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      Ime Udoka Has Convinced the Celtics to Pass the Basketball

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      Ime Udoka, the team’s first-year coach, has convinced his players that sharing the ball is the key to a potent offense. Now the Celtics are climbing in the standings.BOSTON — Ime Udoka has been emphasizing ball movement since the day the Celtics hired him as their coach. At his introductory news conference last June, Udoka apologized to Brad Stevens, his predecessor and the team’s newly appointed president of basketball operations, as a way of softening the blow before he pointed out that the Celtics had ranked near the bottom of the league in assists last season.“We want to have more team basketball,” Udoka said at the time.It was not instant fix for Udoka, whose team hobbled into the middle of January with a losing record. The ball was not moving. A bit of frustration was evident. But even during their struggles, Udoka sensed that his players were receptive to coaching, he said. So he reinforced his pass-first concepts in film sessions and by citing statistics that showed the offense was more potent when the ball zipped around the court.“It took some time,” Udoka said on Wednesday, “but I think they’re embracing being playmakers and helping everyone else score, and I think it’s pleasing to me and noticeable when we play that way.”Entering the N.B.A.’s All-Star break, the Celtics have resurfaced as one of the better teams in the league after winning 11 of their last 13 games, a run of solid play that has vaulted them up the standings, quieted a few of their critics and shown that Udoka’s sharing-is-caring formula can work in their favor.“The turnovers are down and the assists are up because we’re getting rid of the ball,” Udoka said.He made that observation a couple of hours before the Celtics (34-26) had their nine-game winning streak snapped on Wednesday night by the Detroit Pistons, one of the worst teams in the league. It was the second game of a back-to-back for the Celtics, who had routed the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday and were without two injured starters, Marcus Smart and Rob Williams.Still, the loss was a reminder that good habits need to be nurtured, and one the Celtics can stew over before they resume their season against the Nets next Thursday.“There’s got to be an edge to us coming back,” the veteran forward Al Horford said, adding: “This is when the fun starts.”It always takes time for new coaches to incorporate their systems, no matter how talented their personnel. Dwane Casey, the coach of the Pistons, knows the feeling. Before Wednesday’s game, he recalled landing his first head coaching job in the N.B.A., with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2005. Kevin Garnett, a colorful figure and a future Hall of Famer, made a habit of interrupting Casey whenever he tried to show the team a new play.“It’s not easy,” Casey said. “You want to go in there with all these grand ideas, but you learn pretty quick that you’ve got to be flexible, that you’ve got to learn the players and they’ve got to get a feel for you.”Udoka had to be just as patient in Boston, where the Celtics’ season was less than two weeks old when a loss to the Chicago Bulls dropped their record to 2-5. Afterward, Smart, the team’s starting point guard, used his platform at a postgame news conference to criticize Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the team’s top two players, for essentially hogging the ball.Early in the season, Marcus Smart, left, called out Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum (not pictured) for not passing the ball. The team has since revamped its offense.Brian Fluharty/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Celtics spent subsequent weeks wrestling with mediocrity — two wins here, three losses there — without much continuity. And they found themselves absorbing more barbs after a loss to the 76ers on Jan. 14. Joel Embiid, the 76ers’ All-Star center, stated the obvious: The Celtics were a one-on-one team. Embiid went so far as to compare them unfavorably to the Charlotte Hornets, whom the 76ers had played two days earlier.“Charlotte, they move the ball extremely well and they have shooters all over the place,” Embiid told reporters. “Obviously, Boston is more of an iso-heavy team, so it becomes easier to load up and try to stop them.”Perhaps it was a message that the Celtics needed to hear. Tatum, 23, and Brown, 25, are terrific players, each capable of torching a conga line of defenders by himself. And there are certainly times when they should take advantage of their matchups. But Udoka wants all of his players to avoid “playing in a crowd,” he said, and to exercise more discretion. Above all, he seeks balance: fast breaks, pick-and-rolls, ball reversals.“We have a multidimensional team that can score in a lot of different ways,” he said.Sure enough, the Celtics were rolling by the time they paid another visit to Philadelphia on Tuesday. Udoka delivered some pregame motivation by showing his players that old quote from Embiid — the one about them being “easier” to defend than the Hornets had been. “It stood out to me when he said it,” Udoka said.The Celtics won by 48 points. Doc Rivers, the coach of the 76ers, spent the game looking as though he were in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.“You can literally see the improvement of the ball movement,” he said. “The old Boston is more isos. This Boston is driving and playing with each other, and that’s what makes them so much tougher.”The Celtics, who are also among the league leaders in defensive rating, made some savvy moves ahead of last week’s trade deadline by acquiring Derrick White, a versatile guard, and Daniel Theis, a defense-minded center.As for the All-Star break, Udoka said he would spend time with his family. But he also plans to dive into film by revisiting the hard times.“Really take a look at the struggles we had early,” he said, “and how we’ve turned the corner.” More

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      ‘New Year, New Me’ Actually Might Work for the Chicago Bulls

