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      Sylvia Fowles Wants to See Who She Can Be Without Basketball

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      Fowles, who played through pain in her final season with the Lynx, said she wanted to “step away and debrief a little bit.”It’s kind of funny to Sylvia Fowles that everyone is on the same page about what she should do with her life now that she has retired from the W.N.B.A.Everyone, that is, except for her.“Basketball is definitely done,” she said Friday, five days after her final game with the Minnesota Lynx and, she insisted, the final game of her 15-year W.N.B.A. career as one of the game’s greats.She doesn’t want to play again. “This is it,” she said, adding that 2022 was “by far the hardest season injury wise,” though she did not say much about it publicly.And she doesn’t want to coach. It’s “a hard hell no for me,” she said with a laugh.The idea of going into broadcasting earned a “we’ll see” from the 36-year-old Fowles.But though she said “everybody” wanted her to stick around basketball, she needed a break.“I definitely can say I don’t see basketball playing a huge part in my life right about now,” she said. “I just want to step away and debrief a little bit because this is something that I’ve been doing for so long.“And if I miss it, then I’ll come back.”The game seems certain to miss her. As Fowles said, she “gave this sport everything.”The W.N.B.A. announced Friday that she had won the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award, for “ethical behavior, fair play and integrity.” It was her first time being selected, by a panel of writers and broadcasters, but she has had a career full of other honors.Fowles blocking a shot from Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas during what she said would be the final game of her W.N.B.A. career, on Aug. 14.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated Press“Just dominant,” Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird said of Fowles. “I think everybody uses that word when they talk about Syl. Just dominant, dominant play.”Fowles is the W.N.B.A.’s career leader in rebounds (4,006) and field-goal percentage (59.9 percent), and she is in the top five for career blocks and field goals made. She even led the league in rebounds per game for the 2022 season.Fowles said she played through pain because she wanted to fulfill her commitment to the Lynx in her final season. She announced in February that this year would be her last, and it turned into a monthslong celebration of her career. Bird, who also said this would be her last season, spoke highly of Fowles.“When I think of Syl, she’s the type of player you have to game plan around,” she said. “And what’s tough about players who rebound the way that she does — how do you really stop a rebounder?”She continued: “Especially someone who is as physical and strong as she is. It’s not as simple as, ‘Oh, hey. Box Syl out.’ That’s probably not going to happen.”Fowles was named the league’s defensive player of the year four times, including last season. She won two championships with the Lynx, in 2015 and 2017, and was named the most valuable player of the finals both times. She won the league’s M.V.P. award in 2017 and has four Olympic gold medals.After having her name attached to those kinds of accolades for so long, Fowles said she was ready to find out what else she likes to do. She has spoken about her interest in becoming a funeral director.“I’m curious to see what I am without basketball,” she said. “I’m eager to see this new person.”But while she plans to travel and visit friends and family, she said she was not sure how to find herself beyond basketball.“I think a lot of it is just stepping away and trying to figure out how smooth can I be without it,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of trial and error. But I honestly can’t tell you what that looks like.”Jonathan Abrams More

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      Read Los Angeles County’s Trial Brief in the Bryant Case

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      Case 2:20-cv-09582-JFW-E Document 367 Filed 08/03/22 Page 16 of 22 Page ID #:31186

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      such as “high speed police chases”—the more demanding “purpose to harm” standard applies. Id. at 1137. When the officer’s conduct is more akin to negligence, courts have found such conduct insufficient to “shock the conscience.” For example, in Jones v. Jinparn, No. C 19-02817 SBA, 2020 WL 999806, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 2, 2020), the plaintiffs alleged that a police officer failed to make reasonable efforts to contact the decedent’s heirs before releasing the body for cremation. The court there reasoned that the officer’s conduct “sounds, at most, in negligence.” Id. at *5. “The Due Process Clause serves to protect the individual from the abuse of governmental power” and thus is not implicated by a negligent act. Id. By contrast, in Shelley v. County of San Joaquin, 996 F. Supp. 2d 921 (E.D. Cal. 2014), plaintiffs, who were the decedent’s family members, alleged that defendants violated their right to privacy by engaging in large-scale digging to exhume the decedent’s remains, which caused the remains to be “chewed up, pulverized, destroyed, crushed and commingled with other unknown murder victims” in the presence of the decedent’s mother and before news media. Id. at 931. The court concluded such conduct was likely to cause the family “profound grief” and therefore shocks the conscience. Id. (citation omitted). Here, the officers’ conduct at issue is more akin to that in Jones than in Shelley. First, with respect to the taking and internal sharing of photos among County personnel, the evidence will show that site photography at an incident is both appropriate and common practice in both the Fire and Sheriff’s Departments. Such photos are used, among other things, to provide intel, to assess the progress of an incident response, and to facilitate training post-incident. Indeed, some of the photos taken by County personnel here were shared with the NTSB to assist them in their investigation of the crash. With respect to Plaintiffs’ allegations that photos were shared with people outside the County or outside the confines of County business, Plaintiffs’ case is

