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    Joan Jett Loves the New York Liberty. The Feeling Is Mutual.

    As an early fan of the W.N.B.A. team, the musician saw the squad lose four championship series. This week, she returned courtside to cheer another attempt.Joan Jett’s unmistakable voice was carrying, and she was pretty sure it was working some magic.The New York Liberty had taken a slim lead against the Las Vegas Aces in the third quarter of Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals on Sunday, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was doing her part, bellowing along with the crowd’s “De-fense” chant from her courtside perch at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. When the Aces started to go cold, Jett took it as a sign.“I’m hoping they recognize my voice and I’m messing up their shot,” the husky-throated musician said, using an expletive. “It’s all mental, you know what I’m saying?”It was a must-win contest for the Liberty, who were down 2-0 in the best-of-five series. As Jett kept up her boisterous chant, the Aces missed six consecutive shots. The Liberty went on an 8-0 run, and the diminutive singer and guitarist jumped up to high-five the 6-foot-3 former Liberty center Sue Wicks, a friend.Some 10 years had passed since Jett last attended a W.N.B.A. game (her summer touring schedule got in the way), but she fell quickly back into the playoff delirium she had enjoyed as a courtside fixture in the late 1990s and early ’00s, when the team made the final round of the playoffs four times but failed to win a title.The rock star said she first fell for the game in 1996 when the N.C.A.A. asked her permission to use Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ cover of “Love Is All Around” to promote the women’s basketball tournament. The following year, the W.N.B.A. began its first season and Jett bought Liberty season tickets, often showing up to big games with a red cloth voodoo doll she used to taunt opposing players.“She’d hold it up and stab that dang thing!” Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty guard, said during halftime. “When you talk about the Liberty, you have to mention Joan’s name. Any battle we had on the floor, Joan was in it with us.”Jett grew up a self-described tomboy in Rockville, Md., and became a fan of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles at age 11, after her father took her to see the pitcher Jim Palmer throw a no-hitter. Her intersection with sports continues today: She still follows the Orioles faithfully, and is known to set up livestreams on the drum riser during shows so she can follow along. The theme song for “Sunday Night Football,” is an adapted version of the Blackhearts hit “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” performed by Carrie Underwood.During her early days of W.N.B.A. fandom, Jett opted to sit directly behind the bench instead of courtside with the other celebrities. (“It just feels more inside basketball to me,” Jett said. “You can hear the coaches talking.”) The Liberty would slap her hand on their way onto the floor. Jett occasionally came to practices, and once even flew to Houston with the team for a finals game.Jett developed particularly close friendships with Weatherspoon and Wicks, who remembers being so star-struck the first time she saw Jett at Madison Square Garden, where the Liberty initially played, that she almost knocked over Rebecca Lobo, the team’s center. Wicks had a copy of “The Hit List,” Jett’s 1990 album, while playing overseas in Europe, and said it had been a “great friend” to her during lonely stretches abroad. “For me, she’s a goddess,” Wicks said.In 1999, Ray Castoldi, the Garden’s organist, asked Jett and the Blackhearts to record “Unfinished Business,” a song he had written for the Liberty after their crushing finals loss that year. Jett not only cut the track the following season, but filmed a video with the team and performed the song at halftime during a game.“It’s hard to explain the energy,” Jett said of those early years. “I was on the outside looking in, but they made me feel like I was on the inside. It was a fun, really inclusive time.”Jett feels a natural kinship with athletes, who, like longtime touring bands, travel with a tight-knit team and are expected to perform on command. And like the athletes in the W.N.B.A., who have carved out a professional place for themselves while expanding the public’s idea of what women are capable of doing, Jett broke down boundaries in music: battling to prove to record labels and crowds that she deserved to be a frontwoman despite her prodigious talent. “We’re people that could relate to what each other was doing,” she said.Crystal Robinson, a former Liberty forward with whom Jett remains close, said the recognition was mutual: “For us, it was just the fact that she supported us,” she said. “She was fighting that female battle before we started. We had this camaraderie.”Jett’s return to the Liberty on Sunday was an overdue homecoming. Before the game, she nursed a beer as she held court with Wicks and Robinson at a table in the Barclays’ V.I.P. lounge. The recently retired W.N.B.A. star Sue Bird came by to pay her respects, as did the actors Jason Sudeikis and Michael Shannon, who portrayed Kim Fowley, the manager of Jett’s band, the Runaways, in a 2010 film.As the restaurant emptied before game time, Jett got restless. “I feel like we’re missing stuff!” she said giddily, before heading toward the court to find her seat. Just before tipoff, Becky Hammon, the Aces head coach who had been a Liberty guard in her playing days, spotted Jett taking a photo of her from across the court and struck a quick pose.Once the game started, Jett was up out of her seat to cheer on nearly every Liberty point. She gleefully taunted Hammon after a Jonquel Jones bucket (“Three-pointer, Becky!”), and debated foul calls with Wicks and Robinson. When Jones blocked a shot from the Aces star A’ja Wilson in the third quarter, Jett removed her black jean jacket to cheers from the crowd. “It’s hot in here!” she shouted back.After the Aces went cold in the third quarter, the Liberty stretched their lead. “I feel good,” Jett said. “But they’ve broken my heart before.”She appeared on the Jumbotron soon after, gamely swinging a Liberty towel overhead as “I Love Rock ’n Roll” blared on the public address system. Then, she fired T-shirts into the crowd with an air cannon, with the crowd roaring for her.“I felt the love,” Jett said. But she was mainly focused on her potential as a tactical influence: “It reminds Las Vegas that I’m here, and that can make them nervous.”She needn’t have worried. The Liberty found their rhythm in the second half and defeated the Aces, 87-73, extending the series to a Game 4, which will be played in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Should the team force a Game 5, it will play for the franchise’s elusive, first-ever title.“You’ve got to be back Wednesday!” a fan told Jett as the clock wound down. “You’re clearly the good luck charm.”But Jett is prepared for any outcome. “That’s the nature of being a sports fan,” she said. “To be there through the tough times and the good times.” More

