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      Denver Nuggets Role Players Get to Be Stars, Too

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      The Nuggets can sweep the Lakers in the Western Conference finals, and it’s not just because of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. The role players have been just as important.LOS ANGELES — To win a championship in the N.B.A., a team almost always needs at least one transcendent player.But the championship journey will also depend on how well a team’s role players do their jobs.The Lakers, with 17 titles, know this well. Would they have won in 2010 without Metta Sandiford-Artest, or in 2002 without Robert Horry? Shaquille O’Neal, who won three championships for the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, often talks about the importance of the “others” — the players who aren’t stars.The Lakers franchise has found itself on the unpleasant side of the calculus this year. In the Western Conference finals against Denver, Los Angeles has the weaker supporting cast. The Nuggets, who lead the best-of-seven series, 3-0, are not just beating the Lakers with the talents of Nikola Jokic, a two-time N.B.A. most valuable player, or Jamal Murray, their dynamic guard. Aaron Gordon’s toughness, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s poise, Bruce Brown’s versatility and Michael Porter Jr.’s persistence are helping them get it done.On Monday, the Nuggets will try to complete a sweep of the Lakers to go to the franchise’s first N.B.A. finals. There have certainly been moments when Jokic and Murray have carried Denver, but a critical part of the Nuggets’ success is that they haven’t always had to do that. When Murray and Jokic ebb, the team’s role-players flow, and together they beat back any tide the Lakers have sent at them.Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said forward Aaron Gordon had “checked his ego” to fulfill his role for the team.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“There’s a lot of guys that can go get it,” Gordon said. “So we just go with the hot guy.”Jokic is the engine that powers the Nuggets, but Gordon also called him “one of the most unselfish basketball players.” Jokic is averaging a triple-double in the playoffs, with 29.9 points, 13.2 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game. But even when he isn’t at his best, his mere presence changes the game. That happened on Saturday, in the Nuggets’ 119-108 win in Game 3 with the Lakers. Jokic had just 5 points and 2 rebounds at halftime, then got into foul trouble by committing his fourth less than halfway through the third quarter.“There wasn’t a panic,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “It was: ‘OK, he’s out. That means somebody else has to step up.’ I think that’s something our team has done time and time again.”The Nuggets’ players have not just accepted roles that require them to defer to others, but embraced them in service of winning a championship. Jokic was the team’s only All-Star this year and no Nugget made an All-Defensive team; Jokic has never played with someone who made those teams while playing with him.On Saturday, Caldwell-Pope scored 12 points in a critical third quarter when Jokic was in foul trouble and Murray had cooled off after scoring 30 points in the first half.The last time Caldwell-Pope played in the Western Conference finals, it was 2020 and he was a Laker tasked with defending Murray. The Lakers beat Denver to win the West, then bested Miami to win the title. Caldwell-Pope knows what it will take for Denver to win this year.“We’re No. 1 in the West for a reason,” Caldwell-Pope said. “I believed it from the jump that we could win a championship. That was everybody’s mind-set. We knew how we could jell together and play together.”Bruce Brown had 15 points for Denver off the bench in Game 3.Ashley Landis/Associated PressDenver’s Jeff Green, who played 23 minutes on Saturday, has been on nine teams in the past eight seasons. Porter, whom the Nuggets drafted in the first round in 2018, missed most of last season with a back injury. He scored 14 points and led the Nuggets with 10 rebounds on Saturday. Brown, who had 15 points off the bench, signed with Denver last summer.Gordon, drafted fourth overall by Orlando in 2014, was once best known for his impressive showing in the league’s dunk contests. His stats on Saturday didn’t look all that impressive — 7 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists — but his defensive contributions were key. He blocked a shot late in the third quarter that helped the Nuggets maintain the lead.“He has checked his ego at the door,” Malone said. “He knew coming into this year with Jamal and Michael back that his role would be different, and he never fought that.”That isn’t always the case on ambitious teams, and this N.B.A. season provided examples of the friction that can emerge. Golden State’s younger players, for example, clamored for more playing time. But Denver, which led the West for much of the season, is an example of how good it can be when the system works.“Everybody realizes when we need something, we need a spark,” Murray said. “Could be Joker, could be me, could be Bruce, Jeff off the bench — whether it’s a chase-down block or a charge or something. Everybody has something they can come in and impact the game with.”The Lakers were another example of a team that struggled to satisfy everyone in their roles this season. In February, they traded away Russell Westbrook, who had been unhappy in a bench role. He had joined the team less than two years ago in a multi-team deal that also sent Caldwell-Pope to the Washington Wizards from Los Angeles. Moving on from Westbrook was part of a larger effort to add several new role players, who have had many electrifying games. But against the Nuggets their shortcomings have been clear.The Lakers’ role players struggled in Game 3. D’Angelo Russell, left, was just 1 of 8 from the field.Ashley Landis/Associated PressThe starkest example was D’Angelo Russell, who scored just 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting in Game 3 and committed three turnovers.Lakers Coach Darvin Ham could offer only this about the performances of the Lakers’ role players: “I thought they did the best they could, all of them.”But sometimes it takes more, like what Sandiford-Artest gave the Lakers in the 2010 N.B.A. finals against Boston.In Game 7, Bryant, the team’s leading scorer during the regular season and the playoffs, made only 6 of 24 shots. The Lakers had mostly relied on Sandiford-Artest for his defense as a past defensive player of the year, but in that game he scored 20 points and hit a crucial 3-pointer with less than a minute left.On Saturday, Sandiford-Artest sat across from the Lakers’ bench, a powerful reminder of how important role players can be to win a championship. More

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      What Gilbert Arenas Wants Ja Morant to Know

