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      The Nuggets Are in the Playoffs Again. Hold the Champagne.

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      DENVER — It was 1976, 39 years before the arrival of Nikola Jokic, when the Denver Nuggets had their last best chance to win a championship.Hair was big, shorts were small. The ball was red, white and blue. The Nuggets had the American Basketball Association’s best record, again, and a roster with three future Hall of Famers.But the New York Nets had Julius Erving, who led them to an upset in the finals. As the fans at the Nassau Coliseum rushed the court, the announcer shouted, “It’s pandemonium!” Because it was the 1970s, and of course he did.Not to worry, Nuggets fans. There would be more chances. Oh, so many chances.The Nuggets are up to their 38th postseason chance now. No current team in major American pro sports has been to the playoffs so many times without winning a championship, according to Elias Sports Bureau.That might make the Nuggets the best franchise to never win it all.There are sadder teams in American sports, some with longer championship droughts and in decaying cities that could use more luck than Denver. For most of their titleless years, the Nuggets were good, and they were fun. They just cannot get the ending right.The next best chance for the Nuggets comes now, eight years after the Denver arrival of Jokic, the two-time reigning most valuable player. Behind the 6-foot-11-inch human Swiss Army knife, the Nuggets earned the No. 1 seed in the N.B.A.’s Western Conference for the first time.Rocky, the team mascot, has been a well-known part of the Nuggets since 1990. These days, though, the most beloved Nugget is Nikola Jokic. Theo Stroomer for The New York TimesMaybe this is the year. A city awaits.For now, the ghosts of “almost” are everywhere.They are in Lot C next to the football stadium. They are at the downtown performing arts center at 13th and Champa.And they are in the current arena, near the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, where 19th-century miners set off the Colorado gold rush that would shape a city and a state and, one day, give a basketball team its name: Nuggets.A Miner With a PickaxStart in 1974, or 41 B.J. (Before Jokic). That’s when Carl Scheer arrived in Denver as general manager, with a friend and coach named Larry Brown. They came to invigorate a seven-year-old A.B.A. franchise called the Rockets.“Larry and I both felt that Denver was like a sleeping giant,” Scheer told a Denver magazine in 1979. “It was just beginning to shed its Old West, cowtown image.”The Rockets played downtown, at Auditorium Arena. It was part of a massive blond-brick complex completed in 1908, in time for that year’s Democratic convention. (William Jennings Bryan, if you must know, was on his way to losing the presidential election a third time.)The arena might be most famous as the site of Led Zeppelin’s first American concert in 1968. (A newspaper reviewer was not impressed by Robert Plant’s singing or John Bonham’s drumming.) Less famously, two nights later, the Rockets beat the Los Angeles Stars.The Nuggets were a middling American Basketball Association team in 1972 when they hosted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the N.B.A.’s Milwaukee Bucks in an exhibition game. Four years later, the Nuggets were a powerful force in the N.B.A. Associated PressThe Rockets had some good players, like Spencer Haywood his rookie year, but went through five coaches in five seasons. By 1974, they needed a reboot. And the name had to go, if Denver hoped to ever play in the N.B.A. There already were Rockets, in Houston.Where to find a name? In the 1930s, Denver had a top amateur team called the Nuggets. That team eventually became part of the National Basketball League, which combined with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to form the N.B.A. The Denver Nuggets were one of the 17 original N.B.A. teams — the worst one. They did not return for a second season.But in August 1974, Scheer unveiled a new/old name and a logo: a bearded cartoon miner holding a pickax in one hand and a basketball in the other. He wore tube socks and a prospector’s hat with a flipped-up brim sporting a “D.”The groovy new Nuggets struck gold. That first team went 65-19. It lost the division finals.But things moved fast, and the Nuggets moved up. In 1975 came a new home, McNichols Arena, named for a mayor. The first show was a Lawrence Welk concert; the best show was the Nuggets. They a-one and a-two’d their way to a 28-game home winning streak on their way to the league’s best record.They had Dan Issel, a charging, gaptoothed forward they called the Horse. They had the rookie David Thompson, a gravity-testing guard they soon called Skywalker, like the hero in “Star Wars.” They had Bobby Jones, the slick defensive forward with shooting touch. All three would go to basketball’s hall of fame.Denver hosted the 1976 A.B.A. All-Star Game, and Scheer created a slam-dunk contest. (“To take the pressure off the backboards and rims, we’re going to alternate sides,” the public-address announcer said, in perfect Barnum-ese.) Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, even Thompson couldn’t keep up with Dr. J.That spring, Erving led the Nets to an upset of the Nuggets in the last A.B.A. final.In 1976, the Nuggets had three future Hall of Fame players and the A.B.A.’s best record, but they were upset in the league finals by Julius Erving and the New York Nets. Weeks later, both franchises were invited to join the N.B.A. Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated via Getty ImagesIt would be hard to fathom that the Nuggets would never return to a league finals. That off-season, the summer of the nation’s bicentennial and Colorado’s centennial, the N.B.A. added four A.B.A. teams. Denver was the prize.They were 52-30 during their first N.B.A. season, including 36-5 at home. They lost their first playoff series. But they made the postseason 11 more times in the next 13 years.Every time, they fell short.“There are 22 teams in this league,” Scheer said in 1979, “and to be the champion you need good luck and good fortune. The most important thing is to stay competitive year after year, and then hope that you get luck and momentum going for you at the right time.”The right time never seemed to come.Issel, Several Other Guys, and IsselLot C is on the southwest corner of the second-generation football stadium that everyone still calls Mile High.There is no sign that McNichols Arena once squatted here. Big Mac, people called it, and it was kind of shaped like a burger.There is no foul line where Dr. J took off for his most momentous dunk in 1976, no marker stating that this was the home of the original Colorado Rockies (an N.H.L. franchise that left to become the New Jersey Devils), no hint of the sideline that Nuggets Coach Doug Moe patrolled for more than a decade in his disheveled, profanity-laced glory.There is no plaque commemorating the 1990 Final Four (U.N.L.V.) or the first Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993. Nothing to note all the big-name rock concerts, the indoor-soccer franchise (the original Avalanche), the arena-football team.Just pavement.But there is a view. Looking east from Lot C is the Denver skyline — the gold-domed state capitol, 17th Street’s “Wall Street of the Rockies” lined with towers built of oil money, the skyscraper on Broadway meant to evoke a cash register.The skyline looks nothing like the Lego-like one on the Nuggets’ rainbow-colored uniforms from the 1980s. Divisive at the time — Where is the miner?