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      Ja Morant Apologizes After New Video With Apparent Gun

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      The NewsThe star Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant apologized late Tuesday after receiving days of backlash for a social media video that appeared to show him brandishing a gun in public for the second time in just over two months.“I know I’ve disappointed a lot of people who have supported me,” Morant said in a statement. “This is a journey and I recognize there is more work to do. My words may not mean much right now, but I take full accountability for my actions. I’m committed to continuing to work on myself.”N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said in a televised interview with ESPN on Tuesday that he was “shocked” by the video, which Morant’s friend reportedly streamed live on Instagram.Ja Morant said in a statement Tuesday night that he takes “full accountability for my actions.”Brandon Dill/Associated PressWhy It Matters: Morant is influential as a major rising N.B.A. star.Morant, 23, is one of the best young players in the N.B.A. He has already made two All-Star teams and one All-N.B.A. team just four years into his career. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2020. He is best known for high-flying dunks and has made the Grizzlies a strong contender in the Western Conference as the No. 2 seed in back-to-back seasons.He is also part of a new generation of N.B.A. stars the league hopes will help the game transition from aging figures like LeBron James, 38, and Stephen Curry, 35. He has a new signature sneaker with Nike and had been announced as the new face of Powerade in March.Background: He was suspended in March because of a gun video.Morant faced criticism in March when a live video on his Instagram account showed him waving around a firearm in a Colorado nightclub. The N.B.A. suspended him for eight games. Morant also apologized then, taking “full responsibility” for his actions. Morant vowed to “work on better methods of dealing with stress” and went to a counseling facility in Florida.Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, called Morant’s actions “irresponsible, reckless and potentially very dangerous.”The video was posted as other Morant-related controversies swirled.In a lawsuit, Josh Holloway, then 17, had accused Morant of punching him during a pickup basketball game last summer. Morant told the police that it was self-defense. A mall employee had also accused Morant of assaulting him after Morant’s mother had a dispute at a shoe store. Another person accused Morant of intimidation when Morant came to his sister’s high school volleyball game because she was involved in a dispute. Morant has not been charged with a crime in any of these incidents.Recordings of the new video went viral on Sunday. The Grizzlies quickly suspended Morant from all team activities, though the team was eliminated from the playoffs last month.What’s Next: The N.B.A. will decide whether to discipline Morant again.Silver told ESPN on Tuesday that the league was investigating the new video.“The videos have been grainy and all that,” Silver said. “But I’m assuming the worst.”As part of the N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement between the players’ union and team owners, players agree to “not to do anything that is materially detrimental or materially prejudicial to the best interests” of the team or the league. In suspending Morant the first time, the N.B.A. said his conduct had been detrimental to the league. More

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      NBA Draft Lottery: Spurs Get No. 1 Pick and Right to Select Wembanyama

