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      Prospects Get a Taste of N.B.A. Life During All-Star Weekend

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      Members of a developmental team, the N.B.A. G League Ignite, some still in their teens, participated in the N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend.Amauri Hardy sat in the stands during the N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend in Cleveland, watching his little brother, Jaden, on the court with the best young players in the league. He thought about the work Jaden had put into his game and the guts he showed in leaving home as a teenager to follow a nontraditional path into professional basketball.“I’m not sure if he actually realizes how big of a moment it is, but I did because I grew up watching this game a lot,” Amauri Hardy said, proudly. “Just to see him out there with the jersey on with our last name on it, just representing for our whole family.”He added, “He’s been making the best of these moments.”Jaden Hardy, 19, does not play in the N.B.A., though he believes he could have been drafted last year, right out of high school, if the rules had allowed it. Instead, he signed with the N.B.A. G League Ignite, a developmental team in Northern California which allows elite prospects to play professionally in the United States before they are eligible for the N.B.A. draft.This season, playing for the Ignite offered another perk. The N.B.A. included players from that experimental team in their festivities surrounding the All-Star Game. It was a chance for the league to showcase the Ignite, a project now in its second year. It also gave the players, many of them teenagers, an incomparable experience.Four players from the Ignite — Jaden Hardy, Scoot Henderson, MarJon Beauchamp and Dyson Daniels — joined 24 first- and second-year N.B.A. players, 12 from each conference. The players were split into four teams, each with six N.B.A. players and one Ignite player, for a mini-tournament on the Friday of All-Star Weekend. The Ignite players Fanbo Zeng and Mike Foster were scheduled to participate in a shooting competition during the tournament, though Zeng couldn’t participate because of an injury.“I was nervous before the game before I even got out there, but when I got out there it was kind of relieving,” Beauchamp said. He watches the All-Star events every year, he said, “so just seeing myself on the screen is pretty amazing.”While league rules prevent players from going straight from high school to the N.B.A., playing for the Ignite can be a lucrative path for prospects when compared with playing in college — Ignite players can make up to $500,000 for the season. It can be a more familiar one than playing overseas, which some have tried.Scoot Henderson, 18, passing during the Rising Stars Challenge. Because of his age, he is not eligible for the N.B.A. draft until next year.Emilee Chinn/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThey first heard that a few of them would get to participate in All-Star Weekend while at a practice in New York.“I just thanked God, honestly,” Henderson said. “I was very excited. The first thing I did was call my parents and share the moment with them. They were just saying they were proud of me and what I’ve done through my year.”The rest of their teammates attended Friday night’s events, as did family members and friends. Amauri Hardy was both a family member and a teammate — he plays on the Ignite along with his brother. Daniels’s father traveled from the family’s home in Australia and saw his son for the first time in months.This is the second season the Ignite has existed. The team was designed to play a schedule that includes games against other G League teams and international exhibitions. Last year’s team produced two top-10 draft picks — Jalen Green, by Houston, and Jonathan Kuminga, by Golden State.It is made up of prospects and veterans who serve as mentors. They practiced in Cleveland on Thursday and Saturday in preparation for a Sunday afternoon game against the Cleveland Charge, the Cavaliers’ G League affiliate.Practices include competition and camaraderie for this group. They’re all trying to become lottery picks, most of them in this year’s draft.“It’s a little tense in practice sometimes,” Foster said. “They’ve developed into brothers. We got that brotherly fight.”On Friday morning, they sat for the Rising Stars media day. That’s when Jaden Hardy started to really feel part of the weekend.“It was just fun to be able to be out there on the court with those young stars really and just being able to go out there and just laugh and compete,” he said.One of those young stars was guard Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers, a second-year N.B.A. player who met Hardy at a camp a few years ago.“I think him being around us, seeing us young guys who are thriving in the N.B.A., I think he’s getting a little bit of a taste of that,” Haliburton said. “And his future is bright, so I’m excited for him to get to the league.”Hardy’s team played against Beauchamp’s in the semifinals, and Hardy’s team won.Beauchamp caught two lobs for dunks from Cole Anthony, a second-year guard for the Orlando Magic.MarJon Beauchamp, left, and Jaden Hardy at the Rising Stars Challenge.Emilee Chinn/NBAE, via Getty Images“I’m sure it had to be a surreal experience,” Anthony said. “Not even playing in the N.B.A., being at N.B.A. All-Star, that has to be one of the dopest experiences a kid can experience. I wish I could’ve been there when I was in college just that year before going into the draft.”Among the players Henderson was most excited to play with Friday night was LaMelo Ball, the N.B.A.’s 2020-21 rookie of the year.When Henderson thought about his path to pro basketball, Ball was one of his role models. Ball left high school after his sophomore year to play professionally in Lithuania.In his rookie year, Ball was very confident, noted Henderson, who joined the Ignite after his junior year of high school.Henderson was part of Ball’s team for the Rising Stars Challenge, and thrilled for an opportunity to play with him. Conversely, Ball appreciated Henderson’s interest in his path.