets fans.)“You can travel the whole world and you’re not going to find people more proud of where they’re from than New Yorkers, and I think that goes especially so for people from Brooklyn,” Edemeka said.For pre-Brooklyn fans like Cruz, loving the team means “waiting for the bottom to fall out at all times.” Cruz lived through the 2009-10 season, when the team went 12-70. Still, Cruz was upset to see the Nets leave New Jersey two years later. He kept rooting for the team nonetheless. Many New Jerseyans didn’t.For newer fans like Edemeka, their Nets memories are mostly highlights. The team has made the playoffs in six of its nine seasons at Barclays. There have been two playoff series wins. There hasn’t actually been much suffering, all things considered.Judy and Bruce Rezmick — ‘Mr. and Mrs. Whammy’ — try to throw off the Minnesota Timberwolves with hand symbols.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“I don’t have any of that emotional baggage,” said Edemeka, a season-ticket holder for all of the Nets seasons. “I didn’t live through 12 and 70. I’m unburdened by that legacy.”Old Nets fans and all but the newest Knicks fans know a thing or two about emotional baggage. And yet the relative success of the Nets in Brooklyn, alongside the mostly dreary days at Madison Square Garden during the same period, has not broken the city’s devotion to the Knicks.There is, in theory, a concrete way to close that gap. Fans go further to associate themselves with winners, as documented in a landmark fan behavior study by Robert B. Cialdini in 1976 — a psychological concept known as “basking in reflected glory.” The opposite — disassociating from losing teams — is known as “cutting off reflected failure.” The study found that fans are likely to say “we” in reference to their favorite team’s winning but “they” if the team loses.Rick Burton, a professor of sports management at Syracuse University, said that if the Knicks remained the more inept team, younger generations in the city not yet dug in on team allegiances may precipitate a cultural shift.“The Knicks could rule almost by default,” Burton said of the Knicks before 2012. “But with social media, 500 television channels, a million websites, Brooklyn is not that far from any of the other boroughs, suddenly we have to talk about the fact that the Nets appear to have much more of a cachet than the Knicks.”But the flip side to that is, of course, not winning, which the Nets are intimately familiar with. The promising, but ultimately deflating, semifinal series last season showed that.“It’s always been so hard to be a Nets fan,” Cruz said.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times More

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    Sky Bring Hoops Championship Buzz Back to Chicago

    Sky forward Kahleah Copper’s hot shooting against the Mercury in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals has the team one win away from its first title.CHICAGO — It has been more than 23 years since Michael Jordan stole the ball from Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone, drove the length of the court and nailed a jumper to give his Chicago Bulls a 1-point win in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals. The unforgettable sequence secured the Bulls’ sixth championship and had Chicago fans reveling in a shared moment of pride.It has been a while since this city’s pro hoops fans have known that feeling, but the W.N.B.A.’s Sky have kept them familiar with high-stakes basketball.Draped in blue and yellow jerseys Friday night, eager Chicago fans packed into Wintrust Arena to watch the Sky take on the Phoenix Mercury in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals.The city’s yearning for a championship manifested in the atmosphere. Fans swirled towels above their heads during the Sky’s player introductions. They booed and heckled Mercury players every possession. And they roared and bounced up and down all over the arena with every made Chicago basket. Every. Single. One.Late in the game, after Chicago was well on its way to an 86-50 victory that would put the Sky one win away from clinching their first championship in franchise history, a Sky fan yelled “better luck next year” at the Mercury players on the court.By the fourth quarter, both teams had already subbed out their starters. “Sky in four” chants erupted as Chicago’s bench entered, making one reality clear: Chicago is, again, ready for a championship moment.Game 4 is Sunday in Chicago. The Sky lead the best-of-five series, two games to one.“I really feel Chicago. I really feel it,” Sky Coach James Wade said after Friday’s game. “The way they came out and supported, you can feel the passion that they have. It just gives us more passion. Hopefully we can see the same things Sunday, and we can all celebrate together.”Chicago’s ability to rely on its stars’ strengths has the team on the verge of a title. Candace Parker’s vocal leadership on both ends of the floor. Guard Courtney Vandersloot’s skill in finding open teammates and facilitating the offense (she had 10 assists on Friday). And Chicago has increasingly relied on forward Kahleah Copper’s athleticism, the way she blows past defenders and how she takes advantage of one-on-one matchups — skills that have made her one of the most impactful players in the finals.The sixth-seeded Sky used a dominant team defensive performance and a statement game from Copper to gain potentially series-clinching momentum in Game 3, after upsetting the fifth-seeded Mercury in Game 1 and falling short in overtime in Game 2. They tied a W.N.B.A. finals record for the largest lead at halftime (22), set the record for largest margin of victory in a finals game (36) and held the Mercury to 25.8 percent shooting on the night.Parker, who is from the Chicago suburb Naperville and signed with the Sky after 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, had 13 points, 3 assists and 4 rebounds.Copper scored 20 of her 22 points in the first half as the Sky pulled away early, eliciting deafening roars from the home crowd, which included the Chicago native Chance the Rapper, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver and Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields.“The one thing that probably doesn’t get talked about as much — her competitiveness,” Wade said of Copper. “That’s what it takes to get to the next level. We used to see it every day, even when she wasn’t playing as much. So it’s no surprise to us because we know what we have in her. Now she’s letting the world know. It’s just who she is.”Mercury Coach Sandy Brondello said after the game that Phoenix simply could not handle Copper, who was 6 of 10 from the floor.“We allowed her to sweep and go baseline way too much,” Brondello said. “When she’s shooting it from outside, you’ve got to give up something, don’t you? And she was making it. She had a really good game, and obviously that took the life out of us a little bit.”The scoring of Phoenix’s Big Three, Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins-Smith, has kept the team alive in critical games throughout the postseason. They combined for 56 points in the decisive Game 5 of the semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces. Now, even after an unusually poor shooting night against the Sky in Game 3 — they were a combined 10-for-36 from the field — they can be the key to keeping the Mercury’s season alive Sunday.Teams this postseason, and during most of the regular season, have had few answers for Griner’s dominance under the basket. She is a nightmare one-on-one matchup in the low post, and has gotten better at passing out of double teams to find open teammates on the perimeter.The Sky crowded Griner early, though, and held her to just 4 points in the second half Friday, for a total of 16 after she had scored a career-playoff high 29 in Game 2.When she got open looks, “she just missed them,” Brondello said. “They played in her space a little bit more. I think in the second half, you saw she went to the right hook.”Brondello added later, “She’s still someone we need to get the ball to as much as possible.”Mercury center Brittney Griner, left, defending Candace Parker. Griner was the only Phoenix player to score in double digits, with 16 points.Paul Beaty/Associated PressPhoenix last won the league title in 2014, when it defeated the Sky for its third championship in franchise history. This time, both teams have had a difficult path to the finals. The Sky finished the regular season with a 16-16 record, and few pegged them to make the finals. The Mercury limped into the postseason on a three-game losing streak, plagued by injuries.Could Sunday mark the end of an unlikely playoff run for both teams?With her head lowered in a postgame news conference and Taurasi sitting to her left, Diggins-Smith summed up what the Mercury have to do to extend the series and send it back to Phoenix.“Charge it to the game,” Diggins-Smith said, indicating Phoenix’s need to quickly move past Friday’s disappointing performance and refocus.“We didn’t lose the series tonight.” More

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    An N.B.A. Female ‘First’ Hopes It’s Not Such a Big Deal Soon

    Lisa Byington, the league’s first full-time female play-by-play broadcaster, with the Milwaukee Bucks, said she’s proud but hopes the novelty has a short shelf life.MILWAUKEE — It had the feel of the first day of school for Lisa Byington, who was learning her way around Fiserv Forum, where the Bucks play their home games. A couple of television production trucks were stationed in a corridor not far from the court, but Byington faced a dilemma: Which belonged to Bally Sports Wisconsin, the team’s broadcast partner?She took her chances and poked her head inside one of them and was excited to see some familiar people, including John Walsh, the director of the Bucks’ broadcasts. Walsh welcomed her by pointing to a box of cookies. “We still have some left!” he said. Byington had arrived early on Sunday for her first home game as the team’s new play-by-play voice.“Everyone’s made me feel like family,” Byington said later. “It’s been a super easy situation to walk into for a situation that shouldn’t be easy.”For 35 years, Jim Paschke provided the soundtrack for the Bucks as their play-by-play voice, as well-worn and beloved as a La-Z-Boy recliner. When he retired last season in the wake of the team’s first championship since 1971, he was replaced by Byington, 45, who made history as the first female full-time play-by-play broadcaster for a major men’s professional sports team. About a week later, Kate Scott was hired to do play-by-play for the Philadelphia 76ers.The hiring of both women this season is a sign of incremental progress in a predominantly male industry, though Byington is well aware that not everyone will be accustomed to hearing a woman relay the theatrics of Giannis Antetokounmpo soaring for a dunk.Byington, left, has a meeting with, from left, Brent Rieland, a producer; Zora Stephenson, the Bucks’ sideline reporter; and John Walsh, a director, before their show for a preseason game.