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      The top pick is widely expected to be Victor Wembanyama, a 19-year-old French basketball star.The San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 N.B.A. draft lottery on Tuesday, giving them the No. 1 pick in June’s draft and the right to select the most anticipated prospect since LeBron James: the 19-year-old French star Victor Wembanyama.Peter J. Holt, the chairman of the Spurs, jumped up to celebrate the moment it became apparent the Spurs had obtained the top pick. The lottery was held in Chicago, and the draft order was revealed during an ESPN broadcast.“I might faint,” Holt said on the broadcast. “I’m so excited. The city of San Antonio, our fans, man — we just have so many people that love the Spurs so we’re pumped.”The No. 2 pick went to the Charlotte Hornets, the third to the Portland Trail Blazers and the fourth to the Houston Rockets.Wembanyama, in an interview from France, told ESPN: “My heart is beating. I got everyone I love, everyone I know around me. It’s really a special moment I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.”A 7-foot-3 center with an eight-foot wingspan, Wembanyama can handle the ball and shoot like a guard. He plays for Metropolitans 92, a professional French league team, where he is averaging 21.6 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. The N.B.A. G League hosted his team for a two-game exhibition near Las Vegas in October, and the N.B.A. has broadcast some of his games. The hype about him rivals that surrounding James in 2003, when the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him No. 1 overall out of high school.“He clearly, you know, appears to be a generational talent,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said on ESPN before the lottery. “And, you know, there’s lots of other examples of generational talents who come in this league who’ve met expectations and some who haven’t. But I have no reason to believe he won’t.”Wembanyama is certainly not the only potentially franchise-altering prospect available in this year’s draft, set for June 22 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Scoot Henderson, a 19-year-old guard who played for the G League Ignite and faced Wembanyama in the October exhibitions, is widely expected to be drafted at No. 2 overall. Henderson averaged 16.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 19 games with the Ignite this season.For the Spurs, this is the third time they have won the lottery. In 1997, they used the No. 1 pick to select Tim Duncan, who became one of the best big men in N.B.A. history. Ten years before, they also picked a big man in David Robinson, a 10-time All-Star. Both players are in the Basketball Hall of Fame.The draft order is decided by a lottery that grants teams with worse regular-season records better odds for the No. 1 pick. This system has led to teams being accused of tanking — not prioritizing winning to position themselves for high draft picks. The three teams with the best chance — 14 percent — to get the top pick this year were San Antonio, Houston and Detroit, which got the fifth pick. The 11 other teams in the lottery had lessened odds, ranging from Charlotte at 13 percent to the New Orleans Pelicans at 0.5 percent.In recent years, the N.B.A. has moved to curb tanking by introducing a postseason play-in tournament to decide the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference and by flattening the chances for the No. 1 pick among the three worst teams.But with Wembanyama’s N.B.A. arrival on the horizon, Silver told reporters in the fall, “I know that many of our N.B.A. teams are salivating at the notion that potentially through our lottery, they can get him, so they should all still compete very hard next season.”The N.B.A. fined the Dallas Mavericks $750,000 last month for resting several players in the final days of the season even though the team still had a chance to make the play-in tournament. They missed the playoffs and received the No. 10 pick through the lottery. They had a 3 percent chance of getting No. 1.They weren’t as lucky as San Antonio.The Spurs’ Gregg Popovich is the longest tenured coach in the N.B.A. He took over in December 1996 and has since led the Spurs to five championships, most recently in 2014. But in recent years, the Spurs have been rebuilding and stockpiling young talent. The team has not made the playoffs since 2019. They were tied with Houston for the worst record in the Western Conference this season at 22-60. Wembanyama could immediately change that.“I’m trying to win a ring ASAP,” Wembanyama told ESPN on Tuesday. “So be ready.” More

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      Aces Coach Becky Hammon Suspended for Pregnancy Comments to Dearica Hamby