      570887.2 11 DEFENDANTS’ TRIAL BRIEF More

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      Vanessa Bryant Is Suing L.A. County Over Kobe Bryant Crash Photos: What to Know

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      Bryant, whose husband and daughter died in a 2020 helicopter crash, said county employees shared photos of human remains from the crash, causing her emotional distress.Vanessa Bryant, the wife of the late basketball star Kobe Bryant, is expected to testify at a trial this week after she sued Los Angeles County and some of its agencies and employees for sharing photos of human remains from the helicopter crash that killed her husband and daughter.The January 2020 crash killed Mr. Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others as they traveled to a youth basketball tournament at Mr. Bryant’s academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles.Mr. Bryant, 41, joined the N.B.A. out of high school, spending his entire 20-year professional career with the Los Angeles Lakers. He won five championships and retired in 2016 as one of the N.B.A.’s top career scorers and one of the world’s most popular sports figures.In her lawsuit, Mrs. Bryant accused Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and fire department employees of negligence and invading her privacy by sharing crash photos “without any legitimate purpose.”From left to right, Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant, Vanessa Bryant and Natalia Bryant in November 2017. Kobe and Gianna were killed in a helicopter crash in 2020.Reed Saxon/Associated PressMrs. Bryant said she “has suffered (and continues to suffer) severe emotional distress” and that she feared that the photographs would appear online.“I do not want my little girls or I to ever have to see their remains in that matter,” Mrs. Bryant said during a deposition in October 2021. “Nor do I think it’s right that the photographs were taken in the first place because it’s already tough enough that I have to experience this heartache and this loss.”Mrs. Bryant has three other daughters with Mr. Bryant: Capri, 3; Bianka, 5; and Natalia, 19.Officials with Los Angeles County and the sheriff’s and fire departments have acknowledged that photos were shared, but said they were deleted.The trial began Aug. 10. Here is what else to know about Mrs. Bryant’s lawsuit.What caused the crash?More than a year after the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the pilot’s “poor decision” to fly at excessive speeds in foggy weather was the probable cause of the accident. The pilot, Ara Zobayan, was among those killed in the crash.[Read the 86-page final investigation report from the N.T.S.B., which includes a six-page executive summary.]The safety board found that Mr. Zobayan had become so disoriented in the clouds that he thought he was ascending when he was turning left just before the helicopter crashed into a hill near Calabasas, Calif.The board also faulted the charter company, Island Express Helicopters, for “inadequate review and oversight of its safety management processes.”Read Vanessa Bryant’s LawsuitBryant accused Los Angeles County and some of its agencies and employees of negligence and invasion of privacy for sharing photos of human remains at the helicopter crash that killed her husband and daughter.Read Document 41 pagesWho saw the photos? Where are the photos now?In a January court filing, Mrs. Bryant’s lawyers said close-up pictures of Mr. Bryant’s and Gianna Bryant’s remains “were passed around on at least 28 Sheriff’s Department devices and by at least a dozen firefighters,” including at a bar and an awards gala. In her lawsuit, Mrs. Bryant claimed that social media users had said they had seen the photos.Mrs. Bryant named four sheriff’s deputies in her lawsuit and accused them of sharing the photos with each other, other deputies or family members. The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2020 that one of the deputies — identified as Joey Cruz in Mrs. Bryant’s lawsuit — showed the photos at a bar, prompting a bar patron to file a complaint with the sheriff’s department.Emily Tauscher, a captain at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, testified at trial that after the crash Mr. Bryant was identified by his skin tone and arm tattoos.Los Angeles County and law enforcement officials have said that the photos were deleted and never “made it into the public arena.”What has been the county’s response to the lawsuit?Lawyers representing Los Angeles County said that taking photographs of fatal crime and accident scenes was a common practice for investigative and information-sharing purposes.