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      Phil Sellers, Whose Basketball Stardom Was Short-Lived, Dies at 69

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      He led Rutgers to an undefeated 1975-76 regular season and into the Final Four, where the Scarlet Knights lost in the semifinals. But his N.B.A. career was brief.Phil Sellers, a brash, high-scoring forward who helped transform Rutgers University into a national basketball power in the 1970s, but whose N.B.A. career lasted only one season, after which he led a quiet life in business, died on Sept. 19 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He was 69.His daughter, Kendra Palmer, said that she did not know the cause, but that he had recently had a stroke, an intestinal perforation and other health issues. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 to cover the health costs that his insurance did not.Sellers was recruited to Rutgers in 1972 after averaging 33.2 points and 22.6 rebounds a game at Thomas Jefferson High School in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was considered the best high school player to come to a New Jersey college since Bill Bradley arrived at Princeton University from Missouri a decade earlier.“Phil Sellers is the biggest catch in Rutgers history,” Dick Weiss, a columnist for The Courier-Post of Camden, N.J., wrote soon after Sellers agreed to play there.He rarely disappointed. He was called “Phil the Thrill,” and, with Sellers leading a team that also included Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland, Rutgers kept improving. During Sellers’s junior year, when he averaged 22.7 points and 9.4 rebounds a game, Rutgers had a record of 22-7 and played in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, losing in the first round.Rutgers was undefeated in 26 games during the 1975-76 regular season, Sellers’s senior year. Late in a conference tournament game against St. John’s University that preceded the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, Sellers clashed with his coach, Tom Young.“Give me the ball,” Young recalled Sellers saying when he described the incident to The New York Times in 1983. “I said, ‘Phil, we’re going to run our offense.’ He said it three times, ‘Give me the ball.’”Sellers scored six points in the next 90 seconds, and Rutgers won.Rutgers then won its first three games in the N.C.A.A. tournament, despite subpar scoring performances from Sellers, to raise its record to 31-0. But the Scarlet Knights lost the semifinal game to Michigan, 86-70, with Sellers scoring only 11 points against the strong defense of Michigan’s Wayman Britt.Sellers’s college career totals of 2,399 points and 1,115 rebounds are still Rutgers records.It was the end of his glory years.Sellers in 1983. His basketball career ended abruptly, but he understood and accepted that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.William E. Sauro/The New York TimesPhillip Alexander Sellers Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, to Phillip and Rita (Bacon) Sellers. As a teenager, he played so much basketball, he told Sports Illustrated in 1975, that “people used to tell me I was going to turn into a basketball.”He was heavily recruited by colleges nationwide and signed a letter of intent to attend Notre Dame, but his concerns about his academic skills led him to back out of the commitment. Instead he chose Rutgers, whose lead recruiter was Dick Vitale, the future ESPN broadcaster, who was then one of the team’s assistant coaches.“Dick Vitale was there all the time,” Sellers told The Courier-News in 2010, referring to his high school games in Brooklyn. “He was an Italian guy; he could talk more trash than the guys who lived there.”Vitale recalled in a text message that Sellers had a “fierce competitiveness that separated him from many,” was “a man playing vs. boys” and “always competed with a chip on his shoulder.”Vitale’s assessment was borne out: At Rutgers, Sellers was a strong rebounder, despite not being very big for a forward — he was 6-foot-4 and weighed 195 pounds — and he played with a confidence that seemed like arrogance at times, and with a scowl on his face. Sports Illustrated wrote in 1975 that he was “always jawing at referees, teammates and opponents,” and “taking dramatic falls during games.”As he explained it: “I get involved when I’m playing. Sometimes I just get carried away.”Sellers became the cornerstone of a strong Rutgers team.“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast, but when we got Phil he changed everything,” John McFadden, a Rutgers assistant coach, said in a tribute to Sellers posted on the school’s athletics website.“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast,” an assistant Rutgers coach said, “but when we got Phil he changed everything.”Rutgers AthleticsSellers, a consensus second-team all-American in 1976, was chosen in the third round of the N.B.A. draft by the Detroit Pistons. Converted from forward to guard, he played in only 44 games, averaging 4.5 points a game.“I couldn’t play guard,” he told The Times in 1983. “They had doubts. Even me, I had doubts. There was no way I was going to be too sure of myself. That’s probably where the arrogance went.”He was released before the start of the 1977-78 season but continued to play for a short while, for the minor league Jersey Shore Bullets and for HV Amstelveen, a team in the Netherlands.After he stopped playing, he was a Rutgers assistant coach for four years and worked at various jobs, including records manager at Chemical Bank and the mortgage banking firm Margaretten; bus driver for New Jersey Transit; and, for about a dozen years, assistant to the chief executive at Northeast Sequoia Private Client Group, a real estate investment firm, where his roles included chief of staff, bodyguard and driver.In addition to Ms. Palmer, whose mother, Patricia (Robertson) Sellers, married Sellers in 1999 and died 20 years later, he is survived by a son, Phillip III, from whose mother, Jean Edmonson, he was divorced; a sister, Diane Deas; a brother, Tyrone; and four grandchildren.Although his basketball career ended abruptly, Sellers recognized with clarity that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.“I’m not going to be one of those guys sitting in the park saying, ‘I’ve been there,’” he told The Times in 1983, when he was back living with his parents. “Kids ask you, ‘What do you do?’ I tell them, ‘I go to work every day, shirt and tie.’ People see me. They say, ‘Phil’s working.’” More

