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      While N.B.A. Plays in Abu Dhabi, Critics Cry Foul

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      The league has held preseason games in the United Arab Emirates for three years. It says its impact has been positive, but others say it’s helping a repressive regime.Jaylen Brown, the Boston Celtics star, grabbed the microphone, ready to delight the crowd 6,600 miles from home.“As-salaam alaikum, Abu Dhabi!” he said energetically, offering a common greeting in the region.The crowd cheered. Brown, who grew up in Georgia, introduced himself and thanked the crowd in Arabic to more cheers.“I’ve been working on my Arabic,” he said later.It was a festive beginning on Friday to the N.B.A.’s third annual trip to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for preseason games. This time the league sent its past two champions, the Celtics and the Denver Nuggets, along with the championship trophy and several former N.B.A. players, including the Celtics great Kevin Garnett.Abu Dhabi has become the N.B.A.’s hub in the Middle East. The players visited cultural sites, league and team personnel met with business partners, and the league showcased the work it has done with children, especially girls, in the region. Abu Dhabi in turn presented its modernization, luxury resorts, low crime rates and commitment to religious tolerance — a message prominently displayed at its cultural sites.Jaden Springer with the ball in the second game, played at Etihad Arena on Sunday. Watching from the second row was Jamad Fiin, a Somali American basketball player. She also joined a panel discussion that was a part of the N.B.A.’s visit. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Salt Lake City, Sports Drive a New Vision for Downtown

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      A proposal to remake the area would please the owner of the city’s N.B.A. and N.H.L. teams. But others, including classical musicians, aren’t so thrilled.In late April, about 60 members of the Utah Symphony were on break during a rehearsal of Massenet’s opera “Thaïs” when the organization’s chief executive, Steve Brosvik, matter-of-factly told them that the county was considering demolishing Abravanel Hall, their world-renowned home, as part of a plan to revamp downtown Salt Lake City.The musicians were in shock. How could this be? Abravanel Hall had housed the symphony for 45 years, built with gold-leafed bridges, crystal chandeliers and some of the finest acoustics in the country.“We got really depressed,” said Lori Wike, the symphony’s principal bassoonist. “And then we started organizing.”With that, Wike, a 47-year-old with no experience in local government, found herself entering the sharp-elbowed world of politics. She joined a small but vocal group of musicians in taking on mayors, lawmakers and the billionaire who owns the two major professional sports teams that play in downtown Salt Lake City.The musicians dug through planning codes, attended council meetings and began a media campaign to publicize their cause. They enlisted the help of architects, opposition politicians and John Williams, the fabled composer of scores from classic films like “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”The task was formidable. City and county leaders were pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to remake up to 100 acres of downtown, largely at the behest of Ryan Smith, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Utah Jazz and his newly acquired N.H.L. team that will soon play in downtown Salt Lake City, along with two professional soccer franchises of which he’s a minority owner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rebecca Lobo Helped Build the WNBA. Now She’s Seeing It Flourish.

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      Lobo, one of the W.N.B.A.’s first stars, will now be broadcasting perhaps the most anticipated postseason in league history.Rebecca Lobo’s shoelace was untied.If it were anyone else dressed in morning sweats, standing in line for mediocre coffee in a hotel lobby this month, the stray lace might have gone unnoticed. But in New York City, hours before her former team, the New York Liberty, was set to play just a few subway stops away at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, her fans couldn’t let it go.As Lobo waited for her caffeine fix, two different people cautiously reached up to tap the 6-foot-4 Lobo on the shoulder and let her know about the shoelace. Each time, she was grateful and gracious.“I’m like my own children — ignoring the good advice I’m getting,” she said with a smile.Lobo’s approachability belies the fact that, in the history of women’s basketball, she is royalty. At the University of Connecticut, she was the star of the 1995 team that won the first of the program’s 11 national championships. She was part of the United States’ gold-medal-winning team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. And Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes were the first three players to sign with the Women’s National Basketball Association when it was founded in 1997.Now, more than 20 years since her playing days ended, Lobo, 50, again finds herself in the middle of a pivotal moment in the sport’s history. As the top analyst for ESPN’s W.N.B.A. coverage, she will be calling perhaps the most anticipated postseason the league has ever seen.“We’re on the ascent,” Lobo said of the sport in an interview.The W.N.B.A., whose playoffs began over the weekend, has been one of the hottest topics in sports for months. A star-studded rookie class, led by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, has generated unprecedented interest, shattering television ratings and game attendance records. That has also invited a wide range of commentary, from the informed to those approaching the game as though it had come out of nowhere.What sets Lobo apart from the hot takes of social media is her depth of knowledge. It’s difficult to get more institutionally aware than someone who has been with the W.N.B.A. since its founding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Woj’ Leaves ESPN, and a Changed Sports Media, to Join St. Bonaventure

