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      If Luka Looks Familiar, You Must Have Watched Larry Bird

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketball‘This Is Larry Bird Reincarnated’Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks is often compared to Bird, the Boston Celtics great. When he’s hitting game-winners, as he did on Tuesday, this can seem about right.Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks can pass, shoot and rebound — a varied skill-set that many liken to that of Larry Bird, the Celtics great.Credit…Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressFeb. 24, 2021, 12:41 p.m. ETCedric Maxwell played for six seasons and won two championships alongside Larry Bird in Boston. He was named the most valuable player of the N.B.A. finals in 1981. So you listen intently when someone like Maxwell refers to Bird in assessing the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.“You can quote me: This is Larry Bird reincarnated,” Maxwell said.Maxwell told me this last August, after watching Doncic beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the playoffs with an icy 3-pointer at the overtime buzzer that has been replayed over and over. He said it again this week as he prepared for a radio broadcast of the Celtics’ game on Tuesday at Dallas — before Doncic beat Boston with two 3-point daggers in the final minute of the Mavericks’ 110-107 victory.“This would be Larry Bird of the 2020s,” Maxwell said, “exactly how he would play now.”Maxwell’s latter statement has been my primary interest in the relationship between these two whenever the subject comes up. As a child of the 1970s and ’80s, who romanticizes those days above all others in N.B.A. history, I like to imagine Bird dropping into today’s game somehow and playing Doncic-style — with the ball in his hands so much more to probe and create and the freedom to shoot 10 3-pointers per game.In his 13 seasons with the Celtics, Bird averaged at least three 3-point attempts per game just three times. He was a true forward in a more bruising era, flanked in the Boston frontcourt by the larger Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. While Doncic, at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, is built similarly to Bird (6-9, 220 pounds), he has been a triple-double-minded point guard almost from the minute he set foot in the Mavericks’ practice facility in September 2018.Beyond positional differences, comparisons that measure on-the-rise prospects or even emerging greats like Doncic against one of the game’s giants are invariably tricky — no matter how seemingly common it has become to link white players to Bird. Making such comparisons is one of the most instinctual aspects of basketball fandom and, at the same time, that reflex can put too much focus on the immeasurable. For all the similarities you can see in their ability to pass, rebound, shoot from distance and control the game, Doncic and Bird are limited edition, one-of-one originals.White N.B.A. players are often compared to Larry Bird, but Luka Doncic does share some of Bird’s do-it-all talent.Credit…Dave Tenenbaum/Associated PressYet Maxwell has a gift for making convincing cases. I am stubbornly measured and tend to resist the comparison game. He’s no holds barred and inevitably made me curious. Denver’s Nikola Jokic is another rising franchise player who is often likened to Bird, but Maxwell leaned into the notion that Doncic “is a carbon copy of Larry.” After an association with the N.B.A. that has spanned more than 40 years, he maintains that “comparison is good” — daunting (and downright damaging) as it has been for too many failed Next Jordans to list.“Luka is better than Larry was at that age,” Maxwell said of Doncic, who turns 22 on Sunday. “The biggest thing is that there’s an arrogance, a cockiness, that Luka has that is directly out of the bloodstream of Larry Bird.”Doncic turned pro at 16 with the Spanish power Real Madrid, where he developed that maturity beyond his years. Bird was 22 when he scored 14 points in his N.B.A. debut.Another key contrast: Doncic didn’t land with a franchise as close to title contention as Bird and, in Year 3, finds himself in his most challenging stretch since he reached the N.B.A.After the buzzer-beater that toppled the Clippers and so much more from Doncic in last summer’s bubble at Walt Disney World, he began the season among the favorites for Most Valuable Player Award honors, with Dallas similarly expected to push for a top-four seed in the West. At just 15-15 after Tuesday’s victory, Doncic’s Mavericks would probably be branded the league’s most disappointing team if not for the Celtics, who are 15-16 after blowing a 24-point lead on Sunday in New Orleans and then losing to Dallas.Doncic remains as brilliant as ever, averaging 28.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 9.2 assists per game, but numerous issues recently dragged the Mavericks into a 3-10 funk. They made improvement on defense an off-season priority and promptly tumbled to 25th in the league in defensive efficiency. They have slumped to 24th in 3-point shooting. There have been numerous coronavirus-related lineup disruptions: Four key rotation players not named Doncic (Kristaps Porzingis, Josh Richardson, Dorian Finney-Smith and Maxi Kleber) have missed at least nine games each. Porzingis’s mobility after off-season knee surgery has been slow to reload, especially defensively, and the team misses the chemistry influence of the veteran J.J. Barea, who now plays in Spain.At the Mavericks’ low point, they had lost 12 consecutive one-possession games before Doncic and Golden State’s Stephen Curry staged an irresistible duel on Feb. 6 from which Dallas escaped with a 134-132 victory. Doncic said afterward that it was the first time in a long time that he played with sufficient joy and said he needed “to have more fun playing the game to be who I was before.” The win launched a promising 4-1 surge before the Mavericks were forced into a week off by a horrendous winter storm that ravaged Texas for days.Doncic’s body language and complaints to referees have been talking points all season. He acknowledged in a recent interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith that he has to improve his deportment with officials, saying that losing “makes you do things you don’t want to do.” Doncic said last week that Portland’s Damian Lillard, whose team has exceeded expectations despite key injuries, deserved a starting spot in the All-Star Game “more than me.”The onus is on Dallas management to put the right pieces around Doncic. McHale and Parish arrived in Bird’s second season, giving the Celtics a Hall of Fame threesome that provided the backbone for teams that won three championships and made five trips to the N.B.A. finals in seven seasons. The Mavericks’ quest is moving slower.Yet even if they get it right, that will demand more from their centerpiece.“Larry had another gear that I’m waiting to see Luka come up with, and that’s the leadership role,” Maxwell said.Doncic still has room to grow as an on-court leader for a Dallas team still finding its way. He has been criticized at times for his body language.Credit…Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDoncic, of course, is not even the first Maverick from Europe to be relentlessly compared to Bird. Dirk Nowitzki, who changed the power forward position forever with his ability to face the basket, shoot the 3-pointer with ease and draw big men out of the paint, was described for two decades as a 7-foot Bird.