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Gail Miller, whose family has owned the Utah Jazz for 35 years, has agreed to sell a majority interest in the franchise to Ryan Smith, the co-founder of Qualtrics, a Utah-based software company.Miller, 77, who along with her late husband Larry bought a 50 percent stake in the Jazz in May 1985, announced the agreement Wednesday. The sale includes the majority interest in the Jazz, Vivint Smart Home Arena, the Salt Lake City Stars of the N.B.A. G League and management of the Class AAA Salt Lake Bees minor league baseball team. ESPN reported a purchase price of $1.66 billion.“After much soul searching, lengthy discussions and extensive evaluations of our long-term goals, my family and I decided this was the right time to pass our responsibility and cherished stewardship of 35 years to Ryan and Ashley, who share our values and are committed to keeping the team in Utah,” Miller, in a statement, said of Smith and his wife.Smith, 42, is a Utah native and longtime Jazz fan. Qualtrics, which SAP bought for $8 billion in January 2019, became the team’s jersey sponsor in the 2017-18 season but opted to put a patch for the cancer research campaign “5 For The Fight” on the jersey rather than the company’s logo.Larry Miller, a successful car dealer in Utah, purchased the first 50 percent stake for $8 million in 1985 and the remaining 50 percent of the Jazz for $14 million in 1986, quelling fears that the team would relocate to Miami or Minnesota. Led by Coach Jerry Sloan and the ultra-durable star duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton, Utah quickly established itself under Miller’s stewardship as one of the league’s steadiest franchises.Under the Millers, Utah accumulated nine division titles and made two trips to the N.B.A. finals, in 1996-97 and 1997-98, losing both to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. The Jazz have won only four playoff series since their trip to the Western Conference finals in 2006-7, but they continue to be regarded as one of the league’s well-run franchises, led by the team president Dennis Lindsey and Coach Quin Snyder.Smith, though, will have some significant decisions to make early in his ownership tenure, once approved. Both of Utah’s All-Stars — guard Donovan Mitchell and center Rudy Gobert — are eligible for lucrative contract extensions heading into the new season.The Jazz endured a tumultuous 2019-20 season after Gobert’s positive coronavirus test on March 11 before a game in Oklahoma City led to the N.B.A.’s shutdown. Mitchell subsequently tested positive as well, leading to tension within Utah’s locker room about Gobert’s self-described “careless” behavior in the days preceding the positive tests. Utah appeared to recover during the N.B.A. restart at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., and took a 3-1 series lead over Denver in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, only to suffer an agonizing defeat.Another challenge for Smith will be ensuring that there are no repeats of the March 2019 incident in which Russell Westbrook, then playing for Oklahoma City, was racially abused by a fan courtside. The Jazz banned the fan for life in response and another fan for a separate incident involving Westbrook during the 2018 playoffs, but Utah’s fans remain under scrutiny after Mitchell was met with some hostility in June in the wake of an Instagram post in recognition of Juneteenth.“There’s a certain stigma — there’s no secret about that in Utah — and obviously the comments didn’t help,” Mitchell said in July. “But us as athletes want it to be known that we won’t stand for any of the racism and whatever else comes with it.” More

More Than a Vote, the collective of athletes headlined by the basketball star LeBron James, on Wednesday will introduce its final political push before Election Day, a rapid response and advertisement operation meant to combat the spread of misinformation among younger Black voters.The initiative, which is a collaboration with the political group Win Black and includes some celebrity partners, will seek to educate younger Black voters on how to spot false political statements spreading on social media. The goal is to provide advice that culminates in young people making a plan to vote — either by absentee ballot or in person.Called “Under Review,” the effort will be featured on Snapchat through Election Day, and will include videos from celebrities and activists like Desus and Mero, Jemele Hill and the athletes involved in More Than a Vote.It comes after the group has invested in recruiting more than 40,000 poll workers, helping formerly incarcerated people regain their voting rights and aiding the push for N.B.A. arenas to be converted into polling locations.In a statement, the co-founders of Win Black said the videos would take on political misinformation targeted at suppressing the Black vote, a problem that federal agencies identified in the 2016 presidential election.“Harmful disinformation is being weaponized to block the voices and votes of Black Americans — but we have the power to stop it,” said the co-founders, Andre Banks and Ashley Bryant. “Through this partnership, Under Review will urgently flood the zone with the facts we need to counter the targeted attacks coming from bad actors at home and abroad.”In a phone interview with The New York Times, Mr. James discussed the importance of voting, and how he sees his evolving role as both an athlete and a social activist. Mr. James, who as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers recently won his fourth N.B.A. championship, framed off-the-court activism as a key part of how he views his legacy. More