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      Gilbert Arenas’s N.B.A. career never recovered after he brought guns into a locker room. Now he’s puzzled by the gun troubles of Morant, the star Memphis Grizzlies guard.Gilbert Arenas figured it was an old video. There was no way, he thought, Ja Morant could have done the same thing so soon after his mea culpa. Not with all that was at stake.“Once I realized it was a new one, there was nothing else to say,” Arenas, the former Washington Wizards star, said, adding: “The fact that you keep wanting to do the things you’re doing, then you must want to see how invincible you think you are.”Morant, a 23-year-old Memphis Grizzlies guard, is facing criticism for the second time in just over two months for a social media video that appeared to show him playfully but recklessly waving around a gun in public. The N.B.A. verified the first video, in March, but is still investigating the second, which went viral last weekend. Morant apologized Tuesday.Arenas, 41, can relate to Morant’s turmoil better than almost anyone. In the 2009-10 season, the N.B.A. suspended him for 50 games for bringing guns into his team’s locker room and mocking the situation by making finger gun gestures at a game while the league was still investigating. Arenas, who had made three All-Star teams by then, said he got in trouble in a space where he felt comfortable — perhaps too comfortable.Gilbert Arenas was a three-time All-Star before he brought guns into his team’s locker room. He now hosts the “No Chill” podcast, where he often talks about lessons from his career.Richard Perry/The New York TimesThe N.B.A. suspended Arenas after he mocked the locker room incident with finger gun gestures during a game.Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE, via Nbae, via Getty Images“It’s different for me because I am not getting in trouble in my everyday life,” Arenas said. “I’m getting trouble at my workplace. The invisible cloud that I thought I had was removed.”Morant’s trouble has played out on social media, where he has millions of followers, and with much more at stake for his career and for the N.B.A. His otherworldly athleticism has made him a nightly highlight reel with legions of fans who have made his jersey one of the league’s best sellers. Morant released his first signature shoe with Nike this year, and was leading a new advertising campaign for Powerade. He was poised to be one of the young stars the N.B.A. relies on to carry the league forward after LeBron James and Stephen Curry retire. Now all of that is in jeopardy.Two videos. Two apologies, each with Morant vowing to be better.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver suspended Morant for eight games after the first video, and said in an interview on ESPN on Tuesday that he was “shocked” when he saw the second. It’s unclear whether Morant broke any laws, but Silver, as he did in March, can suspend him for conduct deemed detrimental to the league. The Grizzlies, who were eliminated from the playoffs last month, have suspended Morant from team activities indefinitely.“He’s not only done a disservice to himself, but to the franchise,” said Larry Parnell, the director of the strategic public relations program at George Washington University. “And I think people take that more personally than they do politicians or actors who misbehave.”He explained why: “If you’re a celebrity and you make movies and I don’t like what you’re doing, I’m not emotionally attached to your movie, but I’m emotionally attached to the Celtics. I’m emotionally attached to the Grizzlies.”Arenas said that his situation contrasted with Morant’s because he was more aware that he was a public figure and acted accordingly, such as by not wearing flashy jewelry in public to avoid being robbed. “I understood I am not normal,” Arenas said.Nevertheless, Arenas’s gun incident overshadowed the rest of his N.B.A. career, which lasted only two more seasons, in part because of injuries. He was seen as immature.“I think it affected — I don’t even want to say legacy — my name,” said Arenas, who co-hosts the “Gil’s Arena” show for Underdog Fantasy. “It affected it really bad. I said it back then, where the most disappointing part of it all is I did 100 things right. I did one wrong thing and that’s all everyone remembers. That’s what really hurts you the most.”There have been other cautionary tales about star athletes and guns. Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in 2008 at a nightclub in Manhattan less than year after catching the game-winning touchdown for the Giants in the Super Bowl. He spent nearly two years in prison, and his career never recovered. In March, he was asked about Morant in an interview on “The Carton Show.”“If I was speaking to him, it would just be, ‘If you can’t learn anything, learn from me,’” Burress said. “Just make better decisions because you really don’t want for him to have that label moving forward, being that he’s so young. He has the opportunity to be the face of the N.B.A. He’s that great of a player and you want to continue to see him, you know, mature as a person as his game is getting better.”Morant, in his signature Nike sneakers, has been seen as one of the brightest young stars in the generation after LeBron James, left.Gary A. Vasquez/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConNegative reputations can be hard to shake, and the reactions to Morant’s behavior have been mixed. JJ Redick, the ESPN analyst and former N.B.A. player, has argued, like many others, that Morant shouldn’t face harsh punishment if he hasn’t broken the law. Charles Barkley, the TNT analyst and former N.B.A. player, has teed off on Morant, saying that the rules are different for public figures. Nike did not respond to a request for comment, but Morant’s shoes no longer come up in searches for his name at nike.com. A spokesperson for Powerade said the company had “no update” about Morant’s contract.Arenas lost his shoe deal with Adidas because of his gun incident. He also pleaded guilty to one count of felony gun possession and was sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house. That was more than a decade ago, but Arenas has become the go-to voice when athletes are in trouble. Still, in November, the Wizards honored him with a framed jersey at halftime of a game on “Throwback Night.”“We all throw out the word: ‘Be accountable for your actions,’” Arenas said. “But do we actually allow that person to really be accountable? When we see: ‘OK, he never touched a gun ever again. He’s never showed that same behavior to want to be around guns. Never looked at a gun.’ Why would you keep reminding the world that that’s what he did?“We want the person to change their behavior, but we don’t want to accept it when they do.” More

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      Brittney Griner Is Creating a New Normal, for Herself and the W.N.B.A.