“The County continues to express its deepest sympathies for the families that suffered this terrible loss,” Mira Hashmall, the lead outside counsel for the county, said in a statement. “The County has also worked tirelessly for two and half years to make sure its site photos of the crash were never publicly disseminated. The evidence shows they never were. And that is fact, not speculation.”The county has not called any witnesses yet, but in a court filing its lawyers are pushing to include some of Mrs. Bryant’s Instagram posts at trial to counter her claims of severe emotional distress caused by the shared photos. Mrs. Bryant’s lawyers have said her posts on Instagram, where she has 15.5 million followers, are not relevant to this case.The disputed posts include Mrs. Bryant and her family on vacations. Mrs. Bryant also shared images of herself dressed as the Disney character Cruella de Vil from the “101 Dalmatians” movie franchise.“Plaintiff’s emotional state is at the center of this case, and there is little more revealing of Plaintiff’s emotional state than her own words about her life, sadness, the targets of her anger, her activities, and other stressors that could contribute to any emotional distress,” the county said in a court filing this month about trial exhibits.The Bryant family at Kobe Bryant’s jersey retirement ceremony in December 2017. Kobe Bryant spent 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.Allen Berezovsky/Getty ImagesWhat has happened so far during the trial?The trial, as anticipated, has been emotional.Mrs. Bryant wept during the opening statements made by her lawyer, Luis Li.The accounts provided by emergency medical workers who took graphic photographs are conflicting. Brian Jordan, a retired fired captain who said he was ordered to take photos of the crash scene, left the witness stand three times because he needed breaks to finish his testimony.“I do not remember what I took pictures of,” Jordan testified. “The way the whole scene looked, it’s going to haunt me forever.”Deputy Rafael Mejia, who is named in the lawsuit, testified he received 15 to 20 photographs from another deputy the day of the crash. He said he sent about 10 of the pictures to two deputies, including Joey Cruz, who later would share them in public with a bartender. Mejia expressed regret over sharing the photos, saying, “Curiosity got the best of us.”Cruz testified that he made a “misjudgment” when he shared the photos.Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka, who was Gianna Bryant’s godfather and had been Mr. Bryant’s agent before becoming a team executive, detailed his relationship with Mrs. Bryant and testified about the anxiety she had experienced because of the shared photos.“She wants an air of love and joy and peace and she does everything she can do to preserve that,” Mr. Pelinka said. “You experience the grief from loss, but there’s also the anxiety from these deplorable actions.”What else did Mrs. Bryant say during her deposition?Mrs. Bryant said she learned of the accident when a family assistant knocked on her door in the late morning of Jan. 26, 2020. As she tried calling Mr. Bryant, notifications of people mourning Mr. Bryant popped up on her phone.Mrs. Bryant said she went to an airport in an attempt to secure a helicopter to take her to the crash site but was told the weather conditions were not safe. Mr. Pelinka drove Mrs. Bryant to the sheriff’s station in Malibu, near the crash site, she said.At the station, “no one would answer” questions about her husband and daughter, Mrs. Bryant said. She was escorted back and forth between rooms, and after a long wait, a pastor walked in and Sheriff Alex Villanueva entered with a publicist. Mrs. Bryant said she wanted privacy and asked the publicist to leave the room.Villanueva confirmed the deaths, Mrs. Bryant said, and asked if he could do anything for her.“And I said: ‘If you can’t bring my husband and baby back, please make sure that no one takes photographs of them. Please secure the area,’” Mrs. Bryant said during the deposition. “And he said, ‘I will.’ And I said, ‘No, I need you to get on the phone right now and I need you to make sure you secure the area.’”How much is Mrs. Bryant suing for?Mrs. Bryant is suing for compensatory and punitive damages.“That would be up to the jury,” Mrs. Bryant responded when asked during her deposition how much money she sought. “I don’t — I’m not asking for a dollar amount.”Are the families of other crash victims involved in Mrs. Bryant’s case?Christopher Chester, whose wife, Sarah, 45, and daughter, Payton, 13, died in the crash, is joining the lawsuit. Two other victims’ families settled for $1.25 million each last year.Has any other litigation involving the crash been settled?Mrs. Bryant and the family members of the other victims reached a settlement in June 2021 with Island Express Helicopters, its owner, Island Express Holding Corporation and the estate of Mr. Zobayan.Terms of the settlement were confidential.Vik Jolly and More

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      Liberty Guard Sabrina Ionescu’s Historic WNBA Season, By the Numbers

