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The Nets Looked Unstoppable Early. They’ve Proved to Be Mortal.
Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have meshed well. But the team has lost a starter to injury, and the bench lineup has often been outplayed. Recent changes are promising. More
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Devin Booker Is Coming Into His Own With the Suns
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAre the Knicks Back?A Year of Kobe and LeBronMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballDevin Booker Is Coming Into His Own With the SunsBooker, the 24-year-old Phoenix Suns guard, learned to lead while his team was losing dozens of games a year. Now the Suns are winning, and that comes with new demands.Devin Booker, front right, is coming into his own as the leader of the Phoenix Suns. They are off to a 5-2 start.Credit…Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesJan. 6, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETWith about a week to go before the Phoenix Suns’ first game of the N.B.A. restart in July, Devin Booker was bubbling with confidence. Unruffled by a four-month interruption of his best season as a pro, Booker brushed off a reminder that the Suns held the second-worst record of the 22 teams invited to Walt Disney World.“I’m ready right now,” Booker said that day. “I’m right there.”Booker quickly proved it. He had spent the two prior months training with his father, the former N.B.A. guard Melvin Booker, at a private gym in Phoenix. He then averaged 30.5 points, 6.0 assists and 4.9 rebounds to lead the Bubble Suns to an 8-0 record in seeding games, leaving them just a half-game shy of bumping the Memphis Grizzlies out of a play-in series with the Portland Trail Blazers for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Phoenix was six games out of the No. 8 slot in the West going into the restart. No one expected the Suns to get as close to the playoffs as they did.The problem: Phoenix’s two-week surge in the bubble was the most sustained team success for Booker since he jumped to the N.B.A. as the 13th pick in the 2015 draft after one season at Kentucky, where his 38-1 Wildcats were so deep that Booker didn’t start. In the N.B.A., he has known mostly despair in the desert beyond his individual statistics, a struggle Booker hasn’t denied.“I always say it’s my toughest adjustment to the N.B.A. — how to deal with the losing and still remaining a leader,” Booker said before his bubble run.Whether or not Booker and the Suns can finally leave losing behind remains one of the loudest questions in the N.B.A., but the early signs are promising — especially now that they have Chris Paul. The Suns responded to their bubble breakthrough by trading for the 35-year-old Paul, absorbing the two seasons and nearly $86 million left on his contract. The idea was that Paul’s veteran know-how, combined with Booker’s scoring prowess and Deandre Ayton’s potential as an interior anchor, would give Phoenix the three-star backbone needed to secure a playoff spot in the hypercompetitive West.The Suns are betting on the veteran savvy of Chris Paul, right, and Devin Booker’s offensive skills to finally push the team back to the playoffs.Credit…Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesWhile precious little has played out as predicted in the embryonic days of the league’s 75th season — just take a quick scan through the Eastern Conference standings — Phoenix is an exception. The Suns are off to a notable 5-2 start as they try to live up to the billing of a team widely expected to bust out of a 10-year playoff drought.Booker has had a bumpy start to the season, stumbling to a league-high total of 37 turnovers to sully his robust per-game averages (21.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists). The Suns nonetheless won five of their first six games, earned a top-five defensive rating and responded to their poorest showing with some grit after falling behind the Los Angeles Clippers by 31 points at home Sunday night.Blowouts have become commonplace across the league during the season’s uneven start, an early oddity widely attributed to most teams’ playing without fans in the arenas to motivate them and an abbreviated training camp and preseason. Headed for another one of those routs after a shoddy first half, Phoenix instead rallied to within one point in the fourth quarter before the Clippers pulled out a 112-107 victory.Paul has also had some spotty moments offensively as he and Booker work to establish the backcourt chemistry that Booker had with Paul’s predecessor, Ricky Rubio, but the Suns already have the look of a more well-rounded team. The arrival of the rugged forward Jae Crowder in free agency, on top of Paul’s leadership, has quickly convinced one veteran scout whose view I trust that these Suns are “the real deal defensively.” Phoenix also has benefited from the continued improvement of the defensive specialist Mikal Bridges and the sharpshooting Cam Johnson, whose selection at No. 11 over all in the 2019 draft by Minnesota on the Suns’ behalf earned Phoenix serious scorn.It’s the sort of response Suns Coach Monty Williams was hoping for even before he knew that Phoenix would be able to trade for Paul. Williams told me it was his “messed-up coaching mind-set” that made him find more good than heartbreak in the Suns’ coming so close to a playoff berth in August before falling short.“I was glad our players got a chance to experience that kind of success,” Williams said. “But to miss the playoffs by half a game, I was thankful for that, too, because I hope our players understand now that every single game counts.”Left to right: Mikal Bridges, Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Jae Crowder. The Suns have the same record as the champion Los Angeles Lakers.Credit…Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWilliams’s authoritative presence on the bench, after he coached Paul in New Orleans, was one of the primary lures in persuading Paul to push for the trade that sent him to Phoenix from Oklahoma City in November. Yet Paul insisted recently that the lure of playing beside Booker was just as strong; he scoffed at suggestions that he was brought in to provide all of the guidance.“I’m not James Naismith, by no means,” Paul said at his introductory Suns news conference, referring to the sport’s inventor.The reality is that Paul’s outsize personality tends to soak up much of the oxygen in any room or gym he occupies, but Booker’s talent is such that the Suns don’t want him deferring. Surrounded by more help than he has ever had, Booker will face higher-than-ever expectations. He earned his first All-Star selection last season as an injury replacement chosen by the league after Portland’s Damian Lillard went down.