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesByington takes a selfie video at Fiserv Forum before a game.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“You learn how to work with it, and you learn how to laugh about it,” she said. “And if there are fans who have concerns and don’t quite get it, I can listen. But ultimately, I don’t think of myself as a female broadcaster. I think of myself as a broadcaster, and the goal is to do the job well enough that people start thinking that way as well.”Growing up outside of Kalamazoo, Mich., Byington learned from her parents, Linda and Bob, both educators, that she could dream big, that she could be ambitious in school and excel at sports and that her gender would not hold her back. “They made me feel like I could do anything in the world,” she said.At Portage Northern High School, she helped lead the girls’ basketball team on a run to the state semifinals. Her father was the coach, and as she came off the court following the team’s season-ending loss, they shared a tearful embrace. The moment was filmed for a story on their father-daughter connection by WWMT, the CBS affiliate in Kalamazoo.“It was amazing to see, and that was the first time I realized the impact of broadcasting,” Byington said. “I always go back to that, because that’s really the first moment I started thinking, ‘Oh, that impacted me, and maybe someday I can impact others in the same way.’”At Northwestern, she played varsity basketball and soccer while majoring in journalism. (“I’m always better when I’m busy,” she said.) Armed with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism, she broke into the business as a sports anchor and reporter for modest-size television stations in Michigan.She was working her second job in local TV when she overheard a conversation on sports talk radio about how Pam Ward was set to become the first woman to be the play-by-play voice for a college football game on ESPN. Byington was on her way to cover a high school football game at the time.Byington stopped in at the media truck to check in with her director and producer.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesByington (left) talked with sideline reporter Zora Stephenson before a game.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“I remember it being such a big deal,” she said of Ward’s trailblazing assignment.A few years later, Byington was moonlighting as a sideline reporter for the Big Ten Network when one of her bosses there called with an unusual request. The network needed someone to do play-by-play for a women’s basketball game. It was unusual because Byington had never done play-by-play. She was unfazed: How much different could it be than anchoring a sportscast? Turns out, a lot.“It was horrible, but I must not have screwed up enough because they kept asking me to do a bunch of different sports,” she said.Byington went on to do play-by-play for softball and field hockey and football. She did men’s and women’s soccer. And gymnastics. And volleyball. Earlier this year, she was the first woman to do play-by-play of the men’s college basketball tournament for CBS and Turner Sports, and her call of Oral Roberts’ second-round upset over Florida drew media praise.And as the Bucks began evaluating candidates to replace Paschke in the weeks after the Bucks won last season’s championship, Peter Feigin, the team president, found that he was particularly impressed by about three consecutive hours of coverage that Byington supplied of the Big3 League playoffs. Byington was new to the Big3, but there she was, live from the Bahamas, working an hourlong pregame show followed by both semifinals.“If you can do that, you can do anything,” Feigin said.Byington was broadcasting a college football game on Sept. 4 when her agent, Gideon Cohen, tried to call her, which struck her as odd: He knew she was on the air. When Byington opted not to pick up, Cohen resorted to sending a text message that featured a GIF of Antetokounmpo. She had landed the Bucks job.Byington (right) calling a preseason game between the Bucks and the Oklahoma City Thunder.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesAfter a long day Byington leaves Fiserv Forum.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“Everything was kind of fuzzy after that,” she said.Women have been broadcasting men’s sports for years now, Byington said, but not every game for one team and for one fan base.“That’s the big difference, and that will be the big shift,” she said. “Because fans can handle a voice coming in and out for a national network. But now you’re based in the community, you’re going to events, you’re interacting with them, and it’s your voice on highlights and on social media — all of that.”And while Byington is not naïve to the significance of her gender, she does hope the story line has a short shelf life.“It’s a part of the process,” she said. “But if you’re asking me the same questions 10 years from now — or even next month — then there’s a problem.”On Sunday, the Bucks were in Milwaukee for their first preseason game at home, and as Byington walked toward the court about an hour before the tip, she took out her phone to capture the moment. The stands were still empty, and a couple of ushers did double-takes: Was she the new announcer?Byington chatted with Zora Stephenson, the Bucks’ sideline reporter, then made her way across the court to greet Beth Mowins, who was preparing for her play-by-play duties with ESPN, which was also broadcasting the game. The moment was not lost on either of them: two women calling the same game for different networks.“Probably a bigger deal than people realize,” Byington said.Before long, Byington was seated with Marques Johnson, her broadcast partner, near the scorer’s table as their show went live.“So happy you could join us,” she said. More