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      The Bulls reinvented themselves and have risen to the top of the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference, despite a virus outbreak and injuries that have tested them.About a month before training camp last fall, the Chicago Bulls began meeting up in their city, which would become a new home for most of them.They got together for workouts they didn’t have to do. They played five-on-five. They hung out. With only three players who had been with the team during the previous off-season, there were a lot of introductions to make.“Everybody that came here was very excited for this project to work,” said Nikola Vucevic, one of the longer-tenured members of the Bulls, having joined the team at the trade deadline in March 2021. “There was a very positive energy going into it. I think that helped a lot. Also, we had guys that were still trying to prove themselves.”Those workouts built team chemistry, and the Bulls surprised people — Vucevic included — with how quickly they started winning. And when injuries and coronavirus infections depleted their roster, they had a foundation that allowed them to adapt.This season has demanded that teams be pliable, given how the pandemic has disrupted it. A virus outbreak during a wave of the Omicron variant in December meant that the Bulls were missing 10 players at one point — and once they emerged from that setback, they began losing key players to injury. Despite all that, the Bulls (37-21) are well positioned for the run up to the playoffs after All-Star Weekend.“We’re not able to see us at our full potential since the beginning of the year,” said Zach LaVine, Chicago’s two-time All-Star guard and the longest-tenured Bull. “Even then we were working out the kinks, getting to know each other.”He added: “We’re still at the top of our conference and we’ve been doing a patch job.”Zach LaVine has been with the Bulls since the 2017-18 season.Grant Halverson/Getty ImagesThe Miami Heat, who have dealt with their own virus and injury issues, are tied with the Bulls for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. It has been more than a decade since the Bulls were truly considered contenders in the East. They have missed the playoffs for the past four seasons, and two years ago they tried to shake up their front office in hopes of changing their fortunes.They traded for Vucevic last season, and he became the first part of their remodel. Only the third-year guard Coby White and LaVine remain from the team that began last season.DeMar DeRozan became their marquee free-agent signing, a player who had been written off because of his preference for midrange jumpers over 3-pointers.The Bulls traded for Lonzo Ball in the off-season, and paid a small price — the forfeiture of a second-round draft pick — for tampering to get him. They signed Alex Caruso, who comes off the bench for a defensive jolt, in free agency as well. And they drafted Ayo Dosunmu, a Chicago native who had spent three years at the University of Illinois.Critics wondered if this group would actually work, and how.Bulls Coach Billy Donovan said the players’ time together before training camp “really helped our team.” For Vucevic that meant reconnecting with DeRozan, with whom he’d played at the University of Southern California. It meant getting to know others he’d played against in the N.B.A.“It’s one of the great things about team sports,” Vucevic said. “You meet so many people and you never know who you’re going to build friendships with.”Lonzo Ball playing against Philadelphia in November. He is currently recovering from a knee injury.Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesThe Bulls started the season 6-1 and went on a nine-game winning streak in late December and early January after their Omicron wave had passed.Ball’s outlet passes, LaVine’s dunks and DeRozan’s buzzer-beaters were just part of the fun. Their up-tempo offense, fueled by DeRozan, LaVine and, eventually, Vucevic, was balanced by a clear defensive identity, led by guards Ball and Caruso.“They look like they’re having fun playing basketball together,” said Joakim Noah, who played for the Bulls from 2007 to 2016, including seven straight trips to the playoffs. “When you look around the league you realize you can probably count that on one hand.”Friendships might seem like a small thing on a professional sports team, but discord can derail even the most talented teams.“I think when you have a lot of guys built into the foundation as if we’re one household, one family, when you have guys going in and out it’s much easier to plug guys in,” Dosunmu said.DeRozan was out for almost two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus in December. LaVine has missed 11 games, most of them because of a lingering knee injury, though he also played with back spasms earlier this month. Ball has been out since Jan. 15 with a knee injury.Caruso missed 13 games in December and January with a foot injury. In the second game after he returned, he fractured his wrist after a hard foul by Milwaukee’s Grayson Allen. Caruso has not played since, but he has been on the bench, helping younger players learn from what he sees.“We have a strong-minded group,” Vucevic said. “A group of fighters. When we’re going through it, we just talked about how we can’t feel sorry for ourselves because nobody’s going to feel sorry for us.”They have stayed afloat by beating lesser teams, but the league’s better ones have proved a tougher challenge. So far they are winless against Miami, Milwaukee, Golden State, Philadelphia, Memphis and Phoenix. They have only two wins against teams currently in the top four in their conferences — they beat the Jazz and Cavaliers once each.“We understand that we are a good team, we are not yet at the level of the best teams, and we still have a lot of work to do,” Vucevic said, adding, “We have to wait to get full to be able to do that, but all of this is a good test for us to get to there.”After shootaround Friday at Chicago’s practice facility, Ball hopped through a drill as he worked on rehabbing his knee. Nearby, Caruso watched a scrimmage. LaVine practiced shooting free throws and then spoke to reporters.“We get healthy and we do what we’re supposed to do, I don’t see anybody better than us in the East,” LaVine said. “That’s my opinion. Competition-wise, you step on the line you go throw the ball up, I don’t think anybody’s better than us.”That night LaVine played 37 minutes and winced as he landed on his feet after a dunk. The Bulls announced Monday that he would be out until the All-Star break because of that lingering knee injury.DeMar DeRozan defending against San Antonio’s Doug McDermott in February.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressSince returning from his coronavirus-related absence, DeRozan has offered some consistency. He’s scored at least 35 points in the team’s last six games — losses to Phoenix and Philadelphia, followed by four wins over pesky but less-accomplished teams.After Saturday’s home win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, DeRozan spoke wistfully about what it might feel like when the Bulls are all healthy again.“It’s like a dream I dream about every night,” DeRozan said as he looked into the distance.Outside the United Center, the winter Chicago air was biting cold just a few hours before the city would be dusted with snow.“Being on a sunny beautiful island, that’s how I picture it when we get back healthy,” DeRozan said. “We’re going to get there. It sucks right now, but we got to weather it. It’s going to come.” More

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      This Time, the Cavaliers’ Revival Has Nothing to Do With LeBron James

