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      How a Trade Changed Everything for Two N.B.A. Players and Their Dogs

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      Professional sports can be a tough business. When Mikal Bridges was dealt from the Suns to the Nets, his friend Cam Payne had to give the news to Sonny and Uno.When Mikal Bridges was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Nets in early February, he had to join his new team without stopping at home in Arizona first.So it fell to Cameron Payne, one of Bridges’s close friends on the Suns, to break the news to their dogs, who are best pals, or so their owners say. The moment called for compassion and candor, and Payne brought both.Bridges’s dog, Sonny, is a yellow Labrador retriever. Payne’s dog, Uno, is a 25-pound French bulldog. They were lazing around Bridges’s house in Phoenix when Payne approached them. He addressed his comments mainly to Sonny, whose routine would be most disrupted.“Man,” Payne recalled telling the dog, “Uno’s staying, and, Sonny, I think you’re leaving.”Sonny and Uno seemed to consider this, or perhaps had no idea what was going on.Payne told Sonny, “Mikal said he wanted you out there. Mikal’s leaving. He got traded.”He tried to reassure the dog: “You and Uno are still going to be best friends forever.”“He looked at me crazy,” Payne recalled. “It just made me laugh. I was like, they really humans for real. They know exactly what we’re saying.”The trade brought Kevin Durant to the Suns, transforming them into championship contenders, and offered a professional upside for Bridges, who will have a bigger role on the Nets.But trades can be hard on N.B.A. players, who often develop close friendships during long hours together on the court and on the road. Bridges and Payne lived in the same neighborhood in Phoenix. They hung out at one another’s homes. They talked about their schedules and the best shoe insoles and what they saw on Instagram.So when Bridges was traded away on Feb. 9 while the Suns were in Atlanta, Payne went straight to his friend’s hotel room and said an emotional goodbye.Mikal Bridges, left, and Cameron Payne played together in Phoenix from 2020 until early February, when Bridges was traded to the Nets as part of the deal that brought Kevin Durant to the Suns.Lauren Bacho/NBAE, via Getty Images“I’m just going to miss just the funniness, the icebreaker making everything cool, always having a good time,” Payne said of Bridges. “Always smiling and stuff. Those type of things I’m going to miss. He always made every day at work happy.”The two friends were bound together, too, by a love of dogs — Sonny and Uno, whose relationship involved car rides and tussles over toys and was itself chronicled on Instagram.If the disruption of these friendships is not exactly a tragedy — Bridges and Payne are young millionaires who admit to spoiling their dogs — it gives a glimpse into how personal and poignant the business of sports can be.‘Why are you jealous, man?’Bridges, 26, who is from Philadelphia, was a first-round draft pick after helping Villanova to two N.C.A.A. championships. Known as a strong defender, he will earn $21 million this year. A self-described “people person,” he had a lot of friends on the Suns — “I’m going to miss them so much,” he said. But he is making friends quickly on the Nets.Sonny, who is 7 and barks when he wants to play with someone, has been in Bridges’s family since his sophomore year of college, mostly staying with Bridges’s mother. During the 2020-21 season, Sonny came to live with Bridges for what was supposed to be two weeks. But he never really left.In Phoenix, Bridges lived with a friend who sometimes walked Sonny before Bridges got out of bed. One of Sonny’s favorite tricks was to wait until Bridges got up, pretend he’d been neglected and beg to go out again.