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    How Ellie the Elephant, NY Liberty’s Twerking Mascot, Electrifies Barclays Center

    Ellie the Elephant, the mascot for the New York Liberty, has danced her way into the hearts of fans as the team has played its way into the W.N.B.A. finals.Every mascot has its thing. Some dunk. Others flip. As for Ellie the Elephant, the mascot for the New York Liberty women’s basketball team? She twerks.Amelia Bane, 33, said she was blown away the first time she saw Ellie at a Liberty game in 2021. Ms. Bane, a video editor and a host of “Let the Girls Play!,” a comedic W.N.B.A. podcast, said she recorded a video of the elephant, who has often performed alongside the Liberty’s dance troupe, the Torch Patrol, and sent it to a friend.“You’re not going to believe this elephant that’s just absolutely throwing ass,” Ms. Bane recalled telling her friend. (While recounting the story, she excused herself for her colorful language.)“I don’t ever want to go to the bathroom during a game,” said Ms. Bane, who lives in Brooklyn and is planning to dress her infant as the mascot for Halloween. “Because even if the game isn’t on, Ellie is on.”The author Fran Lebowitz said she was surprised to see the mascot when she and a friend went to see the Liberty — who are playing the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals on Sunday — at Barclays Center in Brooklyn this summer.“I fail to understand what the elephant has to do with Brooklyn,” Ms. Lebowitz said. “Because to me, it’s the Republicans that are symbolized by an elephant.”Of Ellie’s dance skills, she added: “She did seem to be, I guess, very good for an elephant.”Ellie dancing with the Timeless Torches, a Liberty dance troupe whose members are over 40-years-old.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Ellie EffectEllie has been a fixture at Liberty home games since 2021, a year after the team relocated to Barclays Center from its previous home, the Westchester County Center in White Plains, N.Y., a smaller arena where they had been playing since 2018. Before that the Liberty, who have been a part of the W.N.B.A. since the league debuted in 1997, played home games at Madison Square Garden.But this year, after a series of trades and draft picks resulted in the Liberty becoming a so-called superteam, Ellie’s fame has grown as the team has played its way into the W.N.B.A.’s championship round for the first time since 2002.Jillian Steinhauer, 38, a journalist in Brooklyn, compared Ellie to members of the Fly Girls, the in-house dance troupe from “In Living Color,” a sitcom from the early 1990s.“She’s just so good,” she said, “and she’s wearing a freaking elephant costume.”During a halftime performance on the opening night of the Liberty’s 2023 season in May, Ellie danced to a medley of hits by the rapper Lil’ Kim, who grew up in Brooklyn. She was wearing a black caped leotard, black thigh-high boots, sparkly sunglasses and a luminous, golden-brown wig tucked behind her giant ears.At a performance the year before, Ellie channeled Mary J. Blige while grooving to a supercut of Ms. Blige’s most popular songs in a brown wig with crimped, 48-inch-long locks that flew through the air whenever Ellie snapped and shook her head.Criscia Long, the senior director of entertainment for the Liberty and the Brooklyn Nets, said those wigs were such a hit that they inspired a new hairstyle that Ellie debuted this season: a 72-inch-long braid that falls to her feet.Ms. Long added that, each season, Ellie has received a new pair of customized Nike sneakers for her Barclays Center performances.This season Ellie debuted a new hairstyle: a 72-inch-long braid that falls to her feet.The New York Liberty“We had to step it up with Ellie’s foot game,” she said.Ellie has shown off her footwear while performing her signature dance move: the Ellie stomp.During the fourth quarter at home games, the arena’s lights go dark and a spotlight appears on a huddle of other dancers. “Headsprung” by LL Cool J starts booming through the arena’s speakers, and then Ellie leaps over the dancers and lands on one foot with a thunderous stomp. The Jumbotron camera somersaults and shakes as the dancers fall to the ground, seemingly knocked unconscious by the aftershock.“The Ellie stomp totally brings the crowd together,” said Rachel Kaly, a 28-year-old comedian in Brooklyn.She added that Ellie’s braid, custom sneakers and costumes — which have included a pink bikini worn at a Barbie-themed game — have made the elephant “kind of a fashion icon.”Keia Clarke, chief executive of the Liberty, said that the W.N.B.A. has traditionally targeted families as the league’s primary audience. Ellie, she added, “opened up a different lane that I think we weren’t completely expecting from a fandom standpoint.”The Evolution of EllieMs. Clarke said that choosing an elephant to replace the Liberty’s former mascot — a scruffy blond dog named Maddy, after Madison Square Garden — had nothing to do with the Republican Party.Ellie, she said, is a homage to the elephants that the circus founder P.T. Barnum paraded across the Brooklyn Bridge, in 1884, to demonstrate its stability after its completion a year earlier. Her name is a nod to Ellis Island.An elephant, an animal that can symbolize power and resilience, also seemed fitting because the Liberty arrived in Brooklyn after its two worst seasons on record, Ms. Clarke said. (The team is owned by Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, a married couple who also own the Brooklyn Nets; Mr. Tsai is a founder and the chairman of the Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba.)“For Brooklyn,” Ms. Clarke added, “We knew Ellie needed to be able to dance.”During a Liberty game in September, Ellie pumped up the crowd by doing a split.Mike Lawrence/NBAE via Getty ImagesFans said Ellie’s personality is as memorable as her dancing.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“When we thought about Brooklyn and its music and its culture, dancing absolutely had to be a part of it,” she said.Ellie was chosen after auditions were conducted with the help of a mascot consultant. Ever since, Ms. Clarke said, she has continued to surprise audiences with her ability. Ellie is “an extremely talented dancer in many, many different genres,” she said.Ms. Long, who was a captain of the New York Knicks’ dance troupe before she started working with the Liberty and the Nets, said she has been surprised by Ellie’s moves at “every single game.”“We just keep trying and throwing more things” at her, she added. (Ellie is paid for performing with the Liberty.)Watching Ellie dance is only part of her appeal, according to fans, lots of whom said they have also been charmed by her personality. In interviews for this article, Ellie was described as “welcoming,” “hilarious,” “joyful,” “fierce,” “fly,” “mischievous” and “the life of the party.”Mike Zakarian, 38, who hosts Team Hold!, a comedic sports-video series on YouTube, said that the way Ellie walks is almost more eye-catching than her dancing. “She stomps around like something is about to happen,” he said. “It draws your attention.”Ellie wore a rainbow tutu and matching hair bows while performing at a game in June.Mitchell Leff/Getty ImagesAll the attention he has paid to Ellie, though, has not helped Mr. Zakarian identify the person inside the mascot’s costume. And he is not alone.“I’ve had so many conversations like, ‘Is Ellie a man? Is Ellie a woman? Is Ellie in their 30s or in their 20s?’” said Mr. Zakarian, who lives in Queens. “‘Is there is a world in which Ellie was a running back in college? Or maybe a Division 1 cheerleader?”He has had conversations with multiple people in his YouTube videos about Ellie’s identity, he said, and whether there is “a crew of Ellies” that rotate performing at games.“I need a podcast,” he said. “A ‘Serial’-esque breakdown of who is Ellie?”Who Is Ellie?In an interview on Monday afternoon at Barclays Center, Ellie, who was accompanied by Ms. Long, did not speak. (Ms. Long had previously declined to comment on Ellie’s identity.)But Ellie, who was wearing a white Liberty jersey and a pair of white-and-turquoise sneakers, one of which had “equality” painted across its toe box, did answer some questions by gesturing.Is she the best dancer in the W.N.B.A.? She shrugged bashfully.Does she feel the love from the crowd when she comes out? She vigorously nodded yes.Is the Liberty going to win the championship? Another vigorous nod. (At the time of publication, the team was down 0-2 in the best-of-five finals.)Is she single? Ellie threw her head back as if she was laughing, then opened her arms wide.Ms. Long offered to interpret her answer. “She’s for the fans,” she said.During the interview, Ms. Long also addressed one rumor about the mascot.“There’s only one Ellie,” she said in response to speculation that multiple people might rotate wearing the elephant costume. “There will only ever be one Ellie.” More