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      Two All-Stars, a surprising rookie and savvy trades have Cleveland among the best teams in the Eastern Conference. “Everybody is doing something,” one veteran said.For most of the last two decades, the Cleveland Cavaliers could be defined by two things: LeBron James or irrelevance.James, a hometown hero, breathed new life into the city upon being drafted in 2003, and made the Cavaliers a must-see attraction. And then he devastated the fan base by leaving for Miami in 2010, before returning like Odysseus in 2014 and delivering one of the most storied championships in N.B.A. history in 2016. Two years later, he left again, leaving the franchise without a clear path forward.“Everybody felt a little bit weird after that year,” said Cedi Osman, a fifth-year guard for Cleveland.The Cavaliers were starting from scratch and staring into the abyss. They had past-their-prime veterans and no track record of luring top free agents. But a funny thing has happened. Fast forward through some quality draft picks, a savvy trade and a key player’s unexpected resurgence, and there is a basketball renaissance in Cleveland.Four seasons after James’s exit to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Cavaliers have confounded expectations to become one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference with one of the best defenses in the N.B.A. For the first time since James left in 2018, the Cavaliers will be represented in the All-Star Game, which is this weekend in Cleveland. Rajon Rondo, the veteran point guard traded to Cleveland from the Lakers last month, said the Cavaliers this season have “a chance to do something special.”Their status as a contender was cemented last week when they acquired Caris LeVert, a 27-year-old swingman and Ohio native, from the Indiana Pacers. LeVert told reporters the team seemed to have “such positive energy everywhere.”Positive energy has been in short supply in recent years. Over the past three seasons, the Cavaliers went 60-159. The rebuilding process post-James, helmed by General Manager Koby Altman, has been bumpy.Cleveland is on its fourth head coach in four years. One of them, John Beilein, apologized to his team of mostly Black players in 2020 for calling them “thugs” in a film session. He resigned later that year midseason with a dismal 14-40 record.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver chose Jarrett Allen, center, to replace James Harden in the All-Star Game as Harden recovers from an injury.Chris Szagola/Associated PressThere was also the trade for Andre Drummond, a slow and expensive center who rebounded well but didn’t fit with the team’s quick perimeter guards, and the extension for another center, Larry Nance Jr., who never quite lived up to a contract worth more than $40 million.“We’ve taken some time and had to be really patient through some difficult times to get to where we are,” Coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who replaced Beilein, said during a news conference last week. “And when you’re talking about legacy, I think those are discussions that you have after the season or, you know, two years from now when you can look back at a total body of work and see what you’ve truly done.”The core for the Cavaliers’ resurgence has come through the draft. Point guard Darius Garland, selected with the fifth pick in 2019, was a highly-touted but risky pick given that he played in only five games at Vanderbilt because of a knee injury. The Cavaliers had drafted point guard Collin Sexton only the year before, which made the selection of Garland raise some eyebrows.The team instead started Garland and Sexton as one of the more dynamic backcourts in the N.B.A. Now, in only his third year, the 22-year-old Garland is averaging 20.1 points and 8 assists per game as a deft floor general and earned an All-Star berth. (Sexton sustained a season-ending knee injury in early November.)With his passing skills and ability to create space for himself in the paint, Garland has outplayed at least two players drafted ahead of him (RJ Barrett and De’Andre Hunter), while the No. 1 pick from that draft, Zion Williamson, hasn’t taken the floor this season because of a foot injury.Brandon Knight, who was Garland’s teammate briefly during Garland’s rookie year in Cleveland, described him as “super, super, super unselfish.”“He scores a lot, but he also gets a lot of guys involved,” Knight, 30, said. “When you get guys involved and you get guys feeling good about themselves and feeling good about touching the basketball, I think it trickles down.”When a team isn’t traditionally attractive for free agents, hitting on high draft picks is crucial. Cleveland drafted Isaac Okoro fifth in 2020, and he has become a reliable defender and open-floor finisher. The draftee with the highest ceiling might be Evan Mobley, who was picked at No. 3 in last year’s draft. Mobley, 20, is averaging 14.7 points and 8 rebounds per game and is a contender to win the Rookie of the Year Award.Isaac Okoro, ground, has become a reliable defender and finisher in his second year. The Cavaliers drafted him with the fifth overall pick in 2020.Nick Wosika/USA Today Sports, via ReutersOne of Cleveland’s best moves was the trade for Jarrett Allen last season, part of a four-team deal that landed James Harden with Allen’s former team, the Nets. The 23-year-old Allen — a strong rebounder and finisher around the rim — is now one of the best centers in the N.B.A. and was selected as an injury replacement for Harden in this year’s All-Star Game. The Nets have a worse record than the Cavaliers and traded Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers last week. They’ve looked very much like a team that could use Allen.But this year’s success for Cleveland is not just because of the young players. Kevin Love, a five-time All-Star and the only James-era holdover besides Osman, has battled injuries for most of Cleveland’s rebuilding process. Love, a power forward, signed a four-year $120 million extension to remain in Cleveland entering the 2018-19 season, after James left the second time. Before this season, it looked like a mistake for Altman. When Love did play, his body language was sour. On multiple occasions, he openly showed displeasure with teammates.Deng Adel, who played 19 games for the Cavaliers in the year after James left for the Lakers, said the early stages of rebuilding were “kind of tough” for Love.“For the most part, he was still definitely a good teammate,” said Adel, who now plays for the Boston Celtics’ G League affiliate. He added: “It kind of gets frustrating, especially for where he’s at in his career. You know, you could kind of tell he kind of wants to win.”After the trade for Allen and the drafting of Mobley, it seemed that there wouldn’t be room for Love. But in the summer, his agent put a stop to chatter that Love would try to negotiate a buyout. Instead, Love came back to training and told reporters he would be a “positive force.” Now, this year is among the best in his eight seasons in Cleveland. He’s averaging 14.2 points and 7.3 rebounds per game off the bench and shooting 39.2 percent from 3. Love is fitting in instead of fitting out, just as James once publicly preached for him to do.“He’s a great mentor for us — for young players and especially the way he’s playing this year,” Osman said. “I mean, we’re really looking up to him. Offensively. Defensively. He’s crafty. He’s trying to help us. You know, everybody is doing something.”Kevin Love, center, is in his eighth season with Cleveland, and playing some of his best basketball in years off the bench.Ken Blaze/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMentorship has also come from other sources. The veteran point guard Ricky Rubio came to Cleveland in a trade from Minnesota in the off-season and helped the team get off to a fast start with his steady hand in setting up the offense. But, in December, a knee injury ended his season, and he was traded in the deal for LeVert. Rondo has filled Rubio’s role.If the Cavaliers make a deep run this postseason, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise. They have dynamic scorers (Garland, Allen), quality veterans with championship experience (Love, Rondo), and complementary shot-creators (Okoro, Osman). Especially this year, where there is no clear-cut favorite for the title, the Cavaliers have a real chance of making the N.B.A. finals. And they seem to enjoy playing with one another.“A lot of times you can’t predict this type of stuff, man,” Knight said. “So the ingredients just work and there’s really not an answer for it.”He added, “When you get a group of guys that are just unselfish and don’t care about which guy’s getting the points, all those type of things, I think it just works out.”Of course, the Cavaliers still have a lot of work to do. The Eastern Conference is tightly packed and one losing streak could mean being exiled to the play-in tournament — and, perhaps, out of the playoffs. But this year has been an undeniable step forward. If nothing else, Cleveland is shooting for something bigger, to be defined by more than a past association with LeBron James.“We’re trying to build something,” Osman said. “It’s all about these Cavs right now.” More