“I think it’s going to fuel him,” Williams said of Booker’s taste of bubble success. “I hate talking for players, but just knowing him and his competitiveness, I think it’s going to spur him on.“Book’s a winner,” Williams continued. “He plays winning basketball. He’s got a high I.Q. We’ll talk about stuff, and he’s completing my sentences because he knows where I’m going.”Both coach and player know, though, that Williams’s proclamations can only be validated by the standings. The Suns have the league’s second-longest active playoff drought at 10 seasons and counting, behind only Sacramento’s 14 years in a row, and would be wise not to overreact to two prosperous weeks after the highs and lows of summer camp.“It’s not an easy league,” Booker said.Corner ThreeWhen was the last time you heard “Jump” by Kris Kross outside of an N.B.A. game?Credit…Andy Clayton-King/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: In the next collective bargaining agreement, trade kickers should be a two-way street. If a superstar requests a trade prior to the completion of his contract, there should be a trade kicker that the player is required to pay. — @MrBrianBlair from TwitterStein: James Harden’s desire to be traded away from the Houston Rockets, and the Harden-centric chaos initiated by his refusal to report to training camp on time, has clearly made this a touchy topic. And I get it: Harden’s determination to leave quickly became a full-on sideshow.What you’re suggesting, though creative, is far too punitive for most players.Trade kickers are negotiated bonuses that players get if they are traded, meaning not all players have them in their contracts. I can’t co-sign making players pay a fee when they demand a trade — not when you account for how many more advantages teams hold over them in controlling contracts.Players are routinely traded without having any say, while first-round draft picks are subject to a rookie pay scale that often doesn’t reflect their value. And players generally have to clear restricted free agency — which affords contract-matching rights to the incumbent team — before making it to unrestricted free agency.There is no one-size-fits-all rule to apply here, because every situation is different. If a player asks to be traded according to league guidelines (in other words, without making it public) and performs professionally afterward, it’s not some heinous basketball crime.The Los Angeles Clippers infamously traded Blake Griffin to Detroit in 2018 just six months after persuading him to sign a five-year, $171 million contract with promises of making him “a Clipper for life.” I’m not trying to suggest that we will throw newsletter support behind every trade demand, but the Griffin situation was a handy reminder that only certain stars wield ultimate power, even in the player empowerment era.It’s rare that trade demands are lodged before the later stages of a contract, closer to the player’s free agency. Don’t forget, furthermore, that no-trade clauses in the N.B.A. are difficult for players to obtain, requiring a minimum of eight years of service time and four with the same team.As for Harden, well, this is as messy as a trade request gets, so dismay with the brazen manner in which he appeared to be trying to force a trade last month is understandable. Harden’s status with the Rockets will be a distraction until he gets moved. But let’s not go overboard.Q: I was wondering if the N.B.A. or anyone associated with the league records the outcomes on jump balls. I know there aren’t that many jump balls in each individual game, but there are surely players who must have participated in numerous jump balls over time. Is there any way to figure out who ranks as the game’s Jump Ball King? — Richard Perry (New York)Stein: In this statistical age, given how much N.B.A. data is tracked on so many different sites, it’s a disheartening surprise to see that fresh jump ball data is not easy to find. It appears that this FanSided page, which has amassed individual data on jump ball winners from the 1996-97 season to 2016-17, is as thorough as it gets.This is not a difficult stat to track, so it’s unclear why more current results don’t appear on multiple sites. The reality, though, is that a jump ball king would be nearly impossible to identify, because 1996-97 was the first season that the N.B.A. began officially recording and archiving play-by-play data.So I’m afraid we’ll have to add this to the N.B.A.’s long list of statistical mysteries, which most prominently features the sad inability to know just how ferocious Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain truly were as shot-blockers. Blocks and steals did not become official box score stats until the 1973-74 season — and the limited game film from the league’s early years means that even enterprising researchers with time on their hands can’t just go back and do the math manually by studying old tapes.Q: How is Orlando allowing fans but not Miami? — @numberthirty6 from TwitterStein: In the few states where reduced crowds are allowed in N.B.A. arenas, it’s still a franchise-by-franchise choice on whether to let fans inside.In Florida, Orlando and Toronto (which has adopted Tampa, Fla., as its temporary home) have decided to admit fans. The Heat decided to wait.We’re seeing the same thing in Texas. Houston is letting a league-high 4,500 fans per game enter Toyota Center. Dallas and San Antonio have elected to keep their arenas closed to the public, with the Spurs announcing recently that they have pushed back plans to reopen their doors on Jan. 1 “because the Covid-19 numbers and data in our community continue to trend in the wrong direction.”Numbers GameThe Spurs’ Becky Hammon is one of six women who are assistant coaches in the N.B.A. this season.Credit…Ronald Cortes/Getty Images6After 11 women were on N.B.A. coaching staffs last season, that number is down to six this season. They are: Cleveland’s Lindsay Gottlieb, Dallas’s Jenny Boucek, Memphis’ Sonia Raman, New Orleans’s Teresa Weatherspoon, Sacramento’s Lindsey Harding and San Antonio’s Becky Hammon. When she took over for the ejected Gregg Popovich last week, Hammon became the first woman to serve as a head coach in an N.B.A. regular-season game.2Of the six other women who coached in the N.B.A. last season, two relinquished their posts