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      New Friends and Secret Keepers: They Make N.B.A. Families Feel Welcome

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      A network of N.B.A. staffers helps players and their families find homes, hairstylists and everything else when they move to new cities.Desireé LeSassier’s phone wouldn’t stop chiming. She had landed in Minneapolis about an hour before, on the Los Angeles Lakers’ plane, and people needed things.She apologized as she returned text messages and emails. A player called to ask if she could reserve him some time on the court so he could shoot the night before the game.“This is literally …” LeSassier said, before trailing off to answer another message. “It’s definitely nonstop.”LeSassier, the Lakers’ manager of player services, helps players with anything they need, off-court and nonmedical. Except when she reserves court time for them. And when she reminds them of appointment times for coronavirus testing.She arranges tickets for players’ guests at home and on the road. She helps them get acclimated to Los Angeles. Also, she —Her phone rang again and she answered it without waiting for a greeting.“Hey, you’re confirmed,” LeSassier said. “I told them 7:30, but they’re ready for you. I’ll see what time I’m finished here.”She paused.“Why, you want me to rebound for you or something?” she laughed. “All right, I’ll think about it.”Desireé LeSassier juggles a bevy of requests from Lakers players and their families.Los Angeles LakersLeSassier and her colleagues around the N.B.A. don’t have uniform titles or backgrounds, but they have a knack for making players and their loved ones feel cared for and special. As players and their families bounce around different cities where they might not know anyone, people like LeSassier become crucial to their comfort and mental health. They help players focus on basketball without worrying too much about handling everything else. They can become part of a team’s competitive edge.“If you talk to guys on different teams, they can always tell you that person,” said Ayana Lawson, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s vice president of community and lifestyle services. “There’s a genuine sense of: ‘Man, this person looked after me. This person took care of me.’ ‘Hey, can I call them when I’m in trouble?’ And trouble can just mean: ‘Hey, I’m having a bad day. Can I talk to you?’ Or, ‘Hey, I’m having Thanksgiving by myself.’”Before teams began hiring people to do this job, there were those who filled the unspoken need.One was Kathy Jordan, who worked for the Indiana Pacers for 25 years starting in 1983. Jordan, whom Lawson called the “godmother of player development,” had married a man who eventually played in the N.B.A. She knew how hard it could be for families to adjust to life in the league. When a player and his wife moved to Indianapolis from New York, she offered help navigating the new city, even though it wasn’t part of her work as a promotions assistant. She didn’t tell her bosses what she was doing.“The front office staff, we weren’t supposed to be commingling with the team — especially females,” Jordan said.She helped players and their families find homes, schools for their children, doctors and hair stylists.“Being African American in Indianapolis, we weren’t the most diverse city at that time,” Jordan said. “There were just a few places that did African American hair.”The Pacers eventually made her work with players more official. Then, in the late 1980s, then-N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern called on her for more information about her efforts. Now most teams have someone like Jordan, and many have departments with multiple employees dedicated to helping players and their families acclimate.In Philadelphia, there is Allen Lumpkin, the 76ers’ senior director of logistics and team relations. He began working for the 76ers in 1977 as a teenage ball boy, a position now referred to as team attendant.One day while Lumpkin was working the opposing bench, a Washington Bullets player named Rick Mahorn sat down next to him and said he planned to foul Julius Erving as hard as he could. Years later, when Mahorn was traded to the 76ers, he asked Lumpkin, a familiar face, where to live.In the old days, Lumpkin would go out on the town with Mahorn, Charles Barkley and Manute Bol. “We did everything together,” he said. He is still close with current and former Sixers and their families. Markelle Fultz FaceTimed him recently. Allen Iverson calls him regularly. Mahorn and his wife are godparents to one of Lumpkin’s children.“You’re entrusting your loved ones to a team,” Lumpkin, 60, said. “They want to make sure, as any parent would, that their child is taken care of. If the players have families with kids, they want to make sure they’re taken care of.”Lumpkin began officially leading player development for the 76ers in 2000, around the time the N.B.A. began prioritizing it.Allen Lumpkin began working for the 76ers as a ball boy in 1977.