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      The Nets Were to Be a Team of Destiny. But Not This Kind.

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      The collapse of the Nets’ superteam of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving echoes the falls of other starry groupings. But they had a chance to be different.WASHINGTON — Nets Coach Steve Nash gave a pained smile in the barren hallway leading to the court at Capital One Arena. The Nets were in the middle of an implosion, having lost nine straight games, soon to be 10. He was asked about his unequivocal statement just days before that James Harden, the Nets’ All-Star guard, wouldn’t be traded.“I still feel the same way,” Nash said. “Nothing’s changed.”When pressed, Nash said, “He’s not told me he doesn’t want to stay, so I’m working off our conversations, which is he wants to be here and we want him here.”It seemed like wishful thinking Thursday morning, the day of the trade deadline. Within hours, Harden was gone, breaking up one of the most highly touted so-called superteams in N.B.A. history. The Nets traded Harden, the former Most Valuable Player Award winner, to the Philadelphia 76ers for a package centered on Ben Simmons, a three-time All-Star who had not played all season for personal reasons.Call it an extraordinary ending, but not a surprise. Harden has played with Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Russell Westbrook — all likely future Hall of Famers he encountered in their relative primes. None of those pairings worked out. Then just over a year ago, he forced his way off the Houston Rockets to team up with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in Brooklyn. He had shown up to Houston’s training camp late and out of shape, then showed such little interest in games that he was told to stay home. The message to the Rockets from Harden was clear: Trade me or I’ll make myself a spectacle.The Nets knew who they were getting in Harden when they gave up so much to get him. They did it anyway. Live by player empowerment. Die by player empowerment.“I’ve been in a situation too where I’ve asked for a trade and I understand it,” Irving said to reporters, referring to his demand to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017 with two years left on his contract. “So I’m not here to judge him. I’m not here to talk bad on James.”Late Thursday, the Nets’ Twitter account posted an image of Harden with the caption, “Thank you for everything.”“Make no bones about it: We went all in on getting James Harden and inviting him into the group,” Nets General Manager Sean Marks said at a news conference Friday. “These decisions to move on from a player like that of that caliber are never easy ones.”The SuperteamWhen Harden came to the Nets, he had established himself as one of the best scorers ever, a man who could single-handedly power an offense with layups, step-backs and a torrent of free throws.Harden is a brilliant scorer who is frustrating to defend. But in his last game with the Nets, against the Kings on Feb. 2, he made just two shots.Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesHe had become known for wearing down defenders with his penchant for hooking their arms so quickly that it seemed as if he were being held — drawing fouls and annoying opposing coaches and players to no end. His tactics were becoming so prevalent across the league that the N.B.A. shifted its officiating emphasis this season to stop them. The change slowed him down for a few weeks, but then he adapted and looked, again, as if he might become the third superstar of a championship team.But it’s worth remembering that the Nets didn’t need him.If any player can match Harden’s offensive firepower, it’s Durant — a virtually unguardable forward too quick for defenders his size and too big for guards at his speed. His lanky frame and extended reach often make opponents look feeble as they put their hands up to try to block his shot. Durant is easily one of the three best players in the N.B.A. every year.Not to mention Irving, who is also an elite scorer who operates with the ball seemingly on an invisible string, and who can change directions at any second with either hand. Defenders have to guess which way Irving will drive — and most of the time, they guess wrong. If they guess right, Irving, with a herky-jerky hesitation dribble, can easily reverse. Either way, defenders are left in the dust.With Irving, Durant and Jarrett Allen, the center whom the Nets traded away with Caris LeVert and draft picks to get Harden, the Nets still would have been the most talented team in the league last season. Allen was clearly on his way to becoming the double-double anchor he now is for Cleveland. And since trading for Harden, the Nets have piled on more big names including Blake Griffin (six All-Star games), LaMarcus Aldridge (seven), Paul Millsap (four) and Patty Mills, one of the best backup point guards.The only modern precedent for a core group at the level of Harden, Irving and Durant was when Durant went to the Golden State Warriors, where he won two championships alongside Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. With Harden, it should’ve been déjà vu. It ended up being a repeat, just not the one the Nets wanted.In 2013, with the franchise struggling to attract fans in its new home of Brooklyn, the Nets acquired Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett from the Boston Celtics to team with Deron Williams and Joe Johnson. On paper, it was a brilliant move, giving the Nets a roster of All-Stars ready to compete for a championship, at the cost of lots of draft picks — one pick which became Jaylen Brown, a Celtics guard who was an All-Star last year — and cap space. (Sound familiar?) They won one playoff series before the team fell apart. (Again: Sound familiar?)How It Fell ApartIt’s unclear why or when Harden became so disenchanted with the Nets that he wanted another change of scenery. Marks said that trade discussions began in earnest in the last couple of days. Just a week ago, Harden posted a picture on Twitter of himself on the court with Irving and Durant with the caption “Scary Hours!”The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4Covid boosters. More

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      Lakers Pass N.B.A. Trade Deadline Unchanged and Uncertain