“I was always super humbled and honored to be compared to Larry Legend, but I never tried to think about it that much,” Nowitzki said Monday. “I never tried to live up to his career and put pressure on myself that way. I tried to focus more on paving my own way and finding what works for me.”Doncic is equally modest when reporters bring up Bird or other well-known players he has passed on his way to tie for No. 12 in career triple-doubles (32). He naturally wants to be his own man and leave his own legacy. But this is basketball. Resistance is futile because comparisons are what we do — constantly.The season was one game old when Maxwell got swept up in Luka mania. After a cheeky Doncic assist in the paint to Finney-Smith that flummoxed Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton and the rest of the Suns’ defense, Maxwell tweeted: “Hello Larry Joe Bird. Wow. I received one or two of those passes in my day.”Because of travel restrictions for N.B.A. broadcasters during the coronavirus pandemic, Maxwell was forced to call Tuesday’s game from afar alongside Sean Grande. They were in a studio in Boston when Doncic delivered those two very Bird-like clutch shots that made Maxwell look smart.“When you go by one name, that tells you who you are in this league,” Maxwell said. “All you’ve got to say is Luka.”The Scoop @TheSteinLineNumbers GameJordan Clarkson is one of only seven players to score 40 off the bench multiple times since the 1983-84 season.Credit…Michael Conroy/Associated Press3In three days, Golden State’s Stephen Curry will commemorate two notable anniversaries. Saturday marks eight years since Curry’s unforgettable 54-point game at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 27, 2013 — and it also marks five years since his audacious shot from steps past midcourt to beat Oklahoma City in overtime on Feb. 27, 2016.135On Friday, Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday becomes eligible for a maximum contract extension worth $135 million over four years. The Bucks acquired Holiday from New Orleans in November in a trade that helped persuade Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year, $228 million extension in December, but Holiday’s importance has been no less apparent this month. Milwaukee recently lost five consecutive games while Holiday was sidelined by the league’s health and safety protocols to fall to No. 3 in the East.5Since joining the Nets, James Harden has clearly been trying to play the more well-rounded game many skeptics said he could no longer stomach. Harden leads the league at 11.1 assists per game and has taken 20 or more shots in just five of his first 18 games as a Net. He averaged at least 20 shots per game in each of his last three full seasons in Houston.12Jimmy Butler has missed 12 of Miami’s 31 games, which undoubtedly factored into Eastern Conference coaches deciding not to select him as an All-Star reserve. It was harsh to see the coaches go that route, given that Butler is averaging a robust 19.1 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game when he does play. It was doubly so because Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who were selected as starters through voting that includes fans, players and media members, have missed 14 (Durant) and 10 (Irving) of the Nets’ 33 games.40Utah’s Jordan Clarkson recently became just the seventh player since 1983-84 to record multiple 40-point games off the bench, according to Stathead. The Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams tops the list with five, followed by J.R. Smith with three. Clarkson is the only active player besides Williams with at least two such games; Ben Gordon, Al Harrington, Nate Robinson and Nick Young are the others with two.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Nets and Knicks Welcome Back Fans for First Time

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadThe fans allowed into Barclays Center in Brooklyn were scattered about to ensure social distancing.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFans Return in New York, Thrilled to Cheer (and Jeer) AgainThe Nets and the Knicks were the first teams to take advantage of New York’s relaxed rules on attendance at sporting events. It was … different, but also a welcome bit of normalcy.The fans allowed into Barclays Center in Brooklyn were scattered about to ensure social distancing.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 24, 2021Updated 9:24 a.m. ETThe lights went dark before the game at the Barclays Arena on Tuesday night. A glossily produced video blared from the video screens, filling the 19,000-seat venue with sound and clips of Nets dunking or shooting through colored wisps of smoke, along with the words “Brooklyn Together.” Then the team’s starting lineup sprinted onto the court, one by one, as they were introduced by the public address announcer. And with each name, the crowd roared.Well, it was a fake crowd mostly — piped in through the speaker system — that provided the roars as the Nets got set to play the Sacramento Kings. The actual crowd in attendance — about 300 or so — mostly sat quietly in their seats, lightly clapping as if they were watching a Dvorak symphony or a middle school graduation.Tuesday night was the first time that the Nets allowed fans to watch a game in person since March 8 of last year, when more than 15,000 people attended. Two weeks ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that venues with 10,000 or more seats would be allowed to host fans at 10 percent of the venue’s capacity.James Harden had a triple double in a win over the Kings.Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated PressStephen Curry said it felt good to be heckled again.Credit…Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBarclays could have hosted thousands more fans, but opted to start small. To attend, patrons had to take two coronavirus tests — one within 72 hours of the game and another, rapid version on site.Across New York’s East River, similar scenes were playing out when the Knicks hosted the Golden State Warriors at Madison Square Garden. The crowd was a bit bigger in Manhattan — about 2,000 fans — but it was enough that Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau called the night “a first step back toward normalcy.”The Knicks boasted the game had been a “sellout,” and before it began the fans chanted “M-V-P! M-V-P!” and nearly drowned out the remarks of Julius Randle, who addressed the crowd after being named the Knicks’ first All-Star Game since 2018. By the second half, even the visitors got a sense nature was healing. The Warriors won, 114-106.“There were some fans heckling,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry told reporters after the game, “which was awesome.”Credit…Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe former Giant Justin Tuck and the actor Tracy Morgan were courtside at the Garden.Credit…Pool photo by Wendell CruzIn Brooklyn, the return of fans meant the return of the Nets’ dance team, too.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets and the Knicks are two of 14 N.B.A. teams allowing patrons to attend games in some way.