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      PHOENIX — Brittney Griner embarked on a four-day itinerary that would disrupt anyone’s circadian rhythm.First came the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, where she was decked out in a sharp, black suit that Saturday night. President Biden pointed to her in the audience and said, “Boy, I can hardly wait to see you back on the court.”Soon she was rushing to catch a flight, landing in Phoenix at 4 a.m. for the start of W.N.B.A. training camp with the Mercury. Then she hustled back east, to New York, for her first Met Gala. She wore a sleek tan suit, and her wife, Cherelle Griner, was in a strapless white gown, both custom outfits by Calvin Klein. They mingled with A-list celebrities that night, but Brittney needed to be back in Phoenix by Tuesday afternoon for more basketball and, she had hoped, a nap.The sparkling events, time-zone hopping and overall spectacle were overwhelming but perhaps also came as a kind of relief for Brittney Griner, who spent nearly 10 months detained in Russia and returned to the United States in December as a new symbol of hope. Ensnared in a geopolitical showdown between Washington and Moscow, Griner drew attention not only to herself and to the plight of other foreign detainees but also to the financial disparities facing women in sports that had brought her to Russia in the first place.On Friday, Griner will return to the court for her first official W.N.B.A. game in 579 days. The league is not the same now, in part because of her. The issues her detention spotlighted are not new and are unlikely to be easily resolved. But she has galvanized a potent fan base and sports work force who are both eager to welcome her home and to use this moment to promote change alongside her.“We have wanted change for a long time, but now we’re really starting to demand it,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “We’re just getting a little more impatient with that and realizing that it’s an issue where we don’t have the money yet, but pushing so that really, really soon we do have the resources to be treated like the athletes we are.”A modest crowd roared for Griner this month during a preseason game, her first action since she was released from Russia.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesWhy Brittney Griner Was in RussiaRussian customs officials detained Griner at an airport near Moscow in February 2022 after finding vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage as she returned to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, a professional team that reportedly paid her at least $1 million. She was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony, but she was freed in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer, in December. The U.S. State Department said that she had been wrongfully detained.The W.N.B.A., now in its 27th season, has long watched dozens of its players go overseas during each off-season in search of higher pay, though the league has been trying to offer them additional ways to make money stateside. The maximum salary in the W.N.B.A. is about $230,000, and was half as much just a few years ago. Top players like Griner, a seven-time All-Star center, can command hundreds of thousands more from international teams. Many people were not aware of this dynamic until Griner’s detention and expressed shock and frustration on social media and on television shows.“As much as I would love to, you know, pay my light bill for the love of the game, I can’t,” Griner said last month during her first news conference since she was freed.The Associated Press reported that 67 of the league’s 144 players still played internationally this off-season, indicative of the strong pull of the opportunity to make additional income. But in light of Griner’s detention and the war in Ukraine, players eschewed the historically lucrative Russian organizations for teams in countries like Italy and Turkey. About 90 players played internationally five years ago.Collier, 26, who has played for international teams in W.N.B.A. off-seasons, said younger players gain important experience overseas. But she said she doubted she would play abroad again after Griner’s experience and because she wants to spend more time with her daughter, who will turn 1 next Thursday.“I also encourage everyone that played a part in bringing me home to continue their efforts to bring all Americans home,” Griner said in December.Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters‘That’s How You Build Household Names’W.N.B.A. officials have attributed players’ modest salaries to its historically modest — and perhaps meager — revenue and media attention. Many W.N.B.A. players have become accustomed to entering the league with less media fanfare and to at times playing before far smaller audiences than they experienced in college.“I’ve been a part of it when I was in college and it was the hottest ticket in the country,” said Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, who starred at UConn before becoming the W.N.B.A.’s career leading scorer. She continued: “How do we make the hottest ticket in the country for the best basketball players in the world in the W.N.B.A.? That, to me, it only happens in women’s sports where the adolescents get more attention than the grown-ups.”Griner, who joined the Mercury in 2013, has been a star since she became known for dunking at Baylor. At her first news conference since returning, Griner pleaded with the unusual swell of reporters to come and cover games during the season, too.“The league is a league that needs celebrity,” said Candy Lee, a professor of journalism and integrated marketing communications at Northwestern. She added: “The league can take advantage of it. The Mercury can take advantage of it.”The surge in W.N.B.A. interest because of Griner has dovetailed with broader momentum for women’s sports in recent years. The N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball championship game last month shattered records with an average of 9.9 million viewers, according to ESPN.A whirlwind few days for Griner included the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and the Met Gala, which she attended with her wife, Cherelle Griner.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesW.N.B.A. teams will play a record 40 regular-season games this year, and the league signed a multiyear deal with Scripps to televise Friday night games on the network ION. Griner’s first two regular-season games, on Friday in Los Angeles and Sunday in Phoenix against Chicago, will be nationally televised by ESPN. Viewership during the 2022 regular season rose 16 percent over the previous year, according to the league, making it the most-watched season in 14 years.Flip on the N.B.A. playoffs and you’re likely to spot a W.N.B.A. player, like Candace Parker of the Las Vegas Aces or Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings, featured prominently in a commercial. Puma recently announced the second signature shoe for the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart. Griner, who became the first openly gay athlete signed to Nike in 2014, remains with the brand, a spokesman confirmed, but the company did not answer questions about whether it planned to market her this season.A few weeks before Griner was detained, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced that the league had raised $75 million from investors that she planned to use for marketing and revamping the league’s business model.Collegiate stars like Angel Reese of Louisiana State, Paige Bueckers of UConn and Caitlin Clark of Iowa are poised to enter the league in the next few years, bringing their dynamic games, name recognition and national television exposure.“That’s why we’re putting so many marketing dollars behind some of our star players,” Engelbert said. She added: “That’s how you build household names.”Griner’s absence and images of her behind bars or in court weighed on her Phoenix teammates last year.Pool photo by Evgenia NovozheninaThe Travel DebateConcerns about Griner’s security while traveling since her detention have added to the fiery debate about travel in the W.N.B.A.Unlike in the N.B.A. or on many top men’s and women’s college teams, W.N.B.A. players fly on commercial airlines to games. It has long been a sore point for players, who have had to sleep in airports or rush to games because of delays. This year, it is widely believed that Griner will need to travel privately, though neither the Mercury nor the W.N.B.A. have disclosed her plans.“Would definitely like to make all those flights private,” Griner said. “That would be nice. Not just for me and my team, but for the whole league. We all deserve it. We work so hard. We do so much and it would be nice where we finally get to the point where we get to that point, too.”The W.N.B.A. has said that it cannot afford the tab of over $20 million a season for charter flights, even though some owners might be willing to provide them for their own teams. Charter flights are prohibited in the collective bargaining agreement between team owners and the players’ union as an unfair competitive advantage. The W.N.B.A. fined the Liberty $500,000 for secretly using charter flights to travel to some games during the 2021 season.In April, the league announced that it would have charter flights for teams playing on consecutive days during the regular season and for all playoff games. The W.N.B.A. had made exceptions in similar situations previously.“We’re going to chip away at this as we continue to build this model,” Engelbert said. “Because once you do it, you have to do it essentially for perpetuity, so we want to make sure we’re not putting the financial viability of the league at risk.”On Thursday, the W.N.B.A. players’ union announced a deal with Priority Pass to give players access to airport lounges, which could provide food, spa treatments and places to sleep. Nneka Ogwumike, the star Los Angeles forward who is president of the players’ union, said in a statement that she hoped other “partners” would see the deal as a “call to action.”In a statement, Terri Jackson, the union’s executive director, called the deal a “significant step in the right direction.”Players around the W.N.B.A. wrote to Griner and pushed for her release throughout 2022.Rebecca Noble for The New York Times‘She Impacts the World’Vince Kozar, the president of the Mercury, described an ominous cloud over the franchise last season at every practice, media session and game without Griner. Brief video clips that emerged of her in Russia showed her handcuffed or caged. The day Griner was sentenced, Mercury players came together and cried — then had to play a game. “You carried that weight of the uncertainty and the fear,” Kozar said.It finally, suddenly, parted upon Griner’s release in December. Kozar did not expect Griner to announce immediately whether she would again play in the W.N.B.A. But when she returned to the United States, she said she would play.Griner may have been the most plugged-in W.N.B.A. player last season. Players from around the league sent her letters, their only means of communicating with her. In letters with Kozar, Griner was not asking about the organization and its going-ons as much as informing him about them.“It was just a reminder that basketball was one of the things that had been taken away from her, this thing how she impacts the world that’s central to her identity, that so many of her relationships are built around,” Kozar said.Griner will lead the league in hugs this season. She scribbled autographs and posed for selfies in the tunnel of a preseason game against the Sparks in Phoenix last week. It was her first action since she’d returned. A modest crowd cheered louder than it seemed capable of during Griner’s pregame introduction. Mercury Coach Vanessa Nygaard said chills ran down her spine.Griner towered over everyone else on the court, securing her first bucket on a quick turnaround a minute into the first quarter. All right, here we go, Griner thought to herself. So much had seemed unfamiliar to her lately. Jet-setting for a living? That’s not her, she said with a laugh. But that first shot, she thought, that felt comfortable.Matt York/Associated Press More

