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      What Makes Damian Lillard Great? His Loyalty to Portland.

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      The Trail Blazers point guard has prized loyalty over easier paths to winning. And that’s what makes him great.PORTLAND, Ore. — Damian Lillard should get angry more often.Through thick and thin with the only N.B.A. team he has known, Lillard, the Portland Trail Blazers’ luminescent point guard, has always possessed a remarkable calm. Still, he is not above letting defeats get to him, as he showed after a recent meltdown loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.“I’m confused why y’all asking me these questions right now,” Lillard said in a news conference after his team coughed up a 25-point halftime lead. A reporter had asked Lillard about the state of his listing team. I followed up by asking how much more patience he had.Lillard’s voice sharpened, sending tension cracking through the room. It felt like his eyes were beaming lasers right through me.“The struggles that we’ve had are obvious,” he said, adding that he had been “transparent” about how Portland could improve.He continued, calling the queries a “weak move” and indicating that he thought he was being baited into criticizing the makeup of his team as the league’s trade deadline loomed. “Y’all putting me in a position to, you know, answer questions that I don’t think is cool,” he said.Later, I had another interaction with Lillard, a brief moment of reconciliation that revealed his character. I’ll get to that later. First, let’s focus on all that is swirling, once again, around Portland’s star.Lillard is the N.B.A.’s most interesting outlier.“He’s one of a kind,” said Chauncey Billups, who spent nearly two decades playing in the N.B.A. and is now the Blazers’ second-year head coach.Billups wasn’t merely speaking about talent. Lillard is the rare basketball star who prizes loyalty to his city and team above all — even if that means waiting and waiting, and waiting some more, for his team to become a championship contender.“We understand how lucky we are to have him,” Billups said. “Everyone in this city, and on this team, wants to win for Dame.”Problem is, the Blazers are the basketball equivalent of a sturdy Honda Accord. For almost all of Lillard’s 11 seasons in the N.B.A., Portland has been a middling operation: good — sometimes very good — but never great.It defies the norm for Lillard to remain on a team that seems stuck in neutral, while never demanding a trade or opting to leave.Six times, the 32-year-old has been named an All-Star, and six times he has been chosen for an All-N.B.A. team. He was voted onto the league’s 75th-anniversary team, meant to honor the 75 best players in league history. He won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as a member of the U.S. men’s national team. Cat quick, graceful, brimming with the kind of bold brio that is a hallmark of his native Oakland, Calif., Lillard recently passed Clyde Drexler to become Portland’s leading career scorer.Damian Lillard won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as a member of the U.S. men’s national team.Brian Snyder/ReutersAnd yet during Lillard’s tenure in Portland, the Blazers have made the Western Conference finals only once. The current Blazers are talented — and one of the league’s youngest teams. Billups is learning on the job. If this team is to become a true contender in the loaded Western Conference, it may not be until Lillard is on the downslope.Can we be OK with that?The past week offered us a window into Lillard’s world. A week ago Sunday: the 121-112 meltdown defeat by the Lakers.Portland’s postgame locker room felt like a morgue. In the concourse at Moda Center, the Blazers’ saucer-shaped arena, fans let loose, dishing details to me about the team’s legacy of losing. On a Facebook page for Blazers fans, the reviews were unsparing: “Lillard needs to go for his career to have any chance before it’s too late. This team is DONE!!”The next day, the Blazers thumped the San Antonio Spurs, 147-127. Lillard had 37 points and 12 assists.Then came Wednesday. Peak Lillard. One for the books. In the Blazers’ 134-124 victory over the visiting Utah Jazz, he scored 60 points, making an eye-popping 72 percent of his shots.The remarkable thing was how easy it seemed. Lillard, averaging 30 points a game for the season, never once looked forced against the Jazz. He played what he described later as an “honest game,” always making the right pass, moving the ball to the right spots, pulling up to shoot at exactly the right time. When Jazz players swarmed him, he looked like a buzzing hornet at a summer barbecue that everyone wants to stomp but nobody can catch.Brilliant? You bet. According to ESPN, after taking into account combined marksmanship on shot attempts and free throws, it was the most efficient 60-point game in league history. Informed of this, Lillard was shocked, and all smiles.“The most efficient 60-point game ever, for real?” he said. “That’s crazy.”Lillard huddled with his teammates after scoring 60 points in the Trail Blazers’ 134-124 win over the Utah Jazz.Jaime Valdez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersOn Saturday, Lillard continued his torrid pace and again hit his season scoring average, but the injury-depleted Blazers fell meekly to the Toronto Raptors. He is doing all he can, to no avail. The Blazers sit at just 23 wins and 26 losses, mired in mediocrity, 12th out of 15 teams in the West.Like many, I’ve often thought that Lillard’s prime years were being wasted and that Portland should do right by him and find a way to move him to a contending team. He’s nearing his mid-30s — years when hardwood courts become quicksand for shifty point guards — and a new breed of young stars is wreaking havoc across the N.B.A.Ja Morant, Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic and plenty of other 20-something talents are leavening the league with their skill and something close to Lillard’s preternatural confidence.N.B.A. life is only going to get more difficult for Lillard.But I’m willing to reconsider the desire to see him leave Portland. To follow the common line of thinking, after all, is to place winning above all else. Sadly, that’s the reasoning that has helped fuel the whipsaw superstar shuffle currently coursing through the N.B.A. LeBron James from Cleveland to Miami, back to Cleveland and then to Los Angeles. James Harden from Houston to Brooklyn to Philadelphia. Example after example. I understand the “win above all else,” “grass is greener everywhere but here” sentiment — and I question it.Winning is important, no doubt. But isn’t there more to sports than victory?More than any other N.B.A. star of his caliber, Lillard embodies the notion that the journey — the often painful path toward getting better — is the thing. It takes guts and patience and the ability to go against the grain. He has that. It also takes a certain kind of awareness that shows itself with deft passes and clutch shots and even in how players handle life off the court. Indeed, he seems to have that, too.Remember how Lillard bristled at my question after the loss to Los Angeles? By chance, I found myself next to him in an arena hallway later.He stopped me, shook my hand and looked me straight in the eye. He said he was sorry for his scolding reaction. The look on his face showed genuine sincerity.“I didn’t mean any personal disrespect,” he said.What stars would do that? Not many. “Sorry” isn’t usually in the playbook. But not many are like Damian Lillard. More