Finally — finally — the N.B.A. off-season is here. Sure, it’s October, months removed from when the off-season would typically begin if there wasn’t a pandemic. And of course, the Los Angeles Lakers are still trying to figure out if they can throw a Zoom championship parade after conquering the Walt Disney World bubble.(They can. But you just know that J.R. Smith would forget to mute himself during LeBron James’s speech.)This means that 30 N.B.A. teams are about to reload, retool or reset through trades, free agency and the draft, though the league still needs to sort out the financial impact of the pandemic and set the salary cap for next season.The Western Conference is a particularly tough nut to crack. The Lakers won the championship and should be assumed to be the favorites to win again, given their dominant playoff run. But other teams with young stars might have something to say about that.So for all the general managers out there, we have some suggestions for one thing every team in the West needs to do this off-season.The ContendersLos Angeles LakersAnthony Davis has a player option this off-season, and if the Lakers persuade him to sign an extension, that’s a success. With Davis and LeBron James, the team would remain title favorites even with Statler, Waldorf and me rounding out the starting lineup.Los Angeles ClippersThe Clippers were an expensive Hollywood production with A-list stars meant to win it all during awards season. But instead, they were upstaged by less established talent. In other words, they were Netflix’s “The Irishman.”Their path forward is not ideal: They probably won’t have much cap space. Montrezl Harrell, the sixth man of the year, and Marcus Morris are unrestricted free agents. They don’t have a first-round draft pick, and their two stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, can leave after the 2020-21 season.The Clippers have to bank on one thing: fixing their chemistry. It was an issue all season, so in theory, a new coach could come along and mend that, given Leonard and George’s talent.Denver NuggetsThe Nuggets are in one of the better positions in the league: Their franchise cornerstone, Nikola Jokic, is locked up through 2022-23. He has a solid, if inconsistent, secondary player in Jamal Murray, signed through 2023-24. They have some big contracts coming off the books, freeing cap space.But their most crucial move might be right under their noses. Jerami Grant was a solid contributor on both ends and can test the free-agent market. The Nuggets would do well to keep him.Golden State WarriorsAll the Warriors have to do this off-season is wrap Stephen Curry in cellophane. If the Warriors are healthy next season — this means a rested Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — Golden State will be a solid title contender.The MaybesHouston RocketsThe Rockets need to surround James Harden and Russell Westbrook with shooting. They showed that their miniball style can work, but Westbrook’s jump shooting woes became an issue in the postseason, and Houston needs someone to take the pressure off Harden.The Rockets, with no cap space, will have to solve this either through trade or free agency on the cheap. Kyle Korver and Isaiah Thomas might fit the bill here offensively, but defensively — yikes.Oklahoma City ThunderThis is an attractive franchise: a bevy of future draft picks, compelling young talent like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a head coach opening. And Chris Paul, at 35, showed he was still one of the best point guards in the game.There is not much for the Thunder to do, other than try to hit home runs with their two late-first-round draft picks. Relax and enjoy the ride. See the light at the end of the tunnel. They do not have enough cap space to attract a top-tier free agent to play alongside Paul. The team’s most tradable asset is Steven Adams, who has a roughly $27.5 million expiring contract. But the team is best off letting it expire rather than taking on other contracts. Be as competitive as you can until 2021-22, when you will have cap space, draft picks and maybe Paul to make a legitimate run.Utah JazzThe Jazz are capped out, both in salary and their talent ceiling. They’re not good enough to play with the Lakers, but they’re not bad enough to get lottery picks. Rudy Gobert has a $27.5 million expiring contract, and given his pandemic-related tensions with Donovan Mitchell, it’s worth asking whether the team would be better off with a center who can space the floor.Dallas MavericksUpgrade defensively. They’ll have their midlevel exception and a first-round draft pick to do so. They have two franchise