“He thinks he can outsmart humans,” Bridges said. “I watch him from a distance and I’m like, ‘Look at him trying to be so sneaky.’”Payne, 28, was also a first-round draft pick, but he bounced around lesser leagues until finding a home with the Suns in 2020. Known as a high-energy guard, he is now an important role player in Phoenix.Payne has had Uno, who is 4 and loves to run around, since he was a puppy and takes him most everywhere. He took Uno to a game a few years ago when he played for the Texas Legends, a G-League team. Uno sat near the bench, and Payne notched his first ever triple double and was delighted that his “son” was there.When Payne gets ready to leave for road trips, Uno sits by his suitcase. He has, in the past, sat inside Payne’s girlfriend’s travel bag, presumably to prevent her from leaving without him.Uno attended a game of the Texas Legends of the G-League when Payne played for them and inspired him to a triple double.Texas LegendsBridges and Payne started playing together on the Suns in 2020. They became friends faster than their dogs did. Sonny and Uno were wary of each other at first, and neither liked it when his owner paid attention to the other dog.Sonny even got jealous if Payne paid attention to his own dog, neglecting Sonny. This befuddled Bridges: “It’s like, ‘Bro, that’s not even — why are you jealous, man?’”Tensions eased with time and more exposure to each other. Suns players and their dogs hung out at the team practice facility and the home of the Suns star Devin Booker, whose Italian mastiff, Haven, is perhaps the most famous dog on the team, given that he is featured on Booker’s Instagram account, which has 5.4 million followers.When the Suns lost to the Dallas Mavericks in seven games during the Western Conference semifinals last year, the dogs provided a kind of comfort. When Bridges got home after the series ended, Sonny immediately started whining for Bridges to pet him.“Just told him, ‘Well, I’m going to be home with you every day now,’” Bridges said glumly, as he remembered the day. “It kind of gets your mind off basketball. You come home; someone’s just excited to see you.”A month later, Bridges dog-sat Uno while Payne was away and posted the highlights on Instagram. One video showed Uno wandering around the back seat of Bridges’s car while Sonny sat in the front with Bridges. In another, Bridges took the pair to the store to look at toys.“Two toys each,” Bridges told them in the video. He let Uno know he’d be spoiled with him just like he was at home.Later that day, Bridges dribbled a tennis ball in front of the two dogs. Uno tried, without success, to play defense and snatch the ball from Bridges. He chased the ball as Bridges crossed him over. Sonny knew better. He waited until Bridges let the ball go and then ran to get it.“Sonny been gettin fried from birth so he chillin,” Bridges wrote in a caption for the video.Matching personalitiesIt is said that dogs and their owners often develop similar traits. Asked if he ever noticed similarities between Payne and Bridges and their dogs, Booker paused for a moment to think.“Definitely Uno and Cam,” he said. He raised his eyebrows as he thought more about it.“Sonny and Mikal, too.”Sonny, now of New York.Courtesy of Mikal Bridges“Uno walks in, he’s the energy of the room no matter what. He’s a little bit smaller than other dogs, but he’s still the energy when he walks in,” Booker continued, perhaps making a sly reference to Payne’s relatively small 6-foot-1 stature.“Sonny’s all over the place,” Booker said, suggesting that Bridges is, too.Bridges and Payne will miss each other, but they said they — and their dogs — will remain close.“C. Payne’s my best friend,” Bridges said, adding: “And Uno, he’s little.”Bridges pantomimed carrying a little dog the way a running back might carry a football.“So when C. Payne flies, he can just tuck him with him. It’s a little easier for travel. But Sonny’s definitely going to miss his guy.”Payne said he knew that Sonny’s move to Brooklyn would leave a hole in Uno’s life.“That’s really been one of the few dogs that he’s been hanging around,” he said, adding: “I’ve got to get him a new friend from on the team.” More