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesNow the league office has a staff of 13 people dedicated to helping players with off-court interests. Leah Wilcox, the league’s player family liaison, is well known for her work with families. That group provides resources for players’ financial literacy, education and social justice initiatives.Together with team employees, they form a network that shares information when players change teams. When Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed with the Lakers, his wife, Mackenzie Caldwell-Pope, and LeSassier became close.“She had a friend that knew L.A. and worked for the team,” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “It was helpful.”In Dallas, Kristy Laue became such a part of the fabric of the Mavericks in her development role that when she became pregnant with twins, Rick Carlisle, then the coach, announced it during practice.That season the Mavericks won the N.B.A. championship. During the playoffs, as players ran out onto the court before the game, some would stop to mime high fives toward her belly.“I feel like a lot of them are family,” Laue said.Sashia Jones, the vice president of player development and social engagement at Monumental Sports Group, which owns the Washington Wizards, just began officially working with families this year. She’s been offering that support to players for 18 years.“She’s just an amazing person, amazing human being,” said Otto Porter Jr., who spent five and a half seasons with the Wizards.Jones helped Porter organize a Thanksgiving breakfast for people without homes. When his uncle wanted to bring a high school basketball team from Australia to a game, Jones arranged their visit.Her relationship with players doesn’t mean always saying yes. It can mean telling players things they don’t want to hear — like that she can’t get involved in certain personal matters.“Sometimes you’ve just got to stay out of it,” she said.Lawson, with the Thunder, has grown more comfortable with delivering unwelcome news over the years, and players, like Serge Ibaka, respect her for it.Ibaka was 19 when he joined the Thunder and had never lived in the United States.“She was taking me like I was her little brother,” said Ibaka, who is from the Republic of Congo and a naturalized citizen of Spain. “She was making sure I was right, even learning my English. I remember we used to argue because she used to force me to do English classes early on a game day. I used to be like, ‘We have game!’ She said, ‘No, you have to do it.’”Thirteen years later, he still calls her his big sister.Players trust that she won’t tell their secrets, and Thunder General Manager Sam Presti trusts that she’s helping even when she can’t say with what exactly.“It’s hard to go to your G.M. and be like, ‘Hey, I kind of need this unlimited budget for this project that I can’t really tell you about,’” Lawson said.One of her proudest moments was when she helped Deonte Burton buy a house. A two-way player for the Thunder who didn’t have much money growing up, he was the first of his siblings to be able to own a home, she said.The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way teams approach player services. It’s meant less in-person interaction. The Toronto Raptors had the additional challenge of international travel restrictions, so they spent the 2020-21 season in Tampa, Fla.“We basically started from scratch and built a network in Tampa,” said Teresa Resch, the Raptors’ vice president of basketball operations, who oversees the Raptors’ player services staff.The Raptors had also spent the end of the 2019-20 season in Florida, when the N.B.A. finished its season at a restricted-access site at Walt Disney World near Orlando because of the pandemic.Danny Green and Blair Bashen Green invited LeSassier to their wedding in 2021.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesFor the Lakers’ large family contingent in Florida that year, LeSassier organized an outdoor movie night, a karaoke night and a pizza party. The adults did wine tastings. They made tie-dye shirts with the children. Blair Bashen Green, then the fiancée of guard Danny Green, was part of the group.“Obviously, we were stuck there and couldn’t go anywhere,” said Bashen Green, who married Green in 2021 and invited LeSassier to the wedding. “She just made the whole bubble experience — it was almost like a vacation for us.”Poolside yoga classes gave LeSassier a mental break, too.“As you can see, my phone goes off constantly,” LeSassier said. “So that moment of yoga — I was there with the families, but it was also time for me to just have an hour to myself.”Bashen Green remembered attending her first Laker game after Green signed with the team in 2019. She felt like a student at a new school, unsure whether anyone in the room for players’ families would talk to her.“You always have a little bit of anxiety,” Bashen Green said. “Will people be nice? Do they introduce themselves? Do you introduce yourself?”LeSassier, as usual, was there to help. More