blue chips in Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, but the team was 18th defensively last season. (A caveat: Porzingis just had surgery to repair a meniscus injury in his right knee. He has had trouble staying healthy for most of his career, but he really showed his potential in the playoffs.)Bonus: Give Boban Marjanovic more playing time. Because the world is suffering and we need a smile.Portland Trail BlazersThis team barely got to an eighth seed, an underwhelming campaign. But if Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins can be healthy for a full season, the Blazers will be formidable. Maybe. Or Portland can hope that an opposing star insults Damian Lillard’s rap talents, fueling an aggrieved run for the ages.Memphis GrizzliesPoke the bear. Constantly remind Ja Morant that one basketball writer out of 100 did not choose him to win the Rookie of the Year Award. Text him every morning. Mention it at every practice. Send him an accidental email with the subject line: “Man, I wish we had Zion Williamson. He might’ve had a better rookie year.”Phoenix SunsMove the team’s home arena to Walt Disney World, where the Suns went 8-0 in the bubble. Aside from that, the Suns are one of the few teams with lots of cap space and a lottery pick. It’s a less top-heavy draft class than usual, but Danilo Gallinari and Montrezl Harrell are legitimate free-agent targets for them.The Maybe-NotsSan Antonio SpursPromise Coach Gregg Popovich that he won’t have to do any more sideline interviews, and the Spurs will go 82-0. Aside from that, much of their off-season will hinge on whether DeMar DeRozan will opt in for the final year of his contract. The Spurs should hope he stays. Under the radar, DeRozan has played some of the best basketball of his career in San Antonio.Sacramento KingsTrade Buddy Hield, who has not so subtly suggested he wants out of Sacramento, and hand the keys over to Bogdan Bogdanovic, a restricted free agent. Hield is a young, talented guard on a reasonable contract who can net the Kings some assets. If this drags on, the Kings will lose leverage.New Orleans PelicansFind the right coach for Zion Williamson. Players are more likely than ever to force their way off teams, even when locked into contracts. Any year of Williamson’s prime squandered with a coach who doesn’t mesh with him is an invitation for Williamson to try to leave when he can, as LeBron James did in Cleveland.Minnesota TimberwolvesMinnesota has the No. 1 pick in the draft, as well as a Nets first-rounder. The Timberwolves have one of the best young players in the league, with Karl-Anthony Towns, and a talented guard beside him, D’Angelo Russell. Minnesota cannot whiff on the first pick. Go get James Wiseman. His athleticism will allow him to play three positions on the floor and Minnesota needs both wing and frontcourt help. More

The Los Angeles Clippers are hiring Tyronn Lue as their new head coach, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.The Clippers on Wednesday were finalizing a five-year contract with Lue to install him as the successor to Doc Rivers, according to the people, who were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. Lue was en route to Los Angeles, one of the people said, after spending the past three days in Houston interviewing for the Rockets’ coaching vacancy.Lue spent the past season as the top assistant on Rivers’s staff after negotiations for him to become the Los Angeles Lakers’ head coach collapsed in May 2019.The Lakers and Lue were closing in on a three-year deal worth about $20 million when Lue walked away from the negotiations, dismayed both by the relatively short term that the Lakers had offered and their insistence on choosing the assistant coaches for Lue’s staff.Lue thought that, after winning a championship in Cleveland in 2016, he should have received a longer deal and the latitude to choose his own staff. The Lakers turned to Frank Vogel after the negotiations with Lue dissolved and, under Vogel, the team won its first championship since 2010.With the Clippers, Lue will become the league’s eighth active coach with at least one championship ring, joining Dallas’s Rick Carlisle, Golden State’s Steve Kerr, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, Toronto’s Nick Nurse, Vogel and Rivers, who was recently hired by the Philadelphia 76ers.Rivers is one of the league’s most respected coaches — and leaders — but lost his job with the Clippers last month after their second-round playoff collapse against the Denver Nuggets. That was the third time in Rivers’s coaching career that his team had lost a best-of-seven playoff series after taking a lead of three games to one. It happened twice with the Clippers.Steve Ballmer, the Clippers’ free-spending and title-hungry owner, decided that a new voice was needed despite Rivers’s stature, according to a person familiar with the Clippers’ thinking who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. In Lue, Ballmer has secured a replacement who is accustomed to coaching with the burden of expectations: Lue replaced the ousted David Blatt in Cleveland when the Cavaliers were leading the Eastern Conference with