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      Nikki McCray-Penson, Basketball Star and Coach, Dies at 51

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      After a standout college career at the University of Tennessee, she won two Olympic gold medals, played nine years in the W.N.B.A. and was the head coach at two universities.Nikki McCray-Penson, an all-American point guard for the powerhouse University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a three-time All-Star in the W.N.B.A., died on Friday. She was 51.Her death was announced by Rutgers University, where she was about to enter her second season as an assistant coach of the women’s basketball team. The school did not say where she died or cite a cause. McCray-Penson had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.“Thank you my little sister, my friend, my foxhole partner, my teammate, my fast food snacker, my basketball junkie, my fellow Olympian, my gold medalist and now my angel,” Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina, where McCray-Penson was an assistant coach for nine years, wrote on Twitter.At Tennessee, McCray-Penson was a two-time all-American and a three-time all-Southeastern Conference player. She helped lead the Lady Vols to three consecutive regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament championships.She began as a defensive specialist, but she evolved into an offensive force.“It bothered her that she was considered so much of a defensive player,” her Basketball Hall of Fame coach, Pat Summitt, told The Tennessean of Nashville in 1994, late in McCray-Penson’s breakout season, when she averaged 16.3 points a game as a junior. “She wanted to develop the total game, and she has.”In the same article, McCray-Penson said, “I had to learn to respond when being criticized and learn from mistakes. Pat is not going to motivate you.” She added, “You have to come out with an attitude about yourself, and that comes from maturity.”Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist who collaborated with Summitt on three books, said in a phone interview that there was a special connection between the coach and McCray-Penson. “Pat glowed when Nikki came to visit,” she said.She added: “There were a lot of players who came to Tennessee who were like 15-story buildings, but the elevators only went to the 10th floor. Some kids found a way to get to the top and develop all their promise. Nikki was one of those.”McCray-Penson at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She was a two-time Olympic gold medalist.Darren McNamara/Getty ImagesAfter graduating from Tennessee in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in education, McCray-Penson became part of the U.S. team that would win the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. After an early-round victory over South Korea, in which McCray-Penson led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds, she said, “We want to be the best basketball team in history.”Overall, she averaged 9.4 points a game in the tournament and provided some of the stifling defense that limited opponents’ scoring. Four years later, when the U.S. team won the gold medal in Sydney, Australia, McCray-Penson averaged 5.1 points.By then, she had turned professional. With the Columbus Quest of the short-lived American Basketball League, which preceded the W.N.B.A. as a women’s league, she averaged 19.9 points a game, led the team to the league championship in 1997 and was named most valuable player.She did not stay with the A.B.L. for long. She jumped after one season to the Washington Mystics of the W.N.B.A., which had been created by the National Basketball Association.“I saw what the N.B.A. can do to promote women’s basketball,” she told The Associated Press in 1997.Starting in 1998, she spent four seasons with the Mystics, averaging 15.4 points a game and was chosen for three All-Star games. She had less success over the next five years, when she played in Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio and Chicago. She retired in 2006.McCray-Penson in Norfolk, Va., in 2017, when she was the women’s basketball coach at Old Dominion University there.Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot, via Associated PressShe quickly moved into coaching: She was an assistant women’s coach at Western Kentucky University for two years before moving to South Carolina in 2008, where she joined Staley, her teammate on the 1996 and 2000 Olympic teams.After helping lead South Carolina to its first N.C.A.A. women’s basketball title in 2017, McCray-Penson was hired for her first head coaching job, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. She coached the team to a 53-40 record over three seasons; in the 2019-20 season, she led the Monarchs to a 24-6 record and was named Conference USA coach of the year.In 2020, she was named the head coach at Mississippi State University, but she resigned for health reasons after a 10-9 record in her only season there.In 2022, Rutgers hired her as an assistant.“Simply put, Nikki is a winner,” Coquese Washington, the Rutgers coach, who was a teammate of McCray-Penson’s with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever, told The Associated Press. “She has excelled at the highest levels of our game.”McCray-Penson was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, in Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012.Nikki Kesangane McCray was born on Dec. 17, 1971, in Collierville, Tenn. Her survivors include her husband, Thomas Penson, and her son, also named Thomas. Her mother, Sally Coleman, died of breast cancer in 2018.“We know there’s no cure,” McCray-Penson told The Clarion Ledger of Jackson, Miss., in 2020. “We live with it. Every day, you don’t let that define you. You live life. You make every day count. That’s what I saw my mom do.” More