“My whole journey I felt like it was going to help the younger generation, which I feel like it’s doing,” Ball said. “So just having kids do what they want, I feel like it’s great.”“I was nervous before the game before I even got out there, but when I got out there it was kind of relieving,” Beauchamp said.Brian Sevald/NBAE, via Getty ImagesBut restrictions remain on players as they attempt to enter the N.B.A. Henderson, for example, will not be eligible for the draft until 2023.“If I had the opportunity and that chance, I would definitely love to play in the N.B.A. next year,” Henderson said.Henderson added that he had found the environment with the Ignite helpful given the mentorship opportunities and the chance to play against N.B.A. talent.Beauchamp was a little nervous backstage on Friday before he was introduced as a participant in the Rising Stars Challenge to a bigger audience than he had ever played for.But the butterflies dissipated by the time he arrived for introductions.His appearance was an honor normally reserved for players in their first or second N.B.A. seasons, not those, like Beauchamp, preparing for the draft. Between his accomplished teammates and the N.B.A. veterans he saw sitting courtside, he looked around and thought about what he wanted for his future.“I feel like it motivates me to want to be here,” Beauchamp said. “Again and again and again.” More

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      N.C.A.A. Tournament Peek: Gonzaga Remains the Favorite, but the Blue Bloods Are Back

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      Transfers and first-year coaches will play a key role in who cuts down the nets in New Orleans in April.The N.F.L. and college football have crowned their champions, with the Los Angeles Rams and the University of Georgia winning titles. The Winter Olympics are in the rearview mirror. And the start of the Major League Baseball season is in flux because of a lockout.But the men’s college basketball season is just heating up, with the N.C.A.A. tournament set to begin March 15 before concluding with the Final Four in New Orleans in early April.Here’s a look at the major themes of the college season so far.Gonzaga is once again the team to beat.Gonzaga forward Drew Timme has averaged 18 points per game.James Snook/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBecause Gonzaga is in the West Coast Conference — meaning most of its games air late at night on the East Coast — a lot of people don’t get to see the Bulldogs much before March.But one year after suffering their only loss of the season in the N.C.A.A. championship game against Baylor, the Bulldogs are once again the favorites to win their first title. They are ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll and in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, and when the N.C.A.A. Division I Men’s Basketball Committee announced its projected Top 16 seeds on Sunday, Gonzaga was at No. 1 overall.Unlike last season, the Bulldogs (23-2, 12-0 W.C.C.) won’t enter the national tournament undefeated because they lost to Duke and Alabama, but they have won 16 straight games and already wrapped up their 10th straight W.C.C. regular-season title.With the conference possibly sending four teams to the N.C.A.A. tournament this year, Gonzaga Coach Mark Few said that “to be undefeated is quite an accomplishment.”Entering Tuesday, the Bulldogs led Division I in scoring at 89.5 points per game — and, once again, a team will likely have to put up at least 85 or 90 points to have a chance at upsetting them in March. Five Gonzaga players boast scoring averages in double figures, led by the skilled forward Drew Timme (18.0 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game) and the 7-foot freshman sensation Chet Holmgren, who is averaging 14.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.4 blocks per game and is projected to be a top-three pick in this summer’s N.B.A. draft. In a year without many elite point guards at the top of college basketball, the Gonzaga senior Andrew Nembhard, who averages 10.9 points and 5.7 assists, might be the most savvy floor general.The blue bloods Duke, Kansas and Kentucky are all contenders.Kansas guard Ochai Agjabi is a contender for the National Player of the Year Award.Ben Queen/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast year, Duke and Kentucky missed the N.C.A.A. tournament in the same year for the first time since 1976. Another powerhouse, Kansas, made the tournament as a No. 3 seed but was destroyed, 85-51, by Southern California, a No. 11 seed, in the second round.This season, the three blue bloods have come roaring back, and all have a legitimate shot to reach the Final Four and contend for a title.Kansas, 23-4 and 12-2 in its conference after beating Kansas State by 19 points