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    Rich Paul, N.B.A. Power Broker, Growing Up and Finding Peace

    When Rich Paul considers his life now, he sometimes thinks how far it seems from his childhood, growing up Black in a particularly dangerous part of Cleveland.For the past two decades, Mr. Paul, 42, has been a polarizing force in basketball. A power broker in a specialized world, he is slim, 5-foot-8 and sharply dressed, often appearing on the margins of photos snapped at marquee events.Many saw him as LeBron James’s confidant, and later as his agent. But as he built a sports agency, Klutch Sports Group, that rivaled and irritated more established companies, he has worked to separate his identity from that of Mr. James’s.Mr. Paul is now a courtside fixture at N.B.A. games. He collects art. He lives in Beverly Hills. And he is in a yearslong relationship with the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Adele. Mr. Paul has helped N.B.A. players shift power away from teams and to themselves, like when he maneuvered a 2019 trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers to join Mr. James.On Tuesday, Roc Lit 101, an imprint of Random House, will publish his memoir, “Lucky Me.” It is a bid by Mr. Paul to both own his past — growing up with a mother who battled addiction and acknowledging his own drug dealing — and celebrate the way his difficult upbringing, and in particular his father, prepared him for his future.Recently, at a restaurant in a five-star hotel in Midtown Manhattan, with sculptures of tropical birds in the light fixtures, Mr. Paul mused about his hope that athletes would focus on the peace of mind that can come with real financial security, not the fleeting pleasure of social media attention and the temporary financial windfalls that come with it. The idea of finding peace set off another thought.“I come from a place where every day is chaotic. Every. Day,” Mr. Paul said, his voice rising as he began tapping hard on the table to emphasize his words. “Sirens, all day long. You have to wear headphones. I should have been the inventor of Beats, as many sirens as I had to listen to, and yells and cussing outs and everything.”After a moment, he returned to his original point.“These kids, they just want clout,” Mr. Paul said. “I don’t understand it.”One of the main themes of the memoir is the influence Mr. Paul’s father had on him.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesIt’s why, he said, he was so passionate about becoming an agent. He had heard so much about players being broke despite initially getting lucrative contracts.“There’s no line down the street to get to knowledge,” Mr. Paul said. “It tells you a lot.”In thinking about Mr. Paul’s memoir, Chris Jackson, the publisher and editor in chief of Roc Lit 101, said he was interested in Mr. Paul as part of a generation of Black men “whose formative experiences were during that period that was defined by crack cocaine and the post-civil rights cocktail of white flight, urban abandonment and families that really struggled to stay together.“And how out of that kind of experience of survival, so much was created, and how the entire country was shifted by people who were kind of forged in that.”The broad strokes of Mr. Paul’s back story have been recounted before, the way his mother had struggled with drug addiction and his father, who had another family, raised him in the family’s corner store. How a chance meeting with Mr. James at an airport in Akron, Ohio, turned into a partnership that changed the course of his life.In the memoir, which was written with the journalist Jesse Washington and features a foreword by Mr. James, Mr. Paul goes further than ever before. He depicts in heartbreaking detail the ways his mother’s absences forced her children to act older than their ages, contrasting those stories with her energy and charisma when she was clean.“It was therapeutic for me, but at the same time I wanted to make sure that people understood it wasn’t all bad,” Mr. Paul said.He writes that his father taught him discipline and how to run a business. Not all of his father’s business dealings were strictly legal, but Mr. Paul said he always ran them with honor. His father’s advice is sprinkled throughout the memoir, as are the ways Mr. Paul learned to make money and earn respect. Dressing well was always a big part of that.He writes of the devastation he felt at losing his father, whom he calls his “moral compass,” in 2000, which led to him selling cocaine for the first time. He shares his unease at selling hard drugs, which had shattered his mother, but said that he was swept up by a desire to compete and win.During lunch in Manhattan, Mr. Paul said he hadn’t felt comfortable publicly sharing stories about selling drugs before, though he knew drugs weren’t exclusive to his community.“I’ve talked about it with clients, just in conversation, and they resonate with it because when you grew up how we grew up it’s in your family,” he said. Two days later, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, a car picked Mr. Paul up outside a townhouse to take him from one podcast taping to another. (Near the end of the first show, Mr. Paul had been asked to name his favorite Adele song, but, having some editorial control, he requested a different question.)“I try to keep it as private as I possibly can,” Mr. Paul said of his relationship with Adele.Lauren Bacho/NBAE, via Getty ImagesDuring the drive, Mr. Paul made phone calls. He pitched a client to a shoe company, and then called a friend to plan where they would watch the Cleveland Browns game later that day.Suddenly his eyes widened in happiness as he looked at his phone.“A couple got married in my shoes!” he said. Mr. Paul, who has a shoe collaboration with New Balance, showed a photo to a Klutch employee acting as his chief of staff.He FaceTimed with Adele to see how her morning had gone. Then he chose a different watch and different Klutch Athletics sweatshirt, the clothing brand he has created with New Balance, for the next taping.Asked if he has a stylist, Mr. Paul proudly said no.