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      Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat Have the Boston Celtics on the Ropes

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      Butler has shaped the Miami Heat in his no-quit, self-assured image, which is bad news for a reeling Boston team that is one loss from elimination in the Eastern Conference finals.MIAMI — For much of Game 3 of the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference finals on Sunday, Jimmy Butler did something he does not often do: He played a supporting role. He created off the dribble, zipped passes to his Heat teammates for open shots and pushed to score only when the opportunity made too much sense not to seize it.Butler could have easily tried to take over against the reeling Boston Celtics. But he has shaped the Heat in his no-quit, self-assured image, and empowered their cast of unsung players to lead. Then, shortly before halftime on Sunday, as if anyone needed to be reminded of his presence, Butler dribbled the ball upcourt and went straight at the Celtics’ Grant Williams, his latest nemesis, for a jumper off the glass.After drawing a foul on the shot for good measure, Butler fell to his back and stayed there for longer than was necessary — just so he could point at Williams and make it clear that he had made him look foolish, again.“In all the moments of truth,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said, “Jimmy is going to put his will on the game.”Another game, another clinic given by Miami, whose 128-102 victory on Sunday was an end-to-end drubbing. The Heat, who have a 3-0 series lead, will go for the sweep at home on Tuesday, driven by their increasingly credible championship dreams as an eighth seed.The Celtics looked lost in Game 3 as they fell behind the Heat by as many as 33 points.Megan Briggs/Getty ImagesThe Celtics’ Jaylen Brown called the Game 3 loss “embarrassing.” Boston Coach Joe Mazzulla took the blame. “I just didn’t have them ready to play,” he said.All things considered, it was a muted performance by Butler, who finished with 16 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists. But for the first time in the series, he faced traps. Both he and Bam Adebayo found teammates who were willing to help. Gabe Vincent scored 29 points, and Duncan Robinson finished with 22.“Jimmy and Bam are fueling that,” Spoelstra said. “They are just infusing those guys with confidence.”It would be easy to describe Butler as a showman, as someone who turns the court into a stage. He is not an impassive person. He emotes. He interacts with opposing players. He sings to himself. And he seems to delight in those moments (plural) when a crowded arena awaits his next act.Make no mistake: There is a theatrical element to his approach, especially in the playoffs. It was on full display in Game 2 on Friday, after Williams connected on a 3-pointer to build on Boston’s narrow lead midway through the fourth quarter. Williams began jawing with Butler on his way back up the court. On the ensuing possession, Butler scored on Williams and drew a foul. Afterward, Butler and Williams knocked foreheads as they continued their — how to put this delicately? — conversation.“l like that,” Butler said. “I’m all for that. It makes me key in a lot more. It pushes that will that I have to win a lot more. It makes me smile. When people talk to me, I’m like, OK, I know I’m a decent player if you want to talk to me out of everybody that you can talk to.”Butler and Boston’s Grant Williams had a fiery exchange during Game 2 on Friday. Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesFor Williams, talking to Butler was a miscalculation. The Heat closed that game with a 24-9 run. After the win, Butler strode to his news conference crooning along to “Somebody’s Problem,” a song by the country artist Morgan Wallen, which Butler was playing on his iPhone.“It’s a hit in the locker room right now,” said Butler, who described himself as the team D.J. “So I get to pick and choose what we listen to.”The thing about Butler, though, is that all his extracurriculars — and all the attention that he draws to himself, whether intentional or not — are a means to an end. They motivate him, push him to perform. He is not brash for the sake of being brash. He is brash because being brash helps him win.“He loves to win,” said Mike Marquis, who was his coach at Tyler Junior College, a two-year school about 100 miles southeast of Dallas. “Some people hate to lose. He absolutely loves to win. I think sometimes there’s a negative connotation with hating to lose, with bad sportsmanship and all that. But when I coached him, he didn’t have any of that — he just loved to win.”Butler, who had a difficult childhood, was not highly recruited coming out of Tomball High School in Texas. He had a scholarship offer from Centenary, a small college in Louisiana that has since transitioned to Division III, and a partial offer from Quinnipiac. But Tyler, Butler said, was where he felt wanted.Joe Fulce, a teammate of his at Tyler and later at Marquette, recalled that Butler had an uncanny ability to “curate his own world” whenever he played basketball. Outside the gym, there were problems and challenges. Inside the gym, the many distractions of his daily life somehow ceased to exist.“That’s hard as hell to do,” Fulce said. “It’s almost like he was a magician.”Butler amped up the crowd during Game 3.Megan Briggs/Getty ImagesMarquis caught another glimpse of that single-minded focus when the N.B.A. concluded its 2019-20 season inside a spectator-free bubble at Walt Disney World because of the coronavirus pandemic. While other players were going stir crazy, Butler thrived in that sort of insulated environment, hauling the fifth-seeded Heat to the N.B.A. finals before they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.Today, Butler is one of the league’s most recognizable players and a global pitchman for a low-calorie beer. But he still finds a way to close himself off from the world around him whenever he plays basketball, and he is not all that dissimilar to many of his teammates who were overlooked until they found success in Miami. The Heat have nine undrafted players on their roster, including Vincent and Robinson.Butler went to junior college. He was the final pick of the first round of the 2011 N.B.A. draft. Even this season, he was not selected as an All-Star (which, in hindsight, was probably an oversight). The veteran guard Kyle Lowry has said Butler is one of the most unselfish stars he has played with.“He is us, and we are him,” Spoelstra told reporters earlier in the postseason, as a way of explaining the synergy between Butler and the team around him. “Sometimes, the psychotic meets the psychotic.”Together, they are one win from the N.B.A. finals. More