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    Kyrie Irving Defends Decision on Vaccine After Being Benched

    Kyrie Irving, the N.B.A. star who has been indefinitely barred from practicing or playing with the Brooklyn Nets because of his refusal to get the Covid-19 vaccine, spoke out publicly on Wednesday night for the first time since the team decided to keep him off the court, saying his refusal was a matter of personal freedom.“You think I really want to lose money?” Irving, who is set to earn about $40 million in salary this season, said on his Instagram feed in a meandering monologue that included incorrect medical information. More than 90 percent of players in the league are vaccinated, a proportion much higher than in the general population of the United States.“You think I really want to give up on my dream to go after a championship?” Irving, 29, said. “You think I really just want to give up my job? You think I really want to sit at home?”On Tuesday, the Nets said they had barred Irving from playing until he becomes “eligible to be a full participant.” New York City requires most teenagers and adults to have at least one vaccination shot to enter facilities such as sports arenas, and Irving has not practiced with the Nets in Brooklyn. Irving joined the Nets in 2019 as they built a team of superstars that includes Kevin Durant and James Harden.Irving asked that his decision to remain unvaccinated be respected and said that he has no plans to retire. He couched his refusal to get vaccinated in his opposition to mandates, saying nobody should be “forced” to do it.Irving falsely claimed his decision to remain unvaccinated does not harm other people. The highly contagious Delta variant has quickly spread in areas with low vaccination rates. And hospitals in those areas have been overrun with unvaccinated patients, leaving few beds and staff members to treat other patients. More

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    Nets Bar Kyrie Irving Until He's Vaccinated

    The barring of Irving complicates what looked like a surefire path to the finals for the Nets and could set up a battle with the players’ union.Kyrie Irving was supposed to be the starting point guard of the N.B.A.’s next dynasty. He was going to use his superb ball-handling skills to dish passes to Kevin Durant and James Harden, and together this Big Three would turn the Nets into champions season after season for years to come.Sure, Irving had suggested that the Earth was flat. But he had also delivered a championship to Cleveland alongside LeBron James, and he was a perennial All-Star. The Nets could stand a little quirkiness in pursuit of greatness.The Covid-19 vaccine, and Irving’s refusal to take it, could turn all of that upside down.As vaccine mandates roil workplaces across the country, a high-stakes stalemate in the N.B.A. took a dramatic turn on Tuesday when the Nets issued Irving an ultimatum: Get the shot, or stay home. In the process, the team has drawn a stark line over the issue of the vaccine with one of the more high-profile sports celebrities who has refused to get it.“Without a doubt, losing a player of Kyrie’s caliber hurts,” Sean Marks, the Nets’ general manager, said at a news conference. “I’m not going to deny that. But at the end of the day, our focus, our coaches’ focus and our organization’s focus needs to be on those players that are going to be involved here and participating fully.”Irving, 29, had faced the prospect of being able to play only on the road with the Nets this season because of local coronavirus ordinances in New York that require most individuals to be at least partially vaccinated to enter facilities such as sports arenas. The Nets play their home games at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.Marks said the decision to bar Irving from all games and practices had been made by himself and by Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner.“Will there be pushback from Kyrie and his camp? I’m sure that this is not a decision that they like,” Marks said. “Kyrie loves to play basketball, wants to be out there, wants to be participating with his teammates. But again, this is a choice that Kyrie had, and he was aware of that.”The Nets’ decision to sit Irving for the road games that he is eligible to play in sets the stage for a potential battle between the team and the players’ union, which had already been pushing back on the league’s plan to dock the pay of unvaccinated players for games they miss because of ordinances in their home cities.Irving, a union vice president, is due to lose about $380,000, or around 1 percent of his base pay for the 2021-22 season, for every home game he misses. Marks said Irving would still be paid for road games this season. The N.B.A. players’ union did not respond to a request for comment.Irving has not spoken publicly about his vaccination status, asking instead for privacy, and the Nets danced around the topic for weeks until Tuesday. In response to a question from The New York Times about whether Irving was vaccinated, Marks said: “If he was vaccinated, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I think that’s probably pretty clear.”Although the union said last week that 96 percent of players had been vaccinated, a few have expressed hesitancy and most have not actively campaigned for others to be vaccinated. In late September, James, the game’s most famous player, said that he had gotten vaccinated after months of skepticism.