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      On a Smaller Stage, Rick Pitino Is Still ‘Demanding’ and Winning

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      At Iona, Pitino doesn’t have the “bells and whistles” of Louisville, which he left amid scandal. But he has a team undefeated in conference play and looking to return to the N.C.A.A. tournament.NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Sunday was not unfolding as planned for the Iona College men’s basketball team. Visiting St. Peter’s was playing rough-and-tumble ball, which had landed Iona in foul trouble and out of sorts. The frustration was evident when Nelly Junior Joseph, a sophomore center for Iona, tussled fiercely enough over a held ball with St. Peter’s Hassan Drame that both players drew technical fouls in an incident that nearly precipitated a brawl.And when Jaylen Murray banked in a long 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer to put St. Peter’s ahead, it would have been easy for the Gaels to think — as they retreated to the locker room — that maybe it was not their day.But moments of frustration, or resignation, did not linger. Iona cranked up its defense, sped up its offense and raced off with a comfortable 85-77 victory, ensuring that the only remaining drama in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference would be whether Iona (18-3, 10-0) could become the first team to finish unbeaten in league play since La Salle did it 32 years ago.As the game ended, Iona Coach Rick Pitino was awarded the game ball for his 800th career college victory, though that total incorporates the 123 victories — including the 2012-13 season’s national championship — at Louisville that were wiped out by the N.C.A.A. after a scandal that centered on players and recruits being provided strippers and prostitutes.He was then doused with water by his players in the Iona locker room.In a serendipitous twist, Pitino’s milestone, albeit unofficial, came amid Louisville’s continuing dysfunction, which did not end with his firing in 2017. After one season with an interim coach, Louisville hired Chris Mack as Pitino’s replacement. Mack was suspended for six games at the start of the 2021-22 season when potential N.C.A.A. violations came to light from his recording of a conversation with a former assistant later accused of extorting the school. Mack left the program last week with a $4.8 million settlement.“I have no animosity toward Louisville because all the people that got Tom Jurich left,” Pitino said, referring to his former athletic director who was pushed out with him. “One guy lost his company,” Pitino added, referring to John Schnatter, the Papa John’s founder who resigned as chairman and from the University of Louisville board of trustees after using a racial slur. “The other guy … ”He quickly shifted gears, adding that he hoped Louisville would hire Kenny Payne, the former Louisville player and Kentucky assistant who is now on the Knicks’ coaching staff.“I’m just hoping,” Pitino said. “I’m not endorsing him because that would probably be the killer for him.”It was a little more than four years ago that Pitino was fired ignominiously, becoming the one head coach to lose his job in a federal corruption investigation that has otherwise cost only assistants their careers. The N.C.A.A. still has not resolved Louisville’s case from the Pitino era, but after being exiled to Greece — he coached parts of two seasons at Panathinaikos — Pitino returned just days after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic to accept the job at Iona.Iona’s quaint campus in New Rochelle, N.Y., with its small brick buildings 20 miles north of Pitino’s home in Manhattan, is the type of place that coaching lifers imagine themselves landing in their final days. Rick Majerus often mused about ending his career at St. Mary’s, where he could coach in near seclusion — and yet not be too far from San Francisco’s restaurants and Napa’s vineyards.Nelly Junior Joseph had 15 points and 11 rebounds against Alabama in November, helping Iona gain one of its marquee wins of the season.Jacob M. Langston/Associated Press“It doesn’t have the bells and whistles I had at Louisville and Kentucky, but none of that bothers me,” said Pitino, 69, adding that as long as a supportive administration remains in place, he will be content at Iona. He enjoys the bus rides to games — he’ll take his first flight to a conference game this weekend against Canisius and Niagara — and cherishes working with players and developing a team ethic.“It’s an easy lifestyle — to coach kids that really care,” Pitino said. “We’re not worried about ‘Let’s get a N.I.L. [name, image and likeness] for $150,000.’ Nobody worries about that; you just worry about playing ball, getting better.”That has always been a core tenet of Pitino’s teams.They have rarely been populated by rafts of future N.B.A. stars — the Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell was among the few exceptions at Louisville, with a few more at Kentucky. Rather, Pitino looks for high-upside prospects who have the desire to work at their craft.This is what drew three transfers who are starters — the graduate guards Tyson Jolly (Southern Methodist) and Elijah Joiner (Tulsa) and junior forward Quinn Slazinski (Louisville) — to Iona after last season.“I’d say it’s been a process,” Jolly, who started his college career at Baylor and is now at his fourth school, said with a smile. Pitino would get on him for picking up his dribble and making a pass after beating his man off the dribble. He was worried about dribbling into trouble, but Pitino wanted him to put further stress on the defense.“I was fighting him — we were fighting him — early on when we got here because he was demanding so much and we don’t understand exactly what he wants,” said Jolly, who like his teammates cannot have his phone with him during team meals and other group activities, a rule that applied to the team’s summer trip to Greece. “But he’s coaching us to make us figure it out and then, once we get it, he’s going to be proud of us.”Pitino will be proud of Dylan Van Eyck, a 6-foot-8 graduate student from the Netherlands, when he stops cheerleading and picks up his man on defense. (There is little else to quibble about with Van Eyck, a sixth man who adds whatever the Gaels need — rebounding, scoring, passing and shot blocking.)Or Walter Clayton Jr., when he becomes a sophomore and learns the intricacies of a defensive scouting report. (Clayton, a freshman guard who was offered scholarships to play football at Florida, Nebraska and Tennessee, provides a physical presence off the bench.)Or Osborn Shema, a 7-foot junior backup center, when he puts on another 20 pounds and stops being pushed around underneath the basket. (Shema provided 5 points, five rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal against St. Peter’s.)Dylan Van Eyck offers rebounding, scoring, passing and shot blocking as Iona’s sixth man.Seth Harrison/The Journal News, via USA TODAY NETWORKBut nothing will please Pitino more than when Joseph, a 6-foot-9 sophomore with impossibly long arms, realizes that among the many attributes he brings to the Gaels, running point is not one of them. On Sunday, Joseph found himself seated next to Pitino after dribbling against the St. Peter’s press and losing the ball right in front of the Iona bench.It was, apparently, a repeat violation.“I said, ‘OK, I’m either going to learn to speak Nigerian or you’re going to learn better English,’” Pitino said.Joseph protested that nobody was open.“OK, I’ll look at the film,” Pitino said he told him. “If it’s open, God forbid you. And he started laughing. I said, ‘No, it’s not funny.’”But Pitino was smiling.It was the gesture of a coach who expects that Joseph’s dribbling indiscretions, along with more of his team’s shortcomings, will be cleaned up in the next six weeks, by which time his teams are typically playing at their best.As it is, the Gaels have built a sturdy foundation: Knocking off Alabama in November — they nearly upset the Crimson Tide in the N.C.A.A. tournament last March — and beating Liberty, which leads its division in the ASUN Conference, and Appalachian State, which leads the Sun Belt Conference. Their three defeats have been to Kansas, Belmont and Saint Louis.But this is a group that seems to determined to do more than garner an invitation to the N.C.A.A. tournament. It is a team that — like its once peripatetic coach — insists it will be around for a while. More

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      ‘I’m Not for Everybody’: Jimmy Butler on Evolving With the Miami Heat