— they are now the N.B.A.’s coolest throwbacks, evoking the go-go era of Moe’s high-scoring teams.Caramia Casias and Carter Beller wear Nuggets gear inspired by the 1980s versions of the Nuggets jersey.Theo Stroomer for The New York TimesTheo Stroomer for The New York TimesAll nine of Moe’s teams, through the 1980s, made the playoffs. In 1982-83, they averaged 123.2 points per game despite making only 24 3-pointers. The next season, they played the highest-scoring game in league history.“No one believes that we had zero plays on offense, but Doug would just scream at you, ‘Don’t hold the ball!’” Bill Hanzlik, who played on those teams, said. “It was pass, move, cut. That style of ball was fast, up and down, and we dominated at home. Fans really loved it.”Great players came and went. Alex English arrived to become the team’s career leading scorer. Thompson was traded amid headlines of cocaine addiction. Kiki Vandeweghe was traded for Fat Lever, Calvin Natt and Wayne Cooper. Through it all was Issel, the Horse, the best-known Denver athlete before Elway got rolling in the stadium next door.“The Nuggets were as popular as the Broncos,” said Vic Lombardi, who grew up in Denver, was a Nuggets ball boy in the 1980s and became a local sportscaster and radio personality. “They were just as successful, just as competitive and got just as much attention.”The teams shared a habit of being great to watch but not good enough to win in the end. The Broncos rattled the old stadium in the fall, aspirations crumbling in January. The Nuggets raced down the court on cold winter nights, their hopes melting in the spring.In 1990, they finished 43-39. Things seemed fine, in a Groundhog Day kind of way.But the Nuggets fired Moe — the start of 12 coaching changes in 15 years. If you believe in sports jinxes, Moe’s firing might be one.Or if you believe in phantoms, consider the gutting of the old Auditorium Arena about the same time.The interior was turned into the lavish Buell Theater. And on the same snowy November Friday night that the theater opened to rave reviews with “The Phantom of the Opera,” the Nuggets were at McNichols, opening the season with the first of 58 losses — 120 losses over a two-year stretch. They were more cursed than Carlotta.Dikembe Mutombo was a bright spot for the Nuggets in the 1990s, when the long-stable franchise had eight coaching changes and a string of forgettable seasons. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThe rest of the 1990s did not go well. The skyline jersey was ditched. There was an anthem flap, a brief Dikembe Mutombo-led resurrection, and eight coaching changes that began and ended with Issel.But the 1990s were great for other Denver sports. A top N.H.L. team came gift-wrapped from Quebec, was christened the Avalanche and immediately won a Stanley Cup — the first major championship for the city. The Broncos and Elway finally won a Super Bowl, then another. The expansion Rockies arrived and attracted big crowds at a gem called Coors Field.And in 2001, early in a seventh-straight losing season for the Nuggets, Issel called a postgame heckler a “Mexican piece of (expletive)” and soon skulked away.Denver was rolling, without the sad little Nuggets.Jokic Is Here. What Can Go Wrong?Nikola Jokic was 4 when Pepsi Center opened in 1999. (Named then for a canned beverage, it is now Ball Arena, named for a canning company.) It went up on the west edge of downtown, near Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway, named for the original mining-camp settlement along Cherry Creek.The lane that leads to Ball Arena is called Chopper Circle, for the longtime Nuggets trainer Chopper Travaglini. That’s how popular the Nuggets were: even the trainer had streets named for him. He also opened a sports bar that is still there.Theo Stroomer for The New York TimesTheo Stroomer for The New York TimesInside the arena, in the rafters, the Nuggets are represented on one end, the Avalanche on the other.The Avs, as they’re called, have three Stanley Cup banners, including one from their first season in Denver and one from last season. They hope to repeat this spring.The Nuggets have no championship banners, but nine division championships and a lot of retired numbers: Issel, Thompson, English, Lever and Mutombo among them. And there is a banner for Moe, marking his 432 victories.George Karl was hired as the coach in 2005. He led the Nuggets on a Moe-like run of nine consecutive postseasons, the first six with Carmelo Anthony. They were good, fun to watch and almost always lost in the first round.Karl’s last team, 10 years ago, had a mishmash of talent that somehow got to 57 wins, a franchise high in the N.B.A., and were 38-3 at home. Only in hindsight does a first-round upset by the Warriors, with kids named Curry, Thompson and Green making their first playoff appearances, make any sense. Karl was fired.Karl fell in love with Denver as a visiting A.B.A. player in the 1970s — the oil-booming downtown, the vociferous fans, the fast-paced style of the early Nuggets, even their logo and colors. He still lives in Denver, and fans revere him, despite years of almosts and not quites.“Fans do get anxious, they do get angry, they do get fanatical,” Karl said. “But they have a lot of respect and love for the game of basketball here in Denver.”A year after Karl’s firing, in 2014, the Nuggets used a second-round draft choice, the 41st overall, on a 19-year-old from Serbia named Nikola Jokic. He was 6-foot-11 and played in the Adriatic League.Draft experts shrugged. Nuggets fans barely noticed. Jokic quietly joined Denver in 2015, the same time as another new coach, Michael Malone.Jokic made the all-rookie team and eased into superstardom — his game and humility draw comparisons to Tim Duncan — and by 2019, he had ARRIVED, in all caps. He was a do-everything All-Star leading the Nuggets to the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed. (They lost in the second round.)In 2021, Nikola Jokic became the first Nuggets player to win the league M.V.P. This year, he could be the first N.B.A. player since Larry Bird to win it three times in a row. Dustin Bradford/Getty ImagesMomentum has been building since. In 2020 came an unexpected playoff run. (Denver lost to the Lakers, again, in the conference finals.) In 2021, Jokic was named the league’s most valuable player, the first in Nuggets history. (The team lost in the conference semifinals.) In 2022, he was M.V.P. again. (The Nuggets lost in the first round.)This season, Jokic nearly averaged a triple-double — double figures in points (24.5), rebounds (11.8) and assists (9.8). The team that revolves around him has gelled, especially guard Jamal Murray and forwards Michael Porter, Jr., and Aaron Gordon, all in their mid-20s.And now, for the first time since joining the N.B.A. in 1976, the Nuggets will have the top seed in the Western Conference playoffs — home-court advantage for every round before what would be their first-ever N.B.A. finals.Not since that last year in the A.B.A., that first year in McNichols Arena, right after Lawrence Welk opened a squatty little paradise since paved into a parking lot, have they been so well positioned for a postseason.Expectations are tempered. These are the Nuggets, after all. No basketball team spoils the promise of spring quite like them.But Lombardi, the ball boy turned sportscaster, is adamant.“If the Denver Nuggets win a championship,” Lombardi said, “I contend it would produce the largest downtown parade this city has ever seen.”Could it be in 2023? Jokic is 28. The Nuggets are the best team never to win a title. There is gold to be mined, if they can finally discover it.The Nuggets share a city and an arena with the N.H.L.’s Avalanche, who won a Stanley Cup in their first season in Colorado in 1996 and their third championship last season. The Nuggets, with a far deeper history, are still looking for their first title. Theo Stroomer for The New York Times More