on Tuesday, sits atop the powerhouse Big 12. Powered by the national player of the year candidate Ochai Agbaji, who is averaging 20.2 points and 5.2 rebounds, Kansas has been projected as a No. 1 seed — along with Gonzaga, Auburn and Arizona — by the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, whose members include athletic directors and conference commissioners.Duke and Kentucky, which both feature a nice blend of one-and-done freshmen alongside experienced older players, were projected as No. 2 seeds.Mike Krzyzewski, 75, is coaching his final season at Duke (23-4, 13-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) and appears to have all the weapons he needs to contend for the program’s sixth championship.The Blue Devils feature five players who could be selected in the first round of the N.B.A. draft, led by the 6-foot-10 freshman Paolo Banchero, a projected top-three pick averaging 16.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game; the junior wing Wendell Moore Jr. (13.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists); and the freshman guard Trevor Keels (12.0 points and 4.0 rebounds).Duke’s team boasts five potential first-round N.B.A. draft picks, including Paolo Banchero.Gerry Broome/Associated PressKeels recently said that this year’s team had “better talent” and “better depth” than the 2014-15 Duke squad that won the N.C.A.A. championship — and that it can “definitely” cut down the nets.Kentucky, which lost by 8 points to Duke in November at Madison Square Garden and blew out Kansas on the road by 18 points in January, has a shot at the title because it blends elite freshmen like point guard TyTy Washington, averaging 12.4 points and 4.1 assists per game, with skilled older players and transfers.Oscar Tshiebwe, a 6-foot-9, 255-pound junior transfer from West Virginia who was called “a mountain masquerading as a man” by the dogged talent scout Tom Konchalski, is averaging 16.4 points per game and a Division I-best 15.2 rebounds. He is a leading contender for the John R. Wooden and Naismith Awards, given to the top college basketball players.Kentucky (22-5, 11-3 Southeastern Conference) also has a variety of other weapons: Kellan Grady, a graduate transfer from Davidson, is averaging 12.3 points per game while shooting 45.1 percent from 3-point range, and Sahvir Wheeler, a junior transfer from Georgia, is a speedster averaging 9.6 points and 7.1 assists.Several first-year coaches have their teams in contention.Arizona Coach Tommy Lloyd has led his team to the top of the Pac-12 standings in his first year.Rick Scuteri/Associated PressWhen the list of the 15 coaches in contention for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award was released last week, it featured some household names who have run their programs for years: Gonzaga’s Few, Baylor’s Scott Drew, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Auburn’s Bruce Pearl. Few, Drew and Pearl’s teams have all been ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll this season.But two first-year coaches are also in the mix for the award, and for deep runs in March: Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Texas Tech’s Mark Adams.Lloyd, 47, came to Arizona from Gonzaga, where he was the chief recruiter under Few, to replace Sean Miller, who failed to reach a Final Four during his 12 years with the program and whose team was the subject of F.B.I. and N.C.A.A. investigations.All Lloyd has done in his first season as a head coach is to lead the Wildcats (24-2, 14-1 Pac-12 Conference) to the top of the league standings with significant contributions from the projected N.B.A. lottery pick Bennedict Mathurin, a 6-foot-6 native of Montreal averaging 17.4 points and 5.8 rebounds.Adams, 65, was elevated to the head coaching position at Texas Tech in April after Chris Beard left for Texas. Despite losing several players to transfers, Adams rebuilt the roster, and the ninth-ranked Red Raiders (21-6, 10-4 Big 12) now have two wins over both Texas and Baylor, the defending national champion.“He always wants to get the best out of us, and he’s doing a good job right now,” said the junior guard Terrence Shannon Jr.Some big-name coaches and programs are making headlines — and not in a good way.Michigan Coach Juwan Howard, suspended for five games, will be eligible to return for the Big Ten Conference tournament.Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal, via Associated PressJuwan Howard, Penny Hardaway and Patrick Ewing have several things in common: they all starred in the N.B.A. and they all now coach at their alma maters.They’re also all struggling in various ways at the college level.Howard, the Michigan coach, was suspended for five games and fined $40,000 on Monday after he slapped a Wisconsin assistant coach in the head in the handshake line after a blowout loss to the Badgers on Sunday. Howard, who apologized and will be eligible to return for the Big Ten Conference tournament, said he was upset with a late timeout called by Wisconsin Coach Greg Gard while the Badgers had a double-digit lead.The veteran coach Phil Martelli will lead Michigan (14-11, 8-7 Big Ten), which is on the bubble for the N.C.A.A. tournament after being ranked as high as No. 4, for the rest of the regular season.At Memphis, Hardaway has talked openly about aspirations of winning national championships, and the Tigers were among the preseason favorites after Hardaway persuaded the superstar recruits Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren to reclassify and enroll this season as freshmen. But Bates, who was once compared to a young Kevin Durant, struggled early and hasn’t played since late January because of a back injury. Without Bates, the Tigers (15-9, 9-5 American Athletic Conference) won six straight games before losing to Southern Methodist on Sunday. They own impressive wins over Alabama and Houston but remain on the N.C.A.A. tournament bubble.At Georgetown, Ewing and the Hoyas are making history — and not in a good way. They’ve lost 16 straight games and stand at 6-20 overall and 0-15 in the Big East Conference. One year after winning the conference tournament, Georgetown is trying to avoid becoming the first Big East team to finish 0-19 in league play.Key transfers are again playing an important role.Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe, who transferred from West Virginia, leads Division I with 15.2 rebounds per game.Jordan Prather/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhen Baylor won the N.C.A.A. title last spring, the team started two transfers (Davion Mitchell and MaCio Teague) and brought two more off the bench (Adam Flagler and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua). Gonzaga started another transfer, Nembhard, at point guard in its run to the title game.Given that more than 1,700 players entered the N.C.A.A. transfer portal after last season, don’t be surprised to see them play a role on teams that advance deep into March. Gonzaga, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas Tech all have key transfers on their rosters. After losing three players to the pros, Baylor brought in the former Arizona and Georgetown guard James Akinjo, who is averaging 13.2 points and 5.8 assists for the 10th-ranked Bears.At Auburn (24-3, 12-2 SEC), Pearl may have hit the jackpot with the additions of Walker Kessler (North Carolina), K.D. Johnson (Georgia), Wendell Green Jr. (Eastern Kentucky) and Zep Jasper (College of Charleston).The 7-foot-1 Kessler has teamed up with Jabari Smith, the potential No. 1 pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft, to give the Tigers a fearsome front line that is the envy of some N.B.A. teams. After averaging 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 0.9 blocks as a freshman with the Tar Heels, Kessler is averaging 12.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and a Division-I best 4.6 blocks. In a recent win over Texas A&M, Kessler had a triple-double with 12 points, 12 blocks and 11 rebounds. More

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      Women’s Basketball Players Get a New Lifeline, Close to Home

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      The five-week Athletes Unlimited season has given some players an alternative to playing overseas during the W.N.B.A. off-season and a way to earn extra money.Lauren Manis was drafted, and waived, by the Las Vegas Aces before the 2020 W.N.B.A. season. She then signed with a team in Belgium, where intermittent lockdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic left her stuck in her apartment.She was unable to enter the gym, touch a basketball or return to her hometown, Franklin, Mass. But the time she eventually did get to spend on the court in Belgium proved fruitful: Manis averaged nearly a double-double in points and rebounds for the 16-game season and, in 2021, was invited back to the Aces’ training camp. Waived a second time, Manis signed to play for a team in Hungary. It didn’t go well.“I was living in a campground for three months,” Manis said. “The team was not honest with the living arrangements.”Under mental strain, she told her agent to prepare a termination agreement to get her out of the contract. Her agent told her about an opportunity to compete in Athletes Unlimited, a network of player-driven sports with a new basketball league based in Las Vegas. The next day, Manis boarded a flight out of Hungary. One Zoom call was all it took to persuade her to sign on to play in the inaugural A.U. basketball season.“I was very, very down after Hungary,” Manis said. “I thank God, because a few months ago I would have never imagined a situation like this coming up.”For Manis, the league is an opportunity to course-correct a career beleaguered by bumps and false starts. She is joined by women at various stages of their basketball careers, many focused on redemptive arcs of their own. Some see the league as a chance to compete in front of family and friends, some for their first time in their professional careers, rather than in obscurity overseas. It can also be the rare paycheck, and playing time, for professional women’s basketball players in the United States during the W.N.B.A.’s off-season.Lauren Manis, center, agreed to join the league after one Zoom call.Four weeks into the inaugural five-week A.U. season, many people have found reason to want success for this newest venture in a long line of upstart basketball leagues that have come and gone. On-court competition has been thrilling because of its intensity, but A.U. is judging the success of its first basketball season by player experience. “Track how the players are doing and how much they’re enjoying the experience, and the feedback has been incredibly positive,” said Jon Patricof, A.U.’s chief executive and co-founder.Athletes Unlimited started in March 2020 with softball, volleyball and lacrosse leagues. The first A.U. basketball season tipped off on Jan. 23 at Athletes Unlimited Arena at the Sport Center of Las Vegas, with