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      As Butler leads the Heat to the No. 1 seed in the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference, he said he increasingly sees his role as allowing others to shine.The N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference is up for grabs, and a well-caffeinated Jimmy Butler has the Miami Heat primed to secure a premier seeding down the season’s stretch run. Miami reconstructed its roster in the off-season, most notably through the addition of point guard Kyle Lowry, and has pushed through a rash of injuries, to players including Butler and Bam Adebayo, to sit atop the conference standings.Butler seems to have found a long-term home with the Heat after memorable stints and high-profile exits in Chicago, Minnesota and Philadelphia. In Miami, his characteristic blend of brashness and playfulness has been met with appreciation by a young roster sprinkled with a few battle-tested veterans.Butler leads Miami in scoring, at 22 points per game, but describes himself as a nonscorer who does a lot of everything. He will probably be selected for his sixth All-Star team, but he lists nearly every other teammate as more deserving of a slot.Butler recently spoke to The New York Times about the Heat’s season, how his game and leadership have evolved and his deep coffee appreciation.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.Miami currently sits atop the Eastern Conference. What is it about this team that people didn’t see heading into the season?I don’t think anybody could predict the amount of injuries we’ve had or the amount of readiness/preparedness that everybody would have if those injuries were to come to light like they did, but I just feel like everybody’s comfortable. Everybody believes in their talent and what they can do while they’re out there on the floor.And then on top of everything else, everybody’s always looking to put each other in the best position, whether you’re a slasher, shooter, passer. I think we just got a nice group of guys that complement each other well.How have you seen your own leadership approach evolve this season?Just knowing how my role may change from game to game — for sure if Kyle’s not out there, because he is the primary ballhandler. But even knowing when you really got to get Duncan [Robinson] going or if Tyler [Herro]’s got it going, you continually feed him, and you just watch these young guys grow. I feel like I’ve made my name, quote unquote, in this league and now it is my job to help others become comfortable enough to make theirs.You recently secured your 10th triple-double in Miami, breaking LeBron James’s franchise record. How has your overall game evolved in Miami these last couple seasons?I think it speaks more to the individuals that I get to pass the ball to, because those are the guys that give me my assists — the guys that pitch the ball ahead for me, or give me open looks or set a great screen for me to attack downhill. That’s where a lot of my points come from, and then crashing the glass, getting on the offensive boards, my bigs boxing out. Whenever they’re down there battling, I get to come over to the top and get the rebound.So, all of these triple-doubles, they definitely come from my teammates, them allowing me to do it. But more than anything, as long as they’re geared toward winning, I can care less if I pass [James’s record] or not. There’s one thing that I haven’t passed him in yet, and that’s the amount of championships he brought to this organization.You’d rather have a game-winning assist than a game-winning shot, correct?Yeah. I’m not a scorer anymore. I’m more of a facilitating guard, and I like it that way. I love it that way, because we got a lot of guys that can put the ball in the basket, so I let them shine, and I just rack up assists.At what moment does a teammate earn that trust, that in your head you know that you can give him the ball when it matters most?I think it is built over time, but you see how many extra passes we make, not just from me to somebody else, but from somebody else to somebody else, to somebody else that they know, if you’re open, you’re going to get the ball. So it’s trust all the way around the board, all the way around the locker room, all the way around the floor — knowing if you’re open, somehow, some way, the ball will find its way to you.Butler credits his teammates for his record-setting number of triple-doubles. “It speaks more to the individuals that I get to pass the ball to, because those are the guys that give me my assists,” he said.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesYou, Kyle Lowry, Bam Adebayo and P.J. Tucker make a strong defensive lineup. Have you thought about what that unit could do in a playoff series?Honestly, I haven’t, just because I stay trying to be locked in on the time right now and because a lot of things have to fall into place for that to even happen. Knock on wood. Everybody has to be healthy, and I hope that that is the case, that nobody’s injured, but ain’t no telling if we make the playoffs if we look too far ahead. You need to focus in on each day at a time, each practice, and then when the games get here, each game home and away. But we never want to look too far ahead. Not in this league.Your devotion to coffee became a story line during the N.B.A. bubble in 2020. Why did you decide to recently start Bigface, your own coffee brand?Because I get to do things my way, obviously with the input and help of the individuals that are helping me run this thing, but this brand is a reflection of myself and the people I’m around. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. We’re not harming anybody.I’m not for everybody on the floor, sometimes off the floor, and maybe this isn’t for everybody either. I hope that it is.How many cups of coffee do you drink on a game day?Game day or not, it’s easily seven to 10 cups of coffee per day, just because it gives me time to sit down and think. I really do enjoy making all different types of coffee, and I get a lot done whenever I’m drinking coffee — whether I’m reading a book, whether I’m competing at a domino table or over some cards, just reminiscing about life as a whole or just talking about things that we would like to have accomplished in the future — that being with basketball, that being with Bigface Coffee or that being with any other thing that comes to my mind.How do you sleep at night?I sleep just fine. I get my nine hours per night. I’ve trained my body to be able to do that. If I don’t sleep nine hours, I’m definitely not worth a damn, so with all that coffee being said, I think I’m pretty used to lots of coffee and lots of sleep at the same time. More

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      Nets Turn to Rookies as Starters, and Not Just When They Have to