“It’s a nice change,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said. “We obviously have been playing in empty stadiums for the most part, at least at home. And so to have some fans and a little bit of life and energy, and hopefully we can safely incorporate more fans as we go here.”Barclays Center was a microcosm of the disruption that the world has gone through over the last year. At times, it felt like an uneasy blend between a haunted house and a private Beyoncé concert. Thousands of seats remained unavailable, many still covered by tarps. Almost all of the arena’s restaurants were closed.There was no line for bathrooms, and inside them some sinks had tape over them to encourage social distancing. A sign outside the arena, where scalpers used to roam, offered free testing for the coronavirus, the specter of which was never far away: After walking inside for the game, patrons were greeted with a warning sign that included the line, “Traveling to and from, visiting, and/or providing services in and around the arena may lead to a risk of exposure to COVID-19.”Dozens of ushers stood idly by — back to work for the first time all season — holding placards shaped like stop signs that read, “Please wear your masks.” One remarked that while it was good to be back, she was befuddled by the lack of hallway traffic. “So why am I here?” she said. “There’s no guests!”While the Barclays Center crowd was limited to a few hundred by the Nets, Madison Square Garden welcomed about 2,000 fans. “Even just having a couple thousand fans makes a difference,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said. “It just feels more normal, more real.”Credit…Pool photo by Wendell CruzBut as the Knicks’ Thibodeau noted across the river, Tuesday night also represented the first tentative steps back to normalcy in New York sports. Along with the ushers came the return of the Brooklynettes, the Nets’ dance team, and the team’s drum line. Before tipoff, a woman with a headset approached the rehearsing dancers, who were on an elevated podium far from the court, and pleaded: “We have to be really on it with our masks. Please.”One drummer yelled across the arena — possibly to a team of breakdancers — “You all look wack over there.” In previous years, his voice would not have carried so far.Shortly before tipoff, the Nets debuted a video of players speaking the lyrics to the Bill Withers classic, “Ain’t No Sunshine,” dedicated to absent fans. Then Kyrie Irving waved to the crowd on both sides of the court; in an arena with hundreds instead of thousands of people, fans might have been forgiven for thinking Irving was waving to them individually.“It felt like you were sitting in your living room,” said Dylan Schultz, 27. “I’m sitting just with my friend. Not too many people around me. But there’s still this environment of the game is right directly in front of you. You could hear them talking to each other. Sick.”Some in the building tried to keep up traditions, like trying to interrupt opponent’s free-throw shooting. On Tuesday, that effort — normally taken up by thousands of fans screaming and waving objects — fell to four drummers behind the basket, joined occasionally by the five dancers. (Statistically speaking, they could claim success: The Kings shot 13 of 19 from the line, slightly below their season average.)As far as the game itself, the Nets led most of it and won their seventh straight, 127-118. Bruce Brown, the starting guard, got a rare turn in the spotlight, scoring 29 points, as did James Harden, who had a triple-double: 29 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists.For the most part, the crowd — scattered throughout courtside seats, luxury suites and some in the lower level — stayed subdued, in spite of having the most hyped Nets team in years to watch in person.“It feels like you’re watching a practice session,” said Rich Schaefer, 42, a season-ticket holder. “You’re at a high school gym, and there’s no one there. But you’re watching the best players in the world. It’s not the same energy you get during sold-out games. But there is something incredible, as a basketball fan, of watching and hearing everybody talking and not being distracted by what’s happening around you.”But for the players, the sight of friendly jerseys was a welcome one.“Just having somebody in there to cheer you on is better than nothing,” Nets guard Joe Harris said. “It was definitely nice, even though 300 is not a lot in the big arena. But it’s still a better feel than the empty ones.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Knicks’ Julius Randle Named to His First All-Star Team

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKnicks’ Julius Randle Named to His First All-Star TeamRandle is the first Knick to be an All-Star since Kristaps Porzingis in the 2017-18 season. He is averaging a team-leading 23.1 points per game.Julius Randle is on a pace for career highs in points, rebounds and assists in his second season with the Knicks.Credit…Pool photo by Jason DecrowFeb. 23, 2021Updated 7:28 p.m. ETForward Julius Randle, who is having a career year, was named to the N.B.A. All-Star team on Tuesday night as a reserve, giving the Knicks their first All-Star since Kristaps Porzingis during the 2017-18 season.It was the 26-year-old Randle’s first All-Star selection. He is on a pace for career highs in points, rebounds and assists, and is the best player on a Knicks team making a push for its first playoff run since 2012-13. He is the eighth Knicks All-Star this century. (The others are Porzingis, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire, David Lee, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell.)“It’d be amazing, man,” Randle recently said about the prospect of being named to the team. “You put in a lot of work and sacrifice and dedication to your craft. So for you to receive those accolades or whatever it may be and be recognized as such would be a great feeling. And especially as a Knick.”With James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant making the team for the Nets, this season’s All-Star Game, in Atlanta on March 7, will be the first with players from both New York teams since the 2013-14 season, when Joe Johnson (Nets) and Anthony (Knicks) were selected. This is the first time the Nets have had three players in one season chosen for the All-Star team.Randle was drafted with the seventh pick in 2014 by the Los Angeles Lakers after a standout year at Kentucky. He missed all but one game of his rookie year because he broke his leg during his first game. But he recovered fully and became a solid contributor for the Lakers over the next three seasons. He then played one season for the New Orleans Pelicans, averaging 21.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, showing glimpses of his All-Star potential, which has emerged fully in New York.Randle’s strong play comes at a time when his future with the Knicks is uncertain. His contract is up after the 2021-22 season, and he has made it clear he wants to remain a Knick.