“I used to style LeBron his rookie year,” he said, adding: “I could be anything. I could be a stylist, music executive, coach.”Mr. James was a teenager when he met Mr. Paul, who had a jersey resale business sometimes run out of the trunk of his car. Soon, Mr. James was paying him $48,000 a year, confident Mr. Paul was worth the investment. Mr. Paul watched Mr. James’s career unfold. Then, when Mr. James hired Creative Artists Agency, one of the most powerful agencies in sports and entertainment, Mr. Paul began working for the agency. He helped recruit clients, saying he knew most agents “couldn’t do it.” Mr. Paul was dismissed by some who believed his success came solely because of his friendship with LeBron James.Jim Poorten/NBAE, via Getty ImagesHe met business moguls, from Warren Buffett to Jay-Z, and asked plenty of questions. His friendly boldness attracted people.“Flawlessly confident,” said Rich Kleiman, the longtime manager for the N.B.A. star Kevin Durant, and a founder of Mr. Durant’s media company, Boardroom. Mr. Kleiman was working with Jay-Z when he met Mr. Paul, and saw in him hints of Jay-Z’s self assurance. “There’s a way to be confident where you can make anyone believe you.”When Mr. Paul started Klutch Sports in 2012, nine years after Mr. James’s N.B.A. career began, Mr. James and three other players immediately became clients.Chatter quickly followed — in the news media, primarily anonymous — from other agents questioning Mr. Paul’s qualifications. He had never received a college degree and they viewed him as a lucky member of a star athlete’s entourage.Maverick Carter understands. He grew up in Akron with Mr. James, has handled his business affairs for years and is the chief executive of The SpringHill Company, an entertainment and production company he founded with Mr. James. For a while, he said, it could seem like his “first name was ‘LeBron’s’ and my last name was ‘friend.’” “It’s straight-up disrespectful when they say, ‘Rich Paul is only successful because he’s doing this with LeBron,’” Mr. James wrote in the foreword to Mr. Paul’s memoir. “That’s like saying I don’t demand the same excellence from my partners that I demand of myself, or that Rich’s other clients don’t think for themselves.”Mr. Paul doesn’t argue that he didn’t benefit from his friendship with Mr. James. He just thinks that if he hadn’t been a young Black man getting career help from a powerful friend, and an athlete at that, his story would have been framed differently.Still, Mr. James is entering his 21st N.B.A. season, which means life after LeBron James is in the not-too-distant future for Klutch Sports Group.The agency now has 198 clients between the N.B.A., W.N.B.A., N.F.L. and athletes looking for deals related to their name, image and likeness. Klutch has partnered with United Talent Agency, and Mr. Paul is the co-head of UTA’s sports division.The agency still attracts defectors from other agencies, but it experiences ebbs and flows. Three prominent players’ relationships with Klutch ended this year — Ben Simmons of the Brooklyn Nets, Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves and OG Anunoby of the Toronto Raptors.Some N.B.A. agents have quietly admired what Mr. Paul has accomplished, while others find him too aggressive in pursuing clients from other agencies.Mr. Paul said he was proud that many of his clients began their careers with other agents. He sees it as a sign of his superior ability to connect with players.“This is one thing my dad always taught us: No matter what somebody else is doing to you or done to you, that don’t mean you follow suit,” Mr. Paul said. “You stay the course. You do what you know is right.”There are those who don’t like the credit he gets for fostering an era of player empowerment in the N.B.A. Mr. Paul is known for aggressively advocating for his clients’ interests, even if that means demanding a trade while they are under contract, but he doesn’t shy away from telling them to pull back when he finds their wishes unrealistic.Mr. Paul’s Klutch Sports Group has nearly 200 clients.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesAs he navigates the current landscape of athlete management, he worries about the way players and their parents think about branding.“There’s nothing wrong with being a great basketball player and make all the money you can being a great basketball player,” Mr. Paul said. “Because I look at it this way: Being a great basketball player, being able to make four or five, $600 million playing a game of basketball is no different than building a business and selling it.”Mr. Paul’s career has kept him close to superstardom. But recently, his relationship with Adele has thrust him into a spotlight that isn’t always comfortable.“I try to keep it as private as I possibly can,” he said. When he and Adele began attending N.B.A. games together, dozens of search engine optimized headlines followed, asking: “Who is Adele’s boyfriend, Rich Paul?” Last month she even referred to Mr. Paul as her husband while speaking to a fan.“I’m in a place now where I’d rather she be happy than me,” Mr. Paul said. “Not that I don’t want to be happy, I want it to sound the right way. Just understanding the importance of someone that you are involved with, that you’re dating and that you’re spending your time with, that you may love. You understand the importance of them and their happiness.”Love has never been an easy subject for him. His parents never told him they loved him, though he says he has no doubt they did.Now, he said, he makes a point to tell his three children he loves them. It is one lesson he didn’t learn from his father because vulnerability was dangerous when he was growing up.It is one illustration of how different his life is from the one he lived growing up. But he doesn’t want anyone to forget how it started. More