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      For a team still searching for cohesion around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the buyout market may not be enough to vault into title contention.The Los Angeles Lakers were not in a great place ahead of the N.B.A. trade deadline on Thursday. They had disgruntled stars, a losing record and a general air of dysfunction a couple of months before the playoffs were scheduled to start.The bad news? Nothing changed once the trade deadline passed. Same disgruntled stars. Same losing record. Same general air of dysfunction.As some stiff winds of change swept through the N.B.A. on Thursday, the Lakers continued hobbling forward as constructed, which does not bode well for their future. It is an indictment of a franchise that still employs LeBron James and Anthony Davis, two stars who are part of a hodgepodge cast of aging and ill-fitting pieces.Exhibit A: Russell Westbrook, whose inconsistent play at age 33 has landed him on the bench in crunchtime situations. If the Lakers were looking to trade him this week, there was an obvious problem: Who would take him and his contract? He is making $44 million this season, with a player option worth $47 million next season.In a post-deadline conference call with the team’s beat writers, Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka did not offer specific details but said he was “aggressive in a lot of conversations trying to improve this team.” Nothing panned out.As for Westbrook’s future?“Russ is a big-hearted individual. He wants to win,” Pelinka said. “And he knows that with players as impactful and influential as Anthony and LeBron are, it’s going to require sacrifices in his game and how he plays.”On Wednesday night, Westbrook sat out the Lakers’ loss to the Portland Trail Blazers with what the team described as a stiff back. Afterward, Lakers Coach Frank Vogel said Westbrook had been engaged with his teammates on the bench. That might have been the only bright spot for the Lakers, who are 26-30 ahead of their game against Golden State on Saturday.“I do know this has been an extremely difficult and challenging season for all of us,” Vogel said, “so there is a toll.”Those words preceded a dizzying trade deadline for a whole bunch of teams not named the Lakers. At the top of that list: The Nets agreed to send James Harden to the 76ers as part of a deal for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond. Other big names were on the move, including Kristaps Porzingis, whom the Dallas Mavericks traded to the Washington Wizards for Spencer Dinwiddie. The Boston Celtics beefed up their backcourt by trading for Derrick White. The Charlotte Hornets acquired Montrezl Harrell from Washington for a late-season push.While the Lakers could still be active in the buyout market, it seems impossible to envision a way in which they could reinvent themselves as a realistic championship contender. They were limited at the trade deadline after having already sacrificed so many assets, including future draft picks, in their deals for Davis and Westbrook.On Wednesday night, the eve of the trade deadline, James said he was tired.“I just want to get some wine and get up tomorrow,” said James, who helped deliver a championship to the Lakers just two seasons ago. “I feel good about what tomorrow has in store, and we’ll see what happens.”He added: “But other than that, I’m kind of just focused on what we can do to be better.”It is a long list. Entering Thursday, the Lakers ranked 17th in defensive rating, 22nd in offensive rating and 26th in turnovers. Westbrook has committed 224 turnovers this season, more than any other player in the league.Russell Westbrook leads the N.B.A. in turnovers.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt was only August when the Lakers acquired him from the Wizards in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Harrell and draft picks. While James seemed to acknowledge his role in recruiting Westbrook to the Lakers — “It was exciting helping put this team together this summer,” James said before the start of the season — Westbrook seemed thrilled about returning to Los Angeles, where he grew up and played in college at U.C.L.A. He went so far as to call it a “blessing.”It was not difficult, though, to anticipate problems before the experiment began. The Lakers, with the oldest roster in the league, were built to compete for championships — eight years ago. In fairness, James said it would be a process to form chemistry. (It would not, he famously said, be “peanut butter and jelly” right away.) But a process usually leads to some form of improvement, and the Lakers, if anything, have regressed recently, having lost six of their last eight games.James and Davis have been limited because of knee injuries — Davis missed a huge chunk of the season, and there are broader concerns about the state of James’s 37-year-old body — but Westbrook is a shadow of the player who won the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Award with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017.In 55 games with the Lakers, Westbrook is averaging 18.3 points per game — the fewest he has averaged since his second season in the league in 2009-10 — while shooting 43.5 percent from the field and just 29.8 percent from 3-point range.At the same time, he has started to gripe about his diminished role.“You never know when you’re coming in, you never know when you’re coming out,” he said this week.On Wednesday, James compared the trade deadline to being in a fog.“We’re all trying to see what’s on the other side of it,” he said.On Thursday, the fog dissipated. The view was unpleasant. More

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      James Harden Traded to Sixers for Ben Simmons