a record of 30-11 in January 2016.Lue and the Cavaliers, led by LeBron James, then won the first major championship in Cleveland in 52 years with a comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Golden State Warriors, who had a league-record 73 wins in the regular season.The Clippers have never reached the conference finals as a franchise, and their two stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, are under contract for only one more guaranteed season before both can return to free agency.The arrivals of Leonard and George in July 2019 seemingly made the latest incarnation of the Clippers the franchise’s most viable title threat, but they could not build on the early promise of victories over the Lakers in marquee television games on opening night and on Christmas Day.Lue will be tasked with establishing the chemistry that Rivers couldn’t produce and with helping George bounce back from the considerable criticism he received for a number of subpar playoff performances.Lue, 43, won two championships as a lightly used reserve guard with the Lakers in 2000 and 2001 and posted a 128-77 record in two and a half seasons as James’s coach with the Cavaliers. After James joined the Lakers through free agency in July, Cleveland started the 2018-19 season with an 0-6 record and dismissed Lue. More

Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, is stepping down from his post on Nov. 1, he announced Thursday.Morey said managing the Rockets was “the most gratifying experience of my professional life” and that he was confident Houston would “continue to perform at the highest level.”The move came after the Rockets were knocked out of the N.B.A. playoffs in the second round and more than a year after Morey shared an image on Twitter in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The tweet upended relations between the N.B.A. and the Chinese government. China’s state-run television network did not broadcast any N.B.A. games from then until Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals last Friday night.Morey’s tweet, on Oct. 4, 2019, got an immediate rebuke from Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the Rockets, who said in a post on Twitter: “Listen….@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets.”Shortly after the tweet, Commissioner Adam Silver said the Chinese government demanded that Morey lose his job, a request he said he denied. Several Chinese sponsors, including the shoe company Li-Ning and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Credit Card Center, suspended their partnerships with the Rockets. In the wake of the controversy, Fertitta referred to Morey as “the best general manager in the league.”In an interview, Morey and Fertitta declined to answer questions about the China uproar and abruptly ended the interview after receiving questions about it. Morey did say the decision to leave Houston was his own. Fertitta said their relationship was not affected by the Hong Kong tweet. “We’ve never had a cross word over it,” he said.Morey said their relationship had “been great the whole time” and that he was not leaving because of a disagreement over the team’s strategy or direction.Morey was an aggressive dealmaker who made 77 trades during his 13-plus years in charge, and he had been at the forefront of the rising use of advanced statistics in N.B.A. front offices over the past decade.In September, shortly after Houston’s elimination from the playoffs, Fertitta said that Morey’s job was “safe” and that he was sure Morey would “pick the right head coach” after Coach Mike D’Antoni’s contract expired.In a statement on Thursday, Fertitta praised Morey as a “brilliant innovator who helped the Rockets become a perennial contender.”Morey was named the league’s executive of the year in the 2017-18 season and has been the general manager of the franchise since May 2007. His rise in the basketball world was considered unusual at the time. He had been a front office executive for the Boston Celtics, but had never played or coached professional basketball, nor had he been a scout. His background was in consulting.Morey is credited with bringing to the N.B.A. the basketball equivalent of “Moneyball,” a way of building team rosters based on advanced statistics. He co-founded the M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is held yearly and has grown into a large event attracting those connected to basketball far beyond statistics. In 2018, former President Barack Obama was a speaker.The Rockets have made the playoffs 10 times during Morey’s tenure as general manager. They made the Western Conference finals twice — in 2015 and 2018, each time being foiled by the Golden State Warriors. Morey developed a penchant for making unconventional moves, such as trading away a young, talented center in Clint Capela in February in an effort to play an entirely small lineup. The 2017-18 Rockets put a scare into the Warriors, taking a 3-2 series lead in the conference finals before succumbing to one of the most talented rosters in N.B.A. history in seven games.Morey was also able to acquire superstars, often for a bargain, such as James Harden and Chris Paul, in addition to finding undervalued talent. He gained a reputation as one of the best front office executives in the league, despite the Rockets never getting to the N.B.A. finals. In 2018, Morey was heavily pursued to take over the Philadelphia 76ers, but he ultimately declined their offer.His resignation comes at an awkward time for the franchise: The team is in the process of hiring a new coach and has begun interviews. Houston has not yet announced Morey’s successor, but the strong expectation is that Rafael Stone, the team’s executive vice president for basketball operations and longtime general counsel, will take over, according to the person briefed on the decision. More