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    Miami’s Jimmy Butler Makes Fashion Statement With Emo Hair

    Jimmy Butler’s emo persona was as short-lived as it was spectacular. Regardless of his motivation, it kept the Miami Heat’s media day decidedly off-topic.Jimmy Butler, a forward for the Miami Heat, has never been concerned with what anyone expects of him. He blasts country music in the Heat’s locker room, irritating most of his N.B.A. teammates. He started his own pandemic-era coffee company, initially charging $20 a cup — for sizes small, medium and large. He also is a ferocious competitor, and he pledged on Monday that he would lead the Heat back to the N.B.A. finals this season.“This time we’re going to win it,” he said, “and then y’all are going to say we got lucky.”Mr. Butler, 34, made this bold declaration as he sat on a dais at the team’s media day, an annual rite of passage before the start of training camp in which players speak with reporters. But nothing he said seemed to matter as much as what he wore — he appeared to have pierced his eyebrow, lip and nose, and his hair was in a straightened fringe vaguely reminiscent of André 3000’s “Hey Ya!” hairdo.Mr. Butler, however, seemed to have found inspiration in a different musical genre.“I’m emo,” Mr. Butler said with a faux glower as he brushed his bangs across his forehead. “This is my emotional state. I’m at one with my emotions, so this is what you get.”To be clear: It was neither Mr. Butler’s regular look nor one that anyone expected to stick around once the cameras were off. In fact, before the start of last season, he showed up in dreadlocks, which he claimed at the time were his real hair. (They were not.) Mr. Butler typically has his hair in braids or coifed in an Afro taper fade.Mr. Butler was peppered with questions about his team, his hair and Miami’s failed pursuit of Damian Lillard.Sam Navarro/Getty ImagesIn other words, Mr. Butler enjoys being a provocateur. And he appeared to acknowledge as much on Monday during a photo shoot with his teammate Bam Adebayo, who was flummoxed by Mr. Butler’s facial accouterments.“The whole lip ring is annoying,” Mr. Adebayo told him.“Look,” Mr. Butler said, “I’ve got to stay in character.”Intentional or not, Mr. Butler’s appearance helped to distract from questions about the team’s muted off-season. In addition to losing two key players to free agency — Gabe Vincent and Max Strus — Miami was unable to swing a deal for Damian Lillard, a superstar point guard the Heat had coveted.It is probably worth noting that Mr. Butler was not pleased with that turn of events. Mr. Lillard, after all, had reportedly professed a desire to land in Miami. But after the Portland Trail Blazers traded Mr. Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks, Mr. Butler suggested on Instagram that the N.B.A. should “look into the Bucks for tampering.” (Tampering refers to improper negotiations between players, coaches or team executives.)Mr. Butler’s self-described emo look could have had something to do with his feelings about the Lillard situation — or not. With Mr. Butler, it is impossible to know. Because here’s the thing: Not even his teammates know.“If this is a phase he’s going through at 34, you have to let him go through his phases,” Mr. Adebayo said. “We all go through our emo phases.”At last year’s media day, Mr. Butler had shown up with dreadlocks that he insisted were real. They were not.Wilfredo Lee/Associated PressA six-time N.B.A. All-Star, Mr. Butler is as talented as he is inscrutable. He values his privacy. He seldom discusses his personal life — in an interview with Rolling Stone he brushed off rumors that he is dating the pop star Shakira — though he does offer glimpses. On Monday, for example, he spoke about his friendship with the Irish musician Dermot Kennedy — “That’s my brother through and through,” Mr. Butler said — and about how much he enjoyed visiting China this summer as part of a promotion tour for the Chinese sneaker brand Li-Ning.“I got to sing a lot of karaoke, which means the world to me,” he said, “because I don’t get to do that often here.”He also expressed optimism about the season ahead. Last season, the Heat, who had barely made the playoffs, engineered upset after upset before losing to the Denver Nuggets in the N.B.A. finals.“It’s always been about a championship for me,” Mr. Butler said. “It will always be that for me, nothing else. And it’s just our year. This is the one. And this one is going to feel real good, by the way.”On Tuesday, Mr. Butler arrived for the team’s first official practice of the season with his hair back in braids. But fear not: Mr. Butler posed as #EmoJimmy in his official headshot for the season, meaning that glorious hair will soon make an appearance on an arena Jumbotron near you. More