recruiting help and oversight by its player executive committee: the veteran W.N.B.A. players Natasha Cloud, Sydney Colson, Tianna Hawkins, Jantel Lavender and Ty Young. The season ends Saturday.It’s probably not what most fans would expect: There are no general managers, coaches or set teams, and four teams of 11 players are redrafted each week. Their captains are the top four players on a leaderboard for points accrued by on-court actions like scoring, drawing fouls and stealing the ball, and by votes from fans and players. Opposite actions, like turnovers and missed shots, cost points. Teams win games by collecting the most points through outscoring the other team each quarter (50 win points per quarter) and in the overall game (100 points).Fans are given sheets explaining the point system at each game.The league has focused on engaging fans through social media and TV broadcasts for every game rather than in-person attendance. The arena can hold just 740 fans.“From the beginning, we really wanted to build a global national audience,” Patricof said.That was welcome news to Imani McGee-Stafford, who is competing in A.U. and last played in the W.N.B.A. in 2019, for the Dallas Wings. “Even in the W, we don’t have every game televised,” McGee-Stafford said. “I send my grandmother the schedule every week and tell her what channel to turn to, or what’s the link, and she texts me after every game. It’s really dope, and it’s also not very common in the women’s basketball world yet.”McGee-Stafford, a 6-foot-7 center, stepped away from the court in 2020 to begin law school, but now finds her professional career mired in uncertainty.“I just want to play basketball,” she said.Imani McGee-Stafford balances playing time with law school studies.To accommodate law school and the W.N.B.A., she chose a three-year, semesters-based program. But after four W.N.B.A. seasons and international stints in Israel, China and Turkey, McGee-Stafford, 27, hadn’t played professionally for three years before A.U. came along. In 2019, she signed to play in Australia, with the Perth Lynx, but she said she “got cut because I was taking the L.S.A.T. and showed up late to something.”In A.U., she is able to battle hard on the court, and retreat to a private room afterward to complete her coursework. “They’ve made it possible for players to do it all,” she said. “I’m taking three courses this semester, a lighter course load, because I knew I was going to be doing this.”Tianna Hawkins and her son Emanuel after a recent game.For Tianna Hawkins, a 6-foot-3 forward who won a championship with the Washington Mystics in 2019, A.U. has allowed her to rediscover the joy of playing. In 2021, she played for the 8-24 Atlanta Dream, who suspended a player for conduct detrimental to the team and lost their coach to another job just weeks before the season.“It’s been a great opportunity for me to regain my confidence because I’m coming off, maybe, the worst professional season I’ve ever had,” Hawkins said.She continued: “I’m able to work on the things that I’ve been working on this off-season. And, also, if I make one mistake, I’m not getting snatched out of the game. I’m able to play through my mistakes, and also learn different perspectives of the game.”Hawkins said being a captain in A.U. had given her more respect for coaches.“They go through a lot, and they’re not even playing,” she said. “So, imagine if you had to coach while playing, too. I have a newfound grace for coaches.”A key challenge for W.N.B.A. coaches is the effect of off-season overseas games on their players, who may arrive for the W.N.B.A. season late, tired or injured from competing year-round. For many players, the grind is necessary to supplement low W.N.B.A. pay and limited domestic opportunities.Courtney Williams celebrated with teammates after a recent win.But will Athletes Unlimited quell this need?For Hawkins, it’s a matter of weighing the options: money, location and the needs of her first-grade son. McGee-Stafford is all in for as long as A.U. will have her. She finds the base salary of $8,000 “just for showing up” to be attractive, she said, and she can simultaneously pursue her law degree. Plus, players who finish in the top 10 on the leaderboard can expect bonuses upward of $10,000, making the full take-home pay for five weeks of basketball potentially more than $20,000, according to Patricof. The minimum salary for the four-month W.N.B.A. season is about $60,000, with a max of around $230,000.David Berri, a professor at Southern Utah University who has studied sports economics and gender issues, sees long-term potential for A.U., so long as the league maintains low operating costs.“Athletes Unlimited is definitely doing much to save money,” Berri said, citing its focus on TV and social media instead of in-person audience. And by centering individual players over teams, Berri said, A.U. could build an audience faster than what the traditional league model allows.Sheryl Swoopes provides color commentary to the games, and advice to the players.At the start of the A.U. season, Sheryl Swoopes, who provides color commentary for games, spoke to players about her Hall of Fame career in professional basketball. Her words resonated with Manis. “I think playing basketball for a living is really difficult because you never know when it’s going to come to a sudden end,” Manis said. “And she had some really wild things to say about being able to manage your money, and having a plan to fall back on.”Swoopes said in an interview that had A.U. existed during her playing days, she would have seized the chance to play.“Some players love going overseas, some players don’t,” she said. “It’s not for everybody.”Manis, who has dazzled with her gritty play on both sides of the ball, has become one of this season’s stars and captured Swoopes’s attention during broadcasts. Her redemption seems to be underway.“It’s unreal,” Manis said. “It’s great when you hear people praise your game and love to watch it, but when it comes from someone as influential as Sheryl Swoopes, it’s a pretty big deal.” More