China Central Television, the state-run TV network, announced Friday that it would televise an N.B.A. game for the first time since a dispute with the league began last fall after a team executive expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.The move suggested a softening of tensions between the N.B.A. and China that the league estimated had cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and that elicited criticism from fans and politicians.The change was to begin with Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat on Friday night.“On the morning of October 10, the channel of CCTV Sports will broadcast the fifth game of the N.B.A. finals,” the network said in a post in Chinese on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. “Welcome everyone to watch at the time!”In a separate statement in Chinese, a spokesperson for the China Media Group, which oversees CCTV, said: “In the Chinese National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival that just passed, the N.B.A. expressed holiday blessings to Chinese fans. We have also noticed the good will continuously expressed by the N.B.A. for some time. Especially since the beginning of this year, the N.B.A. has made active efforts in supporting the Chinese people in fighting against the novel coronavirus epidemic.”It was unclear whether the network would resume broadcasting regular-season games next season.A spokesman for the N.B.A. did not respond to a request for comment.The N.B.A. had not been completely off the air in China, and there had been signs that the icy relationship was thawing. Tencent, a streaming network in China, had been airing up to three games a night during the regular season. After the death of Kobe Bryant in January, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, posted a Twitter tribute to Bryant, who was one of the most popular athletes in the country. In February, Huang Ping, the Chinese consul general, publicly thanked the N.B.A. at a news conference in New York for donating $1.4 million to help fight the spread of the coronavirus in China.Even so, CCTV’s airing of a finals game indicated a formal normalizing of relationships between the two entities. Joe Tsai, the owner of the Nets and co-founder of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, told Bloomberg Businessweek in January, “Once you are on the air, everything will come back.”The conflict began on Oct. 4, 2019, when Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, shared an image on Twitter that said “FIGHT FOR FREEDOM STAND WITH HONG KONG,” just days before the Nets and Los Angeles Lakers were to play preseason games in mainland China.The backlash was immediate.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver later said that he had rejected a demand from the Chinese government to fire Morey. But criticism came domestically as well, after the league issued a statement calling it “regrettable” that Morey’s views “deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China.” Several prominent American politicians, like Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, have criticized the N.B.A.’s continued business relationship with the authoritarian country.In September, Silver told CNN during a live event: “At the end of the day, I think those are decisions for our government, in terms of where American businesses should operate. I continue to believe that the people-to-people exchanges we’re seeing by playing in China are positive.”Protesters began to appear at N.B.A. games when the regular season began. The league’s relationship with China came under more scrutiny in July, when ESPN reported about abuse at N.B.A.-sponsored basketball academies there, a partnership that the league announced it would be “re-evaluating.”The N.B.A. has long made global expansion — particularly into China, where it now has more fans than in the U.S. — a core part of its mission. In 1979, the Washington Bullets became the first N.B.A. team to travel there, playing exhibition games against the Chinese national team. The scoreboard referred to the team as the “American Bullets.”In the late 1980s, David Stern, the former league commissioner who died in January, negotiated a deal with CCTV to begin airing games in China. In 1994, the N.B.A. finals were broadcast there live for the first time. A decade later, the league held a preseason game in Beijing for the first time. By then, Yao Ming had entered the N.B.A. and become a dominant figure both on the court and culturally in the U.S. and China, his home country.Stern, in a 2006 interview with Sports Illustrated, acknowledged that China’s repressive human rights record concerned him, but he added: “At the end of the day I have a responsibility to my owners to make money. I can never forget that, no matter what my personal feelings might be.”David Chen and Claire Fu contributed reporting. More