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      What to Know About the 2023 WNBA Season

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      New superteams, new rules and Brittney Griner’s return are reshaping the league as star rookies try to make their mark.The W.N.B.A. begins its 27th season on Friday with new rules, new rosters and one big return. Here’s what to expect.Brittney Griner is back.After nearly 10 months in detention in Russia, Brittney Griner is playing basketball again.Griner’s detention clouded the W.N.B.A. season last year. She was arrested at an airport near Moscow on drug charges in February 2022, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. The league regularly paid tribute to her during the season, and her fellow players spoke out on her behalf.Brittney Griner is back with the Phoenix Mercury on a one-year contract after missing the 2022 season while she was detained in Russia.Matt York/Associated PressGriner was released in a prisoner swap in December, and after time spent recovering privately, she signed a one-year contract to return to the Phoenix Mercury.Griner played no basketball during her imprisonment and is still working to get back into game shape. “Everybody tells me to give myself grace and that it’s going to take time,” she said at a news conference in April, “but that’s the hardest thing to do for a pro athlete because we always want to be right back at our top shape.”Griner and the Mercury open their season on Friday in Los Angeles against the Sparks.Star players are joining forces.The off-season was dominated by free-agent signings and trades that established what could be two superteams: the Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces.The Liberty made three key moves: First, they traded with the Connecticut Sun for Jonquel Jones, the league’s most valuable player in 2021. Then they landed one of the top free agents: Breanna Stewart, the 2018 M.V.P., who had won two championships in Seattle. Finally, they signed the league’s active assists leader, Courtney Vandersloot. Those three join the returnees Betnijah Laney and Sabrina Ionescu, who have each made an All-Star team.Breanna Stewart was one of the top free agents. She had been with the Seattle Storm since she was drafted No. 1 overall in 2016.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesThe reigning champion Aces already featured an impressive collection of talent: last year’s M.V.P., A’ja Wilson (who also won in 2020); Chelsea Gray, the 2022 finals M.V.P.; and their fellow All-Stars, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum. And then they went and signed Candace Parker, the two-time M.V.P., two-time champion and seven-time All-Star. They also picked up the veteran Alysha Clark, who won two titles with Seattle.The rest of the league isn’t backing down from the superteams. “In the best movies, the underdog ends up on top,” Elena Delle Donne of the Washington Mystics told reporters this month.But still, the Aces and Liberty are far and away the betting favorites to win it all.Rookies look to make their mark.Some of the newest W.N.B.A. players are just weeks removed from finishing their college careers. How they make that transition will be crucial to the fortunes of their new teams.Aliyah Boston was the obvious choice of the Indiana Fever as the No. 1 overall pick in the April draft. Boston, who led South Carolina to a national title in 2022 and back to the Final Four this year, is expected to be a franchise cornerstone for the Fever as they rebuild. Though the competition she faces will be tougher in the W.N.B.A., Boston should be able to score more easily without facing the same double and triple teams she saw in college.With this year’s No. 2 pick, Minnesota drafted Diamond Miller, who led Maryland with nearly 20 points a game in the 2022-23 season. Miller is a versatile and athletic wing who should pair well with Napheesa Collier.Haley Jones, the No. 6 pick in the draft, was a leader for four years at Stanford, including the Cardinals’ 2021 title run. She slots in well on an Atlanta Dream team looking for more playmakers.New rules will add new wrinkles.The league also updated its rule book this off-season.W.N.B.A. coaches will now be able to challenge one — and only one — call per game. Coaches can ask for reviews on three kinds of calls: a foul called on their team, an out-of-bounds call, or a violation for goaltending or basket interference. Coaches will be limited to one challenge even if the challenge is successful, and even if the game goes to overtime.W.N.B.A. coaches, like Seattle’s Noelle Quinn, will have one challenge per game this season as part of series of rule changes.Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesOfficials may also now penalize players for committing a foul during a fast break without making a legitimate play on the ball. For this, a transition take foul, the offensive team will be awarded one free throw, which can be taken by any player on the floor, and the offensive team will keep control of the ball.The W.N.B.A. also has new guidelines governing sideline behavior. In an effort to limit disruptions and distractions, the league is telling players who are not in the game that they may not stand “for a prolonged period.” Players and coaches are also prohibited from “attempting to distract their opponents in an unsportsmanlike manner.” Teams could receive a delay-of-game warning or a technical foul for a violation. More