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      The All-Star forward Dearica Hamby had accused an unnamed person of making “disgusting comments” and questioning her commitment to the team after she became pregnant.The W.N.B.A. on Tuesday suspended Las Vegas Aces Coach Becky Hammon for two games for comments she made to the All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy. While the players’ union said the punishment did not go far enough, the Aces defended Hammon as a “caring human.”The Aces traded Hamby to the Los Angeles Sparks in January, just months after the Aces won a championship and Hamby signed a contract extension. At the time, Hamby wrote in a post on Instagram that an unnamed person had made “disgusting comments.” She said she had been falsely accused of signing a contract extension when she knew she was pregnant and that she was told she was being traded because “I wouldn’t be ready and we need bodies.”She said her commitment to the team was also called into question, even though she pushed herself to work out during her pregnancy when it was “uncomfortable to walk.” Hamby won the league’s Sixth Woman of the Year Award in 2019 and 2020 and was named to the All-Star team for the second time last season.“The unprofessional and unethical way that I have been treated has been traumatizing,” Hamby wrote in January, adding that it was especially disappointing that her poor treatment came from women who are mothers and who preached “family, chemistry and women’s empowerment.”Hamby, 29, announced the birth of her son, Legend, in March. She also has a 6-year-old daughter, Amaya.The W.N.B.A. did not respond to a request for details about what Hammon told Hamby, but said in the suspension announcement that Hammon’s comments violated its policy on respect in the workplace. The league also said the Aces would lose a first-round pick in the 2025 draft for promising Hamby unspecified impermissible benefits during contract negotiations.On Tuesday, the W.N.B.A. players’ union said the penalties were “far from appropriate.”“Where in this decision does this team or any other team across the league learn the lesson that respect in the workplace is the highest standard and a player’s dignity cannot be manipulated?” the union said.In May 2021, Curt Miller, then the coach of the Connecticut Sun, was fined $10,000 and suspended for one game for a body-shaming comment he made about the weight of center Liz Cambage. Miller now coaches the Sparks.Hammon’s two-game suspension is without pay, but the league did not announce a fine. The W.N.B.A. did not respond to a question about how it settled on two games.The union had called for an investigation after Hamby’s Instagram post on Jan. 21. On Feb. 8, the Aces said in a statement that the league had begun a formal investigation and that the team would cooperate.Hammon, 46, played in the W.N.B.A. for 16 seasons and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year, during her first season with the Aces. She had spent eight seasons as an assistant coach with the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs and was the first woman to be a full-time assistant in N.B.A. history. She was often rumored to be in consideration for head coaching jobs in the men’s league. The Aces owner Mark Davis trumpeted her hiring as an inspirational moment for girls because the team would be paying her over $1 million, more than any other coach in the league.Dearica Hamby was named an All-Star for the second time with the Aces last season. She was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks in January.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressIn a statement on Tuesday, the Aces said they were committed to supporting players and “deeply disappointed” by the outcome of the investigation.“The W.N.B.A.’s determinations about Becky Hammon are inconsistent with what we know and love about her,” the Aces said, adding that Hammon “forges close personal relationships with her players.”The team added that it would “stand behind” Hammon as its coach.In recent years, there has been a major push — by players, fans and league officials — for greater investment in the W.N.B.A., especially in benefits for parents. The league’s latest collective bargaining agreement, signed in 2020, included a wave of new or increased motherhood-related benefits, including full pay during maternity leave, more spacious housing, a $5,000 child care stipend and benefits for adoption and fertility treatments.The fight for professional athletes who are also parents is still in its infancy.In May 2022, Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir, an Icelandic soccer player, sued her former team of Lyon over its treatment during her pregnancy. The team did not pay her during her pregnancy, and it failed to uphold its “duty of care” while she was away from the club.“No one was really checking on me, following up, seeing how I was doing mentally and physically, both as an employee, but also as a human being,” Gunnarsdottir wrote in a piece for The Players’ Tribune. “Basically, they had a responsibility to look after me, and they didn’t.”Lyon was forced to pay her everything she was owed.Pregnancy leave was only added to collective bargaining agreements for both the W.N.B.A. and the National Women’s Soccer League in the last few years. The N.W.S.L. agreement, signed in 2022, marked the introduction of eight weeks of paid leave for pregnancy or adoption. There were no previous guidelines for new parents.Star power offers no protection for individual athletes, either. Allyson Felix, an 11-time Olympic medalist in track and field, and Serena Williams, who has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles in tennis, also had to fight for income protection after having children.When Felix asked Nike not to dock her pay if she did not perform at her peak in the months surrounding childbirth, the company declined, she disclosed in May 2019. Three months later, Nike announced a new maternity policy for all sponsored athletes.When Williams returned to the professional tour in early 2018, eight months after giving birth, her world ranking had dropped to No. 451 from No. 1 despite her record. She fought for players to have protected rankings, and within the year, the Women’s Tennis Association changed its rules for players returning from pregnancy, allowing them to use a special ranking for up to three years following the birth of a child. More