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      Former NBA Star Shawn Kemp Charged in Tacoma Mall Shooting

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      Kemp, the former N.B.A. star, is accused of shooting at people in a mall parking lot last month after he said his car was broken into. Kemp’s lawyer said it was self-defense.Shawn Kemp, a former N.B.A. star, has been charged with first-degree assault in Washington State, where Pierce County prosecutors said he was involved in a shooting at a mall in Tacoma last month.Kemp, 53, plans to plead not guilty, according to a statement by his criminal defense lawyers, Tim Leary and Aaron Kiviat. His arraignment is scheduled for May 4.“He has been fully cooperative with the police and the prosecutor’s office throughout this process,” Kemp’s lawyers said in a statement. “He is confident that once the jury hears from the witnesses and sees the evidence at trial, they will conclude that he was justified in defending himself that afternoon.”On March 8, Tacoma police officers arrested Kemp after shots were fired in a parking lot at Tacoma Mall around 2 p.m. He was released from jail a day later, after the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office decided not to charge him immediately, pending an investigation. At the time, the police said no one was injured in the shooting.On Friday, Pierce County prosecutors charged Kemp with first-degree assault with a firearms enhancement. In a charging document released by the prosecutor’s office, the police said Kemp was seen on video surveillance footage leaving his car, removing something from inside a backpack and walking toward another vehicle in the lot. The police said they found a round where he was standing by a car that had a “suspected bullet hole on the roof.”According to the police, footage showed Kemp pointing a gun at an occupied vehicle; the police guessed that Kemp had fired at the vehicle’s driver, who they said could be seen ducking in the video footage. The police said that they found a gun in the parking lot and that Kemp told them he had thrown a gun into the bushes.Neither Leary nor Kiviat responded to specific questions about the police’s version of events.Another one of Kemp’s lawyers, W. Scott Boatman, said last month in a statement to ESPN and The Associated Press that Kemp had only returned fire after being shot at. Boatman said Kemp’s car had been broken into and several of his items were stolen, leading him to track his iPhone to the parking lot where the incident occurred.Boatman said the people in the vehicle shot at Kemp after he confronted them and Kemp then fired back. Boatman called Kemp’s actions “reasonable and legally justified.”In a charging document for Kemp, the police said they were able to identify the driver of the other vehicle, but they do not know where that person is.Kemp played in the N.B.A. from 1989 to 2003 and was a six-time All-Star. He began his career with the Seattle SuperSonics and also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Orlando Magic. Since his retirement, he has opened two cannabis stores that bear his name in Seattle, where recreational marijuana use has been legal since 2012. More

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      N.B.A. Suspends Miles Bridges for 30 Games for Domestic Violence

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      Bridges pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence in November. He was accused of assaulting the mother of his children.Miles Bridges, the N.B.A. forward who pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence in the fall, has been suspended for 30 games, the league announced on Friday. Bridges, 25, had played for the Charlotte Hornets for four seasons before he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in front of their children last June. He was not under contract during the 2022-23 regular season and did not appear in any games.Prosecutors initially charged him with several counts of felony domestic violence and child abuse, though they did not name the victims. The N.B.A. said it would conduct its own inquiry.The league said it had consulted domestic violence experts, interviewed witnesses and the people involved and reviewed materials as part of its investigation. It has been almost 10 months since Bridges was arrested, and more than five months since he was sentenced. Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, said the league “took the time necessary” to ensure that the investigation was “comprehensive.”Bridges was arrested in Los Angeles on June 29. Around that time, Mychelle Johnson, a former college basketball player who has two children with Bridges, posted photos on Instagram showing what appeared to be bruising and other injuries on her body. She did not mention Bridges, and the post was subsequently deleted. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, in a news release, accused Bridges of causing “great bodily injury.” After pleading no contest to one count of felony domestic violence in November, Bridges was sentenced to probation and 100 hours of community service and ordered to attend counseling and parenting classes. The sentence also included a 10-year restraining order for the victim and weekly drug tests for Bridges.Bridges was a rising star before his arrest, which came on the eve of free agency. He was a restricted free agent projected to receive a maximum contract from Charlotte worth around $173 million. The Hornets had made a qualifying offer to Bridges the day before his arrest. If he has not signed it, and the team has not withdrawn it, he remains a restricted free agent. Charlotte did not answer a question from The New York Times about Bridges’s contract status, but said in a statement that the “investigation and ruling were the expected next steps in the process” and the team would not comment further at this time. Klutch, the agency that represents Bridges, did not respond to a request for comment.The N.B.A. is crediting Bridges for 20 games of his suspension because he did not play this season. Bridges attended a Hornets game against the Lakers in Los Angeles in December, which would not have been allowed if he had been suspended. In February, Bridges told The Associated Press during a Michigan State men’s basketball game that he might return to the N.B.A. in March.The N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement stipulates that a conviction is not required for a violation of the league’s domestic violence policy. It empowers Commissioner Adam Silver, based on the finding of the investigation, to “fine, suspend, or dismiss and disqualify” a player “from any further association with the N.B.A.” for violating the policy.There were several notable suspensions in the N.B.A. this season.In September, the Boston Celtics suspended Coach Ime Udoka for the season for violating team policy by having a relationship with a subordinate, according two people who were not authorized to discuss the punishment publicly. They then fired him in February, according to a person who was not authorized to comment publicly.In November, the Nets suspended guard Kyrie Irving indefinitely after he shared an antisemitic film on Twitter and repeatedly refused to disavow antisemitism. He missed eight games. He was later traded to the Dallas Mavericks after negotiations over a contract extension broke down.Last month, the N.B.A. suspended Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant for eight games after he brandished a gun in an Instagram Live video after a game against the Denver Nuggets. More