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      Harden has been with the Nets since January 2021, when Houston traded him to Brooklyn. Simmons has not played in Philadelphia this season for personal reasons.The Nets traded James Harden, a former Most Valuable Player Award winner, to the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday for a package centered on Ben Simmons, the three-time All-Star point guard who has not played this season for personal reasons.“The decision to trade James was a difficult one,” Nets General Manager Sean Marks said in a statement, “however after recent discussions with him and his representatives we felt that this move would be best for all involved, as it better positions us to achieve our goals this season and in the years ahead.”The stunning trade brings about a sudden and unexpected end to the superstar grouping of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and Harden, who were, on paper, leading one of the most talented N.B.A. teams ever. But the three stars had rarely played together — only 16 games — since Harden was acquired from Houston in a trade last season, in part because of injuries and in part because of Irving’s refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19, which has made him ineligible to play in home games in Brooklyn. The Nets had also barred Irving from road games and practices until mid-December.The Nets will also receive Seth Curry, a sharpshooting guard; Andre Drummond, a backup center and one of the best rebounders in N.B.A. history; and two first-round picks. The Nets are also trading Paul Millsap, a four-time All-Star forward who hasn’t played much this season.“I’m excited for our team,” Durant said in an interview Thursday on TNT. “Looking forward to finishing the season out with this new group and these new players.”He added: “I think everybody got what they wanted.”Simmons has yet to take the floor for the 32-22 Sixers this season. Coach Doc Rivers and the All-Star center Joel Embiid criticized Simmons after a poor showing in last season’s second-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks. In November, Simmons’s agent, Rich Paul, told The Athletic that the tension had taken a toll on Simmons’s mental health, and that he wasn’t ready to play basketball.If he is able to play now, the Nets could use him. They have been in a free fall, losing nine games in a row entering Thursday night’s game — dropping them to eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Durant hasn’t played since Jan. 15 because of a knee injury, and said on TNT that there was no timetable for his return but he was “doing better, for sure.” Harden had been out with a hamstring injury since Feb. 2, when he turned in a listless 4-point performance in a loss to the Sacramento Kings. Irving has appeared in only 12 of the Nets’ 54 games.The trade will reunite Harden with Daryl Morey, the president of basketball operations for Philadelphia. They last worked together in Houston, where Morey was the general manager. Morey resigned from the Rockets on Nov. 1, 2020, and joined the 76ers one day later. Houston traded Harden to the Nets in January 2021.After finishing the regular season in first place in the Eastern Conference last year, the 76ers are now in fifth place in the conference, two and a half games behind Miami.Because Simmons hadn’t played yet, trade speculation has been constant. As that intensified in the past few days, the 76ers lost three out of their last four games. To give his team a break, Rivers canceled practice on Thursday.“It was just so much stuff going on,” Rivers told reporters. “So many rumors. I just thought the human thing to do, instead of the coaching thing, was just be very straightforward with our guys. Tell them I get it.”Although Philadelphia has so far not been among the league’s elite this season, the team has reason for optimism.The Sixers still have one of the best players in the league in Embiid, who leads the league in points per game with 29.4, and ranks ninth with 10.9 rebounds per game.The second-year guard Tyrese Maxey has also played well in his extensive minutes — he’s led the 76ers in minutes per game this season, and averaged 16.9 points per game. He will be part of the league’s game for the top first- and second-year players at All-Star Weekend next week.Evan Easterling More

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      Overlooked No More: Ora Washington, Star of Tennis and Basketball

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      She was dominant in both sports over two decades and was in all likelihood the first Black star in women’s sports in the United States.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.Ora Washington, a dominant two-sport champion over two decades, was so good at basketball and tennis that she was hailed in the Black press as “Queen Ora” and the “Queen of Two Courts” — and for good reason.In the 1920s through the 1940s, long before female athletes like Serena Williams, Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka became immensely influential sports figures, Washington was in all likelihood the first Black star in women’s sports the United States had ever seen.In one basketball game, she sank an improbable basket from beyond midcourt. In another, she scored 38 points when entire women’s teams normally didn’t score that many in a single outing. Washington “can do everything required of a basketball player,” the sports columnist Randy Dixon wrote in 1939 in the Black weekly newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier. “She passes and shoots with either hand. She is a ball hawk. She has stamina and speed that make many male players blush with envy.”Washington, the team’s center and captain, did it all without even warming up before competitions, coolly saying that she preferred to warm up as she went along. Her remarkable basketball skills were “flashy and aggressive,” as The Courier said in 1931, and brought spectators rushing to see her decades before the women’s game became popular in mainstream society.On the tennis court, Washington was perhaps even more spectacular. Beginning in 1929, she won seven straight national singles championships — and eight in all — as part of the American Tennis Association, a league that welcomed all comers at a time when the world’s top league, the United States Lawn Tennis Association, allowed only white players to compete. Washington also won 12 consecutive A.T.A. doubles titles from 1925 to 1936, including nine with her partner Lulu Ballard, and three mixed doubles titles.With a searing serve and an unconventional way of holding the racket halfway up its neck, Washington won her matches “with ridiculous ease” and “walloped opponents into the also-ran columns” with her “flying feet, keen sight, hairline timing and booming shots,” The New York Age, another Black newspaper, wrote in 1939. The Age likened Washington, who was square-jawed, muscular and about 5-foot-7, to the boxing champion Joe Louis because both won with “deadening monotony.”