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      What to Know About the N.B.A. Draft Lottery

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      A draw on Tuesday in Chicago will determine the order for the first 14 picks in the 2023 draft, which will be held in June.Fans of the N.B.A. are about to take a break from praying that a wild, off-balance 3-pointer goes in and instead turn to praying that a particular envelope happens to contain the logo of their favorite team.The N.B.A. draft lottery may seem an odd spectacle, but it can affect the future of franchises for years to come. And this year, it carries special import: The winner will have the right to select Victor Wembanyama of France, who is predicted to be a game-changing superstar.When and where is the lottery, and how can I watch? The lottery is Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern in Chicago. ESPN will broadcast the event; you can also expect to find the news quickly on social media, as fans celebrate or lament the result.Who is in this year’s lottery? The 14 teams that did not make the playoffs are eligible; that includes the four teams that made the play-in games but failed to advance to the playoffs proper.It’s a little more complicated than that though. Because of past trades, the Dallas Mavericks will give their pick to the Knicks unless it falls in the top 10, and the Chicago Bulls will give their pick to the Orlando Magic unless it’s in the top four.How does it work? A random draw will be held to determine the top four draft picks, with weaker teams having better chances. Picks 5 through 14 will then be allotted in reverse order of the teams’ records.Who has the best chance at the No. 1 pick? Each of the three weakest teams in the regular season — the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs — has a 14 percent chance of getting the top pick.Who else has a chance at No. 1? The rest of the teams have smaller chances on a sliding scale, from the Charlotte Hornets at 13 percent all the way down to the New Orleans Pelicans, who had a winning regular-season record and have just an 0.5 percent chance at the top pick. The rest of the teams with a chance are the Blazers at 11 percent, Magic 9, Pacers 7, Wizards 7, Jazz 5, Mavericks 3, Bulls 2, Thunder 2, Raptors 1 (figures rounded to nearest percent).What about Picks 15 through 30? Those are all set, starting with the playoff team with the worst record, the Hawks, at No. 15, and moving down pick by pick to the better teams.Is what I see on TV the actual lottery? No. What you see is more of a ceremonial unveiling of the draft order. The actual lottery is held just before in front of a handful of league, team and news media witnesses sequestered in another room.I read that the lottery is fixed. Is that true? No. Conspiracy theorists sometimes claim that the league fixes the draw to benefit teams in big markets, notably for the inaugural lottery in 1985 when the Knicks won and earned the right to pick Patrick Ewing.There has never been any credible evidence that a draft lottery has indeed been fixed, and with no New York or Los Angeles teams in the draw, one hopes the conspiracy talk will be muted this year.When and where is the actual draft? June 22 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, for the ninth time in the past 10 years. (The exception was the pandemic year, when it was held via conference call.)Who will be picked? Everyone expects Wembanyama to go No. 1. Variously reported at between 7 feet 2 inches and 7-foot-4, he has an eight-foot-plus wingspan that makes him a nightmare on defense. He is quick, and he can score too. He is averaging 22 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks in the French league this season for Metropolitans 92, a team based in Paris. He won’t turn 20 until January and should have a huge upside.Unusually, prognosticators who think a lot about the draft are starting to come to a consensus on Picks 2 through 4 as well. Those look likely to be guard Scoot Henderson, who averaged 17 points a game with the G League Ignite; forward Brandon Miller of the University of Alabama; and guard Amen Thompson, who played with the City Reapers of Overtime Elite.But that could change depending on which team gets what pick, and stocks could rise and fall over the next month.What about the college player of the year, Zach Edey of Purdue? Despite his outstanding season, Edey is not rated highly by N.B.A. scouts. At 7-foot-4 and bulky, he looks like a classic N.B.A. center, but his inability to score from outside does not seem to fit the modern game. He could go somewhere in the second round.If my team gets the top pick, we’re set, right? Players like Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Anthony Davis all went No. 1, and Wembanyama looks surefire.But Greg Oden, Anthony Bennett and Ben Simmons also all went No. 1, a humbling reminder not to start counting championships just yet. More