to become head coaches at the college level. Kara Lawson left the Boston Celtics’ staff to take over as the women’s head coach at Duke, and Niele Ivey left the Grizzlies’ bench for the same role at Notre Dame. Two others — Toronto’s Brittni Donaldson and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Natalie Nakase — joined their franchise’s G League coaching staffs for this season.62.2Something to track: After shooting at least 72.4 percent from the free-throw line for five seasons in a row from 2014-15 to 2018-19, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo is in the 60s for the second consecutive season. He shot 63.3 percent from the line last season and is off to a worrisome 62.2 percent start in the early stages of the new campaign.1,944The Cavaliers received permission last week from the Ohio Department of Health to expand their home crowds to nearly 2,000 fans — 1,944 to be exact — after crowds were limited to 300 for Cleveland’s first three home games.75Mark June 6 on your 2021 calendars: It’s the N.B.A.’s 75th birthday. The league was founded as the Basketball Association of America on June 6, 1946.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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Stephen Curry Scores 62 Points in Win Over Trail Blazers
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStephen Curry Answers His Critics With a 62-Point GameA career-best performance against Portland reminded the league what the Golden State Warriors guard can do.Stephen Curry’s incredible night led to a win for the Golden State Warriors and a postgame interview that was interrupted when his teammate Damion Lee doused him with water.Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesJan. 4, 2021Updated 10:08 a.m. ETStephen Curry has heard the criticism. He is aware his legacy is being questioned, and he knows that any bad game will start again the reconsideration of his accomplishments. But after scoring a career-high 62 points for the Golden State Warriors in a 137-122 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday night, Curry sent a clear message to his critics: Keep talking.“I like being talked about because there’s expectations,” he said.Curry’s career-best performance came in a matchup with one of his biggest on-court rivals — Damian Lillard of Portland — and on the heels of a storm of social media criticism in which his legacy as a team-lifting superstar was called into question.“Cue the Jordan meme: ‘I take all that personally,’” Curry said with a laugh, referencing a line by Michael Jordan in the documentary “The Last Dance.”Curry then explained that the performance — he had 31 points at halftime — came from a much simpler place than people might be assuming: “I had an opportunity to assert my will on the game early and create some energy.”Asserting his will included shooting 18 of 31 from the field, 8 of 16 from 3-point range and 18 of 19 from the free-throw line. Curry became the first player since Kobe Bryant on Dec. 20, 2005, to score at least 30 points in each half of a game, and he bettered his previous career high of 54 points, which was set in a road loss to the Knicks in 2013.His 62 points also were the most by any player this season and made him only the fifth player in franchise history to score 60 or more points, a feat last accomplished by Klay Thompson, who had 60 in 29 minutes during a blowout win over the Indiana Pacers in 2016. Rick Barry, Joe Fulks, Thompson and Curry have one 60-point game apiece for the Warriors, while Wilt Chamberlain had 27.“He came out looking like a man on a mission,” Draymond Green said of Curry, who scored 21 points in the first quarter.Thompson welcomed Curry to the 60-point club with a tweet, and Curry’s younger brother, Seth, who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers, took the opportunity to poke fun at Stephen’s critics, who seem to turn nearly every game into a referendum on his legacy.Curry said his brother’s tweet was the best one he’d seen so far and that criticism was just part of being a superstar.“I don’t get frazzled too easily and I’m very confident in who I am as a person and as a basketball player,” he said. “There’s not going to be anything you can say about me or to me that’s going to affect that. At the end of the day that’s how I got here.”While Curry has played well early this season, averaging 32.3 points and 6.2 assists through six games, there is no question that the Warriors are a far cry from the juggernaut once led by Curry, Thompson, Green and Kevin Durant. Golden State opened the season with blowout losses to Durant’s Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks, and looked inept in a loss to Portland on Friday. While their poor play has come mostly from newcomers like Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre, a heavy share of the blame has landed squarely on the shoulders of Curry, the Warriors’ best player. His most persistent critics have questioned why a two-time winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award can’t lift a lesser team to relevance in the way LeBron James has done.Green, who recently returned from an injury, rejected that premise.“Everybody is always going to try to find a reason to nitpick something Steph does, whether it’s that you haven’t won a Finals M.V.P. or you haven’t carried a team,” Green said. “If I’m not mistaken, he carried the 2015 team.”“To be honest, he’s carried every team, because he’s been the leader of the group since I’ve been here.”Many of Curry’s younger teammates were not with Golden State during the championship years. They were left struggling to describe such a dominant performance.In addition to his typical outside shooting, Curry was aggressive at getting to the rim, leading to a career-high in free-throw attempts. Credit…Tony Avelar/Associated PressJames Wiseman, the team’s rookie center, compared it to a video game. “It reminds me of 2K,” he said, “because I used to play with Steph all the time, and I used to drop like 60. So, just like actually watching in person, that was phenomenal.”Oubre, a veteran wing acquired during the off-season to help fill in for the injured Thompson, brought the perspective of having been one of Curry’s opponents, saying “I was just happy to be on the same side as him tonight, because I know it stunk for the other team.”Curry declined to predict if big-scoring games would become a regular occurrence. But he objected to a reporter’s saying he couldn’t score 62 points every game, playfully responding “Hey, why not?”And Coach Steve Kerr, who said he had lifted Curry in the game’s final minute “so the 42 people in the stands could give him a standing ovation,” said he was perplexed why anyone would criticize Curry in the first place.“I’m not playing dumb: Does he really take criticism?” Kerr asked. “I’ll check out Twitter later. I hope they are saying something good about him tonight.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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A Timeout for the N.B.A.’s Halftime Performers Is Costing Them Big