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      Fax Machines and Popcorn Spills: The Rocky Road to N.B.A. Coaching

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      Wes Unseld Jr. had done almost everything possible to prepare to be a head coach, from interning to selling tickets. But, he said, you can’t fully understand the job “until you’re in it.”Wes Unseld Jr. still has some of the reports he filed as a young scout for the Washington Wizards in the late 1990s. When he looks at them now, he said, they appear so basic. He still has no idea why Mike Brown, one of the team’s assistants at the time, was so encouraging and supportive of his work.In any case, Unseld has kept those reports as artifacts from the first of eight seasons that he spent combing the United States for prospects and studying opponents. Sure, there were moments when he questioned the general direction of his life. So many late nights. So many seemingly endless road trips. (“You get into Year 8, and you’re like, ‘This is a grind,’” Unseld said.) But from his courtside seat, he was immersed in the game that he loved.“It helped me enormously, because you’re seeing all sorts of philosophies firsthand,” Unseld said. “You’re watching all these different coaches and teams and how they use certain players: ‘That’s really good. It might work for our guys.’ In the process, you start to formulate your own ideology.”Now in his first season as the Wizards’ head coach, Unseld, 46, has used his more than two decades of experience as a scout and then as an assistant — first with the Wizards, and later with the Golden State Warriors, the Orlando Magic and the Denver Nuggets — as the foundation for his approach. Specifically, his time as a scout was vital and remains a part of his identity.“I think you always have that in you,” he said.Accustomed to challenges, Unseld has a fresh one with the Wizards, who are 27-31 at the N.B.A.’s All-Star break. Bradley Beal had season-ending surgery on his left wrist this month, and the team was active at the trade deadline, acquiring Kristaps Porzingis from the Dallas Mavericks. To get him, they traded away Spencer Dinwiddie, one of the team’s leading scorers. The Wizards have not had a winning season since 2017-18.“The goal is the playoffs,” said Ish Smith, a veteran guard who played for the Wizards from 2019 to 2021 and rejoined the team this month through a trade with the Charlotte Hornets. “But every day you’ve got to put the work in.”The Wizards traded for Kristaps Porzingis, left, earlier this month.Evan Vucci/Associated PressIn Unseld, the Wizards have a coach steeped in the organization: His father, Wes, who died in 2020 and was honored over the weekend as one of the N.B.A.’s top players ever, was the best player in Wizards history and a longtime executive. That connection surely helped the younger Unseld’s career, but he mostly climbed the coaching ladder the old-fashioned way. And it all started on one of the lowest rungs possible.For two summers, before and after his graduation from Johns Hopkins in 1997, Wes Unseld Jr. interned with the Wizards. (The first summer, he moonlighted as a sales representative for Nabisco.) With the Wizards, he hopscotched among departments, spending several weeks doing fairly standard tasks in each. His father, who was the team’s general manager at the time, emphasized the importance of hard work. So Unseld assembled media guides. He mingled with fans when he was working in community relations. He tried his hand at selling sponsorships and tickets, where he learned an important lesson about the business of professional sports.“If we weren’t playing well, it was tough,” he said.Unseld often started and ended each day the same way: by heading to the practice facility to rebound shots for players.By the end of his second summer with the team, he maneuvered his way into basketball operations, having shelved his ambitions of an investment banking career. The lure of the game was too strong, and his internship soon segued into a full-time role as a personnel scout, which largely involved evaluating high school and college prospects in the area.Brown, who had joined the Wizards before the 1997-98 season as a first-year assistant, was not sure what to expect when he first met Unseld. Unseld’s father, after all, was basketball royalty and the face of the franchise.“He was probably the most well-known person in D.C. besides the president,” Brown said.Unseld’s father, Wes, coached the Wizards from 1988 to 1994.Tim DeFrisco/Allsport, via Getty ImagesBut rather than come off as entitled, Wes Unseld Jr. was a sponge for information, Brown said. He was always asking questions, always seeking ways to improve and always willing to do the dirty work — no, really. Brown recalled how the coaches were meeting after practice one morning when one of them spilled some popcorn. Unseld practically jumped out of his chair before returning with a broom and a dustpan.