“I signed here with the hopes of being here long term,” Randle said recently. “I want to be one of the guys that’s part of this team and eventually, hopefully, we are competing for championships and winning championships. That’s my dream. A picture perfect thing for me.”The rosters:Western Conference starter poolLeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers)Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors)Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers)Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks)Eastern Conference starter poolKevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets)Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers)Kyrie Irving (Brooklyn Nets)Bradley Beal (Washington Wizards)Western Conference reservesAnthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers)Paul George (Los Angeles Clippers)Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz)Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers)Donovan Mitchell (Utah Jazz)Chris Paul (Phoenix Suns)Zion Williamson (New Orleans Pelicans)Eastern Conference reservesJaylen Brown (Boston Celtics)James Harden (Brooklyn Nets)Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls)Julius Randle (New York Knicks)Ben Simmons (Philadelphia 76ers)Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics)Nikola Vucevic (Orlando Magic)AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74He traveled to schools, camps and schoolyards to evaluate high school players, and his reports were essential to college coaches in their recruiting.Tom Konchalski in 2013 at a high school basketball game in Brooklyn. Though he didn’t drive a car, he traveled throughout the East for more than 40 years, scouting high school basketball players.Credit…Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021Updated 5:32 p.m. ETFor more than 40 years, Tom Konchalski was a fixture in gyms, summer camps and tournaments from Maine to West Virginia, a soft-spoken high school basketball scout whose newsletter was required reading for college coaches craving insights about potential recruits.He showed prescience about future N.B.A. players like Kyrie Irving, Bernard King and Kenny Anderson, but his focus was primarily on creating opportunities for high school players at all levels of college basketball, whether at Division I, II or III schools, or in Canada. A devout Roman Catholic, he thought of players as his ministry.“You’d read his report, mark down names you wanted to investigate, and you took what he said as gospel,” said Dave Odom, a former coach at Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina, where he recruited a guard, Tre Kelley, whom he learned about from Konchalski’s newsletter. “Tom saw the kid in a summer league, and I followed up with him.”Konchalski, who retired last year from publishing the newsletter High School Basketball Illustrated, died on Feb. 8 in hospice care in the Bronx. He was 74. The cause was prostate cancer, said his brother, Steve, who is retiring after 46 seasons as the men’s basketball coach at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. For his newsletter, Konchalski assessed players in 13 categories and offered colorful accompanying comments about them like “loaded with offensive chutzpah” and “scores like we breathe!”“He had a genuine interest in getting his evaluations right,” said Bob Hurley Sr., who was the basketball coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J., for 45 years until the school closed in 2017. “He would never rush. If someone had a bad game, he promised to come back.”Konchalski’s long career made him the subject of a short ESPN documentary in 2013 and earned him a nomination in December from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the contributor category. Honorees will be announced in April.Thomas Coman Konchalski was born on Jan. 8, 1947, in Manhattan and grew up in the Elmhurst neighborhood in Queens. His father, Stephen, was a general foreman with the New York City Department of Parks and a semipro baseball player. His mother, Marjorie (Coman) Konchalski, was a homemaker who later worked as a department store cashier.Tom was 8 when he and his brother, who is two years older, went with their father to an N.B.A. doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. The brothers eventually took the subway on their own to see games at the Garden and at schoolyards around the city.And he was 14 when he first saw Connie Hawkins play. Hawkins, the exhilarating star of Boys High School in Brooklyn, was demonstrating his prowess during a summer league game, and it was an epiphany for young Tom.“I would follow him from playground to playground,” Konchalski told The New York Times in 2013. “His game was electric. With one hand, he could palm a rebound out of the air.”At Archbishop Molloy High School in the Briarwood section of Queens, where his brother played guard on its basketball team, Konchalski covered the team for the school newspaper and learned the intricacies of basketball from Jack Curran, Molloy’s coach from 1958 to 2013.“Tom never really played,” Steve Konchalski said in a phone interview. “He’d go to the park and put up some shots, and he had a nice shooting touch. But it wasn’t his thing to compete. He got the height. I’m 6-2. He’s 6-6.”Konchalski, center, with Syd Neiman, left, and Konchalski’s uncle, John Coman, when they were officials for the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Forest Hills, Queens.After graduating from Fordham University in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, Konchalski taught math and social studies at a Roman Catholic school in Queens (and for a time pursued another sports interest, as a linesman at the U.S. Open tennis championships, and its predecessor, when they were played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills).Konchalski’s path to scouting was accelerated by coaching Catholic Youth Organization basketball teams in New York City. His expanding knowledge of local players led him to part-time scouting in the 1970s for Howard Garfinkel, the influential founder of High School Basketball Illustrated and a co-founder of the Five-Star Basketball Camp, a celebrated youth instructional showcase for future superstars, among them Michael Jordan and LeBron James.Konchalski left teaching to work full-time for Garfinkel in 1979; five years later he bought H.S.B.I. In 1980, Konchalski famously helped get Jordan — then known as Mike Jordan — into the Five-Star camp at the request of Roy Williams, an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, which was recruiting Jordan (and which he would attend) and wanted to see him play against high-octane competition.Not yet well-known, Jordan stunned the camp with his play.“In tryouts when people were guarding him, they were guarding his belly button,” Konchalski recalled last year in an interview with Forbes magazine. “He had a great stop/ jump. He’d stop on a dime and really elevate. He was an extraterrestrial athlete.”Konchalski — who was known for his detailed recall of games and players from decades earlier — was something of a Luddite. He did not own a computer, a cellphone or an answering machine. Working from his apartment in Forest Hills, Queens, he typed each of the 16 annual issues of his newsletter, stapled them and mailed them in manila envelopes to about 200 coaches, who subscribed for several hundred dollars a year. He did not post his publication online.“I have an electric typewriter,” he told The Daily News of New York in 1990. “That’s my concession to the ages. I always say I was born seven centuries too late.”He did not drive, so he commuted to and from games by train or bus, and was nicknamed the Glider for the way he quietly slipped into a gym, settled onto the top level of the stands and started taking notes on players on a legal pad.In addition to his brother, he is survived by a sister, Judy Ball.In 1976, Konchalski saw that Chris Sellitri, a 6-foot-5 forward at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, had no scholarship offers from colleges in the United States.“Today, a player who made All-Brooklyn would get a scholarship,” Steve Konchalski said. “But back then, some outstanding players fell through the cracks. So Tom directed me to Chris, and he became the leading rebounder in the history of our school.”He added: “He wouldn’t tell a kid, ‘Go to my brother’s school,’ but he’d say to me, ‘This kid is still available — here’s his coach’s name and my evaluation.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Stephen Curry Sees Your Tweets, and Your Team’s Weaknesses