“If you’re looking at Black women’s sports in the pre-integration era, she was the star,” Pamela Grundy, a historian and a pre-eminent source of Washington’s life and career, said in an interview.“She did things her own way,” Grundy added. “I think that made a lot of people nervous.”Washington once made news when she boldly wore pants, not a skirt, on the tennis court. She rarely wore makeup, and she never married; her closest relationships were with other women, said Grundy, who has interviewed several of Washington’s relatives.After matches, Washington wouldn’t hobnob at social events that often surrounded big tennis matches. Instead, she quietly went home or back to her job as a housekeeper for wealthy white families, work she continued throughout her sports career, Grundy said.“Ora wasn’t girly girly,” she added. “And she didn’t pretend to be girly.”Washington was known for her physical, intimidating style of play, which opponents didn’t soon forget.“Competitors — 60 years after the fact — had quite vivid memories of her skills and style,” said the sports historian Rita Liberti, who has interviewed several of Washington’s opponents. Ruth Glover Mullen, who played against Washington in the 1930s, told Liberti that facing Washington “was just like playing a Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan.”Washington, right, in 1939 after winning the Pennsylvania Open. With her was the runner-up, Dorothy Morgan, whom Washington beat, 6-2, 6-1.John W. Mosley/Temple University Libraries, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American CollectionYears went by without Washington losing a single match. But white Americans did not notice because Washington had been relegated to a segregated corner of the sports world. And that was their loss, the tennis champion Arthur Ashe asserted decades later, “because Washington may have been the best female athlete ever,” he wrote in The New York Times in 1988.Some said her dominance had made tennis boring.“It does not pay to be national champion too long,” Washington told The Baltimore Afro-American in 1939. “It’s the struggle to be one that counts. Once arrived, everybody wants to take it away from you and you are the object of many criticisms.”She retired from her singles career in 1938 but came out of retirement briefly in 1939 to play Flora Lomax, the reigning A.T.A. national champion, whom the Black press had referred to as the sport’s glamour girl. There had been speculation that Washington had retired to avoid playing Lomax, prompting Washington to tell The Afro-American that she “just had to” prove somebody wrong after “they said Ora was not so good anymore.”Washington proceeded to beat Lomax with relative ease.Washington won her last A.T.A. mixed doubles title in 1947, when she was in her 40s. She and her partner, George Stewart, beat R. Walter Johnson and Althea Gibson, the Black athlete who was on the cusp of greatness.Washington then retired for good, just as the sport was beginning to be integrated. Had she stayed, “Ora would have beaten Althea,” Johnson was quoted as saying in Florida Today in 1969, and had she been a little younger, she could have become an international star.It was Gibson who became the first Black player to win a major tournament, the 1956 French Open singles; she went on to win five Grand Slam singles titles in all.Dixon, the columnist at The Pittsburgh Courier, said in 1939 that Washington might have become better known had she not shied away from the limelight. She had, he wrote, “committed the unpardonable sin of being a plain person with no flair whatever for what folks love to call society.”Ora Belle Washington is believed to have been born in the late 1890s in Caroline County, Va. (The state didn’t keep birth records at the time.) She was the fifth of nine children of James and Laura (Young) Washington, who owned a farm in the small town of File, about midway between Richmond and Washington.As a teenager, Ora left the increasingly violent segregated South for Philadelphia, where she picked up tennis at the Y.W.C.A. in the Germantown section of the city. She was a natural.At an A.T.A. regional tournament in 1925, just a few years after she had started playing tennis, Washington signaled that she had arrived when she upset Isadore Channels, the league’s reigning national champion. She also started her doubles winning streak with Ballard that year.After moving to Chicago, where she worked as a hotel maid, Washington won her first national singles title in 1929, and for seven straight years there was no stopping her. “Her superiority is so evident,” the Black paper The Chicago Defender wrote in 1931, “that her competitors are frequently beaten before the first ball crosses the net.”But with no avenue available to gauge her talents against white players, she turned to basketball. The timing was perfect; the sport was on the rise in the Black community, which embraced women ballplayers as celebrities.In 1930, Washington joined the Germantown Hornets, which played out of her local Y.W.C.A., and they lost only one game on the way to a Black women’s national championship.She later played for the Philadelphia Tribune Girls, a semiprofessional squad sponsored by a local Black newspaper, and the team became an all-star outfit that traveled throughout the South and Midwest for sold-out games. The team drew more than 1,000 fans when it played Bennett College, an all-Black women’s college in North Carolina, according to The Greensboro Daily News in 1934.The Newsgirls, as the Tribune Girls were also known, won 11 straight Colored Women’s Basketball world championship titles, in part because no opposing player could handle Washington and no coach could devise a defense to contain her.Even the mainstream press called Washington an “outstanding star” or the “famous colored girl athlete.” She remained with the team until 1943, when it disbanded.Washington then slipped nearly completely off the national stage. When she was inducted into the Black Athletes Hall of Fame in 1976, the organizers were surprised that she did not show up for the ceremony.They were even more surprised to learn that she had died five years earlier, on May 29, 1971, in Philadelphia, according to her death certificate. Grundy learned from an interview with Washington’s nephew Bernard Childs that Washington had been ill for some time.Washington was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Mass., in 2018, partly through the efforts of Claude Johnson, the executive director of the Black Fives Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes awareness of African Americans who played basketball before the N.B.A. was integrated.“When Ora Washington played, there had never before been greatness at that level,” Johnson said in an interview. “We should honor that.” More