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      The Miami Heat’s Undrafted Players Are Their Secret Weapon

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      The Miami Heat have nine undrafted players — more than any other N.B.A. team. “When you’re in that position,” one player said, “you’re willing to do anything.”BOSTON — Max Strus had spent two seasons punishing defenders as a shooting guard at Lewis University, a Division II school in Romeoville, Ill., before he delivered some news to his coach that was not entirely unexpected: He wanted to transfer to a major Division I program.For the coach, Scott Trost, it was bittersweet. He was sad to see Strus go, but he also knew that Strus was ready for his next challenge.“And who’s to say if he would be where he is today if he didn’t make that move?” Trost said.On Wednesday night, seven years after he transferred to DePaul and nearly four years after he matriculated to the N.B.A. G League as an undrafted free agent, Strus was sinking 3-pointers and making defensive stops for the Miami Heat in their 123-116 victory over the Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.But perhaps the oddest part about his unlikely presence was that it was not odd at all — at least not for the Heat, who have a league-high nine undrafted players on their 17-man roster. On Wednesday, three of those players — Strus, Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin — scored 15 points each while combining to shoot 16 of 27 from the field.“I think it’s something unique that we’ve all gone through,” said Vincent, the team’s starting point guard, “and we know how difficult it can be. So we just try to motivate each other and keep each other going.”Miami Heat guard Max Strus, left, has gone from a two-way player to one of the Heat’s best 3-point shooters.Charles Krupa/Associated PressThe conference finals have coincided with pre-draft buzz of the highest (and tallest) order. On Tuesday, as N.B.A. hopefuls began to cycle through Chicago for the league’s scouting combine, the San Antonio Spurs landed the No. 1 pick in the draft, set for June 22 at Barclays Center.Barring a cosmic catastrophe, the Spurs will select Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 teenager from France and the most celebrated prospect since LeBron James. A gifted player who has size and skill, along with an innate feel for the game — yes, he really did tip-dunk his own 3-point miss earlier this season — Wembanyama could be a transformational force for the Spurs.But beyond Wembanyama and the rest of this year’s picks, teams have another roster-building option at their disposal: plumbing the pool of the undrafted, a strategy that has proved increasingly viable as basketball continues to expand its global reach and more talent rises to the surface.“When you’re in that position, you’re willing to do anything,” said Martin, who was an all-conference player at Nevada but went undrafted in 2019. “And I think more teams are starting to appreciate that.”Consider that 126 undrafted players, representing about a quarter of the league, found their way onto N.B.A. rosters this season. But no team leaned on the overshadowed, the snubbed and the slighted more than the Heat did, with undrafted players scoring a league-high 33.8 percent of the team’s points during the regular season, according to N.B.A. Advanced Stats. The Nets ranked second in that category, with undrafted players accounting for 24 percent of the team’s points.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra noted that two of his best players — Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, who has been sidelined with a broken hand since the first round — were high first-round picks. Forward Jimmy Butler, who was brilliant on Wednesday, collecting 35 points, 7 assists and 6 steals, joined the team in a sign-and-trade with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. But he was a late first-round pick, by Chicago, in 2011. In other words, the Heat like name-brand stars, too.Some teams, like Oklahoma City and San Antonio, have stockpiled draft picks through trades, but the Heat have not. Instead, Spoelstra said, the team has needed to be creative about how to fill out its roster. Many of Miami’s undrafted players have come up through its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Spoelstra said players in the G League or from overseas are often just as talented as some N.B.A. reserves.“It’s all about timing and fit, and what a player’s fortitude is,” he said, adding: “If you have a big dream and want to be challenged, we feel like this can be the place for a lot of those kinds of guys.”Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem, center, rarely plays now, in his 20th season, but he unleashed a vintage performance on April 9 with 24 points. He’s retiring after the playoffs.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAnd if Spoelstra needs any help gauging (or enhancing) that fortitude, he can turn to Udonis Haslem, a power forward who went undrafted in 2002, spent his first professional season in France and joined the Heat the following year. Now 42, Haslem has been with Miami ever since.“I think organizations are doing a better job of doing their homework and not just assuming, because a guy didn’t get drafted, that he can’t help you win,” Haslem said. “You can’t measure character or discipline or accountability at the draft combine, and a lot of those things sometimes get overlooked.”Haslem has played sparingly in recent seasons, but he has outsize influence in the locker room, including as the self-appointed dean of the undrafted. Those who are new to the team get a one-on-one conversation with Haslem, who tells them about his three championship rings and about how anything is possible. But they had better be prepared to work, because Haslem will be watching.“I take it personally when an undrafted guy comes here,” he said. “I want them to be successful because I feel like that’s a piece of my legacy.”His legacy now includes the likes of Vincent, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was early in his rehab when Joe Pasternack was hired as the team’s new coach.“The first call I got,” Pasternack said, “was from Gabe Vincent saying: ‘Coach, tell me what you need me to do. Do you need me to call the players? Set up a team meeting?’ That left an impression.”Vincent was back in uniform for the start of his senior season. But after averaging just 12.4 points a game, he landed in the G League with the Stockton Kings. A few weeks into Vincent’s first season there, Pasternack had an opening for a full-time assistant and offered him the job. Pasternack believed in Vincent as a player, but he also knew he was grinding away without any guarantees.Miami Heat guard Gabe Vincent hurt his knee in college and went undrafted.Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports Via Reuters Con“I just saw so many kids in the G League not going anywhere,” Pasternack said. “But I also thought he was such an unbelievable leader that he’d be a great assistant coach.”Vincent politely declined the offer.“I was sort of like ‘Joe, what are you talking about?’” Vincent recalled, laughing. “I don’t know why he keeps telling that story, and I’ve told him that: ‘Joe, this does not make you look good!’”Vincent signed a two-way deal with the Heat during the 2019-20 season and slowly began to work his way into the rotation. He averaged a career-high 9.4 points a game this season. He is due for a significant payday this summer as an unrestricted free agent.Strus thought he could someday make a living playing basketball in Europe. That was the goal when he was at Lewis University. It was not until his second day on campus after transferring to DePaul that his mind-set changed. Dave Leitao, who was then the team’s coach, told him that he could have a future in the N.B.A.“It was huge,” Strus said. “I’d never been told that in my life.”As a first-year pro during the 2019-20 season, Strus was cut by the Celtics and then tore his left A.C.L. in a game with the G League’s Windy City Bulls. He signed a two-way deal with the Heat the following season. On Wednesday, he grabbed the game’s final rebound.“I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity they’ve given me here,” he said. More