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStephen Curry Sees Your Tweets, and Your Team’s WeaknessesAn up-and-down season for the ailing Golden State Warriors has social media abuzz with people doubting Curry, but he’s playing better than ever.Awards and championships can’t keep the critics from coming for Stephen Curry. “I saw all of it,” he said. “It was hilarious.”Credit…Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressFeb. 19, 2021, 6:09 p.m. ETStephen Curry missed 38 of the first 56 3-pointers he attempted this season. His Golden State Warriors were punchless without the injured Klay Thompson alongside him in their famed Splash Brothers backcourt, losing by 26, 39 and 25 points within the first five games.There was little at the time to suggest that Curry would soon be crashing the race for the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award and inspiring his coach, Steve Kerr, to say that “this is the best” version yet of his star guard.Curry has stopped short of saying he agrees. The likely explanation: He is as audacious as ever with his shot selection, confidence, celebratory shimmies and ambition. So he keeps expecting more and resisting limits, even as his 33rd birthday nears next month.“I am playing well,” Curry said in a phone interview — but insisted that he can still get better.“I know that’s kind of crazy to say,” he added.Such talk is not crazy to the Warriors. Shaun Livingston, a former teammate who has moved into the team’s front office, said Curry was noticeably stronger absorbing contact after working on his body in the off-season. Curry cited an improved ability to read defenses as an even bigger development in his game.After a broken hand and the N.B.A.’s pandemic-imposed hiatus limited him to five games last season, Curry has rebounded emphatically. He busted out of his early 3-point-shooting struggles with a career-high 62 points against Portland on Jan. 3, passed the Hall of Famer Reggie Miller for second place in career 3-pointers made on Jan. 23 and hung 57 points on the Dallas Mavericks two weeks after that.Curry is averaging 30 points, 6 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game while shooting 49.2 percent from the floor and 42.5 percent from 3-point range. They are the most robust figures he has produced since 2015-16, when he was named the league M.V.P. for the second successive season. The offensive surge has him on pace to join Michael Jordan on a very short list of players to average 30 points per game at age 32 or older.Curry said he is more patient this season: “How I see the game when I’m on and off the ball, seeing what the defense is giving you and knowing that I’ll find a way to get some space.”Credit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressTeam officials have grown accustomed to seeing him hush skeptic after skeptic since his arrival from Davidson College as the No. 7 overall pick in the 2009 draft. They understand that Curry, who became the sort of revolutionary franchise cornerstone no one envisioned back then, may have to stay at a supernova level to get his 16-13 team back to the playoffs. They have also learned by now that there is little point in trying to curb his aspirations or quirks — even when that means having to watch Curry scroll through potentially toxic social media criticism on his phone at halftime.Andrew Bogut, the recently retired former Warriors big man, revealed last month on his new “Rogue Bogues” podcast that Curry was prone to check his Twitter mentions “if he had a bad half.” Asked to verify the story, Curry laughed and said it had indeed become “a really bad habit.”Bogut last played alongside Curry for the final month of the 2018-19 regular season and the playoffs, which were marred by the serious injuries to Kevin Durant (Achilles’ tendon) and Thompson (knee) and halted the Warriors’ remarkable run of three championships in five consecutive trips to the N.B.A. finals. Asked how regularly he still takes a peek at halftime, Curry said: “Probably more often than you think.”As such, before that 62-point eruption against the Trail Blazers, Curry was keenly aware of mounting social media criticism doubting his ability to carry an injury-hit team and claims that a poor season for the Warriors could damage his legacy.“I saw all of it,” he said of the critical tweets. “It was hilarious.”Ill-advised as the doomscrolling seems, given the potential adverse effects on his mental health, Curry said he is more focused on “the comedy I get from it” than trying to “keep the receipts” from fans and the media who don’t believe in him.“It started by accident to be honest,” he said, the day before being named an All-Star starter for the seventh time. “I had this ritual with my wife where, at halftime, she’d send me some encouragement or kick me in the butt a little bit if I was playing bad. And, obviously, with how iPhones are constructed, that Twitter button is just right there. It’s easy to get wrapped up in it for a minute or two. To this day, I don’t know how Bogut caught on, because it wasn’t like I was reading the tweets out loud.”“I think he just wants to be great. I saw him chasing greatness last summer when no one was watching”, said Bruce Fraser, a Warriors assistant coach. Curry and Fraser warm up before Monday’s game against Cleveland.Credit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressAfter two games with at least 10 3-pointers earlier this month, Curry missed 15 of his first 18 3-pointers against the Miami Heat on Wednesday — only to drain two clutch 3-pointers in overtime in the come-from-behind victory. It was the kind of performance that sets social media ablaze, with critics calling for his two M.V.P. trophies to be repossessed and supporters responding by “just asking” why he lives in so many people’s heads rent-free. (Translation: Why talk about him so much if he’s not as potent as advertised?)“I don’t think he plays the game with spite or trying to prove people wrong,” said Bruce Fraser, a Warriors assistant coach, who works as closely with Curry as anyone in the organization. “I think he just wants to be great. I saw him chasing greatness last summer when no one was watching. The main piece to his success is the time that he’s put into it and his push last summer.”Eight-plus months off, as part of one of the eight teams that did not qualify to finish last season in the N.B.A. bubble at Walt Disney World, led to the most productive off-season of Curry’s career. It was the ideal tonic after the Warriors played well into June for five straight springs. Curry was in the gym constantly, with his longtime personal trainer Brandon Payne as well as Fraser, adding muscle to play through contract and evade clutching and grabbing off the ball, and to gird himself to head inside when defenses played him too tight outside. Defenses hound Curry so closely on the perimeter that he is driving the ball more than he has since 2015-16; nearly 30 percent of the shots Curry has taken this season come within 10 feet of the basket.