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      Ionescu, the All-Star Liberty guard, had a historic season in her third year that helped propel her team to the playoffs.After a serious ankle injury in her rookie season and a somewhat tentative second year, Sabrina Ionescu has in her third year hit the kind of heights everyone expected of her, and her Liberty are back in the W.N.B.A. playoffs.The No. 7 Liberty will face the No. 2 Chicago Sky — the defending champions — on Wednesday for Game 1 of a best-of-three series in the opening round.When the Liberty drafted Ionescu No. 1 overall in 2020, hopes were high. The team had been terrible for two seasons, but Ionescu had been a transcendent star at Oregon, where she had an N.C.A.A. record 26 triple-doubles. She seemed like the kind of player who could turn a team around almost by herself.In just her second game in the W.N.B.A., she fired in 33 points, including six 3-pointers, added 7 rebounds and 7 assists and had fans thrilled about the future.That future turned sour quickly when, in her third game, she went down with a severe ankle injury that would keep her out for the rest of the season.Without her, and without their veteran star Tina Charles, who had been traded away, the team was abysmal, finishing 2-20.Ionescu drove the Liberty’s offense this season, leading the team in scoring and assists.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated PressThe team bounced back in 2021 and sneaked into the playoffs, but it was a group effort led by Betnijah Laney, Natasha Howard (after a return from injury), Sami Whitcomb and Michaela Onyenwere, who was named the rookie of the year, that pushed them there. Although Ionescu played a full season, her scoring game fell a bit short of what might have been expected.Not that she didn’t help the team, but it was in a more supporting role: Though she was among the league’s assist leaders, she averaged just 11.7 points a game and dealt with lingering ankle pain. She was often the third or fourth scoring option.But in her third season, Ionescu has stepped forward, and she was named to her first All-Star team. She has improved in almost every category, playing more minutes, shooting at a higher percentage and increasing her rebounding, assists and steals numbers while reducing her turnovers.Notably, she has taken a more prominent role in the offense, shooting about 14 times a game to lead the team, up from just under 10 times a game last season, leading her to score a team-high 17.4 points a game. Playing in all 36 games helped her make the league’s top 10 in total points, assists and rebounds, the only player to do so. And her rebounding numbers are especially impressive since she is the Liberty’s main ballhandler.Ionescu also made history in her third season, becoming the first player ever to record a triple-double in three quarters and, separately, the first player ever to score at least 30 points as part of a triple-double. Those two triple-doubles brought her into a tie with Chicago’s Candace Parker for the most career triple-doubles, with three.Ionescu’s step forward, as well as having Howard available the whole season, helped the Liberty return to the playoffs and weather the loss of Laney for much of the season with a knee injury.Last season, the Liberty lost their single-elimination playoff game, 83-82, to the Phoenix Mercury. Ionescu had 14 points and 11 assists, but she missed a 30-foot desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have won the game.Ionescu shot better from 3 this season than last season, good enough to be fifth in the league for 3-pointers made.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesThe team has a chance to rectify that in the opening round of the playoffs this year, which will be best of three instead of single elimination. But even with Laney’s return, the odds are long. Eight of the 12 W.N.B.A. teams make the playoffs, leaving room for teams that finished under .500, including the Liberty (16-20).A matchup against the strong Sky (26-10) with All-Stars such as Parker, Kahleah Copper, Courtney Vandersloot and Emma Meesseman, and with the first two games in Chicago, will be tough for the Liberty.The Liberty are one of the eight founding W.N.B.A. franchises and the only one still in its original city that has never won the W.N.B.A. title. Its last decade has been especially fallow, with just one trip to the semifinals or conference finals.Like any team, the Liberty will need to acquire talent, draft shrewdly and catch some breaks to step up to championship quality. But more than anything else, they will have to rely on Ionescu to continue playing at the stellar level she did this year. Or preferably, given that she is still only 24, to get even better. More

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      Read Vanessa Bryant’s Lawsuit

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      Case 2:20-cv-09582-JFW-E Document 54 Filed 03/17/21 Page 2 of 41 Page ID #:1137

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      Plaintiff Vanessa Bryant (“Plaintiff”), through her undersigned counsel, hereby brings this action against defendants County of Los Angeles (the “County”), the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (the “Sheriff’s Department”), the Los Angeles County Fire Department (the “Fire Department,” and, collectively with the County and the Sheriff’s Department, the “Entity Defendants”), Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell, and Raul Versales (collectively, the “Deputy Defendants,” and, collectively with the County, the Sheriff’s Department, and the Fire Department, the “Defendants”) seeking damages to remedy violations of rights under the United States Constitution and for negligence and invasion of privacy pursuant to California law. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. sections 1331 and 1343. Plaintiff alleges, on personal knowledge as to herself and information and belief as to others, as follows: INTRODUCTION 1. On the morning of Sunday, January 26, 2020, three eighth-grade girls, joined by parents and coaches, left their homes in Orange County to play in a youth basketball tournament in Thousand Oaks. Making their way by helicopter, they encountered dense fog. Rather than land or turn around, the pilot pushed into the fog and became disoriented. The helicopter descended rapidly and crashed into the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, killing everyone onboard. Vanessa Bryant’s thirteen year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant, and husband of nearly twenty years, Kobe Bryant, were among those who died. 2. In the aftermath of the crash, several of the victims’ family members gathered at the L.A. County Sheriff’s station in Lost Hills, devastated and distraught. Sheriff Alex Villanueva met with them and assured Mrs. Bryant that his deputies were securing the crash site. Based on a leak by law enforcement, the gossip and celebrity news site TMZ had reported that Kobe, a singular figure in