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      LeBron James Is Reminded in Boston That a Career Is Not All Glory

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      James drew closer to the N.B.A. career scoring record ahead of games in New York, but the Celtics proved again why they have been one of his great adversaries over the past 20 years.BOSTON — LeBron James was warming up for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night when an old foe wearing shamrock-themed pajama pants strode onto the court to greet him. Paul Pierce, the former Celtics star, embraced James, who got a kick out of Pierce’s outfit.It was a warm moment that lacked any sort of discernible shelf life. A few seconds later, James appeared on the arena’s giant video screens. Several thousand early-arriving fans booed him.With LeBronapalooza revving into high gear as James approaches the N.B.A. career scoring record, his trip to Boston was a reminder of some of the less glamorous stuff — the tight games and controversial calls, the fraught rivalries and hostile crowds — that has filled out his career, shaping him and motivating him. And the Celtics have been right there throughout, providing paint for his canvas.Saturday’s game was another doozy. The Celtics’ 125-121 victory in overtime came after James justifiably felt that he had been fouled on a layup attempt at the end of regulation. A foul call would have sent him to the free throw line with a chance to win it. Instead, the officials missed it. James yelled and protested and fell to his knees. Then he seethed at his locker after another loss by the Lakers (23-27) in a season full of them.“I don’t get it,” he said. “I’m attacking the paint just as much as any of the other guys in this league that’s getting double-digit free throws a night. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.”The messy end obscured another enormous effort by James, who finished with 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. (He was 5 for 6 from the free throw line.) And it is worth emphasizing: He is regularly posting numbers like those at 38 years old, the third-oldest player in the N.B.A.Ahead of the Lakers’ trip to New York for games against the Nets on Monday and the Knicks on Tuesday, James has now scored 38,271 career points, putting him 117 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record.It is a number so large that it defies belief, a number so large that it can be difficult to conceptualize. James has scored against defenders who have long since retired, in arenas that no longer exist.How about this? When James faced the Celtics on Saturday, it had been 19 years 2 months 14 days since his first regular-season game in Boston. That game was on Nov. 14, 2003, back when TD Garden was known as the Fleet Center, when James was an 18-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers and nine games into his career. It was also when Jayson Tatum — now the face of the Celtics — was 5.James has been averaging 30 points a game this season. In Boston on Saturday night, he had 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesJames struggled in that game, a narrow loss, scoring just 10 points to increase his career total at the time to 146. Vin Baker played 36 minutes that day for the Celtics, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas led the Cavaliers with 22 points. For James, it was an inauspicious opening act ahead of two decades of tussling with the Celtics.By now, each team in the league can cite moments (plural) when James did something to destroy the collective morale of its highly paid employees. A fast-break dunk that sealed a win. A long jumper that clinched a playoff series. A pass, a defensive stop, a blocked shot.The Celtics may be able to cite more of those moments than most teams. Consider that James has won five straight playoff series against them, dating to 2011. But as a much younger player with the Cavaliers, James was stymied by them. The Celtics of the Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen era had savvy and experience, and they bounced the Cavaliers from the playoffs in 2008 and 2010.Their series in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals may have changed the arc of the league. After the Cavaliers were eliminated, James removed his jersey before he reached the visiting locker room.“A friend of mine told me, ‘I guess you’ve got to go through a lot of nightmares before you realize your dream,’” he said at the time. “That’s what’s going on for me individually right now.”James thought he had been fouled by Tatum on the final play in regulation. No foul was called, and the Lakers lost in overtime.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressAbout two months later, James emerged from a luxury vehicle at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich, Conn., to announce in a televised special that he was joining the Miami Heat as a free agent.The new-look Heat proceeded to eliminate the Celtics from the playoffs in 2011 and again in 2012, after a seven-game scrap in the conference finals. That year, the Celtics were actually home for Game 6 with a chance to clinch the series. Before the game, Doc Rivers, who was then the Celtics’ coach, instructed his players to force James to shoot from the outside. They heeded his message.“The way he was scoring, if you go by a scouting report, was the way we wanted him to score,” Rivers, now the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, said in an interview. “Like, if he had to score, it had to be from the outside. It had to be with the 3-ball. We didn’t feel like he could beat us with that. And he did.”James extended the series by collecting 45 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in a lopsided win. He shot 19 of 26 from the field and 2 of 4 from 3-point range.“That,” Rivers said, “was the moment LeBron became a champion.”The Heat went on to win Game 7, and then defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the N.B.A. finals as James won the first of his four championships.As for roughing up the Celtics, it seemed to become one of James’s favorite pastimes. During his second stint with the Cavaliers, he helped oust the Celtics from the postseason all three times he played them.So perhaps there was some relief in Boston when James decamped for Los Angeles before the start of the 2018-19 season, since it meant the Celtics would see him less often. But it also seemed fitting that he signed with the Lakers, whose rivalry with the Celtics is nearly as old as the league itself.On Saturday, Celtics fans showed up in “Beat L.A.” shirts and jeered every time James touched the ball, which was really just their way of honoring him. The game itself was basketball as theater, same as ever, all the way to the bitter end.Sopan Deb More