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      Dallas Mavericks Fined $750,000 for ‘Desire to Lose’ a Game

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      The N.B.A. fined the team for resting players and making statements that indicated it did not want to win against the Chicago Bulls this month.The Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 by the N.B.A. on Friday for playing a weakened lineup in a game in an effort to miss the postseason and hang on to a first-round draft pick.The Mavericks sat out five of their best players for their second-to-last game of the season, against the Chicago Bulls on April 7. Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Maxi Kleber were reported to be injured, while Josh Green and Christian Wood were said to need rest. The team’s biggest star, Luka Doncic, played just 13 minutes at the beginning of the game.The remaining Mavericks lost the game, 115-112, and were eliminated from a chance to qualify for a play-in game.“It’s not so much waving the white flag,” Coach Jason Kidd told reporters after the game. “It’s decisions sometimes are hard in this business. We’re trying to build a championship team. With this decision, this is maybe a step back. But hopefully it leads to going forward.”By missing the play-in, the Mavericks qualified for the draft lottery, giving them a chance at a high draft pick, or even No. 1. In addition, the Mavericks have a first-round pick in the draft that they would have to surrender to the Knicks should it fall outside the top 10. By missing the postseason, they give themselves a good chance to hang on to it.Doncic was on the bench in street clothes during the second half of the April 7 game against the Bulls. Dallas lost by 3 points.Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressThe Mavericks “demonstrated through actions and public statements the organization’s desire to lose the game in order to improve the chances of keeping its first-round pick in the 2023 N.B.A. draft,” the league said in a statement on Friday.“The league did not find that the players who participated in the game were not playing to win,” the statement said. Doncic and other players had been vocal about wanting to keep playing and trying to win as long as there was a chance to make the postseason.The Mavericks’ actions “undermined the integrity of our sport,” said Joe Dumars, the league’s head of basketball operations. “The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”Last season, the Mavericks had a 52-30 record and advanced to the Western Conference finals. This year, with the team just 28-26 in early February, hopes were raised by a trade for Irving from the Nets. Though Irving averaged 27 points in 20 games for the Mavs, the team got worse and finished just 38-44.In 2018, the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban, was fined $600,000 for saying on a podcast that “losing is our best option” when the team was out of the playoff mix. More

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      Old Friends. New Team. Same Knicks Championship Dream.