“I’ve always been a late bloomer,” Curry said of the strength boost, “so it’s not a surprise.”When Curry was misfiring early this season, Fraser refused to worry. He was sure Curry was ready for the challenge of leading a mostly new team apart from the title-tested Draymond Green. Fraser was the one, after all, flinging the passes at a post-practice shooting session on Dec. 26 when Curry made 105 consecutive 3-pointers — 103 of them on camera.The purity of Curry’s stroke told Fraser that the real issue was how Curry was adjusting to an array of new defensive coverages. With Durant now on the Nets, Thompson unavailable and scant dependable shooting elsewhere in the lineup, Curry needed to get used to opposing teams locking in on him like never before.“At the beginning of the season, it was really hard for him,” Fraser said. “Box-and-ones, double teams, traps, triple teams. In transition, I’ve seen times when Steph’s been coming down the floor and there are four guys around him.”Teams are committing multiple defenders to Curry, with no consistent offensive threats beyond him on the Warriors.Credit…Neville E. Guard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFraser’s recap hit upon one of Curry’s favorite subjects. At this stage of his career, Curry seems to enjoy talking about the nuances of reading the game as much as his actual shotmaking.“My patience is a lot better now, if I had to pick one thing,” Curry said. “How I see the game when I’m on and off the ball, seeing what the defense is giving you and knowing that I’ll find a way to get some space. I’m enjoying this run for sure.”The intensity and variety of the coverages “keeps me sharp,” Curry said.The benefit and wisdom of keeping an open ear to the latest critical chatter is much harder to see — So how much of a prime do you have left, Steph? — but that may be one more green light Curry has earned.“If you occupy spaces that people never thought you could, there’s always going to be attempts to try to explain it away,” Curry said. “That kind of comes with the territory. I like to have fun with it, though.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      High School Basketball Players Are Jumping to College

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine RolloutSee Your Local RiskNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLast Month, the High School Gym. This Month, the College Arena.An N.C.A.A. decision related to the pandemic inspired some elite players to finish high school early and jump to college to take advantage of an extra year of eligibility.Guard Carter Whitt finished high school early, jumped to Wake Forest and made his Division I college debut 10 days later.Credit…Charles Krupa/Associated PressFeb. 19, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETIn September, Carter Whitt, a 6-foot-4 guard from Raleigh, N.C., was preparing to spend his senior season at Brewster Academy, the prep basketball powerhouse in New Hampshire. But with the season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, he made a strategic decision to return to his high school in North Carolina. He took online classes in history and English and graduated “a little bit early.”By New Year’s Eve, Whitt, whose long, dirty-blond hair makes him hard to miss on the court, was playing guard for Wake Forest, registering 11 points, 4 assists and 1 rebound in 25 minutes against Catawba College.Whitt is part of a wave of elite high school players taking advantage of an N.C.A.A. ruling that effectively gives them a free season of college eligibility. A decision by the Division I Council in October gives winter athletes who compete during 2020-21 the opportunity to play five seasons within a six-year window rather than the typical four seasons in five years.For many men, the goal is to get to the N.B.A. as fast as possible. Women are starting their college careers early as well, lured by the extra year of eligibility and the opportunity to compete at a higher level.“Carter Whitt should be playing his senior year in a fast-food-sponsored holiday tournament,” Wake Forest Coach Steve Forbes said. “Instead he’s playing against a seven-course meal” in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He continued, “On Jan. 6, when his high school team was playing their season opener, he was starting on the road against the defending national champions, the Virginia Cavaliers.”To Whitt, it didn’t make sense to continue at Brewster. “I figured if I’m going to be away from home, I might as well just be in college,” he said.For some players, the journey from their final high school game to their first Division I game was even shorter than Whitt’s.On Dec. 21, Jordan Nesbitt scored 18 points in a winning effort for St. Louis Christian Academy. On Feb. 1, having completed his academic work to finish high school, the 6-6 guard from St. Louis played seven minutes for Memphis in its 96-69 win over Central Florida.Guard Saylor Poffenbarger graduated from high school in Middletown, Md., in early January and made her college debut for the Connecticut women’s team against DePaul on Jan. 31.“I’m excited for Saylor and her family that they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity,” UConn Coach Geno Auriemma said.In recent years, it has become common for high school players to do the academic work needed to “reclassify” with a graduating class earlier than their original one, but there are obvious benefits to midyear enrollments this year.In the men’s game, DePaul added two midyear enrollees in Keon Edwards and David Jones. Among other high-profile high school players to make the jump: Sean Durugordon (Missouri), Mac Etienne (U.C.L.A.), James Graham (Maryland), Ben Gregg (Gonzaga), Trey James (Iona), Meechie Johnson (Ohio State), Franck Kepnang (Oregon), Austin Patterson (Wofford), Trey Patterson (Villanova) and Whitt of Wake Forest.Some are already playing, while others are practicing with their teams and will wait until the 2021-22 season to compete in games. Some plan to participate in their high school graduations this spring either virtually or in person.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      N.B.A. Announces All-Star Game Plans Despite Player Objections