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      LeBron James Scoring Tracker: How Close Is He to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Record?

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      The Lakers star is fewer than 200 points away from breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record, which Abdul-Jabbar set before James was born.Since his early days playing basketball, LeBron James has considered himself more of a passer than a scorer. But he has always been dynamic at the rim, and later in his N.B.A. career he developed a shooting touch that made him even more dangerous offensively.Twenty years of perfecting exactly how to attack N.B.A. defenses have brought James to the cusp of a historic achievement that had once seemed almost impossible for anyone to reach.James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, is 178 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career total of 38,387. Abdul-Jabbar has been the N.B.A.’s career scoring leader since April 5, 1984 — more than eight months before James was born. Abdul-Jabbar played five more seasons for the Lakers after passing Wilt Chamberlain for that title.As James has approached the record, he has increased his scoring output to 35 points per game in January, up from 28.5 points per game in the season’s first three months. This season and 2021-22 have been two of the highest-scoring of his career. Though it would be difficult, it is possible he could break the record against the Knicks on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas. Four games later, the Lakers will host the Milwaukee Bucks in a game between the two N.B.A. teams for which Abdul-Jabbar played.Lakers ScheduleWednesday vs. San Antonio SpursSaturday @ Boston CelticsMonday @ NetsTuesday @ KnicksFeb. 2 @ Indiana PacersFeb. 4 @ New Orleans PelicansFeb. 7 vs. Oklahoma City ThunderFeb. 9 vs. Milwaukee BucksHere are some of James’s notable performances this season:Jan. 24 vs. Los Angeles Clippers: 46 pointsJames had 46 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in the Lakers’ loss to the Clippers on Jan. 24. He played 33 minutes and had no turnovers.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Clippers took a big lead early, and from then on the only facet of the game that seemed to be working for the Lakers was James’s long-range shooting. James made nine 3-pointers, a career high, on 14 attempts.James ended the night with 46 points, making it the first time he’d scored at least 40 points against the Clippers. He is now the first player ever to score at least 40 points in a game against all 30 N.B.A. teams.Despite James’s good night, the Lakers lost, 133-115, leaving James dejected as he sat on the bench at the end of the game.Jan. 16 vs. Houston Rockets: 48 pointsJames had 48 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists against Houston on Jan. 16. Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Lakers had just come off close losses to the Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers and were on a three-game losing streak. James has produced several impressive performances in losses this season, but he enjoys it more when the team wins. This game was his highest scoring this season, and came on the second night of a back-to-back.He also got a reminder of his age when the Houston rookie Jabari Smith Jr. told him during the game that his father had played against him in James’s first N.B.A. game in 2003. At 38, James is one of the oldest players in the league.“I could have very easily took tonight off, but I don’t feel like the momentum of our ball club could use me taking a night off tonight,” James said after the game. “I don’t feel like I wanted to sit on that loss to Philly last night. I kind of wanted to get that out of my taste buds.”Dec. 2 at Milwaukee Bucks: 28 pointsJames had 28 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists in the Lakers’ win. He has improved as 3-point shooter in his career and hit 3 of 6 against the Bucks.Michael Mcloone/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThis wasn’t one of James’s highest-scoring games, but it was one that showed the Lakers’ potential when they’re at full strength. Anthony Davis was healthy and scored 44 points as the Lakers beat one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams on the road.James’s 11 assists allowed him to pass Magic Johnson for the sixth-most career assists in N.B.A. history. It was also his 900th career win. More

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      The Knicks Are Moving Forward, if Only by Baby Steps