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      Knicks guards Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart were college friends, then took a twisty road to a reunion in the N.B.A.When Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson was asked if Josh Hart had changed much in the eight years they had known each other, he feigned exasperation and quickly said no. Then a little smile crept onto his face.“He’s still a 2-year-old,” Brunson said. “Loves candy. It’s like having — he’s older than me — it’s like having a little brother.”This was all news to Hart, also a Knicks guard, who countered that Brunson, too, has not changed a bit since college.“He’s a child, that’s what he is,” Hart said. “He’s the child. I’m like the parent.”The playful ribbing belies a relationship that was nurtured at Villanova and has remained strong even as the two have taken divergent paths in the N.B.A.Brunson, 26, was a freshman at Villanova in 2015-16 when Hart, 28, was a junior and they won an N.C.A.A. championship together. Hart made it to the N.B.A. a year later as a first-round pick for the Lakers in a draft-day deal with the Jazz. The next year, it was Brunson’s turn: The Mavericks drafted him in the second round. While Brunson spent the next four years in Dallas, Hart played on three different teams.Brunson, second from left, won an N.C.A.A. championship at Villanova in 2016 with Mikal Bridges, left, Darryl Reynolds, center, and Hart, right.Ronald Martinez/Getty ImagesThis year, Brunson joined the Knicks in free agency and has blossomed into a star who has helped carry the team to its best record since 2013. Hart arrived in February in a trade from Portland and has brought a tenacity off the bench that has helped the Knicks finish the season with optimism despite working through injuries.Hart and Brunson will have very different but important roles for the Knicks, the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, as they prepare for a first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, which starts on Saturday.“I think that they had a mutual respect for each other just because they’re competitive assassins,” said Kyle Neptune, Villanova’s men’s basketball coach, who was an assistant coach on the team from 2013 to 2021. He added: “They have just a sense of humanity and a sense of purpose and being good human beings. But then when you get them both on the floor they’re just absolute killers.”The ways Hart and Brunson have excelled with the Knicks reflect who they were as players in college.Brunson was able to connect well with his teammates back then, too.“His ability to adapt to new people is partially because he’s the son of a player and a coach that moved around like a military family,” said Baker Dunleavy, who was an assistant coach for Villanova from 2010 to 2017.He remembered Brunson having a sense of professionalism early on that was rare for someone his age.But, like he did in his N.B.A. career, Brunson had to wait before he could take ownership of Villanova’s locker room. Jay Wright, the former longtime Villanova head coach, remembered sensing that Brunson was a bit uncomfortable in his first year and that he held back some of his leadership ability because the team already had a point guard — Ryan Arcidiacono, who was a senior at the time. The next year, Brunson seemed more at ease as he took on a leadership role.“A born leader and just a guy that loved having everybody count on him,” Wright said.Brunson was the Knicks’ second-leading scorer this season with 24 points per game, up from 16.3 points per game in his last season with Dallas.Ken Blaze/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConHart had been named the most outstanding player of the Big East tournament during his sophomore year, and was a third-team all-American his junior year. He sometimes shocked his coaches with the audacity of the shots he took, but they happily accepted the results.Wright recounted several examples of Hart making big plays in high-pressure situations: regular-season games against top-ranked opponents, pivotal Big East tournament matchups and N.C.A.A. tournament games.“You just kind of knew this guy fears nothing,” Wright said.And he did love candy. Once, during a pause in one of Hart’s high school practices, Dunleavy saw Hart reach into a sock, pull out a bag of sour candy and tilt the bag so a few pieces fell into his mouth as if he was taking a sip of Gatorade.Villanova stressed the importance of good nutrition for their players, Wright said, but he was sure Hart found a way to hide candy in the locker room.“Don’t even get me started,” he said.Wright described Hart as more carefree than Brunson, and Brunson as a little more mature.Brunson spent his first four seasons with the Mavericks. He joined the Knicks as a prized free agent last summer, about a month after the team hired his father, Rick Brunson, who had worked with Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau before as an assistant coach.The Knicks were penalized a second-round draft pick in 2025 for beginning free agent discussions with Brunson before the league allowed.Brunson had been an emerging player in Dallas, playing alongside Luka Doncic, but he has thrived being featured more with the Knicks. His per-game scoring average has risen to 24 this season from 16.3 last season, and he is dishing 6.2 assists per game compared to 4.8 last season.Part of what has made him fit so well with the Knicks is the mixture of humility and confidence with which he plays and leads.“He’s an honest leader,” Knicks center Mitchell Robinson said. “He knows when he’s right and he’s wrong, so he’s not afraid to admit stuff like that. And you kind of need that.”Robinson said Brunson texted him last summer to join him in New York for off-season workouts. He didn’t know Brunson before that, but they quickly developed the rapport of longtime friends.Hart has had an effect on his teams through his versatility on defense and on hustle plays — rebounding, chasing loose balls. He was traded twice before arriving in New York, first to the Pelicans as part of the deal that sent Anthony Davis to the Lakers, and then to Portland.For most of this season, Hart relished Brunson’s success from afar.“I think he kind of exceeded everyone’s expectations but his own,” Hart said, adding: “For me it’s just cool because I’ve seen all the work that he’s put in to get to this level.”On Feb. 8, their paths converged.Brunson was at Villanova for a ceremony to have his college jersey retired. Someone showed him the news on a phone that the Knicks had traded for Hart. Brunson shouted an expletive and then said “YESSS!” as he raised his arms victoriously. The people around him started to clap.“Like his big brother was coming home from college or something,” Wright said. “He was so excited. It was genuine, you know. After he saw, he just still kept walking around like: ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe. I can’t believe we have Josh. I’m so pumped we got Josh.’ He didn’t stop the whole night.”Hart has been effective throughout his career on hustle plays, including rebounding and chasing loose balls.Vincent Carchietta/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConHart, who had his own jersey retired by Villanova in 2022, had just spoken with Brunson that morning.“Neither of us, obviously, had any idea that was going to happen,” Hart said. “I texted him just about congrats on getting the jersey retirement. And he actually didn’t even say thank you.”In New York, Hart fit in immediately. He is now making better than 50 percent of his 3-point attempts, where in Portland he made only a third. His scoring has gone up, even though his minutes have gone down. The Knicks went on a nine-game winning streak starting with the first game Hart played for them.“I think his game could fit in well anywhere just because of all the things he does,” Thibodeau said. He added: “There’s no agenda other than winning. If you’re open, he hits you. If we need a big shot. He’s what I call a playmaker. Whatever the game needs.”Now, Hart and Brunson often do their postgame interview sessions together, trading off questions if one of them gets stumped. They sit together on the team plane, and, according to Robinson, tell inside jokes that their teammates don’t understand. Together, they will try to help this Knicks team become the first in a decade to win a playoff series. More

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      Michael Jordan Was an Activist After All