They will not say her name. Not now, after what these players have been through. It is important not to give her recognition.Think of it as protest jujitsu.The W.N.B.A. finals have begun. On Sunday, the Seattle Storm defeated the Las Vegas Aces, 104-91, to take a two-games-to-none lead in their best-of-five series. Game 3 is Tuesday night.In its 24th year, the women’s league has some of the most incandescent players in basketball but still struggles for broad recognition and respect. In this strange season, which unfolded in a Florida arena without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic, the minimalist environment has provided a bright backdrop for the league’s evolving talent to shine.The legacy of the 2020 season, however, will not only be about on-court action and a championship won. It will also be about the W.N.B.A.’s continued leadership in the battle for human rights.In no way has this been clearer than in how its players have responded to brackish bullying from an unexpected source: the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia.When they talk about her, they refuse to name her.Think back to June, to the raw-edged days after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. As the nation reeled and launched into self-examination, the W.N.B.A. was among the first professional leagues to say its upcoming season would be devoted to pushing for social justice and promoting the Black Lives Matter movement.That was not a surprise. Nearly 70 percent of the league’s players are Black and a significant number of its stars are lesbian. They are women who know all too well the full brunt of discrimination. That is why they have been leaders in the justice fight for so long.Nor was it a surprise when they faced blowback.The surprise was that the blowback came from within. To be specific, from one of the league’s most influential voices, Loeffler, a Republican who is running to keep her seat in the Nov. 3 election.Loeffler reacted by publicly scoffing at the league’s pledge to double down on social justice support in 2020. She scorned the decision to cover player jerseys with the slogan “Say Her Name,” meant to call attention to the deaths of Black women like Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police.In a letter to the W.N.B.A.’s commissioner, Loeffler wrote, “I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement,” before listing a series of inaccurate claims, including that it “promoted violence and destruction across the country.”There was a method to Loeffler’s obstinate stance. She has been engaged in a hard-nosed battle for Republican voters in a conservative state. To gild her bona fides with the far right in her party, she cribbed from a well-worn playbook used by President Trump: To show toughness, verbally attack Black athletes and draw them into a fight.Even if it meant attacking everything that the players on her team — along with the entire league — have stood for.But things have not turned out as she planned. With each of the league’s dozen teams sequestered on a sports training campus near Tampa Bay, the players huddled together. They knew the W.N.B.A. commissioner’s office had denounced Loeffler’s views. They also understood that their cash-compromised league was not exactly in a prime position to demand she put her 49 percent stake in the Dream up for sale. Amid a pandemic and widespread economic calamity, who would be the buyer?So the players strategized, and took her on in their typically thoughtful manner.“We realized, ‘Oh, she wants us to get mad,’” said Sue Bird, Seattle’s veteran guard, remembering the moment as we spoke last week by telephone. “She wants us to try and kick her out. That would give her more attention. This is what she wants.”“We had to find a better way.”Instead of meeting force with force, providing fodder that would only fuel Loeffler’s campaign, the players decided to work around her.Just like jujitsu.Their first move was both decisive and quietly aggressive: In interviews, public pronouncements and on social media, they decided to stop saying the Atlanta co-owner’s name.They refused to give her the dignity.