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      Yeshiva's Ryan Turell Leads College Basketball in Scoring

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      Ryan Turell leads all N.C.A.A. basketball players in scoring and hopes to play in the N.B.A. But first, he plans to prove that Yeshiva, a small Jewish university, is as good as its record.They lined up for blocks along Amsterdam Avenue in December, standing in the cold for two hours, hoping to squeeze into the modest Max Stern Athletic Center for a glimpse at the hottest college basketball team in New York City.Inside, the Yeshiva men’s basketball team, led by Ryan Turell, the top scorer in the country with his bouncing blond curls and smooth, feathery touch, was preparing to tip off.About 500 people were turned away that night, unable to fit inside the 1,000-seat gym that has rocked and rolled over a three-year span in which the Maccabees compiled a 54-2 record, including 18-1 this year (11-0 in conference play). Turnout was similar for their next home game, against the Merchant Marine Academy on Feb. 1, when Turell dropped 31 points to become Yeshiva’s career leading scorer — with Leon Rose, the president of the Knicks, in the seats watching.Others could not get in, and some of them peered from a window as fans inside, many of them wearing yarmulkes, the traditional Jewish head covering, stood and chanted “M.V.P.” for their hero.“I came to Yeshiva from London and didn’t know anything about basketball,” said Michael Smolowitz, a second-year student and fan. “Once I got here, I was bombarded with it. It’s quite a big deal.”Turell can barely make it across campus without several admirers greeting him and wishing him luck.Ariele Goldman Hecht for The New York TimesCollege basketball has been in a decades-long slump in the New York area, a place that used to cherish the spectacle and passion of the college game. But at Yeshiva, a Jewish university tucked into Washington Heights — not much more than a long 3-pointer from the snarled traffic of the Cross Bronx Expressway — the game is thriving.The Maccabees are ranked sixth in the country, led by a Division III superstar who turned down offers from Division I schools so that he could be a “Jewish hero” at little Yeshiva, where the head coach works full time as a lawyer, the weight room is smaller than at many high schools and the training table pales compared to what student-athletes are served at Duke and Michigan.But at Yeshiva, with a student body of about 4,000, Turell has fulfilled his quest to be a hero. He is known there and around the world. He can barely make it across campus without several admirers greeting him and wishing him luck. Elliot Steinmetz, the head coach and a former Yeshiva player, says he receives emails from across the globe expressing support and admiration for the team, which has become a kind of torch bearer for Jewish athletic pride.“I got an email this morning from someone in Australia, who wanted to know where he could buy a Y.U. jersey,” Steinmetz said. “He wanted to wear it around the streets of Sydney. I get contacted by Jewish people in Alaska, England, South America. Pretty much everywhere.”Yeshiva owes a good deal of its success to Turell, the team’s transcendent star. On a recent morning, a group of students spotted him as he strolled to campus from his nearby apartment along Amsterdam Avenue. As word spread, they poured out of a local pizza joint, pointing their phone cameras toward him, shaking his hand and asking questions about his game that night.In Yeshiva’s 89-49 win over Mount Saint Mary College last month, Turell had 28 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.Ariele Goldman Hecht for The New York TimesA lithe, 6-foot-6 senior with lofty professional and spiritual aspirations, Turell is averaging 28.1 points per game, the most by any player in all three divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, male or female. Turrell says he’s fine to lead the country in scoring, as long as it helps the team. But if the Maccabees don’t win a championship, it would be “pointless,” he said.Turell has scored at least 30 points six times this season and has surpassed 40 twice, including a school-record 51-point performance against Manhattanville in November.“I don’t care who it’s against, if you drop 50 on someone, that says something,” said Michael Sweetney, a Yeshiva assistant coach and former forward for the Knicks and Bulls in the N.B.A. “But the best part was, we really needed it that night.”As the season hurtles toward tournament play, Turell, who turned 22 on Feb. 3, is the leading candidate for Division III player of the year. It’s a nice feeling, sure, but Turell shrugs. All that matters to the player some have dubbed the Jewish Larry Bird is a chance at postseason play.“We didn’t get the chance before,” Turell said. “For a lot of people, it was a story without an ending.”The Division III tournaments the last two years were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 tournament was especially heartbreaking for the Macs because it ended after they had reached the round of 16 and a highly anticipated matchup against No. 3 Randolph-Macon. Yeshiva had won 29 games in a row and yearned to prove itself against one of the elite programs in its division.The Maccabees are ranked sixth in the nation among Division III schools, though some have questioned their soft schedule. Ariele Goldman Hecht for The New York TimesThe next year it happened again, and all the Maccabees had to comfort themselves were a 7-0 record and a newly coined saying: “We picked a bad time to be good,” as Gabriel Leifer, the sturdy co-captain and the rock of the team, put it. This year’s tournament appears on track, but the recent coronavirus surge has left a tinge of uncertainty.“At first you’re so disappointed,” Leifer said, “but then you see the hospitalization rates and realize, it’s a good thing we didn’t put 1,000 people in a gym. But now, hopefully, it’s finally time for us and Ryan to show what we have.”Turell grew up in Sherman Oaks, Calif., outside Los Angeles, the son of Brad Turell, a former guard at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ryan played basketball at both Valley Torah, a Jewish school, and for Earl Watson Elite, a top A.A.U. team. He had offers to play in Division I and was tempted, but ultimately felt it would be more authentic to embrace his faith. Plus, he knew Yeshiva because his older brother, Jack, played there, and he believed in Steinmetz and everything the coach promised.“I went to Jewish schools my whole life, I grew up religious, I keep kosher,” Turell said. “I was like, ‘What are we doing here? I want to go to Yeshiva.’ My parents were kind of shocked because my dream was to play Division I. But I told them, ‘I want to be a Jewish hero.’”Turell now plays with a yarmulke atop his floppy blond mane, but didn’t always. He didn’t wear one in A.A.U. games nor when he played in some fierce summer pickup games in L.A. alongside college — and occasional N.B.A. — players. He wasn’t comfortable with the attention, but he now regrets that choice and always wears it, highlighting his pride in his Judaism.“Just to show that Jews can hang,” he said with a smile, “that we can still play basketball.”When he was younger, Turell was reluctant to wear a yarmulke while playing. These days he would not play without it.Ariele Goldman Hecht for The New York TimesSometimes in pickup games he will hear lighthearted comments, like when he scores on an opposing player and then hears that player’s teammate comment, “He’s balling you up with a yarmulke on.”Those amuse him. But there can be an uglier side. Turell said he has heard antisemitic slurs, like “Jew boy,” on the court in high school and in college, including in a game this season. He wouldn’t identify the team or what was said, because the Maccabees chose to settle that score on the court.Turell told Steinmetz during a timeout, and the coach was prepared to march the Maccabees right off the court in protest. But Turell, insisting the slurs only fuel his desire to win, said it would be better to beat the team, which the Maccabees did. Steinmetz, who said such incidents are rare, was proud of how the entire team responded. The school is proud, too.“They aren’t just playing for a university,” Yeshiva President Ari Berman said on the court after a recent win. “They are playing for a people.”But as Yeshiva continues to win, some experts wonder if its record is inflated by playing in the Skyline conference, which is not the most competitive in Division III. When the Maccabees faced highly ranked Illinois Wesleyan in December, the game was seen as a litmus test of where Yeshiva stood. An unprecedented hype buzzed across Division III basketball. Fans lined up for hours to get in.Turell, who turned 22 on Thursday, is a leading candidate to be named Division III’s player of the year. He has his sights set on the N.B.A.Ariele Goldman Hecht for The New York TimesIllinois Wesleyan won, 73-59, snapping Yeshiva’s 50-game winning streak. But Ron Rose, the Titans coach, left Washington Heights impressed.“Turell is at the top of everyone’s scouting report, and he still gets his points,” Rose said. “Yeshiva is legit. I saw all the rhetoric about their strength of schedule. I don’t buy it. There is no question they can compete at the highest level.”For Turell, the highest level could also mean a professional career. He hopes to play in the N.B.A. and eventually in Israel. N.B.A. teams have sent scouts to Yeshiva’s games, and Turell assiduously practices from the N.B.A. 3-point line to increase his chances — he shoots until he makes at least 300 shots per day.It was on just such a long-range shot on Tuesday that Turell broke Yeshiva’s career record for most points scored (he now has 1,906). After the game, Steinmetz sent the young hero a message to say he was proud of him. Turell texted right back.“Everything you said we would do has come true,” Turell wrote. “Now, let’s go win a national championship.” More