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      The Nets, in a move unusual for a championship contender, have turned to their rookies as starters and key contributors — and not just when there were no other options.When a veteran on the Nets asks Day’Ron Sharpe to do something, most of the time he has to say yes. That might mean making a plate of food for James Harden after a game or getting doughnuts beforehand. Other times, he has to turn the showers on in the locker room or carry the veterans’ bags.“The rookie dudes, we’re getting nothing compared to what they had to do,” Sharpe, 20, said.He added, “Just because you’re starting doesn’t mean they stop.”When Sharpe came to training camp, he expected to sit on the sidelines for much of the season. He was a late first-round pick coming to a team that was, at least on paper, one of the best in N.B.A. history. It was filled with veterans and top stars and favored to win the championship. Instead, Sharpe, a bulky center most comfortable absorbing hits in the paint, is a crucial player for the Nets more than halfway through the season. He was moved into the starting lineup a few weeks ago and is averaging 9.3 points and 6.8 rebounds on 58.8 percent shooting in January.“It’s crazy for me to be able to contribute,” Sharpe said.It’s not just Sharpe. Cam Thomas (another late first-round draft pick), Kessler Edwards (second-rounder) and David Duke Jr. (undrafted) have also received significant playing time. All four have spent part of the year with the Nets’ G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets. It is unusual for a championship contender to give such prominent roles in the rotation to this many first-year players, especially ones who weren’t highly touted. The Nets are one of two teams to have four rookies who average at least 10 minutes per game and have appeared in more than 10 games. The other is the Oklahoma City Thunder — a rebuilding franchise ranked near the bottom of the league.Rookies have performed remarkably en route to a championship, such as Magic Johnson, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to a title in 1980, and Bill Russell, who did the same for the Boston Celtics in 1957. But Johnson, who was drafted first overall, and Russell (No. 2) were top-tier draft picks who immediately became the faces of their teams.Guard Cam Thomas was a late first-round draft pick.Dennis Schneidler/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets have successfully relied on rookies before. During the 2001-2 season, they leaned on four: Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, Brandon Armstrong and Brian Scalabrine. Jefferson and Collins each started nine times and took the floor almost every game, while Armstrong (35 games) and Scalabrine (28) were important contributors as well. The team made the finals.This year’s Nets are hoping to repeat, and surpass, that success using players who typically would be called upon this much only in a “break glass in case of emergency” situation.The glass broke. Between Covid-related absences, including Kyrie Irving’s, and injuries to key players like Kevin Durant, the Nets have needed bodies — at times, almost anybody — to take the floor. Irving has not been eligible to play in home games because he refuses to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, and for much of the season the team barred him from road games as well.But Coach Steve Nash has turned to the rookies even when it wasn’t an emergency. He has experimented with lineups at close to full strength. Duke, 22, has started seven games, some of them alongside Harden and Durant. On Jan. 12 against the Chicago Bulls, the Nets started Edwards, Sharpe, Harden, Durant and Irving.Before a recent road game against the Washington Wizards, Nash said that the lineup tinkering was a result of wanting to “look at all the new guys.” The Nets rarely practice, which is common for veteran teams. As of Thursday, the Nets had used 24 starting lineups, tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for most in the N.B.A. But Nash also said that the shuffling had been a matter of “necessity.”“How many guys are available? When we land on a stretch where there are many guys available, what stretch did we just come out of?” Nash said. “Who is playing well? Who fits? So a lot of it is to try and make common sense. And if it doesn’t seem like there’s common sense from the outside, there’s probably something from the inside that leads us to make these decisions that is a private matter.”Nets forward Kessler Edwards guarded Evan Mobley of the Cavaliers in a recent game.Ken Blaze/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets rookies have received playing time at the expense of veterans. Blake Griffin, a six-time All-Star who seemed to be slated for a core rotation spot, was removed from the lineup early on, resurfacing there only when the Nets were otherwise depleted. He’s playing a career-low 18.1 minutes a game and has performed poorly overall, shooting only 38 percent from the field. Paul Millsap, a four-time All-Star, was signed in free agency to be a backup, an addition thought to be a coup at the time. But the 36-year-old couldn’t find his footing, and Nash told reporters this month that the team was looking to find a new home for him.“You add it all up, and there’s just not enough space for everybody,” Nash said.Thomas, a 20-year-old who spent one year at Louisiana State University, has been the most impactful rookie of the four, receiving consistent minutes off the bench as a skilled scorer. He hit a game-winning floater against the San Antonio Spurs earlier this month. Thomas said in an interview that the best advice he’d received had come from Rajon Rondo, the Cleveland Cavaliers point guard who won a championship as a starter for the Celtics in only his second year.“He said, ‘However you came up, through high school, college and all that, keep doing that, because that’s how you got here,’” Thomas said.For a team like the Nets, finding steals at the end of drafts (or in the case of Duke, past the draft) is a must, said General Manager Sean Marks. The Nets have minimal cap space, since much of it is tied up in Harden, Irving and Durant. Getting free agents to take pay cuts and finding overlooked talents result in less expensive contracts. And there’s an added benefit to feeding rookies playing time: Showcasing them can increase their trade value and give the Nets another route to add better players.“We’ve had to adjust how we build a team starting six years ago from now, right?” Marks said, adding, “It’s fun when you’re in a war room, when you’re on a draft day and the room erupts because of who you drafted in the 30s and 40s and 50s.”But there are drawbacks, too, when you have constantly shifting lineups.“It does make it a little bit more challenging, I think, but that’s the way that it’s been with everything that we’ve been through,” Patty Mills, a 33-year-old guard for the Nets, told reporters. “But to be a professional, especially in this league, you need to learn how to adjust on the fly.”And as might be typical for young players thrust into unexpected roles, the four rookies have been inconsistent. Duke is back out of the rotation. The Nets are 6-9 in January and just the fourth seed of the Eastern Conference, well below preseason expectations. Much of the offensive load has fallen on Harden, given a knee injury to Durant that will keep him out for several weeks and Irving’s scattered unavailability. Sharpe and Edwards, now starting, aren’t playmakers — although Edwards is a reliable shooter (39 percent from 3). This puts more of an onus on Harden to do more to keep the Nets afloat.Guard David Duke Jr. has seen significant playing time, despite being undrafted.Adam Hunger/Associated PressThat’s likely unsustainable. Nash will probably have to keep changing rotations, giving larger roles to Mills, Griffin and the veteran center LaMarcus Aldridge as the playoffs approach. But with Nash’s Nets, nothing ever goes according to plan, and these rookies have shown that they’re not simply understudies on a Broadway production.Asked what he would have said in the fall if he were told he’d be starting at midseason, Sharpe said: “Man, I don’t even know. Because at training camp, that was my first time being with the guys and all that. I’m seeing how they’re hooping and stuff, thinking ‘I’m probably not even touching the court this year.’” More