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      How Victor Wembanyama Could Fit on the San Antonio Spurs

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      The Spurs know a thing or two about developing talented big men. But the once-stable franchise hasn’t been good for years.Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 dynamic forward who is this year’s most prized N.B.A. prospect, cheered with his family in France as the San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 draft lottery Tuesday night. In San Antonio, fans, perhaps understandably, celebrated like they had won a championship, yelling in bars and honking car horns.An ESPN reporter who interviewed Wembanyama on television moments after the Spurs won the lottery acted as if the draft, which is next month, had already happened. “What are the San Antonio Spurs getting in Victor Wembanyama?” the reporter asked.Typically, athletes in these situations try to dismiss the idea that they will be the No. 1 pick and deflect with answers about being happy with whichever team selects them and how thankful they will be to be drafted at all.But not Wembanyama, and frankly, why would he? He isn’t a typical draft prospect, and he wasn’t going to pretend to be one, either. He didn’t deflect. He had a straightforward answer about what he could be for the Spurs.“A team player,” he said, adding: “I’m trying to win a ring ASAP, so be ready.”Here’s what to know about the Spurs and Wembanyama, the 19-year-old star of the French professional team Metropolitans 92.France and the Spurs have a long and successful connection.Tony Parker and Boris Diaw are two of the best basketball players from France to ever play in the N.B.A., and they both won championships with the Spurs under Coach Gregg Popovich.The Spurs drafted Parker with the 28th pick in the 2001 draft. He spent 17 seasons with the team, winning four titles, and he will be the first French player inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, with the ceremony scheduled for August. Parker posted a photo on Twitter of Wembanyama wearing a No. 9 Spurs jersey — Parker’s number — as a child and wrote, “Yesss he’s going to the @spurs!!! So proud of you.”Diaw played for the Spurs in five seasons, and helped them win a championship in 2014.“There’s a special relationship between France and the Spurs because of Tony, of course, and also Boris,” Wembanyama said on Tuesday. “I know half of the country, maybe if not the whole country, wanted the Spurs to have the first pick, so I was looking at everyone, and everyone was happy, so I was too.”The Spurs have a great track record with big men.Already being called the greatest prospect ever, Wembanyama will now follow in the footsteps of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, two of the best big men in N.B.A. history. Together, they led the Spurs to two championships, then Duncan led the Spurs to three more titles after Robinson retired.Tim Duncan, left, and David Robinson, right, won two championships together with the Spurs.Barton Silverman/The New York TimesThe good part for Wembanyama is that Popovich, who coached Duncan and Robinson, is still there to help him develop. Still, Wembanyama is a much different player from Robinson or Duncan, traditional big men who were at their best playing in the post with their backs to the basket.Wembanyama is comfortable scoring at all three levels of the court, adeptly dribbling around defenders to score and shooting jumpers that players his size are not supposed to be able to make. It will be a new experience for Popovich.San Antonio is one of the most successful franchises in N.B.A. history.The Spurs have the fifth-most championships in N.B.A. history (five), and won all of them between 1999 and 2014 under Popovich. With Duncan, Parker and Manu Ginóbili, the Spurs developed a core that anchored a dynasty.Duncan was the best player of the group, winning the Most Valuable Player Award in 2002 and 2003. His Spurs also fended off many great teams and players to win championships. In both the 1999 and 2003 Western Conference semifinals, they beat Lakers teams led by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. In the 2007 N.B.A. finals, they swept LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers.“The talent, the coaching, everything in San Antonio was kind of a perfect storm,” Bryant said on the “All the Smoke” podcast in 2020. “If they weren’t in the picture, we probably would have won 10 in a row.”The Spurs have struggled and been involved in controversy.When the Spurs were winning, they were considered the model franchise in the N.B.A., with a great coach and stars who willingly bought into his system. But that mystique has dissolved.The Spurs have not made the playoffs since 2019 and have become something of a punching bag in the league. At a news conference in September just before the beginning of the 2022-23 season, Popovich was honest about where the team stood: “Nobody here should go to Vegas with the thought of betting on us to win the championship,” he said. “And I know somebody will say, ‘Gosh, what a Debbie Downer. There’s a chance. What if they work really hard?’ It’s probably not going to happen.”Popovich was right. The Spurs won 22 games, their third-lowest win total in franchise history.Amid that abysmal season, Joshua Primo, the Spurs’ 2021 first-round draft pick, was accused of repeatedly exposing himself to a team sports psychologist during treatment sessions. The psychologist accused the team of failing to protect her and others even after she reported Primo’s conduct.The Spurs cut Primo, and the psychologist settled a lawsuit against the team and Primo.San Antonio couldn’t make it work with one key star.In Kawhi Leonard, the Spurs appeared to have found their next star to lead them out of the Duncan, Parker and Ginóbili years. He helped them win a championship in 2014 and was named the finals M.V.P. But in the 2017-18 season, Leonard injured his thigh and missed most of the year.Gregg Popovich has coached the Spurs since 1996.Jerome Miron/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConThroughout the year, some public comments by teammates and Popovich seemed to imply that they questioned the severity of Leonard’s injury. At one point, Parker said he had the “same kind of injury” as Leonard, “but it was a hundred times worse,” and it had only taken him eight months to recover.After the season, Leonard requested a trade and was sent to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for a package that included DeMar DeRozan. The next season, Leonard led the Raptors to their first title in franchise history.The Spurs roster lacks talent.Unlike Duncan, Wembanyama may not have an established big man like Robinson on the team who can help him grow.The Spurs are laden with young players; only three players on the roster this season have more than four years of experience. Wembanyama will become the team’s best player on Day 1, responsible for carrying one of the league’s most notable franchises back to relevancy.Of course, the Spurs have the whole summer to rebuild their team around Wembanyama. Based on how their fans are celebrating, everyone in San Antonio is ready for something new. More