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      At ESPN, Adrian Wojnarowski leveraged social media to get the news out quicker. That skill made him rich and famous. He will manage the basketball team at St. Bonaventure University.For years, the sportswriter Adrian Wojnarowski used his sources and his hustle to repeatedly beat the competition on basketball stories big and small. But his drive and deft use of social media also helped change the entire sports journalism landscape.Wojnarowski, who announced Wednesday that he was retiring from ESPN to become general manager of the basketball team at St. Bonaventure University, his alma mater, developed a well-earned reputation for getting professional basketball news first, and then rapidly getting it out to the public, often via a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.When he was first, which was often, and the news was big, it was dubbed a “Woj Bomb.” Other reporters scrambled to confirm the news, then sent out tweets of their own, but crucially only after Wojnarowski’s. Even if he was only 30 seconds faster than the competition, Wojnarowski had his scoop. And because the social media algorithms often prioritize being first, the speed could gain him tens of thousands of extra clicks.The medium was a big part of the message for Wojnarowski. Rather than following the old media model — interacting with an editor, polishing the prose and waiting for publication — Wojnarowski went straight to social media, even if it was just with a sentence reporting that a trade had occurred or that a free agent had signed a contract, to own a story.It made him a star and it made him rich. ESPN paid him millions of dollars.“Scoops are not a new thing,” said Laith Zuraikat, an assistant professor of radio, TV and film at Hofstra University. “But what he did so effectively was take a lot of that traditional journalistic insider work and transition and use Twitter. I’m sure others thought of it, but nobody did it as well as he did. He was the guy.”Far from being an anomaly, Wojnarowski, first at Yahoo and then at ESPN, became a model for many other reporters who embraced his style. ESPN emphasized other accomplished journalists, like Jeff Passan on baseball, Adam Schefter on the N.F.L. and Pete Thamel on college sports, who focused on breaking news that would then drive hours or even days of coverage on the company’s various shows. Other media companies tried to match that lineup with scoop-breakers of their own who could race to share their knowledge on social media.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Co-Hosts of N.B.A. Player Podcasts Have ‘Best Job on the Planet’

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      For the friends of some famous athletes, hosting a show can mean a little money, some fame and a whole lot of work.Josh Hart grabbed a microphone, settled into his chair at the center of the stage and tugged the brim of his baseball cap. He looked to his left and saw the former N.F.L. quarterback Tom Brady and the rapper Lil Wayne on a black leather love seat. He looked to his right and saw his New York Knicks teammate and close friend Jalen Brunson in a matching easy chair.Then he looked beyond Brunson, to the only person onstage who needed an introduction at all.“That’s the man, the myth, the legend: Matt Hillman,” Hart said. “If you guys know the pod, you know Matty Ice.”“I’m the only one onstage you guys don’t know,” Hillman replied.“Y’all will know who he is by the end,” Hart told the crowd.It was a Friday in mid-August, and Hart, Hillman and Brunson were recording the first-ever live episode of their podcast, “The Roommates Show,” at Fanatics Fest NYC. The show, which started in February, has attracted a growing audience in part because of the popularity and personal connections of a young, surging Knicks team: Hart and Brunson are among four Knicks players who were teammates at Villanova. (They were also, as the title suggests, roommates.)“I’m the only one onstage you guys don’t know,” Hillman said to the crowd.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesThe show exists in a relatively crowded niche. There’s no official list, but some online tallies put the number of podcasts hosted by current or former N.B.A. players at nearly 60. Last season, active players hosted at least two dozen podcasts, meaning that one out of roughly every 20 players had a show. Beyond their ubiquity, another interesting feature has emerged in this small corner of sports media: More than half the podcasts have relatively anonymous co-hosts, like Hillman.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Al Attles, a Golden State Warrior in Name and in Spirit, Dies at 87