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      Jordan wasn’t vocal about social justice like today’s N.B.A. stars, but his secret brand of activism is a key reason they have the spotlight now.On the first road trip of his N.B.A. career, in the fall of 2001, Etan Thomas looked out the window of the Washington Wizards’ team bus and was stunned by the massing crowd around the hotel.He asked Christian Laettner, the veteran forward: “Is this how the N.B.A. is?”Laettner laughed. “No, young fella,” he said. “This isn’t for us. They’re here for M.J.”This was lesson No. 1 of Thomas’s two-year tour with Michael Jordan, who had returned to the league from a three-season absence following his last dance with the Chicago Bulls. Along with him came the deluge of lights, cameras, action.The young, inquisitive Thomas couldn’t help but wonder: ‌What about the activism? Why wasn’t Jordan doing more with his spotlight?“I was thinking that Michael didn’t lend his voice to causes where he could have helped,” ‌Thomas said in a recent interview, 20 years removed from his time with the man on whose shoulders the sport dramatically rose in popularity worldwide.Jordan’s profile helped increase the N.B.A.’s popularity.Jonathan Daniel/Allsport, via Getty ImagesJordan played his final N.B.A. game on April 16, 2003, scoring 15 points in a 20-point defeat in Philadelphia. That season, with him turning 40 in February and dealing with a knee that Thomas remembered could swell like a grapefruit, Jordan averaged a modest (for him) 20 points per game. He played 37 minutes a night and in all 82 games‌ — part of a legacy that should admonish, if not embarrass, today’s load-managed N.B.A. elite.Jordan retired as a six-time champion with many believing, and now still insisting, there was no one ever greater. Such conviction has only been heightened by the widespread appeal of “The Last Dance,” a 10-part E‌SPN series about Jordan’s Bulls that was broadcast in 2020, and the current feature film “Air,” starring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Viola Davis.The flip side of Jordan mania was the derision directed at him for appearing not to use his enormous popularity and platform as a premier Black athlete for the benefit of social or political change. For all the interviews he did, what arguably remains the most memorable quotation attributed to him — “Republicans buy shoes, too” — ostensibly rationalized his unwillingness to endorse Harvey Gantt, an African‌‌ American Democratic candidate in a 1990 North Carolina Senate race against Jesse Helms, a white conservative known for racist policies.On a broader scale, it reflected the narrative that followed Jordan into the 21st ‌century: that he was a hardcore capitalist without a social conscience. Sam Smith, the author in whose 1995 book the quotation originally appeared, has many times called it an offhand remark during a casual conversation‌‌ — more or less a joke — and said he regretted including it. In the ESPN series, Jordan said he made the comment “in jest.”In recent tumultuous and polarizing years, Jordan has become more public with his philanthropy and occasional calls for racial justice. And given two decades to consider the precedents he set, the boardrooms he bounded into and how he ascended from transcendent player to principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets, the context has shifted enough to ask: ‌Did he actually blaze a different or perhaps more impactful trail to meaningful societal change?Jordan purchased a majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets, then known as the Bobcats, in 2010. His team hosted the All-Star Game in 2017.Getty ImagesThomas, who after his nine-season N.B.A. career has been an activist, author and media personality, said his reconsideration of the 1990s Jordan narrative began before Jordan retired for good.He recalled sitting in the Wizards’ training room one day with Jordan and a member of his entourage when Jordan asked him about a book he had noticed Thomas reading‌‌. Thomas recalled it was likely Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice.”“That got a conversation going and Michael’s guy started talking about the charitable things he did without publicity,” Thomas said. “He mentioned an event at an all-white golf club, where of course they let Michael play, but there were no Black members, and how Michael threatened at the last minute to back out if they didn’t change their policy.”Thomas added: “I told Michael, ‘That’s something people should know and then maybe they wouldn’t be saying the things they do about you.’ He just said‌, ‘I don’t do that.’ And his guy said‌‌, ‘See what I mean?’ After that, I could never hold him up as the antithesis of the activist athlete, the opposite of Muhammad Ali and Bill Russell. It’s not that simple.”In “Air,” Davis, powerfully portraying Jordan’s mother, Deloris Jordan, dramatically foresees momentous change ‌benefiting ‌African American families of modest means after she had engineered a groundbreaking deal with Nike upon Jordan’s 1984 entry into the N.B.A.‌A screenwriter’s indulgent license, perhaps, but who can argue that Jordan didn’t actually do a total rewrite of the script in the allocation of corporate revenues to athletes? Or that the Nike deal, which guaranteed him a cut of every sneaker sold, doesn’t make him the godfather of the name, image and likeness revenues flowing into the pockets of college athletes today?For these reasons, ‌Harry Edwards, the sociologist and ‌civil ‌‌rights activist, said on the “Bakari Sellers Podcast” in February 2021 that Jordan should not be scolded for his sole focus on commercial brand-building across the 1980s and ’90s.The first version the Air Jordan Nike shoes that Jordan wore. The shoe line remains incredibly popular, 20 years after Jordan’s final N.B.A. game.Focus on Sport via Getty ImagesHe called it “an era where the foundations of power were laid,” ultimately empowering Jordan’s super-wealthy descendants to ‌‌affect communities — for example, in LeBron James’s staunch commitment to public education in his ‌‌hometown, Akron, Ohio.Len Elmore, the former N.B.A. center who retired from playing in 1984 to attend law school at Harvard, said he, like others who venerated Ali and 1960s activist icons, was once bewildered by Jordan’s ‌reluctance to speak out on issues of equity‌‌. Those issues included sweatshop conditions abroad, where ‌Jordan’s signature sneakers were produced to be sold at premium prices.“Michael’s years didn’t have what the ‌‌’60s had — the Vietnam War, the ‌‌civil ‌‌rights movement,” said Elmore, a ‌senior ‌‌lecturer in Columbia University’s Sports Management Program. “There was more of a smoldering of race, but it wasn’t on fire.He added: “I’m not defending Michael’s not taking a stand. But the reinterpretation of his legacy depends on what you saw then and what you see now.”While Thomas wasn’t around the league during Jordan’s prime as a player and pitchman, his view of that era is based on interviews he has done for his books and his podcast, “The Rematch.” Those years, he learned, followed one strategic mandate: N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern’s preoccupation with marketing.“He was 100 percent clear in those days‌‌ — everything was about growing the game, the bottom line,” Thomas said. “He was dead set against anything that might turn off the fan base. Even when I came in and made ‌‌antiwar comments, David told me‌, ‘Be careful.’ ”David Stern, left, became N.B.A. commissioner in 1984, the year Jordan, right, started his professional career. Together, they helped spread a positive image of the N.B.A. around the world.Ron Thomas/Associated PressStern, who died in 2020, straddled a fine line between his mostly progressive politics and fear of alienating consumers. Jordan followed along as a polished yet cautious spokesman on controversies, such as the one that engulfed Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who in 1996 was suspended by the league for refusing to stand for the national anthem for religious reasons.Was this approach the reflection of a man intrinsically averse to risk? Did Jordan share the vision attributed to his mother in this year’s film? Was he unaware that he might have been famous and leveraged enough to have had it both ways‌‌ — to both speak out about social causes and remain a potent pitchman?James and other more outspoken contemporary stars‌ have adopted that approach — “changed the narrative,” ‌Thomas said — and with the apparent support of Stern’s successor, Adam Silver.It’s doubtful that Jordan, in his day, could have built what he did while doubling as a crusader, said Sonny Vaccaro, who‌‌ played a crucial role in corralling Jordan for Nike.“The league had to grow first,” said Vaccaro, who is played in‌ “Air” by Damon. “Look, Michael had his troubles‌ — with the Republicans quote, the gambling, with some of his teammates. But he opened the door. He changed the world — only no one knew how much he was changing the world until the next century.”He added: “LeBron can only be the way he is today because Michael made it OK for corporations to put their money, huge amounts of money, on athletes, especially Black athletes. Over time their power and voice has grown.”The Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, left, has become one of the most vocal players about social justice and has followed in Jordan’s footsteps with commercial branding, including popular Nike shoes.Jason Miller/Getty ImagesSome would add, for better or worse, that the pendulum has swung too far in the players’ favor. It is not — or should not be — about what stars earn, given the staggering sums that franchise stakeholders have been reaping in recent sales. (Jordan will likely be no exception if he secures a deal he’s reportedly been negotiating to cash out of the $275 million he invested in his 2010 purchase of his team.)But Jordan-inspired superstar leverage has led to an era of chronic and chaotic team-hopping that, for older fans and some news media members, seems antithetical to their relished Jordan era. For all the disdain he had for Jerry Krause, the Bulls’ general manager‌ during their championship years, Jordan worked with the players provided to him, mercilessly pushed them to succeed and ultimately reaped the rewards.To emphasize that point, Jordan’s process, said David Falk, his longtime agent, was purer.“Michael was part of a generation that went to college for a few years, identified with a program like North Carolina, instead of switching A.A.U. and high school teams whenever it suited you,” Falk said. “I asked Michael once if he ever thought about playing with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird‌. He said‌‌: ‘Hell, no. I wanted to kick their butt every night.’ ”Jordan created his own controversies, mostly related to high-stakes golf, including the case of a $57,000 debt he paid by check to a man who was later convicted of money launder‌‌ing. But even his legendary casino preoccupation seems more quaint now given professional sports’ unapologetic marriage to the online gaming industry.Jordan, at 60, deserves to be viewed through the lens of an evolved narrative, given how high he has raised the bar for athletes outside the lines, a legacy that will resonate far into the future.Twenty years after his last professional jump shot, he is arguably still the most leveraged player in sports. If he were so inclined, he might even have the muscle, upon walking away from basketball, to make a competitive run for the seat once held by Helms. His pitch, of course, was always bipartisan. More