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. Announces All-Star Game Plans Despite Player ObjectionsThe game and three related events will happen over several hours on March 7 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, even though the city’s mayor and top players have expressed concern about the health risks.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said the All-Star Game “will continue our annual tradition of celebrating the game and the greatest players in the world before a global audience.”Credit…Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesFeb. 18, 2021Updated 6:37 p.m. ETThe N.B.A. will host its All-Star Game on March 7 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, despite the misgivings of the city’s mayor and strong pushback from several top players because of the health risks. In announcing plans for the game and related events on Thursday, the N.B.A. and the players’ union said they would commit $2.5 million to support Covid-19 relief efforts and historically Black colleges and universities.The league had been criticized in recent weeks for planning to hold the exhibition game during the coronavirus pandemic while also requiring players and staff members to stay at home and avoid all nonessential contact outside basketball activities during the season. This week, the league postponed six games because of a virus outbreak among the San Antonio Spurs and contact tracing among the Charlotte Hornets. More than two dozen games have been postponed this season in connection with the pandemic.But the league views the All-Star Game as a key outreach to fans around the world, and there is a financial benefit, although the extent of it is unclear. By one estimate, according to a person familiar with the league’s television deal, a traditional slate of All-Star events is worth about $60 million for the league.“We made a decision beginning last summer that we were going to take the pandemic on in a full-throated way and we were going to attempt to conduct our business to the extent that it was safe and healthy for our players and our staff to the full extent we could,” Silver told ESPN on Thursday afternoon. “All-Star has been a tradition in this league now going back 70 years. We only missed one year over those 70 years and for us, it’s our No. 1 fan engagement event of the year.”He added: “It seems like no decisions during this pandemic come without uncertainty and come without risk. And this is yet another one of them. But it’s my job to balance all those interests and, ultimately, it feels like the right thing to do to go forward.”On Tuesday, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta posted a message on Twitter urging fans not to come to the city for the game. Aside from a small group of players’ guests, no spectators will be admitted to the arena, but there are concerns that fans will gather in Atlanta anyway.“Under normal circumstances we’d be grateful for the opportunity to host the N.B.A. All-Star game, but this isn’t a typical year,” Bottoms wrote. “I’ve shared my concerns w/@NBA & @ATLHawks & agree this is a made-for-TV event only & people shouldn’t travel to Atlanta to party.”What is traditionally a weekend full of events will be truncated to one day, without the typical parties, fan activities or game for rookies and sophomores. The skills challenge and 3-point shooting contest will take place before the All-Star Game, and the slam dunk contest will occur at halftime. According to the league’s collective bargaining agreement, players must participate in the All-Star Game if selected unless they are excused by Silver. The starters will be announced Thursday, and the reserves will be named on Tuesday.The league will provide private transportation for players to and from Atlanta. Each player will be allowed to bring up to four guests, but they and the players must all remain at a designated hotel — the N.B.A. is calling it a mini-bubble — when they are not at games or daily testing.Earlier this month, Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, the N.B.A.’s highest-profile star, said that holding the game would be a “slap in the face” and that he had “zero energy and zero excitement” for it. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks star and the most recent winner of the Most Valuable Player Award, said he agreed. Both are expected to be named All-Star starters.Other potential selectees have been more open to holding the game.“I understand both sides,” Julius Randle, a Knicks forward who might become an All-Star for the first time, told The New York Times last week. “And I understand the impact and the benefits it has for the league, if we do have All-Star games. It’s a tough decision. Everything this year has been tough.”Damian Lillard, who is likely be named to his sixth All-Star team, said recently: “A lot of players are saying, ‘Why are we even having a game?’ And I understand that. If they said, ‘We’re not going to have a game,’ I’d be perfectly fine with it. I just had two newborns, and I would love to spend that extra time at home with my family.”“But,” he added, “if they say we’re going to do it, I understand that because this is our job, and I understand that with the kind of money we make, you’ve got to make sacrifices.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A New Era of Million Dollar Sports Trading Cards Is Here

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMove Over, Honus: A New Era of Million-Dollar Cards Is HereAs prices soar in the high-end collectibles market, cards of stars like LeBron James and Mike Trout are in the same discussion as those of Honus Wagner and Mickey Mantle.Aaron Davis brings security to the bank when he visits his LeBron James cards. The two on the table are worth more than $7 million.Credit…John Francis Peters for The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETAaron Davis’s wife thought it was absurd when he spent $312,000 on a one-of-a-kind LeBron James trading card in 2016. That assessment has not been officially retracted, but only five years later the card could fetch well over 10 times that at auction, experts say.In July, another James card — this one not nearly as rare — sold for $1.8 million. That caught Davis’s attention because there are only two versions of that particular card that share the same high quality, and Davis, a 42-year-old investment manager in California, owns the other one.Davis keeps those two cards, with a combined worth in excess of $7 million, safely squirreled away in a bank vault with some of his other prized specimens.“Every time I buy a card I feel like I’m a little bit crazy, too, and the rest of the world might also think that,” Davis said during a telephone interview in which he revealed, for the first time publicly, that he owns the two million-dollar cards. “But that’s when you’re buying a good card, because they are irreplaceable. There are two of them, and they are in tight hands.”The folklore that has built up around valuable, vintage sports cards over the last few decades is a romantic one. Antique trading cards, each one a colorful, pocket-size painting depicting a legendary player, fortuitously discovered after surviving decades in attics and shoe boxes, only to then realize staggering sums on the resale market.A Honus Wagner baseball card from the early 20th century was long considered the holy grail of collecting, with the few good ones that exist selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars 30 years ago and now worth a few million each. In January, a 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card set a record when it sold for $5.2 million thanks to its unusually pristine condition.But players no longer have to be dead — or even retired — for their cards to sell for astronomical figures. Until that Mantle card sold, the most money ever paid a sports card was $3.9 million, for a Mike Trout rookie card made by Bowman in 2009.Mickey Mantle’s 1952 Topps rookie card is one of the most sought-after classic cards. One recently sold at auction for $5.2 million.