“Words are things,” said Nneka Ogwumike, the Los Angeles Sparks forward who is president of the league’s players’ association, as she walked me through the strategy. “Words have power. And to give energy to a name I think is very meaningful. So, we stopped saying that name.”The next move was more to the point.It began with leaguewide video calls featuring a cast of advisers including Michelle Obama and Stacey Abrams, who in her bid to become governor of Georgia in 2018 nearly became the first Black woman to be elected governor anywhere in the United States. The discussions centered on politics and power.The players began vetting Loeffler’s political opponents in the upcoming election, looking for a way to insert themselves into a race that could end up altering the balance of congressional power. They homed in on one candidate: The Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and a pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was co-pastor.Once Warnock addressed the players over Zoom, there was no doubt. “It was clear to us immediately,” Bird told me. “He stands for everything that we stand for. You could literally go down the line of all the things we care about, and we were aligned with him. It was like, ‘Wow, we want this guy in the Senate. This is the candidate that we want in the Senate.’ ”Within days, nearly everyone in the league began showing up for their nationally televised games wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with two words: Vote Warnock.That kind of mass support for a single candidate opened a new chapter in the annals of athlete protests.“It’s unprecedented,” said Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University who specializes in race, sports and gender. Davis noted the many examples of individual athletes supporting politicians. That’s been the tradition in sports.“But this is different,” she said. “The coordination. The strategic part. The specificity, taking the time to meet a candidate and then to back that candidate as a group. That has never happened before.”After the player push, the Warnock campaign said it experienced a significant boost in enthusiasm and financial support: A spokesman said $236,000 flowed to the campaign in the days after the T-shirt endorsement began. Though it is impossible to draw a direct correlation with the W.N.B.A.’s activism, at least one major poll shows Warnock surging ahead of Loeffler and the other candidates for the first time.This Senate race is far from over. If no candidate gets a majority of votes, there will be a runoff in January with the top two vote-getters.“If Warnock wins and the byproduct is that a certain someone is not in the Senate, then, hey, we’re all happy,” said Bird, refusing, of course, to say that certain someone’s name.No matter how this season or the election turns out, women’s professional basketball has once again helped lead the way. This time by showing the best way to work around a bully. More

BRADENTON, Fla. — Breanna Stewart and an unselfish offense have the Seattle Storm on the verge of another W.N.B.A. championship.Stewart scored 22 points to lead five Storm players in double figures in a 104-91 victory over the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday in Game 2 of the best-of-five finals. The Storm will try to win their second title in three years on Tuesday night.“This is our moment to really finish the series and take home the championship,” Stewart said.The Storm, champions in 2004, 2010 and 2018, know it won’t be easy to close out the series.“Stay in the moment. They are good. The score doesn’t indicate it,” said Sue Bird, who ran the show on all three of the Storm’s titles.Two days after she set the W.N.B.A. finals and playoffs record with 16 assists, Bird, 39, had 10 to go along with 16 points. The team had 33 assists to set a W.N.B.A. championship-round record.“Having high assists isn’t abnormal for us,” said Alysha Clark, who added 21 points. “Thirty-three is amazing. Goes to show the unselfishness of everyone on the floor and the confidence we have in one another. Pass up a good shot to get a great shot. When you do those things, 33 assists happen. Wow.”Natasha Howard also had 21 and Jordin Canada added 10 off the bench to go along with Stewart, Bird and Clark’s double-digit efforts.“Our performance today was better than Game 1 having a balanced approach,” Stewart said.The Storm took over after Las Vegas had rallied from a 13-point deficit in the first half to take a 65-64 lead with 3 minutes 22 seconds left in the third quarter. Seattle scored 22 of the next 30 points over the next six minutes to go up double-digits again with Jewell Loyd ending the burst with a 3-pointer that made it 86-73 with just under seven minutes left.A’ja Wilson had 20 points to lead Las Vegas, while Angel McCoughtry and Emma Cannon added 17 each. Cannon provided a spark off the bench for the Aces, who were missing the sixth woman of the year, Dearica Hamby, with a knee injury. The Aces had 15 turnovers to the dismay of Coach Bill Laimbeer.“We’re our own worst enemies sometimes,” he said. “Our turnovers hurt us badly. They are a fine basketball team, and you can’t make those type of blunders against them.”Laimbeer’s team faced two elimination games against Connecticut in the semifinals before winning both to reach the championship round.“Our focus is winning one game,” he said.Trailing by 6 at the half, Las Vegas made a run to take a 53-52 lead on Kayla McBride’s 3-pointer early in the third quarter. The Aces led, 65-64, with 3:22 left in the period before the Storm closed with an 11-3 burst.Seattle held a 48-42 halftime lead behind 12 points from Stewart and Clark. The Storm, who had 17 assists on their 18 baskets, built the lead to 13 before Las Vegas rallied to the 6-point halftime deficit. More