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonA Year of Kobe and LeBronThe Warriors Are StrugglingMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Timeout for the N.B.A.’s Halftime Performers Is Costing Them BigThe pandemic has all but shut down the income streams for halftime performers, who typically make $1,500 to $5,000 a show. The emotional toll is high as well.Gary Borstelmann, who is better known as the Amazing Sladek, performed at halftime during the 2019 N.B.A. playoffs.Credit…Mark Sobhani/NBAE, via Getty ImagesJan. 4, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETSteve Max usually spends his winters telling big crowds at basketball arenas to put their hands up and to touch their shoulders and to cover their eyes. Max is a professional Simon Says caller who travels the country entertaining fans at halftime.Or at least that was his line of work until March, when the coronavirus pandemic emptied arenas and rendered his microphone silent. For the past nine months, Max has been at home in White Plains, N.Y., doing what he can to keep busy. In addition to updating his website, he has tried to adapt to these weird times with a nudge from his wife, Linda Harelick.After reading about how an animal sanctuary was making goats available for cameos on corporate video calls, she offered a suggestion: If those goats can make money, so can you.“So I turned my den into a Zoom studio,” Max, who was born Steve Harelick, said in a telephone interview. “I’ve got something on Thursday for Ernst & Young.”A backstage view of Steve Max’s new marketplace now that the pandemic has quieted his Simon Says shows.Credit…Steve MaxA niche industry for halftime entertainers like Max, 58, has disappeared during the pandemic. Though a few N.B.A. teams began the season with limited numbers of spectators — and some are allowing their dance teams to perform in the aisles — none are hiring halftime entertainers. Contortionists, acrobats, Frisbee-catching dogs — they are all biding their time, waiting for the show to go on.Gary Borstelmann, who does a handstand atop a teetering tower of chairs in his act as the Amazing Sladek, has been supplementing his daily hourlong workouts — lots of handstands, lots of stretching — by hauling a couple of his chairs out to the front lawn a few times a week. He knows he needs to stay in shape.“If you saw me practicing, you’d be like, ‘Oh, he’s only balancing on two chairs,’” he said. “But the intensity of six chairs is in my face.”Simon Arestov and Lyric Wallenda Arestov, a husband and wife team that does a balancing routine on a circus prop called the rolla bolla, have had to explain some hard realities to their 3-year-old son, Alex, who often participates in their act’s grand finale.“He sees our costumes because I’m repairing them and making sure everything is ready to go whenever we get the call,” Wallenda Arestov said. “And he’s like: ‘Mom, that’s my costume! When are we going to do a basketball show?’ And it breaks my heart, because he misses it, too.”Beyond the financial impact — halftime entertainers typically make $1,500 to $5,000 a show — the effects of the pandemic have been felt within their community. David Maas, who had a popular act called Quick Change with his wife, Dania Kaseeva, died of Covid-19 in November.“My heart goes out to all my friends who are in this business,” said Jon Terry, a booking agent for halftime performers who is based in Oklahoma. “These are creative people, and in many cases, it’s their sole income. Some of these guys were making six-figure incomes, and you drop that out and there’s no place for them to do anything else.”And they all can recall in vivid detail the day that everything changed.On March 11, Arestov and Wallenda Arestov, who are both 36, were at home in Sarasota, Fla., preparing to travel to New York so they could perform at the Big East Conference men’s basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden — one of about 30 halftime shows they do for the N.B.A. and the N.C.A.A. each year. But that night, Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus before a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the phone call soon came from a conference official: The tournament was going to limit attendance. It was soon canceled altogether.Simon Arestov and Lyric Wallenda Arestov, a husband and wife team that does a balancing routine on a contraption called the rolla bolla, often include their 3-year-old son, Alex, in their act.Credit…Courtesy Madison Square GardenAt the time, the couple had a long list of N.B.A. halftimes lined up for the rest of the season. They were also planning to bounce among festivals and circuses during the summer months in their 43-foot recreation vehicle, sometimes performing two or three times a day. On average, they do about 400 shows a year.Since March, the couple has performed exactly four times. Their return after a six-month hiatus came in September at the Juniata County Fair in Port Royal, Pa. They both cried.“I forgot what it was like to be in front of an audience,” Arestov said.They have since performed at a circus in Indiana, at a private event for a hotel and at a Toys for Tots fund-raiser. They have mixed feelings about doing their act at all. They have wanted to do their part during the pandemic, they said, which has mostly meant staying home. Maas of Quick Change was distantly related to Lyric through marriage.For a couple who typically spend about 300 days on the road a year, it has been an adjustment.“I think we’ve watched everything on Netflix,” said Arestov, who estimated they had lost about 95 percent of their income for the year. “We’re trying to stay positive. We can see a light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccines, but we’ve been juggling our finances because there hasn’t been a lot of help from the government for our industry.”Borstelmann had long thought he would retire at 65. At 62, he already considers himself — and take a deep breath, here — the country’s oldest daredevil acrobatic hand balancer. There is an element of physical risk that Borstelmann takes every time he does his handstand about 25 feet above center court.