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      A victory over the Cavaliers showed quiet competence, something the team has been lacking for years.Although the final score was close, and the outcome was in doubt until the game’s last moments, much of what happened at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night could be called mundane.The Knicks won a game in which they were neither perfect nor putrid, against a good but not exceptional Eastern Conference opponent. But in outlasting the Cleveland Cavaliers, 105-103, they saw reasons for optimism.“It wasn’t the cleanest, it wasn’t the smoothest, but we found a way to grind it out and get the win,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said. “It’s easy to win when everyone’s clicking and the ball’s going in the hoop, but can we win games when things aren’t going our way? This was a good steppingstone for us.”This has been a season in which the Knicks are looking for positive gradations, small signs of progress that they can use to build toward something bigger. Content to let other teams soak up headlines, they are operating mostly out of sight, despite being in an N.B.A. market whose harsh glare can make that nearly impossible, and where slow progress can be made to feel like failure. The Knicks instead are working toward a quiet competence.“Sometimes we fall short, but they’re great workers, they study, they come in they try to do the right thing every day,” Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau said of his players. “When you have those type of guys, they’re going to improve. A big part of learning is trial and error; you have to go through it.”The Knicks (26-23) have the seventh best record in the Eastern Conference. They are one game out of sixth, which would grant them a playoff berth without having to participate in the four-team play-in tournament for the final two spots in each conference.If the Knicks finish with a winning record this season, it will be only the second time in the past decade that has happened. Through years and years of futility, dysfunction was more of a regular occurrence. There was a feud with an alumnus, and a celebrity fan. Before the coronavirus pandemic halted the 2020 season, fans were chanting “sell the team” at Knicks owner James Dolan.They had been shunned by free agents, most pointedly in 2019 when Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant chose the Nets instead.But that summer the Knicks began building this roster. They drafted RJ Barrett third overall and signed Julius Randle, who made eight 3-pointers on Tuesday night, to a three-year contract and then an extension.This summer, the Knicks were in the mix to trade for Donovan Mitchell, who was born in Westchester County, but the Cavaliers nabbed him instead, giving up three players, three unprotected first-round picks and two pick swaps.Some thought the Knicks should have traded for Mitchell last summer, and he has played superbly this season. He has averaged a career high 28.4 points a game, and he scored 71 points against the Bulls on Jan. 2. He had missed the previous three games with a groin strain, but returned to play in his home state. On Tuesday night, Mitchell scored 24 points, including six three-pointers.When they needed to, though, the Knicks were able to stop him.Twice in the game’s final minutes, with the Knicks leading 103-100, Mitchell drove toward the basket and had his shot blocked — once by Barrett and once by Isaiah Hartenstein.Mitchell tried again with 4.4 seconds left in the game and the Knicks leading by just 2. He tried to elevate and dunk the ball, he said later, but felt his legs cramp and his groin pull again.“Same as before, I don’t know what comes next,” he said, glumly, after the game, and then sighed.“A big part of learning is trial and error,” Coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You have to go through it.”Frank Franklin II/Associated PressA counterargument to the idea that the Knicks should have traded for Mitchell is that despite his play, the gulf between the Knicks and Cavaliers has not been especially large. Cleveland is in fifth place in the Eastern Conference and just three games better than the Knicks.Brunson was the Knicks’ major addition this summer, signing in free agency after starting his career with the Dallas Mavericks. That move came at a cost, as the N.B.A. determined that the Knicks had begun speaking with Brunson before the free agency window opened and penalized them one second-round draft pick.And while Brunson was a less splashy addition than Mitchell would have been, he has excelled with his new team. Heading into Tuesday’s game, he was averaging 22.5 points and 6.3 assists. In January, he had averaged 28.3 points a game, and scored more than 30 five times, including a 44-point effort in a close loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.“One thing I’ve learned and stayed consistent with is no matter what happens outside those lines, nothing really affects me,” Brunson said. He added, “Obviously playing in New York it’s a bigger stage, eyes always on you, but I just try my best not to worry about that.”With his help, the Knicks won eight consecutive games in December, climbing from 10th place in the East to sixth during that streak.There have been lulls, too. Tuesday’s win snapped a four-game losing streak, and the Knicks are figuring out how to fill a hole left by their injured starting center Mitchell Robinson.It’s all still a work in progress, but Tuesday night they closed out a game, where on other nights they might not have. They fought back after falling behind by 8 points in the third quarter.“How you get the urgency to get that done?” Thibodeau pondered, rhetorically, after the game. “Not to get discouraged, to just get more determined.”As Thibodeau sees it, the answer is a focus on little unglamorous things — securing an offensive rebound, going after a loose ball, deflecting a pass.“Just keep concentrating on the improvement; everyone put the team first,” Thibodeau said. “And we know this is — we’ve got a long way to go.” More

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      Luka Doncic Is Scoring More and Playing When He Doesn’t Have To