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      ‘Air’ and the Argument for Letting the Talent Share in the Profits

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      The movie’s focus (how Michael Jordan got a cut from Nike) reflects what its filmmakers, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are trying to do in their new venture.There can only be so much suspense in “Air.” The new drama depicts Nike’s quest in 1984 to sign the then-rookie Michael Jordan to an endorsement deal, and everyone knows that in the end, Nike will get its man. Some viewers are doubtlessly wearing Swoosh-adorned Air Jordan sneakers.Yet the filmmakers conjure a gripping moment late in the film. Through wit and grit, Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike executive played by Matt Damon, has secured Jordan’s agreement — until Jordan’s mother, Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis), makes an additional demand: Her son must receive not only a $250,000 fee, but also a cut from every sneaker sold.“A shoe is just a shoe,” she tells Vaccaro, “until my son steps into it.”This seemingly small nuance, more than just a plot development, embodies one of the central themes of “Air”: the value a talented individual brings to a business and the importance of compensating him for what he is worth.“He created that value,” Damon, also a producer, said in an interview. “Yeah, they had some great advertising campaigns, right? But Michael Jordan going out and being the best player every single night is what put the meaning in the shoe.”The lesson of “Air” can also be applied to the new company that produced it. Artists Equity was co-founded by Damon and his longtime friend Ben Affleck to make movies that earn more money for their artistic talent. “Air” — directed by Affleck, who also plays the Nike co-founder and chief executive Phil Knight — was deliberately the company’s first project.“Thematically it was on point in terms of what we’re trying to do with the new company,” Damon said of “Air.”He elaborated: “Sonny feels, like we do, that the people who are putting the value in something deserve to share in the revenue and be compensated, and rather than it being extractive, it’s a partnership.”Damon as Vaccaro in the film. The drama’s concerns were thematically “on point in terms of what we’re trying to do with the new company,” he said.Ana Carballosa/Amazon StudiosThe message of “Air” might help explain why it has been embraced by critics and audiences. It turns Michael Jordan from an extraordinary athlete into a stand-in for the viewer. “He’s not the underdog compared to the everyday person, but he’s still someone people can relate to,” said Thilo Kunkel, a professor at Temple University who studies athlete branding.In real life, it was Nike that initially offered Jordan a piece of the business — it was “the bait on the fishing hook,” Vaccaro said in an interview. Nike had been desperate to outbid its larger rivals, Converse and Adidas, to secure the rights to a player it predicted would be a generational talent.The film closely reflects reality, Vaccaro added, in portraying this proposal as important to Deloris Jordan, the central decision maker in her household. “She reminded me 10 times before you saw it in the last scene,” Vaccaro said, adding, “The only reason that we survived and we won was because of him having a piece.”Vaccaro’s career in basketball and the shoe business is rich enough that years ago there was very nearly a movie made about a completely different period of his life (he was to have been played by James Gandolfini). Vaccaro started organizing high school all-star games in the 1960s. At Nike he not only helped sign Jordan, he also pioneered contracts with college basketball coaches that put Nike sneakers on their players, as N.C.A.A. rules barred the athletes from making their own deals. In the ’90s, he signed Kobe Bryant to Adidas.Vaccaro’s career in the sneaker business included jobs with Nike, Reebok and Adidas before he played a role in the O’Bannon case, which ultimately led the N.C.A.A. to allow college athletes to make endorsement deals.Ariel Fisher for The New York TimesBut the real-life Vaccaro took to heart the moral of “Air” during his late-career shift from shoe-company veteran to gadfly who helped college athletes win the right to sign endorsement deals of their own.In 2007, he quit the sneaker business (his résumé also included Reebok) and became an advocate for college players’ rights. For lawyers looking to sue over colleges’ profiting from their players’ names, images and likenesses, Vaccaro helped find an ideal lead plaintiff: the former U.C.L.A. basketball star Ed O’Bannon. The lawsuit filed in 2009 and known as the O’Bannon case, along with other lawsuits, state legislation and a sea change in public opinion — itself cultivated partly by Vaccaro, an easy and colorful quote for journalists — led the N.C.A.A. in 2021 to begin letting college athletes sign endorsement deals.“To allow me to get to Eddie O’Bannon — it never would have happened without me being with Michael Jordan,” Vaccaro said.Jay Bilas, an ESPN college basketball commentator, perceives a connection between Jordan’s securing a cut of his Nike business and Vaccaro’s lobbying to get college athletes more of the profits they help generate.“It’s the same analysis,” said Bilas, who played basketball for Duke University when Jordan was on the archrival University of North Carolina Tar Heels. “Whether it’s an hourly worker negotiating with McDonald’s or doctors and nurses negotiating with a hospital system, what’s always true is that the business is going to make substantially more than the worker. Everyone in America, in a free-market system, deserves the right to negotiate for their fair value.”At the film premiere last month, Damon said, the audience “erupted into applause” at the end when onscreen text described Vaccaro’s involvement in the O’Bannon case.“It was thematically right for the movie, but it was also perfect for Sonny,” Damon said.“The obvious thing he would go do was go fight for them,” Damon added. “It’s in keeping with how you see him throughout the movie, genuinely caring — it’s not just business for him. This is his passion and it’s his love. There’s a morality that grounds it.”Damon is engaged in a similar enterprise. He and Affleck substituted filmmakers for athletes into Vaccaro’s equation, and, backed by $100 million from a private investment firm, started Artists Equity last year to restore to filmmakers a share of projects’ profits that had disappeared as Hollywood moved toward streaming and studios scaled back on the most generous deals.In Artists Equity’s view, turning filmmakers — from stars like Damon and Davis to directors, cinematographers and editors — into something less like employees and more like financial partners will give them an incentive to make better movies more efficiently.“Sonny feels, like we do, that the people who are putting the value in something deserve to share in the revenue and be compensated, and rather than it being extractive, it’s a partnership,” Damon said.Ariel Fisher for The New York Times“‘Profit participation’ is the key phrase,” said Jason Squire, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. “If they fulfill this, it’ll be a wonderful, refreshed model for this part of the business.”For its part, “Air” appears to be a financial success. The film was acquired by Amazon for $130 million. It opened last Wednesday exclusively in theaters (in advance of becoming available on Amazon’s streaming platform), and exceeded expectations with a box office take that hovered around $20 million.Affleck’s argument for the model could have come from Deloris Jordan. “This business has never incentivized and made congruent the interest of the artist and the people financing,” he said at a New York Times conference last year. Referring to his wife, the pop star and actress Jennifer Lopez, he added, “The people who principally create value on the sales side and on the audience eyeball side are these artists who have worked their entire careers — like my wife — building a name, a reputation, a connection with fans that has real value. And oftentimes that value isn’t reflected in the deals.”There is an irony in the argument about people getting shortchanged by the old way of doing business. Michael Jordan, Matt Damon — these are some of the more enviable people on Earth.But anyone who has shelled out for a pair of Air Jordans or watched the Chicago Bulls win six world championships in the 1990s can testify that Jordan deserved a good deal of credit.And in ceding a small percentage of the Air Jordan profits to its namesake, Nike did not exactly suffer. Along with the applause-generating reveal about Vaccaro’s successful advocacy on behalf of college athletes, the viewer of “Air” learns at the end of the film that Nike went on to buy its former rival Converse on its way to becoming the juggernaut it is today. Last year, Nike said Jordan Brand brought in $5 billion in annual revenue.“Ben says it as the Phil Knight character,” Damon said. “He goes, ‘If this kid makes a bunch of money on this deal, it will be the best thing that ever happened for Nike.’ Right? It was really a deal that favored everybody. Absolutely everybody won.” More