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      The Nuggets Want You to Forget What You Heard About the Nuggets

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      Denver is unraveling its reputation for playoff disappointment one win at a time.The Denver Nuggets have spent the past few months hearing that they weren’t to be trusted in the playoffs, that Nikola Jokic, a two-time most valuable player, couldn’t lead them to postseason success, that their record, the best in the Western Conference for most of the season, was some kind of mirage.Nobody was scared of them in the playoffs, or so the narrative went.But in the first two rounds of the playoffs this year, the Nuggets had defied their reputation of fading in the postseason by easily dispatching Minnesota and Phoenix. They seemed to be doing the same to the Lakers on Tuesday night, as they dominated for most of Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. But as the second half wore on, Denver left room for doubts about their playoff toughness to creep back in.Fair or not, what’s at stake for the Nuggets in this series, which they lead, 1-0, after a 132-126 win on Tuesday, is their ability to prove that their elite play is not an illusion that disappears in May.“We’re a long ways away from what we’re trying to do,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone told his team in the locker room after the game.Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, spent more than a year recovering from a knee injury and missed his team’s playoff runs the past two seasons.Isaiah J. Downing/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConThe Nuggets have never been to the N.B.A. finals, and they haven’t competed in a championship round since their last season in the American Basketball Association, in 1975-76. Most of that disappointing history can’t be blamed on their current group.But even now, something happens year after year to prevent the Nuggets from competing for a title, and they have been blamed for that.Jokic has been an All-Star for the past five seasons, but Denver has been to the conference finals only once in that time, in 2020. The Nuggets lost to the Lakers in five games that year, which played out at a closed site at Disney World in Florida because of the coronavirus pandemic. They fell out of the postseason even sooner in each of the next two years without their talented point guard Jamal Murray, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee about a month before the 2021 playoffs.Then this season’s Nuggets started to look unbeatable.They were in or tied for first place in the West from Dec. 20 through the end of the season. Jokic had another M.V.P.-caliber year, though he lost the award to Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. Murray was resurgent after a year and a half spent recovering from his knee injury. The Nuggets won 75 percent of their games in January and February.Perhaps it was their lackluster effort in March, when the Nuggets were 7-7, that convinced observers that they weren’t as dominant as a top seed should be. Or perhaps they were just being punished by public opinion for past playoff performances.They seem ready to change the conversation this time, though they claim to ignore it.They cruised past the Timberwolves, then humiliated the Suns in the second round with a 25-point win in the series-clinching Game 6.“I guess I don’t know how a championship team looks,” Jokic said after the series, “but I think that’s how it’s supposed to look. We were so focused on every detail.”But now the matchup against the Lakers has evoked memories of a Denver team these Nuggets don’t want to look like: the one that lost to the Lakers in the conference finals in 2020, the last time they met in the playoffs. Now both teams are almost entirely different except for the stars: Jokic and Murray for the Nuggets and LeBron James and Anthony Davis for the Lakers. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a key role player for the Lakers in 2020, is now a key role player for the Nuggets.They are all older, for better or worse. Before, the Lakers were driven by James’s play. Now, Davis’s role matters much more than it used to.For two and a half quarters of Tuesday’s game, this year’s Lakers seemed to be no match for this year’s Nuggets, and skepticism about Denver’s championship aspirations felt silly.Denver scored 72 points and led by 18 at halftime. Jokic already had 19 points, 16 rebounds and 7 assists.“It took us a half to get into the game,” James said. “That was pretty much the ballgame right there.”In the Lakers’ previous series this postseason, against Memphis and Golden State, Davis’s mere presence scared opponents out of the paint. That wouldn’t happen against the Nuggets. For much of the game, Davis was chained to Jokic in a way that prevented him from being the force he had been against the Warriors.Lakers forward Anthony Davis battled with Jokic throughout Game 1, ending with 40 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.Jack Dempsey/Associated PressThe Lakers hadn’t played someone like Jokic yet in the playoffs, in part because there is no one quite like him — a big man who passes as effortlessly as he scores. It’s why Lakers Coach Darvin Ham had jokingly suggested on Monday that perhaps the only way they could stop Jokic was to kidnap him.Midway through the third quarter Jokic had already notched a triple-double.Then, to stop a Lakers’ run late in the third quarter, he hit an off-center, step-back 3 at the buzzer, with a smothering Davis waving his arms. Davis left the court wearing a wry smile. He’d done all he could and it still wasn’t enough to stop Jokic.Jokic finished with 34 points, 21 rebounds and 14 assists. Davis had 40 points and 10 rebounds.In the Nuggets’ locker room after the game, Malone addressed his team with pride and caution. Good win, he said in comments aired on ESPN, but also: Play better defense.Ham hinted that he hadn’t shown all of his potential adjustments in Game 1. Malone said that he would rather fix mistakes after a win than after a loss.What will ultimately matter more for legitimizing the Denver Nuggets as a championship threat is not how they win these games, but that they do. More