“I’m the only one of the halftime performers who actually risks his life, you know?” he said. “If I fall, I’m probably not getting up.”But the pandemic has altered his timeline — and in a surprising way.“Now,” Borstelmann said, “I want to go until I’m 70. I’m not letting the pandemic retire me.”After doing a halftime show at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix on March 7, Borstelmann packed up his Chrysler minivan and made the four-day cross-country drive to Greensboro, N.C., where he was scheduled to perform during the Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament. About 15 minutes after he checked into his hotel on March 11, he got the news that conference officials were canceling the tournament. Borstelmann sat on his bed watching ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and tried to digest what it all meant.“I lost my last 12 contracts,” Borstelmann said. “That hit me hard. My gosh. That’s probably the money that I’m able to save from a whole season after expenses and everything else.”Basketball is Borstelmann’s bread and butter. He does about 40 halftimes a year, hopscotching across the country in his minivan. (He does not trust airline baggage handlers with his custom-built chairs.)But for the past nine months, Borstelmann has been at home in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., with his 90-year-old mother, Grace, and his 33-year-old daughter, Kerri Grace, who returned to Florida after leaving her teaching job in Hong Kong.“I’m a real family guy,” Borstelmann said, “so that’s been a silver lining.”Borstelmann with his parents in 2015.Credit…Sarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York TimesIn his 40 years as an acrobat, Borstelmann says, he has never fallen. He did tear a hamstring in his left leg while doing a forward flip as he made his entrance at an Orlando Magic game in 2017, but he went ahead with his routine anyway — and finished out his season without missing any of his scheduled performances.“I was in so much pain, bro,” he said.He realizes that he cannot do this forever. He will know it is time to step away, he said, when he loses his nerve or his strength and he no longer feels safe. But the pandemic, in its own way, has offered a glimpse at life without the bright lights, and he cannot see himself packing up his chairs any time soon.“For five minutes,” he said, “I’m at center court and I’m connecting with the crowd and I’m the Amazing Sladek. When I can’t do this anymore, I’m just Sladek, man.”In that sense, Max said he felt fortunate. He can do his Simon Says act for another 20 years.“I’m not flipping off tables or pulling any muscles,” he said. “For me, the only exercise is if I have a tight connection in Phoenix, and I have to run from Terminal A to Terminal D.”As a teenager in New Jersey, Max learned to juggle and worked the local circuit doing magic shows. “I would balance stuff on my face — chairs and tables,” he said.The appeal, he said, was bringing joy to people — making them smile, making them laugh. And video calls cannot fully replicate the experience of interacting with a live audience.“I’ve been missing it desperately,” Max said. “I miss hanging out with the mascots. It’s not just a business arrangement with the teams. These people are my friends.”Max has big plans for his post-pandemic return. He wants to break the world record for the largest group of people playing Simon Says at the same time.“I think that’s the perfect time to do it,” he said, “when people are back together.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Paul Westphal, N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Coach, Dies at 70
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPaul Westphal, N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Coach, Dies at 70Drafted in the first round by the Celtics, he played for 12 seasons before leading teams in Phoenix, Seattle and Sacramento.Paul Westphal, left, drives past Bobby Wilkerson during a game against the Denver Nuggets in 1978.Credit…Mark Junge/Getty ImagesJan. 2, 2021Updated 6:58 p.m. ETPaul Westphal, the Basketball Hall of Fame guard who played for the Boston Celtics’ 1974 N.B.A. champions, became a four-time All-Star with the Phoenix Suns and coached them to the league playoff final in 1993, died on Saturday. He was 70. Westphal, whose death was confirmed by the Suns, was found to have brain cancer in the summer of 2020.Westphal was an outstanding shooter with both hands and a fine playmaker and defensive player. He played in the N.B.A. for 12 seasons, also with the Seattle SuperSonics and the Knicks. He was a head coach for all or part of 10 seasons, with the Suns, Seattle and the Sacramento Kings, and an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks and the Brooklyn Nets.He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., as a player in 2019.The Celtics selected Westphal in the first round of the 1972 N.B.A. draft, the 10th player chosen over all.One of his finest games with Boston came in the 1974 N.B.A. championship finals against the Milwaukee Bucks.Westphal scored 12 points in Game 5 and played stifling defense against Oscar Robertson, one of the N.B.A.’s greatest players, who made only 2 of his 13 shots. The Celtics won, 96-87, on the Bucks’ court and captured the series, four games to three.But Westphal was mostly a reserve in his three seasons with the Celtics, since they had outstanding guards in Jo Jo White and Don Chaney. They traded him to the Suns in May 1975 for Charlie Scott, the future Hall of Fame forward, and draft picks.Westphal was back in the playoff finals in 1976, this time playing for Phoenix against Boston. He scored 25 points in Game 5, though the Suns were beaten, 128-126, in triple overtime in what has been called “the greatest game ever played.” The Suns lost the series, 4 games to 2.Westphal played for the Suns from 1975 to 1980 and again in his final season, 1983-84. He played with the SuperSonics in 1980-81, when he gained his fifth All-Star selection. The Knicks signed him midway through the 1981-82 season, though he was still recovering from a stress fracture of his right foot incurred when he played for Seattle.Westphal was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.Credit…Elise Amendola/Associated PressIn November 1982, Westphal got a taste of the New York-based television world when he had a small role as a police officer on ABC’s daytime drama “The Edge of Night.”