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      N.B.A. Blames Economy for Hiring Freeze and Budget Cuts

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      In a memo, the league said it was “facing a very different economic reality than just one year ago.”The N.B.A., citing “economic headwinds,” instructed league office staff on Tuesday to reduce expenses and significantly limit hiring for the rest of the fiscal year, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.The memo, sent by Kyle J. Cavanaugh, a league executive, and David Haber, the league’s chief financial officer, told staffers to halt hiring, with limited exceptions, and cancel some off-site meetings or hold them virtually. Travel, entertainment and other expenses also will be cut, according to the memo.“Like other businesses in the U.S. and globally, the league office is not immune to macroeconomic pressures and taking steps to reduce expenses,” Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, said in a statement to The Times.The memo said the N.B.A. was “facing a very different economic reality than just one year ago.” It continued, “We are seeing significant challenges to achieving our revenue budget with additional downside risk still in front of us.”The N.B.A.’s next fiscal year begins in October, roughly lining up with the start of the 2023-24 regular season. Bass, the spokesman, did not address questions about which league initiatives would be affected by the cuts or if there would be layoffs.The changes come just before the N.B.A. playoffs and a day after the league noted setting a record for attendance and sellouts for the 2022-23 regular season. On April 1, the league and the players’ union announced that they had tentatively reached a new collective bargaining agreement that would go into effect next season. The agreement, which awaits ratification by players and team owners, includes a midseason tournament with bonuses for players and another luxury tax tier for high-spending teams.During negotiations, the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, an executive vice president in the union, told The Times that players wanted “more of a partnership” with the league, including the sharing of more of the N.B.A.’s revenue streams.Over the past year, many companies, particularly in the technology sector, have commenced layoffs and other cost-cutting measures as the economy was hit with rising inflation and interest rate hikes. The N.B.A. is also not the only sports league that has aimed to reduce costs. The N.F.L. recently reduced staffing for its media arm. Walt Disney Company has begun laying off thousands of employees. ESPN, one of the N.B.A.’s broadcast partners, is a Disney subsidiary and is expected to be affected.Last year, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said the league expected to take in roughly $10 billion in revenue for the 2021-22 season, between sponsors, television deals, attendance, merchandising and other revenue streams. The N.B.A.’s television deal with ESPN and Turner Sports expires after the 2024-25 season. The new deal, in a crowded marketplace that now includes streaming companies, is expected to provide a significant boost in league revenue.The league had a round of layoffs in 2020 right as its season was about to restart at Walt Disney World in Florida in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, though at the time the league said the cuts were unrelated to the pandemic and instead were aimed at future growth. More