“I think everyone has their own choice to do what they feel is right for themselves and their family,” James said.In his most recent public comments, Irving insisted that getting the shot was a matter of privacy.“Everything will be released at a due date and once we get this cleared up,” Irving said during a virtual meeting with reporters on Sept. 27, adding: “I’m a human being first. Obviously, living in this public sphere, it’s just a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie. I think I just would love to just keep that private, handle it the right way with my team and go forward together with the plan.”Irving has long been known as one of the league’s more mercurial figures, expressing unconventional opinions on a variety of topics since he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers as the top overall draft pick in 2011.But he also has outsize influence within the league, and he led a bloc of players who disagreed with the N.B.A.’s decision to resume the 2019-20 season in a Florida bubble because of the pandemic, expressing concern that the move would limit the players’ social justice efforts after the police killing of George Floyd.Last season, Irving missed several games for unspecified personal reasons. During one of the stints when he was away from the team, video surfaced of him attending his sister’s birthday party without a mask, in violation of the league’s health and safety protocols. A few days later, while his teammates were preparing to play against the Denver Nuggets, he appeared on a Zoom call for supporters of the Manhattan district attorney candidate Tahanie Aboushi.Still, Irving’s talents seemed to overshadow any distraction. Despite having little time to develop on-court chemistry because of injuries and other absences last season, the Nets appeared primed for a deep playoff run. But injuries to Irving and Harden hindered the Nets’ postseason hopes, and they lost to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.The Nets are still contenders this season — with or without Irving — though his presence would clearly help.But Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play, require all employees and guests 12 and older to show proof of having received at least one vaccine dose, to comply with a city mandate, unless they have a religious or medical exemption. San Francisco has a similar requirement that applies to Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play. The mandates in both cities mean that the players from the Knicks, Nets and Golden State cannot play in their teams’ 41 home games during the regular season without being vaccinated.The ordinances in New York and San Francisco do not apply to players from visiting teams. Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic and Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, for example, have been vocal about their refusals to be vaccinated.Either way, unvaccinated players face a host of rules and restrictions this season. With limited exceptions, they are required to remain at home or at the team hotel when they are not at games or practices. They also are not permitted to eat with vaccinated teammates, who have far more freedom to dine out and interact with the public.Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins was unvaccinated when he arrived for training camp but relented when he was faced with the local ordinances that would have barred him from games and cost him a great deal of money.“The only options were to get vaccinated or not play in the N.B.A.” Wiggins said after Golden State’s preseason opener this month. “It was a tough decision. Hopefully, it works out in the long run and in 10 years I’m still healthy.”For now, Irving has remained steadfast. In the past, he stated that he wants his legacy to be about service rather than his work as a basketball player. He has gone to great efforts in that regard, although many of his inroads are outside any media spotlight.Irving purchased a home for Floyd’s family, according to the former N.B.A. player Stephen Jackson. During the W.N.B.A.’s bubble season, Irving started an initiative to provide $1.5 million to players who did not participate and would not be paid. His K.A.I. Family Foundation also teamed with City Harvest to donate 250,000 meals in New York.On Tuesday, Marks said he would be willing to welcome Irving’s return to the team “under a different set of circumstances.” More

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    Candace Parker Is the Calm, and the Storm, for the Chicago Sky

    Parker has known both adversity and success in her long W.N.B.A. career. The mix has become a potent weapon as the Sky vie for their first championship.It was a loaded way to start the W.N.B.A. finals.Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was on hand in Phoenix before tipoff of Game 1 Sunday between the Chicago Sky and the Phoenix Mercury to honor the 25 best players in league history, as decided by media members and “women’s basketball pioneers and advocates.” Engelbert also recognized Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, one of the 25, as the greatest player of all time, as voted by fans. But amid the hubbub at center court, Sky forward Candace Parker, also among the 25, looked on from the bench. Here she was, in her 14th season, vying for the second championship of her W.N.B.A. career in her first year with a new team.In the off-season, Parker, 35, a native of Naperville, Ill., signed with the Sky after 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks. Her home state crowd welcomed her with open arms.For Lorri Gyenes, a Sky season ticket-holder affectionately known as Sky Mayor Redhead Lorri, getting to witness Parker’s “full-circle story” is the stuff of dreams.