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      The Liberty Took a Few Jets and a Boat to Become a Superteam

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      Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, the Liberty owners, improved their facilities and chartered flights, drawing a W.N.B.A. fine — and enticing top free agents.In January, Clara Wu Tsai flew to Turkey on a trip that altered the balance of power in the W.N.B.A.Wu Tsai, who owns the Liberty with her husband, Joe Tsai, went there to chase Breanna Stewart, the off-season’s most coveted free agent. Accompanied by her team’s coach and general manager, Wu Tsai pitched Stewart in the middle of her Euroleague season with a team in Istanbul.But Wu Tsai left the rest of the team’s brass behind as she made the final push. She rented an 80-foot tour boat and took Stewart, Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Ruby, for a cruise. Gliding through the Bosporus, Wu Tsai reeled in Stewart, the two-time league most valuable player, with questions.“It was just her curiosity that grabbed me,” Stewart told me during an interview this month. “She wanted to know what I needed, what we needed as players, to perform at our best. I could see she wanted to improve the league as much as I do.”After days of cryptic tweets, Stewart announced on Feb. 1 that she would join a Liberty roster that had also added Jonquel Jones, the 2021 league M.V.P., to play alongside guard Sabrina Ionescu, a 2022 All-Star. The four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot inked with the team the day after Stewart, forming a megateam built to contend with the defending champion Las Vegas Aces — a supersquad in its own right that added the two-time M.V.P. Candace Parker this off-season.“Having a lot of players go to different teams is great because it’s shaking things up where we’re not just in this continuous track, running over and over, playing for the same teams,” Stewart said. “It’s creating a buzz. But there’s something more. Free agency also adds pressure on the owners to compete for us.”The Tsais, whose multibillion dollar wealth comes primarily from Joe’s leadership role with the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, sit at the forefront of the W.N.B.A.’s free-agent arms race, where players enjoy the attention of a group of team owners eager to invest.The former league M.V.P.’s Breanna Stewart, left, and Jonquel Jones joined the Liberty in the off-season, as did the four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot.Sarah Gordon/The Day, via Associated PressIn Atlanta, the Dream’s Larry Gottesdiener, founder of a real estate private equity firm, said he planned to spend $100 million to turn the team into a success. Mark Davis, who also owns the N.F.L.’s Las Vegas Raiders, recently built a 64,000-square-foot training facility for the Aces and last season signed Coach Becky Hammon to a record contract worth $1 million annually. (On Tuesday, the W.N.B.A. suspended Hammon for two games for comments she made to the All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy, which the league said violated its policy on respect in the workplace. The league also rescinded the team’s 2025 for first-round draft pick for promising Hamby impermissible benefits during contract negotiations.)When the Tsais bought the Liberty in 2019, the team had bottomed out during the last stages of James Dolan’s ownership. The franchise had made the finals in three of the W.N.B.A.’s first four seasons but was pushed out of Madison Square Garden to the 2,300-seat Westchester County Center for 2017 and ’18.After moving the team to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which the Tsais own and where their other team — the N.B.A.’s Nets — also play, the couple set out to give the Liberty amenities equal to their male counterparts. There’s an eight-person performance staff — multiple trainers, a sports psychologist and a nutritionist. An in-house chef prepares meals before and after practices and games. Players recover in brand-new hot and cold therapy tubs.Like every other team in the W.N.B.A., the Liberty fly commercial to away games for most of the season. They huddle in cramped seats and endure delays, transfers and cancellations like the rest of us.Tsai bristled at the limitation. So in 2021, he paid for the Liberty to use private jets, then shielded that fact from the league until the team was caught. The result: a $500,000 fine, the biggest in league history. Perhaps not unrelated: In 2021, the Liberty made the playoffs for the first time in five years and then repeated that feat in 2022.The fine was steep, but a point was made by the Tsais, loud and clear: Travel conditions must evolve. For now, the league has settled on a partial change, allowing teams to charter flights for the playoffs and a small number of games during the regular season.It was a key point of agreement for Wu Tsai and Stewart during that nautical conversation. Stewart, a vice president of the players’ union, has also been one of the league’s most vocal proponents for chartered flights, a factor she said played into her free agency decision.Over coffee at a Manhattan restaurant in early May, Wu Tsai — a self-described “hoop head” who grew up in Lawrence, Kan. — said she sees in Stewart a kindred spirit. “It was clear our interests were aligned on the potential” for lifting the Liberty and changing the W.N.B.A., Wu Tsai said.Asked about the travel contretemps with the league, Wu Tsai paused, drew a breath, and measured her comments carefully. “I don’t think you can put your best product on the floor if you’re not really focused on health and wellness,” she said, declining to elaborate.The Tsais, it must be noted, have a complex history. Few team owners in any sport have given as much support to social justice, including $50 million to boost economically distressed communities following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. But Alibaba has been criticized for business ties with Chinese companies said to violate human rights in China. And Tsai once called pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong a “separatist movement,” echoing language from Beijing.The world of sports is hardly immune from contradiction.What can also be said of the Tsais is that support for how they are advancing conditions in the league is widespread among players. The charter planes issue is perhaps the most salient litmus test. Stewart, for one, would play only for a team that is doing all it can to push on the issue until it becomes a reality all season long.She is not alone.“Two things can be true at once,” Jones said. “You can look at it and see what they did with those charters as definitely an unfair advantage. And you also can step back and be like, ‘Wow, at least they were making sure their players were taken care of.’ The Tsais sent a signal, a strong signal, of how much this means to them.”“They treat us as the professionals we are.” More