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      Even in pickup games, Doncic is showing a leap compared with last season, which ended with a disappointing exit in the Western Conference finals.LOS ANGELES — Jared Dudley, an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, put together a pickup game earlier this month when his team had an official day off.He invited players who usually don’t see much time on the floor, including Jaden Hardy, Theo Pinson and Frank Ntilikina, as well as A.J. Lawson, who had been on the team for less than a month. The goal was to get them a few extra minutes to play, and to let Dudley and other coaches help them build up the informal dynamics of working together.As Dudley organized the game, Luka Doncic noticed. “I want to play,” he said.Dudley was stunned because, in his experience, star players rarely add on to their workload in this way.He wondered if it was a good idea because Doncic had played 43 minutes (and scored 43 points) the previous night in a loss to the Clippers. But the team’s medical staff approved, so he let Doncic play.“Just loves to hoop,” Dudley said.Doncic’s passion has shown in the games that count, too.It had been clear since Doncic was drafted into the N.B.A. in 2018 that he was a special player. But five seasons in, he seems to have taken a superstar leap. Entering Friday, Doncic led the league with 33.7 points per game and was fifth in assists per game with 8.8. By his own evaluation, he came into the season more prepared than he has in seasons past, perhaps motivated by losing to Golden State in the Western Conference finals last season.“Until you win the championship, I think it always has to push you,” Doncic said. “And it will for me for sure.”On Jan. 11, when Doncic insisted on playing in the unnecessary pickup game in Los Angeles, he was in the midst of an astounding stretch of basketball.The next day he scored 35 points against the Lakers, which put his average over a 10-game stretch to 40.2 points. During that span, he scored 60 points against the Knicks, put up 51 against the San Antonio Spurs and had 50 against the Houston Rockets.Doncic scored 51 against the Spurs in a Dec. 31 game.Ronald Cortes/Getty ImagesAgainst the Knicks, Doncic also had 21 rebounds and 10 assists, making him the first player in N.B.A. history to have 60 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a game.“The history of the game is written by the players, and it was written again tonight,” Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said after the Knicks game. “For a player, Luka, doing something that’s never been done before, it’s hard to do.”Kidd added: “Elgin Baylor, Wilt, he was in that class, and then he separated himself and made his own class.”The Mavericks needed every bit of his performance. They won that game by only 5 points in overtime. Doncic scored 18 in the fourth quarter, adding 7 in overtime, which outscored the Knicks entirely.“This kid doesn’t quit,” Kidd said.Doncic passed 50 points in a game for the first time last season, when he had a 51-point effort against the Clippers in February.This season, the Mavericks need him to score more. They lost the reliable scorer Jalen Brunson in free agency when he signed with the Knicks, and have had to weather injuries to other key players.Doncic also spent the summer playing with the Slovenian national team, then returned to Dallas prepared to take a big step.“I was way more ready than last year at the start, so that was really the most important thing,” Doncic said.Dudley saw that in numerous ways. Doncic was in better shape. He was more aggressive in early games. He leads the league in first-quarter scoring, averaging 11.4 points during that period.“He plays the whole first quarter now because we can play him at a higher rate,” Dudley said. “We believe defensively he can keep up with that. And shooting at such a high percentage. I think as confidence grows, he knows what he is as a player, he knows no one can stop him.”Dudley, who played the final stretch of his N.B.A. career with LeBron James on the Lakers, sometimes uses James as an example for Doncic. He knows Doncic will respect learning about James, because he was one of Doncic’s favorite players growing up. James and Doncic traded jerseys during Doncic’s rookie year, and Doncic has that jersey hanging in his house in Dallas.The maturity he shows in his play makes it sometimes jarring in moments when that lapses.“He’s way wiser than his age; he acts like he’s been here before,” Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith, 29, said. “But, you know, sometimes you forget he’s only 23 years old. You forget until he does something crazy like kick the ball all the way up into the stands. Then you’re like, OK, all right. He’s 23.”Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith have bonded over pickup games.LM Otero/Associated PressTo be fair, Doncic hasn’t been fined for kicking the ball into the stands since 2019. But he does have a quick temper on the court. He has been assessed 10 technical fouls this season, though one was rescinded.“Off the court, I’m not an angry person,” Doncic said with a smile.Finney-Smith has seen that up close.They became friends even though they came from very different places and started their N.B.A. careers in very different ways. Finney-Smith grew up in Portsmouth, Va., and joined the Mavericks as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Two years later, the Mavericks drafted Doncic, who had played professional basketball in Europe since he was 16, with the No. 3 overall pick.That off-season, Finney-Smith and Doncic spent a lot of time together and bonded over pickup games.“We worked out with each other a whole week straight, even on the weekends, and played ones all night, all day,” Finney-Smith said. “Played full court one-on-one.”Then, as now, Doncic just loved to hoop. More

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      Chris Ford, Who Made a 3-Point Mark in the N.B.A., Dies at 74