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      Kansas State’s Ayoka Lee Sets Division I Women’s Single-Game Scoring Record

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      Her 61 points propelled the Wildcats to a 94-65 thrashing of No. 14 Oklahoma on Sunday.Kansas State center Ayoka Lee broke a 35-year-old record on Sunday, scoring 61 points, the most in a Division I women’s college basketball game, while leading her team to a 94-65 victory over No. 14 Oklahoma in Manhattan, Kan. She was 5 points short of scoring more than the opposing team.“It’s crazy,” Lee, a 6-foot-6 redshirt junior, told ESPN after the game. “I thought it was just going to be another Sunday.”The N.C.A.A. Division I single-game scoring record had been 60 points, set by Cindy Brown at Long Beach State in 1987 and tied in 2016 by the University of Minnesota’s Rachel Banham, who now plays in the W.N.B.A. for the Minnesota Lynx.Lee broke the record by going 23 of 30 from the field (76.7 percent), and without attempting a single 3-point basket. She was also 15 of 17 from the free-throw line and notched 12 rebounds and three blocks.“I don’t think anyone thinks, ‘Oh yeah, we’re just going to set a record today,’” Lee told reporters after the game. “You knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But we just executed so well.”Oklahoma has the second-highest scoring offense in Division I women’s basketball and is averaging 87.1 points per game, according to Her Hoop Stats.“We wanted to keep our foot on the gas,” Kansas State Coach Jeff Mittie said after the game.Mittie said the only time he considered taking Lee out of the game was when there were just two and a half minutes left.“We wanted to keep feeding her,” he said. “I was not aware of the record. I did not look at the scoreboard all day to see how many points she had.”Considering how productive Lee has been — she is averaging 25.5 points a game this season — her coach’s nonchalance made sense. She is averaging a double-double with points and rebounds (10.9 a game), as well as 3.5 blocks per game.“You play with her for so long that you’re like, ‘That’s just what she does,’” Jaelyn Glenn, a freshman guard for Kansas State, said after the game. “Getting the ball inside is always a goal for us, because Yokie is just supertalented.”Lee, who goes by Yokie, is originally from Byron, Minn., a small town in the southeastern part of the state. Her dominance at Kansas State has slowly begun to attract national interest; she was recently named to the John R. Wooden Award top 25 watch list for the second consecutive year.Her national profile has been hindered by the fact that despite being a redshirt junior, she has never played in the N.C.A.A. tournament. The last time the Wildcats qualified was in Lee’s freshman year, which she missed entirely after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament.This season, that is likely to change. Kansas State’s record is 15-4, and it is one game out of the top spot in the Big 12. Lee’s contributions on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor are largely responsible for that shift — one that is especially monumental for a team that last appeared in the national tournament’s round of 16 20 years ago.“There’s so much more to her than the 61 points and the 12 rebounds,” Mittie said. “But I sure like that part.” More

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      Gonzaga Revokes John Stockton’s Season Tickets Over His Refusal to Wear Masks

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      John Stockton, one of the most celebrated basketball players in history, is barred from attending games at his alma mater, Gonzaga University, because of an unwillingness to comply with the school’s mask mandate. Stockton revealed that his season tickets were revoked in an interview with The Spokesman Review published on Sunday.Stockton described the conversation with the university officials as both “congenial” and “not pleasant.”“Basically, it came down to, they were asking me to wear a mask to the games and being a public figure, someone a little bit more visible, I stuck out in the crowd a little bit,” Stockton said. Stockton added that he was told that officials had “received complaints” about Stockton’s refusal to wear the mask.A spokesperson for Gonzaga University, which is in Spokane, Wash., declined to comment on Stockton specifically, but said in a statement: “Attendees at basketball games are required to wear face masks at all times.”The university reinstituted an indoor mask mandate in August, as the more aggressive Delta variant of Covid-19 was spreading all over the world. To attend games at the McCarthey Athletic Center, where the school’s basketball teams play, attendees who are 12 years and older are required to show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test within the past 72 hours. The school also paused its food and beverage service at all ticketed sporting events.Stockton, who spent his entire N.B.A. career with the Utah Jazz, is known as one of the greatest point guards in the history of the league. His tenure spanned from 1984 to 2003, during which he made 10 All-Star teams and became the all time leader in assists. He also spent four years at Gonzaga, which is in Stockton’s hometown, and became the university’s most famous athletic alum. Both the Jazz and Gonzaga retired his number in 2004. Two of Stockton’s children, David and Laura, played basketball at his alma mater, and a third child, Sam, spent a season around the team without playing before transferring.In recent years, Stockton has been a vocal opponent of Covid-19 vaccines and government measures to mitigate the virus. Last month, Stockton said on a podcast that he was “proud” of Kyrie Irving, the Nets star, for his refusal to get vaccinated, which has kept Irving out of Nets home games because of local restrictions. In his interview with the Spokesman Review, Stockton made unsubstantiated claims about the vaccines. And over the summer, Stockton made headlines for appearing in an anti-vaccine documentary titled “Covid and the Vaccine: Truth, Lies and Misconceptions Revealed.”“This isn’t a virus cheating us of this opportunity,” Stockton said on the documentary. “It’s the guys making decisions saying, ‘No, no we’re too scared. We’re going to shut everything down. Sit in your house and be careful.’” More