“I knew right then and there that he was authentic,” said Brown, now an assistant with Golden State. “This was a guy who could’ve skipped two or three steps if he wanted to. But he didn’t skip any.”When the Wizards had an unexpected opening for an advance scout — someone who visits arenas far and wide to watch future opponents and write reports for the coaching staff — Unseld was in the right place at the right time. It was a promotion and an immediate test.“I had no idea what I was doing,” said Unseld, who leaned on Brown for guidance. “We lived right around the corner from each other, so I’d go over there to spend time, and we’d watch film and he would help talk me through some of the things, like what to look for and how to organize my thoughts.”Unseld, Brown said, would often visit just so that he could watch him watch film.“He wouldn’t even want to say anything because he didn’t want to bother you,” Brown said.At the time, scouting was still in a relative “Stone Age,” Brown said. Laptops? Forget it. The reports were by hand. Unseld had detailed forms that he used to draw up plays and record other minutiae from the games he watched. But that was only half the challenge: In the early days, he needed to find a fax machine so that his handiwork would beat the coaching staff back to the office by 6 a.m.“You’d find the nearest 24-hour Kinko’s or a grocery store that was within walking distance of the hotel,” Unseld said. “It was a lesson in self-reliance: You found a way to make it work.”The technology eventually improved to the point where Unseld could email them. But it was painstaking work, and the travel was nearly as incomprehensible as the hours were. He was routinely on the road for 20-plus days out of the month. His personal record, he said, was 28 straight days living out of a suitcase.He later spent another six seasons as an assistant on the Wizards’ coaching staff. But when he left for Golden State in 2011 — the team had offered him a more prominent position — Unseld doubted he would ever return.“It’s not that I didn’t want to,” he said. “But it was just one of those things where you think that if there’s going to be an opportunity, it would be somewhere else.”Hired by the Wizards last summer, Unseld has found that some aspects of his new job were impossible to anticipate, no matter how many years he had to prepare for such a role. He went so far as to cite the team’s travel schedule, which he was responsible for planning before the start of the season.“When you’re trying to project it, you’re just like: ‘Oh, this is great. We’ll travel on this day, and then we’ll stay over that night,’” Unseld said. “And then, when you’re living through it, you’re like: ‘What the hell was I thinking? This is awful.’ I don’t think you can ever understand the depth and scope of everything that comes with this position until you’re in it.”It has been an uneven season for the Wizards, who have been hindered by injuries and will finish the season with a new-look lineup. They rank among the bottom third of the league in both offensive and defensive rating, and Beal can opt for free agency this summer. But Unseld said he was excited about the future, describing Porzingis as a “very talented piece” of the puzzle.Above all, Unseld is learning as he goes, same as ever, back where it all began.“It’s amazing,” he said, “how it’s played out.” More

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      Pro Athletes Say They Wanted Everyday Financial Advice but Got Cheated

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      A Morgan Stanley broker entrusted to make basic long-term investments was barred from the securities industry after his dealings with Jrue and Lauren Holiday, Chandler Parsons and others.Around the time that Lauren Holiday helped the United States soccer team win the 2015 Women’s World Cup, she and her husband, Jrue Holiday, the N.B.A. player, visited the Southern California office of a securities broker who had come highly recommended for making prudent long-term investments.Experienced? The broker had two decades with blue-chip firms like Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch. Connected? He said he specialized in assisting athletes in all sports, with a client list of 70 current and former pros.But instead of pursuing a “conservative to moderate investment strategy,” the Holidays now allege, the broker, Darryl M. Cohen, steered $2.3 million of their money to “dubious individuals and entities” — and now most of the money is gone.Other athletes said they had a similar experience. Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, who also played in the N.B.A., said that Cohen and Morgan Stanley improperly diverted $5 million and $2 million of their investments and that most of that money has similarly disappeared. So Parsons, Lee and the Holidays have filed claims against Morgan Stanley with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory organization known as FINRA which oversees brokerage firms.