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      He helped the Celtics win a title and coached them in the ’90s, but he may be remembered more for sinking what was hailed as the league’s first 3-point shot. Or was it?Chris Ford, who played guard for the Boston Celtics when they won the 1981 N.B.A. championship and later coached the team along with two others in the N.B.A., but who was perhaps best remembered for making the first 3-point shot in the league’s history, died on Tuesday. He was 74.Ford’s family announced his death through the Celtics but did not provide details. The Press of Atlantic City reported that he died in Philadelphia after having a heart attack this month.The N.B.A. instituted the 3-pointer in its 1979-80 season, borrowing the idea from the former American Basketball Association, which had merged with the N.B.A. in 1976. On Oct. 12, 1979, the opening night of the season, Ford was behind the arc when he caught a pass from guard Tiny Archibald and shot the basketball over the outstretched hand of the Houston Rockets’ Robert Reid with 3 minutes 48 seconds left in the first quarter.But Kevin Grevey of the Washington Bullets also hit a 3-point shot that night, in another early-evening game, against the Philadelphia 76ers. After that game, a reporter told Grevey that he had “just set a record that would never be broken,” according to an account by The New York Times in 2021.Three nights after those season-openers, the N.B.A. issued a news release saying that Ford was, in fact, the 3-point pioneer, since the Celtics-Rockets game had started 35 minutes before the Bullets-Sixers matchup. Still, it was unclear at what exact time of the evening each 3-point basket was made.The three-pointer went on to become perhaps the most dominant offensive weapon used in the N.B.A.Ford joined the Celtics early in the 1978-79 season in a trade with the Detroit Pistons. He played with Boston through the 1981-82 season. After serving as an assistant coach with the Celtics, he was the team’s head coach for five seasons in the 1990s. He later coached the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers.Ford during a game in 1994. He coached several N.B.A. teams, including the Boston Celtics, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers.Gary Stewart/Associated PressChristopher Joseph Ford was born on Jan. 11, 1949, in Atlantic City, N.J. He helped take Villanova to three N.C.A.A. tournament appearances, including a trip to the 1971 national championship game, where the Wildcats lost to U.C.L.A., coached by John Wooden.At 6 feet 5 inches, Ford was tall for a guard of his era. He averaged 15.8 points a game during his collegiate career and was selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round of the 1972 N.B.A. draft.In his first season with the Celtics, Ford averaged what became a career-high 15.6 points a game and was voted the team’s most valuable player. He averaged 9.2 points a game with 3.4 assists for his N.B.A. career. He was an assistant coach for the Celtics for seven seasons under their former guard K.C. Jones, and then succeeded Jimmy Rodgers as the team’s head coach. Ford held the post from the 1990-91 season to 1994-95 season. He compiled a 222-188 record with four playoff appearances.He was the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks from 1996 to 1998, and of the Los Angeles Clippers from 1998 to 2000. He began the 2003-4 season as an assistant coach for the 76ers and coached the final 30 games of that season after Coach Randy Ayers had been fired.According to The Boston Globe, Ford is survived by his wife, Kathy; their children, Chris Jr., Katie, Anthony and Michael; and seven grandchildren.Kevin Grevey said he did not revisit the possibility that it was he, not Ford, who had made the N.B.A.’s first 3-pointer until more than a decade after those games, when he ran into the reporter who had told him in October 1979 that he had made history.Grevey said he would look into the matter further, but as he told The Times in 2021, “I swear I don’t care.”But 3-pointers were hardly the only weapon that Ford had.According to CBS Boston, Ford was reported to have dunked at least once on the Hall of Famer Julius Erving, one of the most famous dunkers in N.B.A. history, whose nickname was Dr. J. That inspired Ford’s teammates to give Ford a nickname of his own: “Doc.” More

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      A Farewell to Maya Moore, a Team Player Who Is Also One of a Kind