“I’ve never had any acting experience, except for trying to draw fouls during basketball games,” he told The New York Times. But, as he put it, “since basketball players and actors are both pampered and spoiled, I think I would have no trouble making the change to acting.”He never did pursue an acting career, but he won the N.B.A.’s Comeback Player of the Year Award for 1982-83, when he helped take the Knicks to the second round of the playoffs, appearing in 80 of their 82 games and averaging 10 points a game, having recovered from his injury with Seattle.Westphal averaged 20.6 points a game in his six seasons with the Suns and had career averages of 15.6 points and 4.4 assists per game. He won 318 games and lost 279 as an N.B.A. head coach.After his playing days, Westphal coached at several western colleges, including Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, taking the school to the 1988 NAIA national championship.He was an assistant coach with the Suns for four seasons before he was named head coach in 1992-93, when they posted the N.B.A.’s best regular-season record at 62-20, led by Charles Barkley, the league’s most valuable player, along with Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson and Danny Ainge. But the Suns lost to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in a six-game championship final.Westphal coached several outstanding Suns team afterward but was fired in January 1996 when the Suns, riddled with injuries, were playing poorly.He coached the SuperSonics and the Kings for all or parts of three seasons each and closed out his coaching career as a Nets assistant from 2014 to 2016.Paul Douglas Westphal was born on Nov. 30, 1950, in Torrance, Calif., a son of Armin and Ruth Westphal. His father, an aeronautical engineer, and his older brother, Bill, shot hoops with him in the family’s driveway when he was a youngster.He was a basketball star at Aviation High School in Redondo Beach, then played for the University of Southern California for three seasons. He averaged 16.4 points a game and was voted as a second-team all-American in The Associated Press poll for 1971.Westphal’s survivors include his wife, Cindy; their daughter, Victoria, and a son, Michael. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.“In training camp, he told us his greatest asset would be his ability to relate,” Kevin Johnson told The Seattle Times in February 1999 when Westphal was in his first season as the Sonics’ coach. “He was a rookie, he was an All-Star, he was a free agent, he got waived, he was traded, he got old. He’s been through every possible experience.”“I hoped to be a player, but always planned on being a coach,” Westphal said. “I was able to play for 12 years and postpone my coaching career.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Blake Griffin on Life as an NBA Elder: ‘I Feel Ancient’
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonA Year of Kobe and LeBronThe Warriors Are StrugglingMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBlake Griffin: Thriving Away From the Rim and Feeling ‘Ancient’At 31, Griffin is a Detroit Pistons elder who still knows how to entertain, even if soaring dunks are no longer his specialty.Blake Griffin made his name with high-flying dunks with the Los Angeles Clippers but is reinventing himself as a versatile, modern-day big man in Detroit.Credit…Brian Sevald/NBAE, via Getty ImagesJan. 2, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThere must be some mistake. There is no way Blake Griffin, the star forward for the Detroit Pistons, is in his 11th N.B.A. season. Wasn’t he just soaringover the hood of a Kia to win the slam dunk contest? Being schooled in “dunkology” by Jeff Goldblum? That was almost a decade ago?It’s true. Griffin has entered the 2020-21 season as the third oldest player on the Pistons, behind Derrick Rose and Wayne Ellington.“It’s just happened so fast,” Griffin, a six-time All-Star, said in a recent phone interview, adding later: “I saw on our roster, I was seeing the birth dates and it was like, some guys were born in 2001. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. I feel ancient.’”Griffin, 31, is a year removed from one of the best seasons of his career and a dozen years older than two of his rookie teammates, Killian Hayes and Isaiah Stewart. Griffin has plenty of games left, he said. But in basketball years, in a league in which the best players seem to get younger every season, he is akin to middle-aged.Entering his fourth season in Detroit, with a franchise that is embracing a youth movement, Griffin has had to transition from high-flying phenom to locker room sage, while still being expected to deliver All-N.B.A. performances. Five Pistons players were born in 1999 or later.“I’ve also just really enjoyed it, especially this group of rookies that we have now,” Griffin said. “They’re great players, but great kids. They want to learn. They come. They ask you questions.”As publicly accepting of Detroit’s path as Griffin has been, he is still a competitor and an N.B.A. star with a glaring hole in his résumé: He has never made a conference finals.“The individual awards and these things are fine, and I’m appreciative of them, but I just want to win,” Griffin said. “Not making it to a conference final, yeah, it does gnaw at me. Not to the point where I’m losing sleep over it. But that’s the main goal — I want to win.”A native of Oklahoma City, Griffin has basketball in his DNA. His father, Tommy Griffin, was a decorated high school coach in the area. His older brother by nearly three years, Taylor Griffin, had a short spell in the N.B.A. and played overseas.Taylor, now Blake’s manager, was also his teammate at the University of Oklahoma, where they would occasionally get into physical confrontations during pickup games.Blake, left, and Taylor Griffin at a practice when they were teammates at the University of Oklahoma.Credit…Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman, via Associated Press“There’s points in middle school and elementary school where it didn’t matter what we were doing — it ended in a fight,” Taylor said. “Tears, maybe some blood. It could be a race to the car. It could be a board game.”After two seasons at Oklahoma, Blake Griffin was drafted with the first overall pick by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2009. He missed his first year because of a knee injury.After his N.B.A. career officially began in 2010-11, Griffin was known mostly as an electrifying dunker. That alone was enough to turn him into a force and to help revitalize an ignored Clippers franchise. A decade later, Griffin has adapted to the modern N.B.A.: He is one of the best passing forwards in the league and has developed an accurate 3-point shot. In 2018-19, Griffin shot seven 3-pointers a game and made an above-average 36.2 percent.He went 0 for 5 from 3-point range in his first game this season, against Minnesota, but responded with eight 3-pointers in his next game, against Cleveland. He missed Friday’s game against the Boston Celtics because of concussion protocols.Elite big men known for playing in the paint historically have not developed jump shots later in their careers. To those who watched Griffin during his early years as a pro, like his former coach Vinny Del Negro, Griffin’s willingness to evolve was expected, given a strong work ethic.