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      The Celtics Won’t Have Inexperience to Blame if They Don’t Win This Year

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      Boston has star players, a deep bench and recent N.B.A. finals experience. What the team won’t have, if it loses in the playoffs, will be excuses.Jayson Tatum made no guarantees for the second half of the Boston Celtics’ season but of one thing he was certain. “Have we gotten better from last year?” Tatum told reporters during the N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. “Yeah, a lot better.”Tatum had every reason to be brimming with confidence. His stock has never been higher — as signified by the reveal of his own signature shoe this week. In the basketball world, this is an indication that Tatum has graduated from N.B.A. star to N.B.A. star. He would go on to win the Most Valuable Player Award in the charade known as the All-Star Game, a cherry on top of the already M.V.P.-caliber season he is having.He is also the best player on the best team in the N.B.A., with the weight of championship expectations on his shoulders and those of his fellow All-Star and teammate Jaylen Brown. This would be an enviable position for most teams. But the pressure is exponentially higher in a city home to a ravenous fan base and a franchise with long history of winning championships.When asked about the Celtics operating as an established power rather than an underdog, Tatum had already consulted the Pro Athlete Cliché Handbook.“No pressure,” Tatum said. “We feel like we’ve been, if not the best, one of the best teams all season. The goal has always been the same: win a championship. So, you know, just do the right things. Don’t skip any steps. Take it one day at a time.”For Boston’s remaining 23 regular-season games and a presumed deep playoff run, the scrutiny will be much higher than that placed on last year’s young, upstart team. The Celtics (42-17) have the burden of having lots of ways to fail and only one way to be considered a success.Joe Mazzulla became the Celtics’ permanent coach last week after having assumed the role on an interim basis.Charles Krupa/Associated Press“Our environment will change,” Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla said in a news conference. “And so we have to make sure we don’t.”Last week, Mazzulla had the interim tag removed from his title. He had been thrust into the role right before training camp when last year’s coach, Ime Udoka, was suspended for unspecified violations of team policies. The suspension came as a shock since the Celtics were an ascendant franchise coming off a finals run in a league where continuity is at a premium. Almost as surprising was that Brad Stevens, the team’s president of basketball operations and Udoka’s predecessor, handed the keys to Mazzulla, who had been a Celtics assistant for three years but never an N.B.A. head coach.All Mazzulla had to do was lead the Celtics to a championship. No training wheels. No emotional victories. Just victories.His presence created an odd and unusual dynamic. For much of the season, Udoka was still technically slated to come back in 2023-24 regardless of how Mazzulla did. But Mazzulla got the Celtics off to a blistering 18-4 start, quieting questions about whether his lack of experience would hinder an elite team. Eventually, the Celtics rewarded Mazzulla with what might be considered gold in N.B.A. coaching: security.“The East is terrific. Obviously, the West is loaded up,” Stevens said on a conference call last week. “It’s going to be really hard to win.” He added that it would be hard to coach while “looking behind you and looking over your shoulder.”Mazzulla may not be looking over his shoulder anymore, but the Celtics should be because teams are gaining on them. Since the hot start, the team has looked merely above average at 23-13, rather than world beating. They’re now only a half-game ahead of the Milwaukee Bucks (41-17) for the N.B.A.’s best record and the East’s top seed. Mazzulla has been criticized for not calling timeouts at crucial junctures in games. Over the last 15 games, the Celtics have had a below average offense. During the 18-4 stretch to start the season, the Celtics had not just the best offense in the N.B.A., but one of the best offenses in league history. The good news for Boston is that its defense has steadily improved while its offense has declined.The Celtics should receive a boost after the All-Star break, in the great gift of health. The starting lineup that took the team deep in last year’s playoffs — Tatum, Brown, Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Robert Williams III — has played only 29 minutes together this season. That unit is expected to be at full strength for the last stretch of the season.But even with injuries, the team is deep enough to contend. Derrick White, the sixth-year guard, has been a revelation during his first full season in Boston. In eight February games stepping in for the injured Smart, White averaged 21.1 points, 5.0 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game. Malcolm Brogdon, whom the Celtics acquired in an off-season trade with Indiana, has been a reliable contributor and one of the best 3-point shooters in the league. Brogdon and White would likely be starters on most N.B.A. teams. That the Celtics expect to use them as reserves is a luxury. In one of their last games before the All-Star break, the Celtics nearly knocked off the Bucks on the road despite missing almost all of their top players.Derrick White, right, filled in for his injured teammate Marcus Smart, showing the Celtics’ depth.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe talent is there for the Celtics to win the championship. They are loaded with playmakers, elite shooting and top-notch defenders who can play multiple positions. They can counter Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo with a steady rotation of mobile forwards, including Horford. Their division-rival Nets imploded at the deadline and traded away their remaining stars, sending Kyrie Irving to Dallas and Kevin Durant to Phoenix.But lots of teams enter the playoffs with talent, as Boston did last year. Now, the Celtics, as Brown noted, should be better prepared for a grueling playoff run after last year’s finals against Golden State, when the team made sloppy, uncharacteristic mistakes and lost the series in six games.“I think this year we got a little bit more experience,” Brown told reporters. “So I think that will carry over into the finals.”Anecdotal evidence suggests continuity and experience are crucial for N.B.A. teams to win championships, and that playoff failures are necessary steppingstones to immortality. Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls suffered through the Bad Boys Pistons teams before starting their reign. Ditto the Miami Heat, who lost deep in previous playoffs before winning their championships in 2006 and 2012. It’s extremely rare for young teams to win championships, though Magic Johnson was a crucial part of the Los Angeles Lakers championship run during his rookie season in 1980 and Tim Duncan led the San Antonio Spurs to a ring in 1999 in his second.Some teams never quite get there, even with experience and talent — like LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers in the late 2000s. The jury is still out on the Phoenix Suns, who lost in the second round last year after coming within two games of winning the 2021 championship.This is the Celtics’ best chance to win a championship since 2008, their last title run. If they don’t raise the trophy this season, or at least make the finals, they won’t be able to say it’s because of a lack of talent or experience. It’ll be something intangible.Being in that place means the franchise must meet lofty ambitions. But it’s better than not having them at all. More

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      Red McCombs, Car Salesman Turned Media Mogul, Dies at 95