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      Jayson Tatum Shines as Boston Celtics Blow Out 76ers in Game 7

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      Tatum’s scoring output was an N.B.A. record for a Game 7, and it helped send the Celtics to the Eastern Conference finals, where they will face the Miami Heat.BOSTON — Jaylen Brown had used his public platform ahead of Sunday afternoon’s game to deliver a clear message to Celtics fans: Get loud. The energy at TD Garden for the team’s home games during its N.B.A. Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Philadelphia 76ers had been merely OK, he said.On Sunday, Brown got what he wanted for Game 7. It was loud early, and it was loud late. The crowd cheered every dunk and 3-pointer, every defensive stop and offensive rebound.By the time Boston’s Jayson Tatum stood near the center circle late in the fourth quarter, in the waning moments of a tour de force and the best game of his career, he beckoned the fans for even more noise. They were happy to oblige.The crowd was still cheering when the Celtics left the court with a 112-88 victory that decided the best-of-seven series and assured Boston that its championship dream would live on.Tatum, a first-team All-N.B.A. selection who had not exactly played flawless basketball during the series, was extraordinary on Sunday, scoring 51 points — an N.B.A. record for a Game 7. Brown added 25 points in the win. The Celtics led by as many as 30.“That’s when I’m at my best, when I’m having fun,” said Tatum, adding that he tried to channel his childhood love for the game. “When you go out there and relax and kind of think about those days when you were at the Y.M.C.A. or whatever, the game opens up.”Tatum was a stunning 17 of 28 from the field on Sunday, for a 60.7 field-goal percentage.Steven Senne/Associated PressA blowout loss will surely lead to an off-season of uncertainty for the third-seeded 76ers, who had title hopes of their own. But Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who recently collected his first N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award, struggled in Game 7, finishing with just 15 points while shooting 5 of 18 from the field. Sixers guard James Harden scored only 9 points.“That’s the best team in the league,” Embiid said of the Celtics. “They’re so talented, and they’ve got a lot of guys who can play great basketball. Losing to them, seven games, I thought for the most part we played hard.”The Celtics, the No. 2 seed in the East, put the game out of reach with a searing run in the third quarter that included back-to-back 3-pointers by Brown and Tatum. The fourth quarter was a party that masqueraded as the closing stages of an otherwise tightly contested playoff series.“When J.T. is playing like that, we’re going to be extremely hard to beat,” Brown said of Tatum.In the process, the Celtics earned a meeting with the eighth-seeded Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, starting on Wednesday in Boston. After surviving the play-in bracket, the Heat ousted the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, then eliminated the Knicks in six games in their conference semifinal series. Boston beat the seventh-seeded Atlanta Hawks in six games in the first round.The Heat have a star in Jimmy Butler, who, year after year, seems to elevate his level of play in the postseason — a fearsome two-way player who seldom has an off night.The Celtics, of course, have an explosive star of their own in Tatum, but he had his struggles against the 76ers. On Sunday, he was the best player in the building. He shot 17 of 28 from the field and 6 of 10 from 3-point range, and finished with 13 rebounds and five assists.“We just handled the ebbs and flows of the series,” Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla said. “We never got too emotionally high or too emotionally low. We were able to keep our emotional togetherness intact.”Missed opportunities will haunt the 76ers, who had a 3-2 series lead with a chance to wrap it up at home on Thursday. In that game, Tatum missed 13 of his first 14 field-goal attempts. But the Celtics were solid defensively and Tatum got hot late to extend the series with a 95-86 win.“To be honest, they had us on the ropes,” said Tatum, adding: “And I was relieved, because our season could’ve been over.”Game 7s are inherently important, but so much seemed to hinge on this one for both teams. For the Celtics, a loss would have represented a stark regression from all that they achieved last season, when they advanced to the N.B.A. finals before losing to the Golden State Warriors in six games.But progress is seldom linear, and the Celtics faced an unusually rocky path this season: an unexpected coaching change before the start of training camp, a season-ending injury to Danilo Gallinari before he even appeared in a game and a defense that lacked its familiar oomph.For the 76ers, Sunday’s game, fair or not, set up as something of a referendum on the Process, the team-building exercise that, as one of its foundational pieces, landed them Embiid in the 2014 N.B.A. draft. But now was the time for a deep playoff run.Sixers Coach Doc Rivers acknowledged the pressure before the game and anticipated the importance of his key players pushing themselves “to the max of exhaustion.”Embiid spent his final few quiet moments before the tip dribbling near the halfcourt circle. He even hoisted a couple of pretend shots before handing the ball to his teammate Tyrese Maxey.Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and James Harden combined for just 24 points in Game 7.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesThe rest of Embiid’s afternoon was grim. Harden’s was somehow worse. The 76ers have now made six straight playoff appearances without advancing to the conference finals.“I thought James came to play, I really did,” Rivers said, referring to Harden. “I thought he was trying to see the game, and I thought he played downhill a lot. Where he passed the ball tonight was the right decision, and we didn’t get anything out of it.”The series was full of uneven performances. Atop that list was Harden, who scored 45 points in Game 1 before he promptly disappeared, shooting a combined 5 of 28 from the field in a pair of losses. He resurfaced for Game 4, scoring 42 points, but was passive again in Games 5 and 6. So the question was: Which version of Harden would show up for Game 7?He was laboring early in the second quarter when he appeared to lose his grip on the ball going for a layup. Caught in the air, Harden swung an elbow that caught Brown in the face.“Nothing like a shot in the face to wake you right up,” Brown said.Harden was whistled for a flagrant foul. Brown made both free throws, and then Tatum threw a lob to Robert Williams for a dunk. Rivers cited the flagrant foul as a turning point.“After that, we never played right again,” Rivers said.The Celtics were continuing to mount a run when Brown, who was playing with a cotton swab stuffed up his left nostril to stanch the bleeding from his collision with Harden, tumbled in front of the opposing bench. As Brown gathered himself and turned to run upcourt, the 76ers’ Georges Niang reached out from his folding chair to grab Brown’s left leg.Brown yelled at Niang, and both players were assessed technical fouls. At the time, Boston was actually trailing. But the fans were loud, and the Celtics made sure they stayed that way. More

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      Ja Morant Suspended from Grizzlies for Possible New Gun Video