“I saw how much Blake was determined to become a consistent shooter and a consistent player, from that standpoint,” said Del Negro, who coached Griffin for three seasons with the Clippers. “But at the end of the day, there’s really nothing physically Blake can’t do on the basketball court.”Griffin’s evolution has come off the court, too. He, along with fellow N.B.A. stars Trae Young and Russell Westbrook, has been campaigning for clemency to be granted to Julius Jones, who was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder and is on death row in Oklahoma. Jones, who was 19 when he was arrested, has maintained his innocence. He used to play basketball for Griffin’s father.In recent years, Griffin has also started a production company and a podcast, while delving into stand-up comedy. He has long been known for his charisma, which translated into amusing commercials and a larger-than-life personality in the locker room.“I walked in one time, and he was doing me in the locker room,” said Caron Butler, who played with Griffin for two seasons in Los Angeles, said, adding: “I walked in, and he looked at me and I was like, ‘Bro, you nailed it.’ It was an awkward moment. Crazy. But at the same time, that’s who Blake is.”Griffin takes his comedy seriously. He has performed at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, which is known as a sort of comedy Shangri-La, and has said that he can see comedy as a “second career” after basketball.“With comedy, I never want to go to The Store and take somebody’s time slot,” Griffin said, referring to The Comedy Store, the famed Los Angeles club. “I prefer to do something where I’m hosting a show and I get to bring people on.”He added, “I don’t want to do that thing where I show up and maybe lean on my name a little bit and try to skip the line, because it’s a process and I want to respect that.”Griffin hosted Comedy By Blake, a comedy night for his youth charity, Team Griffin Foundation, in 2017.Credit…Dustin Snipes/Red Bull Content Pool, via Associated Press ImagesGriffin’s first priority, though, he said, is basketball. He sees himself playing for at least another five years, hoping to win that elusive championship. And this brings us back to Detroit.When Griffin entered the N.B.A., star players weren’t as likely to switch teams through free agency or to demand trades as they are today. Now the environment has shifted, but Griffin, who can opt out of his contract after this season, insisted he is happy with the Pistons, despite their uncertain championship prospects. Griffin said that the organization has been “nothing but unbelievable” and “very supportive.” He demurred when asked about the possibility of free agency.“It’s not a decision that I have to make in the immediate future,” Griffin said. “And I know, I’m sorry, I’m just kind of running around that question, but it’s just true. Things can change.”Change can happen quickly for organizations too, as Griffin found out when he was unexpectedly traded to the Pistons in 2018 shortly after signing an extension with the Clippers.But for now, Detroit seems committed to making the Griffin-Pistons marriage work. Troy Weaver, who was hired in June to be Detroit’s general manager, said that at their first meeting he told Griffin that he was “what I wanted the Pistons to be all about.”Butler, a two-time All Star, had to make a transition similar to Griffin’s during his 14-year playing career. He said Griffin was “well rounded” enough to make it work.“I think that the way you can be an asset to a team and to organizations, it comes in a variety of ways,” said Butler, now an assistant coach with the Miami Heat. “Sometimes it’s just your production. And then the older you get, all the little things become big things. It’s mentorship. It’s conversations. It’s your wisdom of being battle tested and long in the teeth to help navigate those young players through that stage. A lot of people aren’t able to do it, because sometimes guys are just good at the one specific thing, whether it’s scoring or defense.”Much of Griffin’s future will rest on his production this year. He has struggled with injuries, missing most of last season because of knee soreness. He had extended time off after the coronavirus pandemic delayed this season’s start, and Griffin said he “can’t remember a training camp where my body felt better.”And this means a decade later, he thinks he can still pull off his most famous act: the Kia dunk.“Yeah, I think I can clear the hood still,” Griffin said. “But I don’t know that I’m willing to try it now.”Griffin said he is happy in Detroit, even though the team’s prospects for winning a championship are uncertain.Credit…Tim Fuller/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Becky Hammon Becomes First Woman to Serve as Head Coach in N.B.A. Game
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonA Year of Kobe and LeBronThe Warriors Are StrugglingMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBecky Hammon Becomes First Woman to Serve as Head Coach in N.B.A. GameShe took over coaching the San Antonio Spurs after Gregg Popovich was ejected from a game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night.Becky Hammon took over as head coach of the Spurs.Credit…Eric Gay/Associated PressDec. 31, 2020Updated 9:53 a.m. ETThough 2020 is nearly over, it keeps turning out sports milestones. On Wednesday night, for the first time, a woman served as head coach in an N.B.A. game.When Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich was ejected after arguing with a referee in the second quarter of a game with the Los Angeles Lakers in San Antonio, he turned to his assistant, Becky Hammon, and indicated that she should take over the team.“He officially pointed at me,” Hammon said. “That was it. Said, ‘You’ve got them.’ Obviously, it’s a big deal. It’s a substantial moment.”“It was business as usual,’’ she added. “They’re used to hearing my voice in practice. In practice, Pop will put us in two teams and we’ll each have a team. So they’re kind of used to hearing me out there, seeing me draw a play on the board or whatnot.”Although not much was made of the milestone during the game, which the Lakers won, 121-107, reaction poured out afterward and on social media.“It’s a beautiful thing just to hear her barking out calls, barking out sets,” said LeBron James of the Lakers. “She’s very passionate about the game. So congrats to her, congrats to our league.”Hammon, 43, played for 16 years in the W.N.B.A., where she was a six-time All Star. After being passed over for the U.S. Olympic team, she represented Russia, where she had also played professionally, in the 2008 and 2012 Games.In 2014, she becoming the first full-time female assistant coach in the league. At the time, she said of Popovich: “Honestly, I don’t think he gives two cents that I’m a woman. And I don’t want to be hired because I’m a woman.” She was head coach of the Spurs’ Las Vegas Summer League team three time, winning the title in 2015.Hammon’s trailblazing in the league has prompted speculation that she will one day be a head coach, and she has been reported to be a candidate for several top jobs in the past, most recently the Indiana Pacers.“The future is bright for her,” said Dejounte Murray of the Spurs after the game. “I hope she just sticks to it and doesn’t give up. One day it may happen, it may not happen, who knows, but she’s definitely on the right road.”Hammon sought to keep the focus on her duties.“I’m just in the moment with the guys,’’ she said. “Trying to figure out what’s the best way to help them.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Julius Randle Is Causing Something Rare: Excitement for the Knicks
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonA Year of Kobe and LeBronThe Warriors Are StrugglingMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKeeping ScoreJulius Randle Is Causing Something Rare: Excitement for the KnicksAfter the Knicks’ seven consecutive losing seasons, Randle’s strong play is fueling a good start — and hope among fans.Julius Randle, who had a triple double against the Cavaliers on Tuesday night, ranks in the top 20 in the N.B.A. in points, rebounds and assists per game after four games.Credit…Tony Dejak/Associated PressDec. 30, 2020Updated 1:01 p.m. ETYou can count the games each N.B.A. team has played so far on a single hand. But since when has a small sample size ever stopped fans, especially Knicks fans, from being excited?The Knicks, coming off seven consecutive losing seasons, have started this one 2-2 after defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers, 95-86, on Tuesday night. Before the season started, New York was widely considered one of the weakest teams in the league, if not the weakest. While no one is talking playoffs yet, there is plenty of early excitement, especially because of Julius Randle.A 6-foot-8 power forward, Randle had a triple double against the Cavaliers, his first since 2018. And it wasn’t an outlier. Randle ranks in the top 20 in the league in points, rebounds and assists per game (14th, 12th and 10th). The only other player to do so is Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets. Only one player did it last season, Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, a leading candidate to be this season’s most valuable player.Randle is also ranking in the top 20 in a host of other categories, but two of those do give pause. He ranks third in turnovers with 20, including an ugly nine against the Cavaliers on Tuesday. And he ranks third in 3-point percentage at .692.Wait, he’s hitting his 3s? How is that a problem? Because that gaudy percentage is, of course, unsustainable — the N.B.A. record for a season is .536. And unless Randle has miraculously become a long-distance sharpshooter, his percentage is likely to tumble quite a bit. In his career, he has shot only .304 from distance, and last season he shot .277. Once the 3s start to clang, as they must, some of Randle’s other numbers will start to slip.The Knicks as a team lead the N.B.A. in 3-point percentage at .459; that’s after ranking 27th in that category last season. And their opponents’ 3s have not been falling. The Knicks have surrendered a 3-point percentage of .244, best in the league. While some of that must be credited to New York’s defense, some again is most likely a result of bad luck for opponents.Under their new coach, Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks are still not taking many 3s; they rank next to last in the league at 27.3 attempts per game, about the same as last season. But they are doing much better at steering clear of the most dreaded shot in the league, the long 2: Last season, they ranked third in 2-point shots taken from 16 feet or more; this season so far they rank 21st.The Knicks are also leaning on Randle quite a bit so far, maybe too much. He leads the team at 37.8 minutes per game. That is sixth in the league, and five more minutes than his career high.Caveats aside, Randle is indisputably producing so far. His win shares per 48 minutes, a statistic that endeavors to sum up all of a player’s contributions, is 0.194, according to Basketball Reference, comfortably ahead of last season’s 0.062.Randle was taken seventh over all by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2014 out of Kentucky, and played with them for four seasons, gradually coming into his own. He left as a free agent and averaged 20 points a game for the first time in his one season with the New Orleans Pelicans, then moved on to the Knicks for 2019-20.If the Knicks are to have a breakthrough season, as their most fevered supporters are already hoping, they will need more than just Randle and a shower of successful 3s. So far the other Knicks seem to be on board, with shooting guard RJ Barrett, point guard Elfrid Payton and swingman Reggie Bullock all averaging a few points more per game than last season.The team also added the veteran Alec Burks, and though he missed Tuesday’s game with an ankle injury, he is averaging what would be a career high of 21 points, helped by an impressive 10-for-15 mark on 3-point attempts.Before this season, oddsmakers predicted the Knicks would win about 21 of their 72 scheduled games. Say what you want about sample size, but the team is almost 10 percent of the way there.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