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      A Texas entrepreneur, he co-founded the media giant Clear Channel, owned pro sports teams and created more than 400 businesses in a variety of industries.Red McCombs, a former Texas used car dealer who became a billionaire entrepreneur by venturing into an array of successful businesses, including the media giant Clear Channel Communications and several professional sports teams, died on Sunday at his home in San Antonio. He was 95.His family announced his death but did not state the cause.Mr. McCombs was a flamboyant wheeler-dealer who created more than 400 businesses across an array of industries, including oil, real estate, cattle, insurance, movies and racehorses, often selling them at a substantial profit. At various times he owned a pro football team, the Minnesota Vikings, and two pro basketball teams, the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets.But his heart was in the automobile business, where he began as a standout car salesman in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1950. He went on to start his own dealership, and then expanded it into a network that at its peak in 1998 included more than 100 outlets, making it the largest car dealership in Texas and sixth largest in the United States.“I was an entrepreneur before I knew what the word was and certainly before I could spell it,” Mr. McCombs said in a 2006 radio interview. “New deals, new opportunities, new ventures are always a part of my life.”A University of Texas alumnus and a passionate Longhorns football fan, Mr. McCombs parlayed his love of sports into ownership of a minor-league baseball team in Corpus Christi in the 1950s.Then he bought the Dallas Chaparrals of the old American Basketball Association in 1973, relocated the team to San Antonio for the 1973-74 season and changed its name to the Spurs.When the A.B.A. and N.B.A. merged in 1976, he played a key role in having the Spurs included in the merger. He sold the team in 1982 and acquired the Nuggets, only to sell that franchise in 1985 for $19 million, nearly twice what he’d paid for it. He then repurchased the Spurs for $47 million before selling it in 1993 for $75 million (about $157 million in today’s money).In a statement on Monday, the N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, called Mr. McCombs “a driving force in creating the modern N.B.A.”In 1998, Mr. McCombs purchased the N.F.L.’s Minnesota Vikings for $246 million, but grew impatient with futile attempts to build a new stadium for the team in the Minneapolis area. He sold the Vikings for $600 million in 2005.He also played a key role in bringing Formula One racing to Austin by investing in the Circuit of the Americas, the Austin track where the annual U.S. Grand Prix race has been held since 2012.In a statement on Monday, the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, called Mr. McCombs “a true Texas titan across sports, media, business and philanthropy” who had “followed his dreams.”Mr. McCombs’s most lucrative venture was Clear Channel, which he co-founded with Lowry Mays in 1972, when they purchased a local radio station in San Antonio, KEEZ-FM, for $125,000. (Mr. Mays died in September at 87.)The two men continued to acquire radio stations, then television stations and billboards around the country. Aided by the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act, which allowed media conglomerates to own an unlimited number of stations, they built the company into the world’s largest owner of radio stations; by 2000, Clear Channel owned more than 1,200.The company eventually expanded into event promotion, live music and sports management. Mr. Lowry oversaw the business, but Mr. McCombs was instrumental in seizing opportunities to expand, according to John Hogan, the company’s former chairman and chief executive.“He was steadfast in support of the notion that when the telecommunications regulations changed in 1996, we had to move quickly and aggressively, and that those who were slow and hesitant would get left behind,” Mr. Hogan said in an interview for this obituary.Though the company was often criticized for homogenizing radio programming in a way that eliminated much of the local flavor of independent radio stations, the formula was extremely profitable. When Mr. Lowry began to see signs that the internet would disrupt its well-oiled strategy, he and Mr. McCombs sold the company in 2006 for $17.9 billion to a private equity group led by Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners. As part of the deal, the group agreed to take on more than $8 billion in the company’s debt.The timing was perfect for selling. Clear Channel’s fortunes plunged almost immediately. In 2014, the company split into Clear Channel Outdoor, for the billboard business, and iHeartMedia, for the radio stations and other media properties.Red McCombs, left, arrived in Denver in 1983 after buying the Denver Nuggets basketball team. At right was Carl Scheer, the team’s president and general manager.Duane Howell/The Denver Post, via Getty ImagesBilly Joe McCombs was born in the tiny West Texas town of Spur on Oct. 19, 1927. His father, Willie Nathan McCombs, was a sharecropper and later an auto mechanic. His mother, Gladys McCombs, came from a family of farmers.Billy, whose shock of red hair earned him the lifelong nickname “Red,” showed an entrepreneurial bent as early as age 9, when he began selling bags of peanuts to migrant cotton pickers. He was 15 when his family moved to Corpus Christi, where he became a standout high school football player, eventually winning a scholarship to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He left college to serve in the Army for two years before returning and enrolling at the University of Texas in 1948 on the G.I. Bill.But he dropped out to start a business career. He landed a job at the local Ford dealership in Corpus Christi and realized that he had found his calling. Just 22, he set a goal of selling a car a day and, by his account, managed to accomplish that feat for three years straight.In 1950, he married Charline Hamblin, who died in 2019 at 91. He is survived by their three daughters, Lynda McCombs, Marsha Shields and Connie McNab; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.After selling new cars for several years, Mr. McCombs realized that he could make more money selling used cars, he wrote in his autobiography, “Big Red: Memoirs of a Texas Entrepreneur and Philanthropist” (2010). New cars, he thought, were all alike, but “every used car is unique” and had a story to tell.“People like stories about the things they might be interested in buying,” he wrote.In 1957, at 29, he opened his first new car dealership, in Corpus Christi. But it sold Edsels, a Ford brand that would become synonymous with automotive failure. Though he sold many cars, he said, he knew that the brand would not survive. (The Edsel was discontinued in 1959.)“I was selling it myself and I could see the resistance,” he said. “We had to shoehorn everyone into it, and after I’d sold them to all my friends, I had nowhere to go. It was time to move on.”He moved to San Antonio in 1958 and there befriended Mr. Mays. The two soon began buying up radio stations, ultimately turning Clear Channel Communications into a behemoth. Mr. McCombs knew the power of radio and outdoor advertising from his experience with auto dealerships.He did his own radio and television commercials for 25 years, becoming a Texas celebrity along the way. He struggled for years with alcoholism and nearly died at age 48 after a serious case of hepatitis. He gave up alcohol then, and often spoke candidly about his addiction.In 2000, Mr. McCombs and his wife gave a gift of $50 million to the University of Texas business school — the single largest donation in the school’s history at the time. It was renamed the McCombs School of Business. He and his wife also donated $30 million to the university’s MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.Mr. McCombs was a major donor to Republican politicians, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and President Donald J. Trump.Of all of his business achievements, Clear Channel was his most significant, Mr. McCombs declared in his autobiography. “I would never have thought I could ever have had a chance to do something like Clear Channel,” he wrote. “That’s why I don’t really believe in long-term plans. There was no way I could have ever planned Clear Channel.” More