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      Morant, the star Memphis Grizzlies guard, was first suspended in March after he flashed a gun during an Instagram Live video.Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, 23, is under scrutiny from the N.B.A. again after he flashed an object that looked like a gun in a carefree manner during an Instagram Live video posted over the weekend.The video, which appeared to be posted on Saturday, came just over two months after the N.B.A. suspended Morant for displaying a gun in a live Instagram video filmed at a nightclub near Denver. He expressed remorse then, saying that the gun did not belong to him and that he would be better.On Sunday, the Grizzlies said in a statement that they had suspended Morant from all team activities pending the league’s review of the new video. Memphis was eliminated from the playoffs last month after losing to the Lakers in the first round. Mike Bass, a league spokesman, said the N.B.A. was “aware” of the post and was gathering more information.In March, the league suspended Morant for eight games after the nightclub video. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver noted Morant’s “enormous following and influence” in the announcement of that suspension, which classified the gun incident as conduct detrimental to the league. That Instagram Live video was posted early on March 4, when, the N.B.A. said, Morant had been “in an intoxicated state.” Morant soon checked into a facility in Florida for counseling.“I’m going to take some time away to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being,” Morant said at the time in a statement, which was posted on Twitter by Tandem, the agency that represents him.In contrast to Sunday, when the Grizzlies suspended Morant, the team first responded to March’s incident less pointedly, simply saying that Morant would step away from the team. Coach Taylor Jenkins shied away from criticizing Morant when addressing reporters then and offered few details about any conversations he or the team might have had with Morant.Morant later said going to counseling was his idea.The nightclub incident was just one in a series of concerning off-court situations for Morant going back to last summer, some of which involved people who said they felt threatened by Morant or his associates, according to reports in The Washington Post and The Athletic.One incident involved a fight with a 17-year-old, Josh Holloway, whom Morant had invited to his home for a pickup game in July. Holloway has filed a suit against Morant; the police investigated the incident but have not charged Morant. Four days earlier, a mall security employee had accused Morant of threatening him after Morant’s mother, Jamie Morant, had been involved in a disagreement at a shoe store.TMZ also reported that the police investigated Morant for intimidation after a high school volleyball game in September, when Morant said somebody had insulted his sister. During an interview with ESPN, Morant said he feared for his sister’s safety and left when he knew she was safe.Before Morant returned to the Grizzlies from his suspension in March, he met with Silver, the commissioner, and called the meeting an “open discussion.”“Obviously, he said things I need to be better at, but more of just showing his support towards me,” Morant said during the interview with ESPN. “I accepted that, and I also sent my apologies to everybody — to the league, myself, my teammates, my family for putting that negativity towards all of us with a bad decision.”Morant’s eight-game suspension, announced March 15, included the five games he had already missed when he left the team for counseling.“I’m a totally different person than what’s been shown in the media,” Morant said in the ESPN interview, broadcast hours after his suspension was announced. “That’s my job now. That’s why I took that time away, to become a better Ja, so everybody really can see who Ja really is and you know what he’s about.”Once he returned, he showed a mixture of defiance and contrition. He said the journey that he began in counseling was a continuing process.He was celebrated by Grizzlies fans in his first game back. Members of his family wore attire that said “redemption” on it. In comments after the game, Morant indicated that he felt unfairly targeted at times.Still, that return was an opportunity for Morant to show that his stated desire to be better was sincere.Morant is one of the league’s top guards. His signature shoe with Nike made its debut in March. Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Morant’s latest suspension. After the March incidents, Nike released a statement saying the company supported Morant’s “prioritization of his well-being.”He just completed his fourth season with the Grizzlies, having come to the team as a small but electrifying point guard out of Murray State as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft. He is the leader on a young team that had been one of the best in the Western Conference all season even as Memphis coped with injuries to key players.Last week, after Morant was not selected as one of the six guards on the three All-N.B.A. teams, he reposted a tweet from a Grizzlies beat writer that suggested that his off-court behavior might have contributed to his not being selected.Morant signed a five-year contract extension last summer, which included an additional $38 million if he made the All-N.B.A. team this year. According to The Associated Press, Morant filed a countersuit against Holloway in April, accusing Holloway of harming his reputation and potentially costing him millions of dollars. More

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      Golden State Falls to Lakers, Ending Title Hopes and Starting Uncertain Future