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      Lusia Harris, ‘Queen of Basketball,’ Dies at 66

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      She was the only woman officially drafted by the N.B.A. and the first Black woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.Lusia Harris, a powerful center who led the Delta State University’s women’s basketball team to three consecutive national championships in the mid-1970s, died on Tuesday in Mound Bayou, Miss. She was 66.Her daughter Crystal Stewart Washington confirmed the death at a therapy facility, but did not know the cause. She lived in Greenwood, Miss.Ms. Harris was one of women’s basketball’s most accomplished players. She averaged 25.9 points and 14.4 rebounds a game at Delta State in Cleveland, Miss.; scored the opening points when women’s basketball was first played at the Olympics, in Montreal in 1976; was the only woman officially drafted by an N.B.A. team; and was the first Black woman inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.Pat Summitt, her Olympic teammate who went on to a Hall of Fame career as the women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, described Ms. Harris as “the first truly dominant player of modern women’s basketball, 6-foot-3 and 185 hard-muscled pounds of pivoting, to-the-rim force,” in her book, “Sum It Up” (2013, with Sally Jenkins).Ms. Harris, known as Lucy, played at Delta State before the N.C.A.A. held a women’s basketball tournament (its first one was in 1982) and before major universities began to dominate the sport.But there was a title for the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, and the Delta State Lady Statesmen won their first in 1975, defeating Immaculata University. During the next season, Ms. Harris scored 46 points against Queens College before 10,032 fans at Madison Square Garden.“She was just a giant,” said Donna Orender, who played for Queens College and later became president of the W.N.B.A. “There just weren’t that many women of that size and skill then. Down low, she was effective and efficient.”Ms. Harris scored the opening points when Olympic women’s basketball was first played, at the Montreal Summer Olympics, in 1976.ABC Photo Archives/Disney, via Getty ImagesDelta State soon after defeated Immaculata again to win the A.I.A.W. championship. Then, in 1977, the Lady Statesmen won the title over Louisiana State University.“The men’s team didn’t sell out as well as the women’s team,” Ms. Harris said in “The Queen of Basketball” (2021), a short documentary about her directed by Ben Proudfoot that premiered at the Tribeca Festival. “We began to travel on airplanes. As a matter of fact, the men didn’t fly. I guess the women were bringing in the money.”A few months after her final game at Delta State, Ms. Harris was chosen in the seventh round of the N.B.A. draft by the New Orleans (now Utah) Jazz. Only one woman before her, Denise Long, then a high school senior, had been drafted — by the San Francisco (now Golden State) Warriors, in 1969 — but Walter Kennedy, the N.B.A. commissioner, disallowed the pick.Ms. Harris declined to join a Jazz rookie camp; she was already married to her high school sweetheart, George Stewart, and pregnant. She also doubted that she could play successfully on a men’s team.“I knew that I couldn’t compete on that level,” she told The Undefeated last year.Born on Feb. 10, 1955, Lusia Mae Harris grew up in Minter City, Miss. Her parents, Willie and Ethel (Gilmore) Harris, were sharecroppers. Lusia picked cotton but also played basketball with her brothers in their backyard. She molded her game, especially her defensive skills, at Amanda Elzy High School, in Greenwood, before attending Delta State.By the time she was chosen for the 1976 United States Olympic team, Ms. Harris was a star. In addition to Ms. Summitt, the squad included Nancy Lieberman and Ann Meyers, two future Basketball Hall of Famers, and Gail Marquis. Ms. Harris scored the first points in women’s Olympic history in the opening game against Japan, which the United States lost.One of her biggest challenges was playing against Juliana Semenova, the Soviet’s 7-foot center.“She is so much taller, so much bigger and she didn’t jump,” Ms. Harris told the Kentucky Women’s Basketball Oral History last year. “All she had to do was extend her arms. And I mean, I’m only 6-3. The thing I figured out is that I would beat her down the court because she wasn’t that fast.”The Soviets routed the Americans, 112-77, with Ms. Semenova scoring 32 to Ms. Harris’s 18. The United States team nonetheless departed Montreal with a silver medal after defeating Czechoslovakia.In five games, Ms. Harris averaged 15.2 points and 7 rebounds.Ms. Harris graduated with a bachelor’s degree in health, physical education and recreation. But she had few opportunities to play professional basketball. The W.N.B.A. was two decades away. The men got the opportunities she craved. “Yeah, they’re millionaires, famous,” she said in “The Queen of Basketball.” “But I wanted to grow up and shoot that ball just like they would shoot it, and I did.”She worked as an admissions counselor and assistant women’s basketball coach at Delta State; played briefly for the Houston Angels of the short-lived Women’s Professional Basketball League during the 1979-80 season; and coached the Texas Southern University women’s basketball team from 1984 to 1986.Ms. Harris, pictured at the 2021 Tribeca Festival Premiere Shorts, made history when she was enshrined at the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.Cindy Ord/Getty ImagesShe earned a master’s in special education from Delta State in 1984, taught special education and coached high school basketball in Mississippi. She retired nearly 20 years ago.In addition to Ms. Stewart Washington, she is survived by another daughter, Christina Jordan; two sons, George Jr. and Christopher; her brothers Clarence Harris, Kendrick Blossom and Ronnie Blossom; her sisters Ethel James, Ella Harris, Darlene Lindsey and Linda Washington; and 10 grandchildren. Her marriage ended in divorce.Ms. Harris’s enshrinement at the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992 — where her presenter was Oscar Robertson, whom she idolized — was a reminder of how much impact she had as a player.“Lucy was mean underneath the boards,” Margaret Wade, her coach at Delta State, told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss. “When she wanted to score, she could score. But the thing I liked about Lucy was, she was a team player. She did what the team needed and that’s why we were successful.” More