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      Luka Doncic Makes Basketball Look Easy. It’s Not.

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      SALT LAKE CITY — Luka Doncic couldn’t sleep after playing the game of his life. None of the N.B.A.’s one-name greats — Wilt, Kobe, Jordan, LeBron — had ever managed a night quite like his. He was exhausted, but tossed and turned in his bed for hours, then got up to channel his energy into playing the video game Overwatch until the sun rose.Everything had gone right that December night: 60 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, an overtime win for his Dallas Mavericks against the Knicks at home. He wows crowds without appearing to break a sweat.“It’s hard every game,” Doncic said recently in an interview at his hotel on the road. “People say that it looks easy, but it’s not easy, trust me.”He smiled. “Maybe it looks easy because I’m slow,” he said.Doncic, who is from Slovenia, came to the N.B.A. five years ago as both a known commodity and a mysterious figure, already a superstar in the EuroLeague but still a media-shy teenager trying to find his way.At 23 years old — “I’m 22, no, 23, about to be 24,” Doncic said — he embodies the N.B.A.’s decades-long effort to have global reach.“Luka plays at the highest level with joy, passion and creativity,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said. “He’s an exemplar of this new wave of international stars who are influencing the game in their own unique way.”Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said Doncic, above, has a “cheat code” for the game with his court vision.Tim Heitman/Getty ImagesDoncic received more than 5.5 million fan votes for the All-Star Game on Sunday night in Salt Lake City and will make his fourth consecutive appearance. His jersey ranks among the league’s top sellers. College teams and even some N.B.A. players play in his signature sneaker from Nike’s Jordan Brand line. And now, after Dallas traded with the Nets for Kyrie Irving this month, he may have the dynamic partner he has been missing as he has tried to lift the Mavericks to their first championship since 2011. He’s slowly stepping into the spotlight, opening up about how he got to this point — and where he wants to go.“I’d rather have the championship than M.V.P.,” he said, “but if you win an M.V.P., it’s amazing, too.”‘He didn’t have any fear’Doncic said he was nearly trembling when he became the youngest professional player to debut for Real Madrid in the Spanish basketball league at 16.He shot a 3-pointer in the closing moments of a game against Unicaja in 2015. “I don’t know how it went in,” Doncic said. “It was the 30th of April, my girlfriend’s birthday. So that’s a good day.”Doncic is now known for wanting the ball with the game on the line.“Some people are just put on the planet and they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do,” said Bill Duffy, Doncic’s agent, who has known him since he was 14.Those who recall Doncic’s early days in Slovenia describe his play as the merging of genetic gifts and tunnel-vision devotion. His father, Sasa Doncic, played professionally for years. He had “the greatest court vision,” said Damir Radenovic, who practiced with Sasa Doncic and is the marketing director for the Basketball Federation of Slovenia.Luka Doncic could always be found in his father’s shadow, begging to take shots during downtime or talking in the locker room. “He learned, maybe unconsciously, some of those veteran things,” said Marko Milic, a Mavericks assistant coach who was the first Slovene player drafted into the N.B.A., in 1997.Playing against children his own age was too easy for Doncic. Grega Brezovec coached an 8-year-old Doncic for about 13 minutes. “OK, Luka, this is not for you,” he recalled telling him before moving him up to a group of 12- to 14-year-olds.Doncic wanted to play so often that Jernej Smolnikar, another of his youth coaches, worried about how his prepubescent body would absorb some of the drills. He occasionally tried sending Doncic home, only for Doncic to plead with his parents to call Smolnikar to let him back on the court.At 13, Doncic left Slovenia, signing a five-year contract with Real Madrid.Doncic was a star for Real Madrid as a teenager. He was named the most valuable player of the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in 2015.Luca Sgamellotti/Euroleague Basketball, via Getty ImagesAlberto Angulo, a former Real Madrid player and director of the Real Madrid Academy, said in an interview in Spanish that Sasa Doncic saw it as a good development opportunity. Mirjam Poterbin, Luka’s mother, was more reluctant, he said.Doncic was wary of leaving the familiarity of his home and mulled the decision for months. “Then the last week came, I made a decision,” he said. “I just decided to.”Real Madrid had rules designed to build character in its young players — no hats in the dining room, finish your dinner, be on time. Doncic once overslept for a morning meeting. Coaches sat him the next game.“To punish a player, you take away what they love the most,” Angulo said.Doncic never overslept again. He wanted the chance to sharpen his game, Angulo said.