“Everyone knew that Candace was special in high school,” Gyenes said. “The Sky were unable to draft Candace, but I hoped that we could trade Elena Delle Donne for her back in the day — largely for her skill, but also for her ability to sell tickets.”When a Delle Donne trade didn’t happen — she was instead sent to Washington — Gyenes wrote off the idea of ever getting to see Parker play in Sky blue.“It is so excellent now to have Candace return home,” Gyenes said. “Not only is she a legend, she can still play. She is also a superstar beyond women’s basketball. Everyone knows her. She brings so much attention and respect to our organization.”And then there is the matter of Parker’s leadership. The Sky’s Kahleah Copper credits Parker for challenging her daily and expressing faith in her abilities. The result for Copper has been increased confidence that has been evident all season in her electric and speedy drives to the hoop. It is appropriate, then, that Copper, not Parker, emerged from the Sky’s 91-77 win in Game 1 in Phoenix as the top scorer, with 21 points.After trailing in the first, Chicago bounced back, allowing only 10 points in the second quarter of Game 1 of the W.N.B.A. finals.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesAfter the game, Parker described how she has grown over her career. “I think it’s the biggest thing for me that I don’t think I understood when I was younger is that you have to be the calm for the storm and you have to be the storm when everyone’s calm,” she said.Copper and Sky Coach James Wade told reporters that Parker was the only player to suit up for Game 1 without pre-finals jitters. But Parker said that wasn’t the case. “I don’t care how many you’ve been to, there’s still the jitters you’re going to get, so that’s not true,” she said. But her experience in these high-pressure moments helped to her shake off the nervous energy.“There’s no reason to flip out,” Parker said.The Mercury jumped to an early lead and held a 5-point advantage after the first quarter. The Sky’s ability to stay calm, however, enabled them to stun the Mercury in the second quarter, when Chicago outscored Phoenix, 26-10.Parker praised her teammates for how they have handled adversity this season. As much as the team learned about its potential from a seven-game regular-season winning streak, Parker said she believed the Sky learned even more from the seven straight losses they tallied while she was out with an injury. If the Sky could overcome those losses, finish the season with a 16-16 record, make the playoffs as the sixth seed, and make it to the finals, Parker said they would be able to overcome whatever difficulties the final brings.“I think that’s the biggest thing during the playoffs is bouncing back and fighting through adversity,” she said. “I think we know our potential. We know how we can play and how we want to play, and we know our identity.”But Parker’s familiarity with adversity precedes her time in Chicago.Her blockbuster move to the Sky left Sparks fans stunned. Since Parker’s 2008 rookie season, when she won both the Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year Awards, her name had been synonymous with the team. And with Parker still playing incredible basketball well into her 30s, winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2020 and helping the Sparks to a No. 3 playoff seed, the Los Angeles fan base believed another championship banner in the Parker era was possible.But when the Parker era in L.A. ended without another championship, people needed someone to blame, and it wasn’t her. That person was Coach Derek Fisher, who infamously benched Parker during the deciding game of the 2019 semifinals.Kahleah Copper, right, has credited Parker for helping her build confidence this season.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesSpeculation about when Parker might retire began circulating after the 2019 season. Instead of hanging up her high tops, Parker showed in the 2020 season just how much juice she has left. Months later, in an introductory news conference with the Sky, Parker said, “The lessons I’ve learned being gone have brought me back home.”Parker averaged 13.3 points per game during the regular season, second behind Copper for Chicago, and led the Sky in per-game rebounds (8.4) and blocks (1.2). She has held steady across seven playoff games that included two single-elimination matchups. In a decisive semifinal victory over the top-seeded Connecticut Sun, Parker had 17 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists to help secure a surprising upset for a Sky team that, with a .500 record, was not assured of making the playoffs.By carrying the Sky this season to within two wins of a championship, Parker has again demonstrated her staggering heights. Parker was criticized for the first eight years of her career for failing to lead the Sparks to third franchise title, which she did in 2016.Now, she hopes to finish closing the circle, on her season and potentially on her career, with a title. But, win or lose, Parker’s impact in Chicago is a surprise to no one, not even within the Sparks organization.“Candace Parker is a prime example of creating your own success story, for herself and the W.N.B.A.,” said Fred Williams, a Sparks assistant coach. “She is a game-changer for women’s sports and for the W.” More