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      Golden State isn’t used to getting eliminated this early in the playoffs. Now, it will face questions about how to sustain its run since 2015 as a top contender.LOS ANGELES — Whoops, shouts, music and a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” were so loud inside the Lakers locker room that they could be heard out in the hallways. Outside Golden State’s locker room, there was silence, as those inside assessed what had gone so wrong this season.To the victor goes the noise. To the defeated goes an unusually early and sullen vacation.The reigning champion Golden State’s freewheeling, 3-point-centric style of play changed the N.B.A. and made Stephen Curry a household name. But on Friday night, the team couldn’t muster up one last overwhelming flurry of deep shots, bowing out to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the Western Conference semifinals.It marked the first time a West team had defeated Golden State in the playoffs during its dynastic run, which began in 2015 with the first of four championships led by Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. But this season was among the most difficult of the last decade, marred by long absences for key players, a confounding inability to win on the road, struggling young players, and the fallout from Green punching a teammate, Jordan Poole, before the season even started.LeBron James led the Lakers with 30 points in Game 6.Ashley Landis/Associated Press“This is not a championship team,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said after Game 6, which the Lakers won, 122-101. “If we were, we’d be moving on. So you can look at the year in total and see all the ups and downs, and there was all kinds of stuff that went on and adversity that hit. But our group stayed together and competed till the end and made a pretty good run.”But “pretty good” has long been below the standards of Golden State, given the stature of Curry, who is widely considered the best shooter in N.B.A. history. And now his team may have to contend with coming back down to earth. It’s the basketball equivalent of confronting mortality.“You’re disappointed and kind of shell shocked that it’s over,” Curry said. “You’ve poured so much into every season, but going off last year you’re trying to defend and give ourselves the chance to keep advancing. It’s a tough way for the season to end.”The series against the Lakers marked one of the most highly anticipated playoff matchups in years, pitting Curry against the Lakers star LeBron James for the first time since the 2018 N.B.A. finals, when James was on the Cleveland Cavaliers. But this series ultimately didn’t match the hype, with blowouts in four of the five games after a thrilling Lakers win in Game 1. Curry and Thompson struggled on Friday, combining to shoot an abysmal 14 for 47 from the field. Thompson, who made just three baskets in each of the last three games, said this was “probably the worst shooting series I’ve had in a long time.”Golden State now faces an uncertain summer; Curry called it “unfamiliar territory.” With one of the most expensive rosters in the league, and a new collective bargaining agreement aimed at curbing heavy spenders, Golden State is likely to try to bring down costs. It could be a stark transition for the team, given that it went from a rudderless middle-of-the-road franchise to one of the most financially valuable ones with Curry at the helm over the past decade.Draymond Green, center, has been a force on defense for Golden State, but he could opt out of his contract this summer.Ashley Landis/Associated Press“For us, it’s an opportunity to kind of take stock of where we’re at, keep the confidence that we can come back and be back at this stage next year,” Curry said.It might help if they get off to a better start. This season, Green punched the fourth-year guard Poole in the face during training camp. TMZ published a video of the punch, exposing the internal discord of a franchise known for continuity and harmony.“Every season is made up of events. Some are great, some are not,” Green said after Friday’s game. “I think for this team, more of the events that aren’t so great were so public, and, you know, that’s not something that you normally do. And so the world knows, you know, the tough times that this team has had.”Now Green’s career is at a turning point. A four-time All-Star, he has a player option for next year and is expected to test free agency. Green had one of his better seasons this year, but he turns 34 next March, and Golden State may balk at offering him a maximum contract. Green has shown a penchant for impulsive behavior, like punching Poole or racking up technical fouls, for which he ranked second in the league during the regular season. The resolution of his contract is the key domino in a summer of retooling.“I want to be a Warrior for the rest of my life,” Green said Friday. “I want to ride out with the same dudes I rode in with.”This season was a slog for Golden State. “It felt like we were swimming upstream from the beginning,” Kerr said.Golden State started the season 3-7. It finished at 44-38 for the West’s sixth seed and had one of the worst road records in the league, at 11-30. Andrew Wiggins, a key contributor to last season’s title run, missed more than half the regular season because of an injury and an undisclosed personal issue. Thompson, a five-time All-Star, struggled to find his shot in the first third of the season and he has noticeably slowed on defense after two major injuries in recent years.If Thompson, 33, has doubts about his future in Golden State, or any skepticism that this team can win again, he didn’t show it on Friday night. His contract expires after next season.“I can tell you, we gave it everything we had,” he said. “But I believe that we have greatness in our future still.”Curry went cold from 3-point range over the last three games of the series with the Lakers.Harry How/Getty ImagesGolden State will also have to decide what to do with the young players it has tried to develop while chasing a championship — a path criticized for placing too much of a load on the 35-year-old Curry. Poole, 23, struggled mightily in the playoffs, a problem given that Golden State signed him to a four-year contract extension in October worth up to $140 million. Other young players, like Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, both 20, were in and out of the lineup all season.In addition, the contract of Bob Myers, the team’s general manager for the last decade, ends this year. Carrying the dynasty into its next stage may fall to a different architect.If there was one bright spot for Golden State this season, it was its most magnetic figure: Curry. He played some of the best basketball of his career — which meant some of the basketball that anyone has ever played. In the first round of the playoffs, Golden State faced the third-seeded Kings in Sacramento for a decisive Game 7. Curry scored 50 points — the most ever in a Game 7 — and hit seven 3-pointers. It was a reminder of the magic that had made his teams so great.But Curry said Friday that reaching the conference semifinals was not “a moral victory.”“There’s a lot of pride in what we accomplished,” he said, “but there’s also an understanding that this is not good enough.” More

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      Celtics’ Jayson Tatum Overcomes Own Poor Play to Force Game 7