“He didn’t have any fear — in fact the opposite — of bringing in a player that could be better than him or take minutes away from him,” Angulo said. “He thought, ‘No, no no, if he’s good, he’ll make me better.’”Doncic was named the most valuable player of the under-16 Spain championship. But Doncic said he missed his friends and being home.“So that’s one part I’m never going to get back, but I think it’s worked,” he said.He added: “If I had it to do again, I would do it.”‘That’s the cheat code’In every N.B.A. generation, a player or two can see the future. In the 1980s, it was Magic Johnson. In the 1990s, there were Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. Then LeBron James and Chris Paul came along. Now it’s Doncic who can see a play or two ahead.“It’s not all about speeding,” Doncic said. “Obviously, speeding would be even better. But it’s just the angles, the timings.”He isn’t fast like other top guards, but he said his legs give him an edge for getting into advantageous positions. “I was just born like this,” he said. “My father is like this. His legs are really strong. The trainers call them tree-trunk legs.”Dorian Finney-Smith, who signed with the Mavericks two years before Doncic was drafted, laughed as he recalled the origins of Doncic’s now trademark step-back shot. Doncic tried one in a game. Rick Carlisle, then Dallas’s coach, said it a was bad shot and told Doncic to put it where the sun doesn’t shine, Finney-Smith said.“Against the Sixers, he came out, made three in a row,” Finney-Smith said. “Nobody else said nothing else about that step-back.”Kidd, who took over as Mavericks coach last season, said he could tell Doncic viewed the game the way he did from their first game together.Doncic has one of the top-selling jerseys in the N.B.A.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesDoncic leads the N.B.A. in scoring, with 33.3 points per game.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesA defender had ducked under a screen. Kidd called a timeout, but before he spoke, Doncic told him that he had seen it and would take advantage of it.“That’s the cheat code, and some are born with it, some are not and some can take it to a different level,” Kidd said.Doncic plays dominoes with Kidd on team plane rides, and he loves chess. He plays on his phone so often that Chess.com recently partnered with him. “I always say basketball, you try to play like chess,” Doncic said. “We’re trying to anticipate opponents’ moves and read the game.”Kidd likes to push Doncic. He has jokingly asked him if he can pull a Klay Thompson and score 60 points on just 11 dribbles.“When you have a Picasso-like player, you got to challenge him in other ways to be successful because there could be boredom,” Kidd said. “Because he’s seen everything.”‘He markets himself’The Phoenix Suns trailed badly in Game 7 of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals. By halftime, Doncic had as many points as all of the Suns. As he leaned over in one moment, he looked up at Suns guard Devin Booker and grinned, creating a cutting and defining meme for the Dallas victory. He has racked up dozens of technical fouls in his career, but not this time. “I was like just: ‘Don’t blow this, please. Let’s not do this,’” Doncic said.Dallas lost to the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champions, in the conference finals.“It was really hard to win against them,” Doncic said. “We won only one game. But you can learn from them. You can learn from losses.”He also had a brief chance to learn from a Dallas legend: Dirk Nowitzki, 44, who retired from the Mavericks after Doncic’s rookie season. Nowitzki, who is from Germany, said he initially wondered if he belonged in the N.B.A. But he was a trendsetter for international players thriving in the league.“If you look at some of the M.V.P. candidates now with Jokic, Giannis and Luka in the mix now every year, that already tells you where European basketball is at the moment,” Nowitzki said, referring to Nikola Jokic of Serbia and Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece. He added of Doncic: “He’s tons of fun to be around. He’s cheeky, he’s funny and he’s got a good heart.”Dirk Nowitzki, right, played for Dallas for 21 seasons. He set the stage for international players like Doncic, left, to thrive in the N.B.A.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesDoncic is steering the N.B.A.’s future.“His play supersedes everything,” Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, wrote in an email. “We don’t really have to market him. He markets himself.”The rapper Bad Bunny frequently mentions Doncic in his music. “When you hear your name in a song from Bad Bunny, it’s amazing,” Doncic said.Doncic recently went viral after he came to a game in a doomsday-looking Apocalypse HellFire truck. He’d been wanting a six-wheeler like it for a long time. He used to stand in the street, marveling at the cars here; they’re much nicer than in Slovenia, he said.But he said his life is low-key.Doncic and his girlfriend, Anamaria Goltes, have known each other since they were children. They share three dogs, Hugo, Gia and Viki, who help Doncic escape from the game he has chased all his life.“They don’t know if you had good or bad game,” Doncic said. “They’re just happy to see you. So they bring a real joy to my life.”He already has his retirement planned out.Doncic wants to farm.“It’s slow,” he said.James Wagner More