“I feel violated and taken advantage of,” Parsons said in a statement provided to The New York Times via Phil Aidikoff, a longtime securities lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., who represents the athletes as well as another claimant, in separate cases filed last year.Jrue Holiday with his daughter, Jrue Tyler, and wife, Lauren, in 2018.Max Becherer/The Advocate, via Associated PressThe athletes’ cases are still months away from being resolved through a settlement or an arbitration hearing. Yet FINRA, the industry regulators, in a separate but dramatic step last week, barred Cohen from the securities industry. By refusing to cooperate with FINRA’s own inquiry into the “improper use of customer funds,” FINRA said, Cohen had “stymied an investigation into very serious potential misconduct.”Officials at Morgan Stanley declined to comment. But in a regulatory filing, the firm said it had terminated Cohen in March 2021 because of allegations involving “transactions not disclosed to or approved by Morgan Stanley.”When reached on his cellphone, Cohen said, “I’ll get back with you.” He did not respond to a follow-up message, and his lawyer, Brandon S. Reif, said, “No comment.”FINRA cases are typically confidential, and documents are not publicly available. Aidikoff, citing pending litigation, declined to make his clients available for interviews to elaborate on their cases. Still, the fact that the athletes wanted to go public underscores their determination to “ensure it doesn’t happen to someone else,” Parsons said, and to encourage other possible victims to come forward.Lee said in a statement that he believed Morgan Stanley would put his interests first because it had been around for many years. “I was wrong,” he said.The Holidays, who have been active philanthropists, said: “We are all susceptible to being exploited by people like Darryl Cohen. We are disappointed that a company as well known as Morgan Stanley would enable someone like Mr. Cohen to be in a position that allowed him to move money out of our accounts the way that he did.”There is no shortage of stories about prominent athletes being duped or getting entangled in risky financial schemes. An Ernst & Young report last year found that professional athletes reported almost $600 million in fraud-related losses from 2004 to 2019. The “incidence of fraud in sports is trending in the wrong direction,” the report said.But Parsons, Lee and the Holidays are different, Aidikoff said, because they simply did what many ordinary investors often do: They relied on a big-name brokerage to make low-risk, long-term decisions.Jrue Holiday, 31, won an N.B.A. title with the Milwaukee Bucks and an Olympic gold medal with the U.S. basketball team in Tokyo last year. He signed a four-year extension in April 2021 for $134 million. He met his wife, then Lauren Cheney, while they were at U.C.L.A., and her soccer career led to endorsement deals with Under Armour and Chobani.Parsons, 33, a sharpshooter whose best seasons came with the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks, retired in January, two years after he was seriously injured in a car accident caused by a drunken driver. His last contract, signed in 2016, was a four-year deal worth $94 million, and he has been active in Los Angeles real estate.Lee, 36, last played for the Mavericks, his eighth team, in 2020, after signing a four-year, $48 million contract in 2016 with the Knicks. He had a serious calf injury in 2020, but played golf last summer in Thousand Oaks, Calif., with Parsons, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and others.Courtney Lee last played in 2020, for the Dallas Mavericks.Ron Jenkins/Associated PressThe athletes apparently heard about Cohen through basketball circles, including a former N.B.A. player who had also been an assistant coach, Aidikoff said.Cohen worked alongside his father, Marc Cohen, in the same Morgan Stanley branch in Westlake Village, Calif. His father has not been accused of wrongdoing, and remains with the firm, records show.The Holidays first met the younger Cohen in mid-2015. For Parsons, it was late 2015, and for Lee, it was sometime in 2017, according to their statements to FINRA.In mid-2020, a business adviser to Parsons noticed oddities about the Morgan Stanley investments. After Parsons contacted Aidikoff’s firm, lawyers discovered that Cohen and Morgan Stanley had apparently sent checks and wire transfers from Parsons’s accounts to questionable entities, including a purported charity which built a basketball court in Cohen’s backyard.All the athletes invested in life insurance policies based on deceptive information provided by Cohen, and used an accountant recommended by Cohen. But the accountant was actually an insurance salesman. And the person who signed the athletes’ tax documents — the insurance salesman’s father — was a lawyer who had never met or spoken with the athletes, Aidikoff said.Nyjer Morgan, center, settled a claim against Cohen in 2020.Mike McGinnis/Getty ImagesCohen has been the subject of a handful of other complaints, according to regulatory records. In March 2021, Nyjer Morgan, an outfielder who played for four Major League Baseball teams, settled a claim for $125,000 over the improper use of a “liquidity access line to loan funds to outside business entities.” One former client of Cohen’s, a retired professional athlete, told The Times that Cohen had won him over through word of mouth and then by a sales pitch over dinner that included laminated reports. But a year later, when the client noticed financial transactions that looked unfamiliar — and lost tens of thousands of dollars in the process — he was alarmed, and told his agent to immediately find another broker.“It’s painful and it doesn’t leave you,” said the athlete, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reliving a difficult private experience in the public eye.Susan C. Beachy More

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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