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      Tatum said after Game 6 that he is “one of the best basketball players in the world.” But for the first three quarters against the 76ers, he sure didn’t look like it.PHILADELPHIA — At the end of one of the stranger games of his career, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics pounded the ball against the court as the final seconds elapsed. The sound of those hard dribbles — each a percussive thud — seemed to fill Wells Fargo Center as thousands of 76ers fans tried to make sense of what had just happened in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.How was any of it possible? How had the 76ers blown an opportunity to secure their first trip to the conference finals since 2001? How had the Celtics seized on such a simple change — sliding Robert Williams into their starting lineup — to boost their defense? And how had Tatum, after having spent most of his evening chucking up wayward jump shots, ultimately preserved his team’s season?“For 43 minutes, I had to hear them tell me how bad I was,” Tatum said of the fans. “So it kind of felt good to see everybody getting out of their seats, leaving early.”A strange series full of strange games will go the distance — because why not? — after the Celtics put the clamps on the 76ers in a 95-86 victory on Thursday, forcing a Game 7 on Sunday in Boston.Both teams are built to win now. These are not young, overachieving franchises. The 76ers are desperate to fulfill the long-awaited promise of their team-building blueprint known as the Process, with Joel Embiid, who recently collected his first N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award, operating as their focal point. The Celtics, meanwhile, have been using the slogan “unfinished business,” a nod to how close they came to winning it all last season when they lost to the Golden State Warriors in the N.B.A. finals.An early exit for either the 76ers or the Celtics — and getting bounced from the playoffs in the conference semifinals would qualify — could lead to a summer of change. A win, though, would be seismic.“Honestly, I wouldn’t want to go to Game 7 in Boston with any other group,” 76ers Coach Doc Rivers said. “I know we’re going to rally. We’ve rallied all year long on the road.”On Thursday, Tatum rallied from his own struggles. He missed 13 of his first 14 field-goal attempts, a stretch of futility that extended into the fourth quarter. His teammates, he said, continued to feed him positive reinforcement. Keep rebounding. Keep defending. Keep passing. Keep shooting.Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics’ first-year coach, went one step further.“I love you,” Mazzulla recalled telling him. “That’s a pretty powerful statement.”Tatum came alive in the fourth quarter of Game 6, hitting four 3-pointers.Matt Slocum/Associated PressTatum’s first 3-pointer of the game gave the Celtics an 84-83 lead. He sank another one 39 seconds later. He made four 3-pointers in the game’s final 4:14, turning the arena into a mausoleum. He finished with 19 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.“We rely on him,” the Celtics’ Malcolm Brogdon said. “He’s our guy. And he’s proven that he’s reliable in those moments. I don’t think there’s any doubt in anybody’s minds. It doesn’t matter how many shots he missed in the first three quarters. He’s going to finish the game for us.”Tatum, a first-team all-N.B.A. selection for the second straight season, has no shortage of confidence. In a walk-off interview with ESPN after Thursday’s game, he referred to himself as “humbly, one of the best basketball players in the world.” It was quite a statement after he shot 5 of 21 from the field.“I think that shows character that you call tell yourself that when you’ve only hit one shot,” he said later, “and things aren’t going your way, and you’ve got to be the same person with the same morals, the same character whether you’re up or down. And I kept telling myself that. I believe in myself.”Accordingly, Tatum gave Mazzulla a reprieve — for at least a couple of days. Mazzulla, who was an assistant under Ime Udoka last season, took over as the team’s interim coach a few days before the start of training camp when the Celtics suspended Udoka for unspecified “violations of team policies.” The Celtics removed Mazzulla’s interim tag in February and signed him to a contract extension.But the pressure on Mazzulla, 34, has only mounted in the playoffs — and during this series, in particular. There was Game 1, which the Celtics lost even though Embiid was sidelined with a sprained knee. There was Game 4, which the Celtics lost in overtime after they forced up a poor shot in the closing seconds. (Mazzulla later apologized to his players for neglecting to use one of his remaining timeouts.) And there was Game 5, which the Celtics lost thanks to a listless display of basketball that had their home fans booing them.Joe Mazzulla has struggled to make adjustments during the playoffs in his first year as head coach of the Celtics.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesBefore Game 6, Mazzulla made a long-overdue change by starting Williams, a defense-minded center, in place of Derrick White — a move that Marcus Smart, the team’s starting point guard, endorsed. In addition to blocking two shots and affecting countless others, Williams had 10 points and 9 rebounds.“Joe’s learning, just like all of us,” said Smart, who finished with 22 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists. “I know he’s been killed a lot, rightfully so. He needed to make some adjustments, and he did that, and that’s all you can ask for — for him to just continue to be the best that he can be.”Tatum described how he and Mazzulla had leaned on each other throughout the season.“I know there’s a lot of questions and doubts,” Tatum said, “and I’ve told him a lot of times: ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got your back. We’re in this together.’” More