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      N.B.A. Dunk Contest Highlights: It’s Still Fun

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      [embedded content]By the time McClung, who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers’ developmental league affiliate, went for his final dunk, the trophy all but had his name on it. Fans stood and players crowded the court to see his finale.Wearing his high school jersey, McClung finished a spinning reverse dunk and yelled “it’s over” as the crowd cheered. He ended up with perfect scores of 50 on three of four dunks. More

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      Brittney Griner Will Return to W.N.B.A.

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      Griner, who was released from a prison camp in Russia in December, signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Mercury.Brittney Griner, the basketball star who was detained in Russia for 10 months, has signed a one-year contract to continue her playing career with the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Griner became the center of a geopolitical showdown between the United States and Russia for much of 2022 after customs officials at an airport near Moscow detained her for carrying a small amount of cannabis oil in vape cartridges in her luggage.A Russian court convicted her of drug smuggling, and in August Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. The State Department declared Griner wrongfully detained and sought a prisoner exchange for her release.An exchange was made in December, with Griner being returned to the United States while Viktor Bout, an arms dealer who had been convicted nearly a decade earlier, was sent back to Russia.In an Instagram post after her release, Griner pledged to work to free other Americans who have been declared wrongfully detained and said she planned to play in the W.N.B.A. again. Griner last played in the W.N.B.A. in 2021, producing one of the best campaigns of her career, with averages of 20.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. Phoenix opens its season against the Los Angeles Sparks on May 19.Tania Ganguli More

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      Boston Celtics Hire Joe Mazzulla, Cutting Ties With Ime Udoka

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      Mazzulla had been the interim head coach since September after Boston suspended Udoka for the season for violating team policies.The Boston Celtics named Joe Mazzulla as their permanent head coach on Thursday, and they have fired Ime Udoka, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.Udoka had been suspended since September for unspecified “violations of team policies.” According to two people with knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate.Mazzulla, 34, who had been an assistant in Boston for the last three years, was named the interim coach in his stead. With him at the helm, the Celtics have not skipped a beat since going to the N.B.A. finals last season. They are entering the All-Star break this weekend with the league’s best record at 42-17.“As he has shown, Joe is a very talented coach and leader,” Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, said in a statement. “He has a unique ability to galvanize a room around a mission. We are thankful for the work he has done to help get us to this point, and excited that he has agreed to lead us into the future.”The Celtics said in a statement that they had agreed to a contract extension with Mazzulla, but they did not disclose the terms of the deal.Udoka had been a highly respected assistant for nearly a decade before the Celtics hired him in 2021. He led last year’s team to a 51-31 record and a surprise trip to the N.B.A. finals, where Boston lost to Golden State in six games.But just days before training camp began this season, the Celtics suspended Udoka with the vague explanation of team policy violations, leading to an avalanche of social media speculation about the team’s female staff members as rumors swirled.“I want to apologize to our players, fans, the entire Celtics organization and my family for letting them down,” Udoka said in a statement after the suspension was announced.Mazzulla, a former college basketball player at West Virginia University, was handed the reins. The Celtics began the season 18-4 and have been among the best teams in the N.B.A. on both ends of the floor. More

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      Keep the Dunk Contest Weird