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      Moore, who has officially retired from the W.N.B.A., will be remembered for her brilliance on the court and her fight for justice away from it.One of my clearest memories of Maya Moore has nothing to do with basketball, and nothing to do with her fight for justice.It is a memory of watching her sing four years ago, in a choir at Passion City Church in Atlanta.I do not recall the song, but I remember the impression she gave as she and the choir belted out a spiritual. Moore is perfectly comfortable settling in and finding a rhythm with the group. And she can also stand out and make a song her own.That mix — patiently one with the team and yet powerfully individual — is a hallmark of a career that will undoubtedly end with enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.It is the quality that animated her against-the-odds quest to free Jonathan Irons, the wrongfully convicted Missouri inmate serving 50 years for burglary and assault with a deadly weapon until Moore used her star power in a successful bid to gain his release. Then she married Irons, surprising even close chroniclers such as myself.She carries those traits of communal leadership and independence into the next phase of her life. During a publicity tour for “Love and Justice: A Story of Triumph on Two Different Courts,” a book she co-wrote with Irons, Moore announced Monday that she would never play high-level basketball again. At 33, a midcareer age for most players of her caliber, she is officially retiring. Her final game was a loss to the Los Angeles Sparks in the 2018 W.N.B.A. playoffs.Jonathan Irons, right, was wrongfully convicted and was serving 50 years for burglary and assault with a deadly weapon until Moore used her star power in a successful bid to gain his freedom.Bee Trofort for The New York TimesMoore, as always, took the script and made it her own.“When I was playing, I always tried to bring energy, always tried to bring light and joy and intensity to what I was doing,” she said after her announcement. “I hope people saw me as someone who gave all she had.” She continued, noting another hope: that fans could also tell she had a healthy perspective about basketball and “where people fit into this journey of life.”What makes Moore stand out is the example she set away from basketball. By speaking up for justice before it was fashionable for athletes to do so, quitting the game to free Irons and continuing to fight for change in the judicial and prison systems, she became a beacon for others to follow.Her retirement does not shock. It’s not as if there have been social media posts in recent years showing her sweating through workouts at the gym. Notably private, when she popped up in public, she seemed perfectly content, Irons almost always at her side.Now is the perfect time to take stock of her legacy. On the court, there were few like her.She could score at will, rebound, pass, play defense and lead her team like a coach on the floor. She moved at her own pace, faster than the others or slower, depending on the moment. Either way, No. 23 seemed always to be in perfect time, and the results back that up.Two N.C.A.A. titles starring for UConn. Two Olympic golds for the U.S. National Team. Four W.N.B.A. championships leading the Minnesota Lynx. Plenty of winning in international leagues and plenty of M.V.P. awards.Moore’s Hall of Fame-caliber career includes two N.C.A.A. titles with UConn.Suzy Allman for The New York TimesOff the court, well, she was even more extraordinary. Walk away from a Hall of Fame-caliber career before turning 30 — who does that?Step out of the bright lights to take on what seemed like an impossible task — gaining liberty for an inmate held in a maximum-security prison — who does that?Maya Moore, the one and only.I followed her for weeks in 2019 as she worked to free Irons. There were interviews in restaurants and her church, in her Atlanta townhome, as we drove to visit an Atlanta shelter for struggling families and down No More Victims Road in the middle of Missouri to visit Irons in prison. What struck me most about Moore were her heart and mind.At times, I admit, I found her a little frustrating. She seemed to answer questions only after pausing, slowing down and considering how she could be perceived. It took a while to understand that Moore’s way of responding to a reporter reflected the careful way she did everything else. She mulls and ponders, mulls and ponders. Then she tells you she is mulling and pondering.She would almost always deliver, speaking earnestly of her faith, philosophizing about the price of fame, how society is changing for better or worse, and the history of injustice toward Black people in the criminal justice system and beyond.Raised by a single mother and a phalanx of extended family, she was taught since childhood to walk tall in the world while also standing apart from it. She was never going to follow the crowd. She was going to lead.There’s a tendency to think of Colin Kaepernick as the first prominent professional athlete to protest racial injustice during the fraught last decade. But before Kaepernick, Moore was helping lead her Lynx teammates in calls for change in the summer of 2016. The team wore black T-shirts over their jerseys. On the front were the phrases “Change Starts With Us. Justice and Accountability.” On the back, “Black Lives Matter,” along with the names Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two Black men shot to death by police that summer, and the Dallas police shield, honoring five officers fatally shot by a gunman who disrupted a peaceful protest of police brutality.Moore faced a backlash, but she was undeterred. “I’d found my voice,” she said.Moore taught a Black History Month workshop focused on teamwork, leadership and social justice to middle school students in 2019.Nina Robinson for The New York TimesHer willingness to be outspoken made perfect sense. It sprang from her faith. And from her connection with Irons, whom she had known since she was a teenager.In the early years of Irons’s imprisonment, Moore’s great-uncle and godparents, deeply involved in prison ministry, took him under their wings and treated him like family. Eventually, the relationship between Maya and Jonathan would morph from something they described as siblinglike to something far more profound. She kept it quiet from almost everyone in her sphere, worried the attention would distract from the quest for Irons’s freedom, but she fell in love with him while he was still incarcerated.Through him, she knew well the price of injustice.What’s next for Moore? I can’t say for sure, other than that I expect her to keep pushing for reform of the criminal justice system in her way, behind the scenes as often as in the public eye. She has most likely earned enough from playing and endorsements to be financially secure. (She hardly lives lavishly. When I checked in with her a while back, she spoke with joy of showing Irons Atlanta by driving around the city in her 2006 Honda Civic.)She and Irons now have a son, Jonathan Jr., born early last year. She has said in interviews that they hope to grow their family.“I’m stepping away to live a less famous life,” she told me once. “A life where I am less visible than in my life as an athlete. Stepping away so I can do things that hopefully can be of service to the world in ways that might not be seen until they get done.”That was four years ago. It was true then and true now. More

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      Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren Discusses Lost Rookie NBA Season