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    Phil Sellers, Whose Basketball Stardom Was Short-Lived, Dies at 69

    He led Rutgers to an undefeated 1975-76 regular season and into the Final Four, where the Scarlet Knights lost in the semifinals. But his N.B.A. career was brief.Phil Sellers, a brash, high-scoring forward who helped transform Rutgers University into a national basketball power in the 1970s, but whose N.B.A. career lasted only one season, after which he led a quiet life in business, died on Sept. 19 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He was 69.His daughter, Kendra Palmer, said that she did not know the cause, but that he had recently had a stroke, an intestinal perforation and other health issues. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 to cover the health costs that his insurance did not.Sellers was recruited to Rutgers in 1972 after averaging 33.2 points and 22.6 rebounds a game at Thomas Jefferson High School in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was considered the best high school player to come to a New Jersey college since Bill Bradley arrived at Princeton University from Missouri a decade earlier.“Phil Sellers is the biggest catch in Rutgers history,” Dick Weiss, a columnist for The Courier-Post of Camden, N.J., wrote soon after Sellers agreed to play there.He rarely disappointed. He was called “Phil the Thrill,” and, with Sellers leading a team that also included Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland, Rutgers kept improving. During Sellers’s junior year, when he averaged 22.7 points and 9.4 rebounds a game, Rutgers had a record of 22-7 and played in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, losing in the first round.Rutgers was undefeated in 26 games during the 1975-76 regular season, Sellers’s senior year. Late in a conference tournament game against St. John’s University that preceded the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, Sellers clashed with his coach, Tom Young.“Give me the ball,” Young recalled Sellers saying when he described the incident to The New York Times in 1983. “I said, ‘Phil, we’re going to run our offense.’ He said it three times, ‘Give me the ball.’”Sellers scored six points in the next 90 seconds, and Rutgers won.Rutgers then won its first three games in the N.C.A.A. tournament, despite subpar scoring performances from Sellers, to raise its record to 31-0. But the Scarlet Knights lost the semifinal game to Michigan, 86-70, with Sellers scoring only 11 points against the strong defense of Michigan’s Wayman Britt.Sellers’s college career totals of 2,399 points and 1,115 rebounds are still Rutgers records.It was the end of his glory years.Sellers in 1983. His basketball career ended abruptly, but he understood and accepted that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.William E. Sauro/The New York TimesPhillip Alexander Sellers Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, to Phillip and Rita (Bacon) Sellers. As a teenager, he played so much basketball, he told Sports Illustrated in 1975, that “people used to tell me I was going to turn into a basketball.”He was heavily recruited by colleges nationwide and signed a letter of intent to attend Notre Dame, but his concerns about his academic skills led him to back out of the commitment. Instead he chose Rutgers, whose lead recruiter was Dick Vitale, the future ESPN broadcaster, who was then one of the team’s assistant coaches.“Dick Vitale was there all the time,” Sellers told The Courier-News in 2010, referring to his high school games in Brooklyn. “He was an Italian guy; he could talk more trash than the guys who lived there.”Vitale recalled in a text message that Sellers had a “fierce competitiveness that separated him from many,” was “a man playing vs. boys” and “always competed with a chip on his shoulder.”Vitale’s assessment was borne out: At Rutgers, Sellers was a strong rebounder, despite not being very big for a forward — he was 6-foot-4 and weighed 195 pounds — and he played with a confidence that seemed like arrogance at times, and with a scowl on his face. Sports Illustrated wrote in 1975 that he was “always jawing at referees, teammates and opponents,” and “taking dramatic falls during games.”As he explained it: “I get involved when I’m playing. Sometimes I just get carried away.”Sellers became the cornerstone of a strong Rutgers team.“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast, but when we got Phil he changed everything,” John McFadden, a Rutgers assistant coach, said in a tribute to Sellers posted on the school’s athletics website.“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast,” an assistant Rutgers coach said, “but when we got Phil he changed everything.”Rutgers AthleticsSellers, a consensus second-team all-American in 1976, was chosen in the third round of the N.B.A. draft by the Detroit Pistons. Converted from forward to guard, he played in only 44 games, averaging 4.5 points a game.“I couldn’t play guard,” he told The Times in 1983. “They had doubts. Even me, I had doubts. There was no way I was going to be too sure of myself. That’s probably where the arrogance went.”He was released before the start of the 1977-78 season but continued to play for a short while, for the minor league Jersey Shore Bullets and for HV Amstelveen, a team in the Netherlands.After he stopped playing, he was a Rutgers assistant coach for four years and worked at various jobs, including records manager at Chemical Bank and the mortgage banking firm Margaretten; bus driver for New Jersey Transit; and, for about a dozen years, assistant to the chief executive at Northeast Sequoia Private Client Group, a real estate investment firm, where his roles included chief of staff, bodyguard and driver.In addition to Ms. Palmer, whose mother, Patricia (Robertson) Sellers, married Sellers in 1999 and died 20 years later, he is survived by a son, Phillip III, from whose mother, Jean Edmonson, he was divorced; a sister, Diane Deas; a brother, Tyrone; and four grandchildren.Although his basketball career ended abruptly, Sellers recognized with clarity that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.“I’m not going to be one of those guys sitting in the park saying, ‘I’ve been there,’” he told The Times in 1983, when he was back living with his parents. “Kids ask you, ‘What do you do?’ I tell them, ‘I go to work every day, shirt and tie.’ People see me. They say, ‘Phil’s working.’” More