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      It’s a campy celebration of basketball’s pugnacious spirit, and a jolt to the predictable pageantry of the N.B.A.The N.B.A.’s Slam Dunk Contest is the showiest, most polarizing and occasionally most transcendent event of the league’s All-Star Weekend. The most captivating contest in recent years took place in February 2020. The Miami Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. opened by jumping over his teammate Bam Adebayo and then breezed into a 360-degree reverse tornado dunk. The Milwaukee Bucks’ Pat Connaughton opened with an allusion to “White Men Can’t Jump,” clearing the Brewers’ star left fielder, Christian Yelich. And the 2008 champion, Dwight Howard, made his fourth appearance in the event, revealing a Superman tank top emblazoned with a tribute to Kobe Bryant. The first round held all the now-traditional markers of the contest — costumes, people used as props, self-referential rabbit holes and, yeah, plenty of bounce.In the final round, Jones dug back to the most iconic moment in the contest’s history by channeling Michael Jordan’s Jumpman logo, running down the floor and taking off a step inside the free throw line to fly to the rim for a one-handed slam:From NBA/YouTubeFor his final try, Orlando’s Aaron Gordon did a speedy one-two toe-tap and took off, seemingly in slow motion, to vault over the 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall, leapfrogging up to grab the ball resting on Fall’s nape and hoist it into the basket:From NBA/YouTubeIt wasn’t even the best dunk in the contest, but for better or worse, it came to encapsulate all the inventiveness, camaraderie and athleticism that a dunk contest can bring. The reaction was thunderous; it seems most spectators felt relief that Gordon, one of the league’s best dunkers, competing in his third contest, had finally won it. But after a prolonged period of deliberation among the judges — the former N.B.A. players Scottie Pippen and Dwyane Wade, the current W.N.B.A. player Candace Parker, the musician Common and the actor Chadwick Boseman — they gave Gordon’s dunk a score that left him in second place. Gordon, along with seemingly everyone else, was incredulous. Players watched with their mouths wide open or their hands on their heads in dismay, and commentators, like Kenny Smith, called the outcome “highway robbery.” That outsize response, farcical in any other context, speaks to just how much the Dunk Contest means today.What became an annual event in 1984 with nine superstars (including winners like Jordan and Vince Carter) has since morphed into a niche event for up-and-comers and high-flying outliers, one that is simultaneously celebrated and maligned for its theatrics. The Dunk Contest is the only All-Star event that invites suspense: The Celebrity Game is painful to watch, the Rising Stars Game is a fun but disorganized jumble and the Skills Challenge is an expeditious but usually rote relay. The All-Star game switched formats recently but is still mostly an overly friendly, rhythmic seesaw of the best basketball players in the world lightly jogging back and forth up the court. The Dunk Contest, All-Star Weekend’s midpoint in an overproduced, sponsorship-heavy, blurry three days of predictable pageantry, has become its weird little beating heart. It’s one of professional sports’ last strange, silly, subtext-free and wonderfully overwrought occasions.In order to appreciate the Dunk Contest, it helps to understand the move it revolves around. The dunk’s official origins are murky: The word “dunk” was used as early as 1935 to describe a shooting movement that may or may not have been the shot as we know it today. Wherever it started, by the 1940s it began to draw ire from critics who claimed that it was diminishing the value of more traditional shooting, and the tenets of accuracy and passing. When dominant college athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) added it to their repertoire, criticism of the dunk often had racial undertones (or overtones, retrospectively). In 1967, the N.C.A.A. banned the dunk, and during the nine-year period that the move was outlawed, the directive was known as “the Lew Alcindor rule.” At the pro level, the shot became more prominent. The American Basketball Association held the first official dunk contest in 1976 to sell more tickets and show off its talent, and by the early ’80s, the N.B.A. began using special rims that accommodated dunking.A manifestation of vulnerability, intense clarity, power and ability, the dunk exists in a split-second span of decision making. The dunker toys with velocity and time itself. The move offers a break in the sport’s fourth wall; it’s a reminder that pro basketball is in fact meant to be entertaining, despite how serious and moneyed the game has become. In a league known for the personalities of its players, the dunk is the most signature move there is, because it is dictated by a player’s particular tendencies; it’s an autograph scrawled in the air. It’s no wonder that the dunk, not the three-point shot or the crossover, is the move that’s most immortalized in posters: It’s a snapshot of basketball’s overwhelming grandeur.Although it’s become common in contemporary gameplay — even the best players get dunked on — “posterizing” someone used to be considered an ego-ender; the idea was that the dunker turned the defender into a joke. Now the action is just part of the sport’s iconography. The move is so normalized that references to it have entered pop-culture lexicons. To “dunk on” someone is to vehemently make fun of or criticize them. So often the dunk is seen as a humiliating gesture, but maybe it’s better to lean into the second definition. Dunking is an emphatic form of critique: When players dunk, they undermine physical limitations.As a forum for this kind of epic, athletic drama, the Dunk Contest allows contestants to lean into basketball’s theatricality, and the audacity it takes to fly and potentially fail at a high level. Dunkers, by necessity, always go big. (I’ve embraced this quality in my own life — as a reminder to be bold, I have the words “DUNK CONTEST” tattooed on my arm.) The act of slamming a ball in one vociferous swoop is one of the stagiest things a player can do. Dunking puts the player in league with great performers of all kinds: actors, wrestlers, rappers. It is literally over the top.At Gordon’s post-contest news conference, he appeared crestfallen. He suggested that he would never compete in another Dunk Contest. Two months later, he released “9 Out of 10,” a diss track aimed at Dwyane Wade. In the song’s video, Gordon sips Wade’s branded wine and walks the knife’s edge between wincing overindulgence and gotta-hand-it-to-him commitment. That spectacle is as campy as any of Gordon’s competition slams.Source photographs: Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images; Mercedes Oliver/NBAE, via Getty Images; Rich Schultz/Getty Images; Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images; Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images; Steph Chambers/Getty Images; Alika Jenner/Getty Images; Steve Bell/Getty Images; Justin Ford/Getty Images; screen grab from YouTube. More