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      He was known as the Destroyer for his gritty intensity as a player. He later coached Golden State to an N.B.A. championship and served as its general manager.Al Attles, the Basketball Hall of Fame guard who was among the most prominent figures in the history of the Golden State Warriors and their forerunner franchise in Philadelphia, died on Tuesday at his home in Oakland, Calif. He was 87.His death was announced by the Warriors, the team Attles served as a tough, defensive-minded guard, an N.B.A. championship-winning coach, a general manager and, until his death, a community relations representative. His career spanned the Warriors’ Philadelphia years and their decades in the Bay Area.When Attles was selected by the Philadelphia Warriors in the fifth round of the 1960 N.B.A. draft, he was a newly hired junior high school gym teacher in his native Newark.As a little-known player out of a historically Black college, he knew that his chances of making the Warriors’ lineup seemed slim.But he decided to give it a shot at training camp, and for six decades he remained an enduring face of the Warriors’ franchise.The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., presented Attles with its John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and inducted him in 2019. Although he was never an All-Star in his 11 seasons in the backcourt, he was among six players whose numbers have been retired by the Warriors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Frank Selvy, 91, Dies; Scored 100 Points in a College Basketball Game

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      The feat, a collegiate record, came in 1954 in South Carolina. As a pro, he missed a shot that would have given the Los Angeles Lakers a championship.All eyes were on Frank Selvy when his basketball team from Furman University took on a fellow South Carolina school, Newberry College, on Feb. 13, 1954.Selvy, a 6-foot-3 guard, was the top scorer in college basketball for a second season, and his family and neighbors made the 250-mile journey from Kentucky to watch him play, joining 4,000 others in the stands in Greenville, S.C., home of Furman’s Paladins, for “Frank Selvy Night.” It would be the first college basketball game televised live in South Carolina.A mismatch loomed. Furman was a Division I team, while Newberry, a small college about 65 miles southeast of Greenville, was Division II, so Furman’s coach figured it was a perfect time to showcase Selvy’s jump shots and hooks. He instructed the team to set Selvy up for a shot whenever it had the ball.Selvy, who was nearing the end of his college career, did not disappoint. He scored a remarkable 100 points against Newberry, setting a single-game record for a Division I player.He died on Tuesday at his home in Simpsonville, S.C., in Greenville County, in the northwest part of the state, according to an announcement by Furman. He was 91.Selvy was an All-American in college and became a two-time All-Star guard in the National Basketball Association, but he was probably remembered most for that winter night in 1954. In an era before the 3-point shot, Selvy scored 41 field goals on 66 shots together with 18 free throws.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      W.N.B.A.’s Nneka Ogwumike Takes Over More Than a Vote From LeBron James

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      Nneka Ogwumike, a nine-time All-Star, will lead More Than a Vote, which will focus on women’s reproductive rights this election cycle.More Than a Vote, a nonprofit organization founded by LeBron James in 2020, is rebooting this fall with a new focus on women’s issues and reproductive rights.Nneka Ogwumike, a nine-time W.N.B.A. All-Star with the Seattle Storm and president of the players union, will take over James’s role in leading the organization, and has recruited a group of female athletes to her cause.“It’s more than just abortion,” Ogwumike said in an interview. “It’s all about educating people about all the different roles that exist in society that support and protect the freedoms of women when it comes to family planning, I.V.F., birth control, everything. There’s just a lot that’s at stake.”More Than a Vote was founded when, motivated by nationwide protest movements after the killing by police of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, athletes like James said they were starting to think more deeply about how they could use their platforms.The organization was focused on protecting voting access for Black voters, including collaborating with NAACP Legal Defense Fund on a multimillion-dollar initiative to recruit poll workers. It partnered with teams to open sports arenas and stadiums as polling locations and created television ads and digital content designed to encourage voting. The organization raised about $4.2 million in 2020, twice the amount it expected. However, it has been essentially dormant for the past few years.Ogwumike, who volunteered as a poll worker in 2020, began speaking with James this year. At that point, James and his associates had been discussing the prominence of discussions about reproductive rights, as well as the increased attention around women’s sports. (Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to make abortion rights a focus of her campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More