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe buyer of that Trout card, who remains anonymous, could have purchased a Brooklyn brownstone for that amount. Instead, they spent it on a small piece of cardboard depicting a 29-year-old slugger who has never won a World Series.“Maybe I should have kept that one,” Trout joked with reporters a few days later.Trout’s card sold in August, shortly after the market for modern cards went into overdrive. In September, two months after the James rookie card sold for $1,845,000, a Giannis Antetokounmpo rookie card produced by Panini fetched $1.9 million. Antetokounmpo is 26, with barely eight seasons in the N.B.A. and a full career ahead of him.“The modern cards are taking the market by storm,” said Chris Ivy, the director of sports at Heritage Auctions. “The vintage market is very strong, too, but the modern cards have joined in.”Of the top 10 prices paid for sports cards at public auction, seven were cards of modern stars who were playing as recently as 1999, and five of the 10 cards have players pictured who are still active. The list, however, is ever changing. A rising star card in the collectibles world is an immaculate so-called Logo Man card of Zion Williamson and Ja Morant (the top two picks from the 2019 N.B.A. draft). It can be had on eBay for a cool half a million dollars — just click on “Add To Cart.”“The industry is at its hottest point in my 40-year history,” Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions, said in an email. “It is nearly impossible to keep up with demand from buyers.”Ivy said that with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down many businesses, the sports collectibles industry expected hard times, too. But the opposite happened.“It’s not something I saw coming,” he said. “We, like many businesses, were tightening our belts preparing for a potential downturn, but the fact that we’ve see so much interest and so many people jumping in the market is a bit surprising.”The “T206” Honus Wagner card from 1909 was long considered the pinnacle of high-end sports cards because of its rarity. Now it competes with modern cards where the scarcity was built in from the start.Credit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesAnd the market continues to boil. Earlier this month, a 1997 Michael Jordan card fetched $1.4 million at auction. The soaring prices have created such a frenzy that investment groups are being formed to buy cards, making it harder for individual collectors to compete — even extraordinarily wealthy ones.“Billionaires chasing cardboard — we can deal with that dynamic,” Davis said. “But some people who don’t have the money themselves go around raising capital to buy the big stuff, which is really annoying.”The driving force behind the surge in modern card values, Ivy explained, is a new breed of collector, many of whom are similar to Davis — millionaires in their 40s and 50s who see sports cards as both a hobby and an investment. They hunt for the finest cards available, featuring athletes whom they actually watched play, like James, Trout, Jordan and the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, whose unique 1979 O-Pee-Chee rookie card sold for $1.29 million in December.The Gretzky card belongs to the older category of cards. It was printed at the O-Pee-Chee plant in London, Ontario, to be sold in wax packs along with an almost inedible piece of gum for kids to collect, trade or wedge into their bicycle spokes.The valuable modern cards are a completely different animal. These packs are not sold by the thousands at candy stores, and no kid is likely to have ever flipped one in the park. The new ones are produced in micro batches, like signature wines, often with a swatch of authenticated uniform fabric affixed to the card, and the player’s real signature emblazoned over a flashy chrome design.Whereas the supply of old cards from baseball’s antiquity were culled over time through wear and tear and loss, the newer cards, which date only to the beginning of this century, have scarcity built into them by limiting the supply at the front end.Scarcity has always driven the resale prices of cards, but in the mid to late 1980s, as the hobby morphed into a lucrative business, speculative collectors began buying cards of promising baseball prospects in bulk — Gary Sheffield, Gregg Jefferies, Todd Van Poppel, to name a few — hoping each one would turn into the next Mantle rookie card.In order to meet that demand, card companies like Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer and Bowman overproduced the cards, which flooded the market. Today, many of those cards are effectively worthless.“The ’80s and ’90s are known as the junk wax era,” Ivy said. “Nothing was scarce, nothing was rare.”Davis owns two of the most valuable LeBron James cards. There are 23 of the 2003-4 Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Patch on the left. The 2003 Ultimate Collection card on the right is the only one ever made.Credit…John Francis Peters for The New York TimesBut in 2003, Upper Deck made a singular rookie card of James under its Ultimate Collection imprint. That card — the one Davis bought in 2016 — contained the N.B.A. logo from James’s jersey, and James signed the card under a photo of him in his crimson Cavalier jersey. It has “1 of 1” written on the card and no other version exists. Packs of that series were sold in some retail shops at the time for $500 or more, and that James card is considered among the most prized in the world.“I know some people out there who are trying to hunt whales,” Davis said. “I have LeBron’s whale, the only one that someone could ever get.”But he had to go way out on a perch to get it. When he secured the winning bid of $312,000, it was considered such an outlandish amount that Goldin called Davis, a new bidder at the time, to ask, gently, if he was really going to pay.“If this card were to be sold today, I would expect it to be the most valuable card ever,” Goldin wrote in an email, “and sell for more than $5 million.”Davis did pay, and he also coughed up the cash for the Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Patch card, the better-looking twin of the one that sold in July for $1.8 million (James is wearing a white jersey on that card). There are only 23 of those, but the one that sold, and Davis’s version of it, have the highest grades, according to the two main grading companies — PSA and Beckett. Those companies rate the cards according to four main factors: sharpness of the corners, quality of the surface, how well centered the design is and the crispiness of the edges. They also issue population reports to notify collectors of how many of the cards exist in each grade.“This is the art of the future for sports enthusiasts who have money and don’t want to buy art,” Davis said. “Pretty much everything I collect now is because I think it is a good investment and because I like the player. The common thread is, I think it will be a good investment. It’s part of the fun.”Davis won’t rule anything out, but he has no immediate plans to sell either of his prized James rookie cards, because he cherishes them so much. When he gets the urge, he ventures down to the bank vault and, under tight security, gazes over his tidy little gems.“My wife says, ‘You like to spend time looking at cardboard,’” Davis laughed. “She’s right, but she also knows that a lot of the decisions I’ve made worked out pretty well.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More