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    The Liberty’s Game 1 WNBA Playoff Win Against the Mystics, in Photos

    Liberty fans have waited 27 seasons for a W.N.B.A. title, and on Friday night, it showed. The atmosphere at Barclays Center was electric for New York’s opening postseason game against the Washington Mystics.Fans waved white playoff towels, booed every call that didn’t go their way and cheered for each celebrity featured on the scoreboard, including Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel Peace Prize winner; the tennis great Billie Jean King; and Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty star. Members of the team’s N.B.A. counterparts, the Brooklyn Nets, were also in attendance.Those fans were rewarded with a Liberty win, 90-75, behind 29 points from Sabrina Ionescu and 20 from Jonquel Jones. The game started as a tense back-and-forth affair, but the Liberty took a narrow lead into halftime, and they never relinquished it. Ionescu set a postseason franchise record with seven 3-pointers in the game.After the Liberty wrapped up the regular season with a 32-8 record, expectations were high that they could take the championship. They are seeded second in the playoffs, with the Las Vegas Aces seeded first.A win on Tuesday in Brooklyn, in Game 2 of this best-of-three series against the Mystics, would send the Liberty to the semifinals — and get them one step closer to that elusive title.Fans lined up at Barclays Center.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA D.J. worked the crowd outside before the game.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesThe Liberty’s Betnijah Laney kept the team afloat in the first half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesJonquel Jones shooting against the Mystics defense.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Liberty gave the fans more to celebrate as they pulled away in the second half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Timeless Torches dance group performed between quarters.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesMonique Jaques for The New York TimesMalala Yousafzai and Billie Jean King were on hand for the game.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York Times More

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    WNBA Playoff Preview: The Aces and Liberty Are On a Collision Course

    The Aces and the Liberty towered above the competition this season. Will they meet in the finals?Two superteams, the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty, dominated the W.N.B.A. season, as expected. They were so good that only two others teams in the 12-team league even managed a winning record.A final between them has the potential to be a classic. But first, they will have to make it through the six other teams in the W.N.B.A. playoffs.When do the playoffs start?The first game of the best-of-three quarterfinals, Minnesota at Connecticut, is on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, with Chicago at Las Vegas following at 10 p.m. The Washington-New York and Atlanta-Dallas series will start on Friday.The best-of-five semifinals are scheduled from Sept. 24 to Oct. 3, and the finals will start Oct. 8 and run through Oct. 20, if all five games are necessary.What do the first-round matchups look like?The big two teams, the Aces (34-6 in the regular season) and the Liberty (32-8), are prohibitive favorites over the Chicago Sky and the Washington Mystics, though the Mystics have their former M.V.P., Elena Delle Donne, back from injury, and the Sky have a history of deep playoff runs after subpar regular seasons.The league’s third-best team has clearly been the Connecticut Sun (27-13), which would be expected to beat the Minnesota Lynx. In the final series, the Dallas Wings were three games better than the Atlanta Dream in the regular season and have home-court advantage, so should be the favorite.Who’s going to win it all?The Aces or the Liberty, the Liberty or the Aces? That’s been the question all season.The Aces are the reigning champions, and they have been even better this year. The Liberty managed to land Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot in the off-season to soar from an average team to greatness.The teams split their four regular-season league meetings, but the Liberty won a fifth game, the final of the new Commissioner’s Cup. The betting odds favor the Aces, but, in truth, it looks too close to call.Could the Sun spoil the party? A 1-6 record against the top two teams doesn’t bode well. The other five teams in the playoffs would need a run of form not seen all season to win the title.How can I watch the games?ABC and the ESPN channels will be telecasting the games.What’s this I hear about flights?Unlike in the N.B.A., travel in the W.N.B.A. is mostly commercial, which has been a point of contention between the players and the league. This year, the league announced that, for the playoffs at least, teams would fly charter.But there are limits, sources have reported: Charter flights would be allowed only once between series, allowing a team, for example, to fly home from a series by charter but not onward to the next series.Who are the players to watch?Just about every Ace who steps on the court. The star forward and reigning M.V.P. A’ja Wilson (22.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks a game, and a record-tying 53-point game) is complemented by the sharpshooting guard trio of Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray (seven assists per game).A longer W.N.B.A. season this year allowed Stewart to break the league record for points scored, though Jewell Loyd of Seattle broke her record a few days later. In addition to Jones and Vandersloot, the Liberty have Sabrina Ionescu, the top 3-point shooter in the league.The Sun are led by the versatile forward Alyssa Thomas, who led the league in rebounds, and nearly in assists. And she recorded six triple-doubles this season, a league record.What teams and players are missing?Candace Parker joined the Aces as a splashy off-season signing, but the two-time M.V.P. has been sidelined indefinitely with a fractured foot. She played the first half of the season but has been out since early July.It would have been fun to see the No. 1 draft pick and probable rookie of the year Aliyah Boston in action, but her Indiana Fever did not make the playoffs.After 10 straight seasons in the playoffs, the Phoenix Mercury finished last and did not qualify. That means no playoffs for Brittney Griner, who rejoined the league after spending 10 months in Russian prison on drug charges. Remarkably, she returned to make the All-Star team and average 17.5 points a game, just about her career average. More