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      LaMelo Ball Powers a Surging Charlotte Hornets

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      Seeking the team’s first playoff appearance since 2016, Charlotte has gone all-in on a guard who can thrill and frustrate on any given play. It’s working so far.BOSTON — The carnival ride known as LaMelo Ball was slowing to a merciful crawl with 7.3 seconds left on Wednesday when a teammate informed him that he was painfully close to his fourth career triple-double.Ball is the hyperactive force who powers the Charlotte Hornets, and as soon as he learned that he needed one more rebound — just one more! — he cranked up the engine, chased down the final errant shot that the Celtics had tossed up and left for the visiting locker room with his stat sheet officially stuffed.Was that last rebound gratuitous? Sure. Was it really necessary for Ball, by his own admission, to box out his own teammates in pursuit of it? Of course not. Was it a fitting postscript to another entertaining evening courtesy of Ball and the rest of the Hornets, the Eastern Conference’s resident fun bunch? Absolutely.“I enjoy the process with these guys,” James Borrego, the Hornets’ coach, said after his team’s 111-102 victory over the Celtics. “They drive me crazy, and they’re going to put a lot of grays on me. But this is why we do it — just to see that growth.”Many teams in the East have muddled through the first half of the season with mediocre records, a development diplomatically known as parity. The Hornets, though, who are eyeing their first playoff appearance since 2016, are finding some momentum. They share they ball. They run the court. They are learning to defend. They play with style.“Everybody’s playing free,” Ball said.And there is little question that Ball, the N.B.A.’s reigning rookie of the year, is the fresh face of the franchise, and has so much room to grow. That might be the scary part. On Wednesday, he collected 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 8 turnovers. It was impossible to know, or even predict, what he would do next. He was not dull.“When Melo’s got the ball, you always got to be looking,” said the Hornets’ Terry Rozier, who had a game-high 28 points, “because if you ain’t looking, he’ll throw it off your head.”In just his second season, Ball is one of the rare players who is impossible to miss, a magnet for attention all the way down to his toes. Against the Celtics, he broke out fluorescent footwear — a green sneaker on his left foot, a pink one on his right — with a design inspired by the animated television series, “Rick and Morty.”And, of course, there was his colorful brand of basketball from the start. He blew past the Celtics’ Dennis Schroder for a layup. He curled a bounce pass through a maze of arms to Mason Plumlee for an uncontested dunk. He elevated for some sort of highly inventive (and arguably ill-advised) 360-degree floater and drew contact, sinking both free throws.The game was only minutes old, and the ball seemed liquid coming off his hands. It was Ball at his mesmerizing best.The Hornets, led by players like Ball, Miles Bridges and Terry Rozier, are 25-20 this season. Winslow Townson/Associated PressThe problem with Ball’s liquid basketball is that even he sometimes has difficulty controlling it. So there he was, heaving a pass the length of the court and out of bounds. And moving his pivot foot for a travel. And dragging a defender to the court after trying an errant 3-pointer. And dribbling the ball off his foot several ZIP codes from the basket.“I have to live with some of that,” Borrego said, adding: “I’ve got to let him be Melo and be creative and live in that improv world. But there’s also got to be some awareness from him, as well: ‘OK, I just tried it. It didn’t work out. Be solid now.’ ”As for Ball, he assessed the turnovers as correctable.“Just little missed passes,” he said. “Not like legit turnovers where you get ripped full-court.”The N.B.A. is populated by some very talented young point guards, a list headlined by two 22-year-olds: Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks and Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies. Doncic is already a two-time All-Star, and Morant has edged his way into the conversation as an outside candidate for the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award.Even so, acclimating to the league’s nightly grind is a process for even the most precocious players, and Ball, 20, is no exception. Before the start of training camp, Borrego identified a few points of emphasis for Ball. Borrego wanted his point guard to improve as a leader, to approach his job as a professional every day. He wanted him to improve as a game manager, to understand time and situation. He also wanted him to improve as a defender, to anticipate rather than react.Ball can sometimes be chaotic, but Coach James Borrego enjoys the complete package. “I have to live with some of that,” Borrego said, adding: “I’ve got to let him be Melo and be creative.”Paul Rutherford/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBall’s jump shot remains a work in progress — he was 5 of 15 from the field against the Celtics, and he has not made more than half his shots in any of his last eight games — though his 3-point shooting has improved since last season. As for the turnovers? Well, Ball has worked to cut down on those, too, a difficult task considering how much he has the ball in his hands.In a way, the Celtics should have been prepared for the Hornets’ up-tempo style, having recently played two other teams — the Chicago Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans — who rank among the league leaders in fast-break scoring. But the Hornets “take it to another level,” Celtics Coach Ime Udoka said.On Wednesday, Ball was at the center of it all. In the third quarter, he found Rozier for back-to-back 3-pointers — the second after Ball rebounded his own miss and spotted Rozier behind the arc. Later, with just over two minutes remaining in the game, Ball sank a 3-pointer of his own to essentially seal the win.Before their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday, the Hornets have won six of their last seven to improve their record to 25-20. Ball said he had outsize goals, which include “trying to change the culture, bring winning here.”Fun nights? A playoff push? Everything, including one more rebound, seems within reach. More