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      Chet Holmgren didn’t feel like he’d arrived in the N.B.A. after the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft. And he didn’t feel like he’d arrived after starring in the Summer League, setting a record with six blocks in his debut. So in the late summer, instead of returning home to spend a few months with friends and family in Minneapolis or moving into his new home in Oklahoma City, Holmgren returned to Los Angeles, where he had trained before the draft.“I was trying to find every great player I could hoop against,” Holmgren said. “Because at the end of the day, if I want to be as good as I’m trying to be, those are the guys I’m going to have to look eye to eye with on a nightly basis for the next 10 seasons. So I was kind of just trying to go down the list.”He found his way into pickup games with Joel Embiid, whose shots he reportedly blocked several times in one session, and with Kevin Durant, who later said that the seven-foot tall Holmgren had a “rare” combination of height and “natural feel for the game” and would “be a problem” for opponents in the N.B.A. Holmgren also took on DeMar DeRozan, Jayson Tatum, who had just competed in the N.B.A. finals, and Trae Young.When he was invited to play in Jamal Crawford’s CrawsOver Pro-Am, which also featured LeBron James and the 2022 No. 1 pick Paolo Banchero, among others, Holmgren viewed it as a culmination of his personal summer star showcase. “When there’s an opportunity to compete against the best of the best,” he said, “it’s hard to pass up on that.”Holmgren spent one season at Gonzaga, averaging 14.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.Craig Mitchelldyer/Associated PressBut about a minute into the game, as Holmgren was defending James on a fast break, he planted his right foot awkwardly and came up limping. He didn’t return to the game, which was eventually canceled because the court was too wet. He traveled to Oklahoma City the next day and was diagnosed with a Lisfranc injury, which affects the ligaments and sometimes the bones of the midfoot. After days of consultations with team doctors and specialists, Holmgren and his family met with his agent, Bill Duffy, and Thunder General Manager Sam Presti to decide about surgery and shutting down what was supposed to be his rookie season.“Chet’s immediate reaction was: ‘Don’t say it out loud. It may be a season-ending injury. Just don’t say it out loud,’ ” his mother, Sarah Harris, said.Holmgren’s arrival in the N.B.A. would have to wait. Instead, he would join a long list of young big men who missed time early in their careers with injury. Some, like Greg Oden, the 2007 No. 1 pick, were never able to live up to the promise of their draft status. But many others — like Blake Griffin (2009 No. 1 pick; knee injury) or Ben Simmons (2016 No. 1 pick; foot injury) — have gone on to All-Star careers. Embiid, the No. 3 pick in 2014, didn’t make his N.B.A. debut for two full seasons after he was drafted — but has since become one of the most dominant centers in the league and a candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award.Holmgren, who had surgery and is expected to miss the entire 2022-23 season, initially struggled with second-guessing the decisions that led up to his injury.“I was questioning everything down to: Why am I playing defense in a pro-am game?” he said. “But at the end of the day, that’s just how I play basketball. If I question that, what’s the solution next time — don’t play defense? I see that as butchering the game of basketball.”To help Holmgren cope, Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault gave him a copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” That best-selling 1946 book, written by Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, emphasizes finding meaning amid suffering.“This isn’t the path we would have chosen,” Daigneault said, “and it’s not the path he would have chosen, but he’ll benefit from the way this is stretching and straining him.”It’s hardly the first time that Holmgren has faced an obstruction on his path. For the first half of high school, Holmgren’s teams at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis played without a home gym after a deadly natural gas explosion on campus. They had T-shirts printed that read, “No gym, no problem.” The back half of his high school career and his freshman season at Gonzaga — where he averaged 14.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and nearly 4 blocks per game — were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.Holmgren set an N.B.A. Summer League record with six blocks in July. He also spent time over the summer competing against star players in pickup games.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesBut for Holmgren, being sidelined has posed a novel physical and a mental challenge. He had never been forced to slow down before. Even on the morning of his first surgery, in late August, he was talking on the phone and doing doughnuts on his knee scooter as he waited to head to the hospital. And when he landed back in Oklahoma City after the procedure, he went straight to the team facility.“I mean, the best way to learn that fire’s hot is to get burned,” he said. “I don’t think anything can replace playing this year. I don’t think anybody could convince me of that. But at the end of the day, I could let this be a blessing or a curse, you know? So I got to figure out how to turn it into a blessing, how to make the most out of it.”Off the court, that meant adopting a dog, Drako, and doing charity work, like donating coats to families and hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for dozens of children in foster care.Although he’s not playing with the Thunder, he spends just about every day at the facility, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., rehabbing, lifting weights and tweaking his jumper.“Unless you’re Steph Curry,” he said, “you can always get better.”He has taken up residency in the film room, hoping to understand how he will fit into this Thunder team a year from now. He has watched the way his teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 24, endures the ups-and-downs of leading a rebuilding roster that has outperformed expectations but still finds itself in the bottom half of the Western Conference standings.Holmgren meets with Daigneault each week for at least a half an hour, when they talk about everything from philosophy to fourth-quarter situational strategy. Since Holmgren’s second surgery in December — a planned procedure to remove hardware from the first — Daigneault has noticed a new spark in him.“The more he’s exposed to the competitive experience, whether it’s shooting in pregame warm-ups or being on the bench for lineup announcements,” Daigneault said, “when you watch him in those situations, you can tell he’s ready to run through a wall — but he can’t, not yet.”Per team policy, the Thunder declined to make any team medical personnel available for interviews. But Holmgren said that he had put on muscle and weight since the summer and that he was on schedule to return to play next season.“This isn’t the path we would have chosen,” Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault said, “and it’s not the path he would have chosen, but he’ll benefit from the way this is stretching and straining him.”David Berding/Getty Images“It’s naïve to think that he’ll step back on the court on Day 1 and be back to 100 percent,” said Brian Sutterer, a sports medicine doctor in Missouri who has not treated Holmgren but has discussed Holmgren’s injury on his YouTube channel. “His foot might feel stiffer at times. He might not have quite the range of motion. And he has to learn to trust it again after a fluke injury like what he had. But there’s no reason to think he won’t be able to return to a high level of play and enjoy a long career.”Fortunately for Holmgren, all the goals he set for himself before this season are still possible in the 2023-24 campaign. He will still be eligible for the Rookie of the Year Award, and he was enticed by the potential for competing against another skinny, skilled seven-footer, Victor Wembanyama. But more than that, he was excited about helping a young Thunder roster coalesce into a championship-caliber team.“We’re winning games at the buzzer, we’re losing games at the buzzer,” he said. “We’re winning games by 4 points, we’re losing games by 4 points. It’s not like we’re losing every game by 30 points. I don’t have to try to come in and be Superman. I just have to figure out how to help make this team 5 points better and then keep building from there.” More