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    Jamal Murray Is Learning to Unwind After Winning NBA Championship

    It was a Sunday afternoon in early July, and Jamal Murray had been in Las Vegas for a few days — enough time for the city to wear out anyone.“I’m a little hung over,” he said, smiling in apology as he tried — unsuccessfully — to remember some details of the post-championship interactions he’d had with Denver Nuggets fans. Murray, the Nuggets’ star point guard, was less than a month removed from helping the franchise win its first N.B.A. championship.He had spent the previous night feting his friend Alexander Volkanovski, U.F.C.’s featherweight champion, after Volkanovski won U.F.C. 290 to remain undefeated in the 145-pound weight class. Murray had joined him for several hours before the fight and had been struck by how at ease Volkanovski was. The fighter had been happy to laugh and joke with Murray despite an important bout awaiting him later that evening.“This is like a championship belt for him, right?” Murray said. “He was just so loose about it. It kind of brought me back to, like, I don’t have to take my routine as serious as long as I know how to flip a switch, turn it on and bring it when I need it.”Alexander Volkanovski celebrated his win over Yair Rodriguez at U.F.C. 290 in Las Vegas in July.Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC, via Getty ImagesThe lesson could come in handy for Murray as he prepares for his next N.B.A. season, with training camps beginning in about a month. Last week, he went to Sydney to attend U.F.C. 293, where Israel Adesanya lost his middleweight belt to Sean Strickland. Murray planned to spend some time training with Volkanovski while there.Murray befriended Volkanovski during a visit to Australia last August. They shot a video together, with each one going through the other’s training routines. Murray hit a heavy bag. Volkanovski shot some free throws.There are superficial differences between the two — Murray is nearly a foot taller than the 5-foot-6 Volkanovski, and Volkanovski is eight years older — but in Murray, Volkanovski saw someone who shared the work ethic and discipline on which he prided himself. Volkanovski instantly took to Murray.“I’m a Nuggets guy now purely because of our connection,” Volkanovski said in late July, a few weeks after Murray joined him for U.F.C. 290.Their friendship grew at a challenging time for Murray.Murray had missed the 2021-22 N.B.A. season as he recovered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He had to teach himself how to walk again, and he spent days wondering about his basketball future.Nuggets Coach Michael Malone later recalled that Murray, with tears in his eyes, had asked if the Nuggets were going to trade him because of his injury.In the fall of 2022, Murray began playing N.B.A. basketball again.Denver had the best record in the Western Conference for most of the season. As Murray grew more comfortable, he and Nikola Jokic, the team’s star center, became a fearsome tandem. During the playoffs, they became the first teammates to have triple-doubles with at least 30 points in the same game.“I’m still coming back, though,” Murray said in July. “I didn’t have a full off-season to recover. Or train on what I wanted to. My whole last summer was just working on my strength here.”He patted his knee.“And that was it. I didn’t get to work on my game.”He had thrown himself into his return, and he had also been gravely serious about his pregame routine, leaving no time for levity.The Nuggets won the N.B.A. championship in June, beating the Miami Heat in five games. That final night, as Murray left the arena in Denver, he sat in the passenger seat of a black car and occasionally rolled down his window to greet anyone who wanted to say hello. At one stoplight around 1 a.m., a fan spotted Murray as she was crossing the street. She sprinted over to Murray and hugged him through the car window. Rather than recoil at contact from a stranger, Murray returned the hug, smiling.“Everybody’s just trying to be a part of the moment, which is really cool,” Murray said.Murray bested his career averages in points and assists per game during the 2022-23 season, his return to play from a serious knee injury in April 2021.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesAbout four weeks later, he joined Volkanovski for his own championship bout.There, Murray saw a different style of preparation than the one he’d employed during the season.“I’ll definitely have my moment throughout my car ride, ‘There’s no way that they’re taking this belt away from me.’ But I’m usually pretty chill,” Volkanovski said. “I’m happy to have a little laugh.”Volkanovski said he wondered if the violent nature of mixed martial arts might have made Murray more interested in his relaxed demeanor before the fight.“Probably he could look at that, I mean, like, ‘This guy’s about to go to war and he literally treats it as, like, you know, this is his job, he knows he’ll be fine,’” Volkanovski said. “‘He’s obviously confident in his preparation and all that.’”While Volkanovski appreciated hearing that Murray sought inspiration from his process, he respects Murray’s process as well.“Everyone has their own way of preparing for their — whatever they do,” Volkanovski said. “And you can never knock it, because obviously he’s playing some good basketball, so you don’t want to change much.”In July, Murray stayed for Volkanovski’s post-fight media appearances, then celebrated afterward at a gathering that Shaquille O’Neal also attended. The summer, at least, afforded a chance to unwind. More