      Case No. 2:20-cv-09582-JFW-E FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT More

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      What to Know About the WNBA Playoffs

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      The Chicago Sky will try to defend their championship, but Las Vegas and Connecticut are threats. So is Seattle, with the retiring Sue Bird.The Chicago Sky are set to begin their bid to become the first back-to-back W.N.B.A. champions since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001 and 2002. But the regular season was close at the top, and several teams could easily lift the trophy this year.Here’s how the W.N.B.A. playoffs shape up.When do the playoffs start?Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, when the second-seeded Sky host the seventh-seeded Liberty. At 10 p.m., the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces host the eighth-seeded Phoenix Mercury.The other two series — No. 3 Connecticut Sun vs. No. 6 Dallas Wings and No. 4 Seattle Storm vs. No. 5 Washington Mystics — start Thursday.How do the playoffs work?The first round is best of three, with the higher-seeded team hosting the first two games. If a third game is necessary, it will be played at the home of the lower-seeded team.The semifinals and finals are best of five, following a traditional 2-2-1 format for home games.Besides the joy of making it to the end, the finals will bring the players another perk. For that round only, the league will pay for teams to fly by chartered plane.Where can I watch the games?ABC and the various ESPN channels will show the playoffs. Games can also be streamed via ESPN.When are the finals?They are scheduled to begin on Sept. 11 and run through Sept. 20 if all five games are needed.Who’s going to win?The big three are Las Vegas, Chicago and Connecticut, who all finished within a game of each other at the top. Seattle and Washington, which finished with identical records of 22-14, are the next tier down.Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson is a leading candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award. She’s aiming to win her first championship.Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News, via Associated PressIt is very hard to see any of the bottom three teams winning. Dallas was .500, and the Liberty and Phoenix both lost more than they won in the regular season.For the statistically minded, Las Vegas had the league’s most potent offense, scoring 109.6 points per 100 possessions. Washington had the stingiest defense, allowing just 96 points per 100 possessions.But in net rating, combining offense and defense, it was Connecticut at the top, scoring 9.5 points more than the opposition per 100 possessions. That could make the third-seeded Sun a sneaky favorite.Who are the players to watch?The top-seeded Aces have a powerful one-two punch. Forward A’ja Wilson is a favorite for the Most Valuable Player Award after finishing in the top five in points per game (19.5) and rebounds per game (9.4), and guard Kelsey Plum scored 20.2 points a game while leading the league in 3-pointers made.Seattle has another M.V.P. candidate in forward Breanna Stewart, who led the league in scoring with 21.8 points per game, and few will take their eyes off the legendary Sue Bird, 41, the W.N.B.A. career assists leader, who will retire after the playoffs.And it will be worth watching Sabrina Ionescu of the Liberty, who at this point still has just one career playoff game.What’s the history?Seattle has four W.N.B.A. titles, all of them — yes, even the one back in 2004 — with Bird. Phoenix has won three times; once each for Washington and Chicago. The Dallas Wings won three times when they were known as the Detroit Shock. The other three teams are seeking their first titles. It’s an especially sore point for the Liberty, who have been in the league since its first season in 1997.What teams and players are missing?Seven of the eight teams are the same as in last year’s playoffs. With Washington returning after a year away, the odd team out is the Minnesota Lynx, who finished 14-22 and snapped an 11-season playoff streak.That means no playoff showcase for Sylvia Fowles, who is retiring after a season in which she led the league in rebounds per game.The absence of the Los Angeles Sparks will cost fans a chance to see more of Nneka Ogwumike and the steals leader, Brittney Sykes.The Mercury will be without both the injured Diana Taurasi, the W.N.B.A.’s career leader in scoring, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, who led Phoenix in scoring this season but will miss the playoffs for personal reasons. But the team’s grimmest absence of all is Brittney Griner, who is appealing her conviction on drug-smuggling charges in Russia, where she has been imprisoned since February. More