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      The Miami Heat’s Undrafted Players Are Their Secret Weapon

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      The Miami Heat have nine undrafted players — more than any other N.B.A. team. “When you’re in that position,” one player said, “you’re willing to do anything.”BOSTON — Max Strus had spent two seasons punishing defenders as a shooting guard at Lewis University, a Division II school in Romeoville, Ill., before he delivered some news to his coach that was not entirely unexpected: He wanted to transfer to a major Division I program.For the coach, Scott Trost, it was bittersweet. He was sad to see Strus go, but he also knew that Strus was ready for his next challenge.“And who’s to say if he would be where he is today if he didn’t make that move?” Trost said.On Wednesday night, seven years after he transferred to DePaul and nearly four years after he matriculated to the N.B.A. G League as an undrafted free agent, Strus was sinking 3-pointers and making defensive stops for the Miami Heat in their 123-116 victory over the Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.But perhaps the oddest part about his unlikely presence was that it was not odd at all — at least not for the Heat, who have a league-high nine undrafted players on their 17-man roster. On Wednesday, three of those players — Strus, Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin — scored 15 points each while combining to shoot 16 of 27 from the field.“I think it’s something unique that we’ve all gone through,” said Vincent, the team’s starting point guard, “and we know how difficult it can be. So we just try to motivate each other and keep each other going.”Miami Heat guard Max Strus, left, has gone from a two-way player to one of the Heat’s best 3-point shooters.Charles Krupa/Associated PressThe conference finals have coincided with pre-draft buzz of the highest (and tallest) order. On Tuesday, as N.B.A. hopefuls began to cycle through Chicago for the league’s scouting combine, the San Antonio Spurs landed the No. 1 pick in the draft, set for June 22 at Barclays Center.Barring a cosmic catastrophe, the Spurs will select Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 teenager from France and the most celebrated prospect since LeBron James. A gifted player who has size and skill, along with an innate feel for the game — yes, he really did tip-dunk his own 3-point miss earlier this season — Wembanyama could be a transformational force for the Spurs.But beyond Wembanyama and the rest of this year’s picks, teams have another roster-building option at their disposal: plumbing the pool of the undrafted, a strategy that has proved increasingly viable as basketball continues to expand its global reach and more talent rises to the surface.“When you’re in that position, you’re willing to do anything,” said Martin, who was an all-conference player at Nevada but went undrafted in 2019. “And I think more teams are starting to appreciate that.”Consider that 126 undrafted players, representing about a quarter of the league, found their way onto N.B.A. rosters this season. But no team leaned on the overshadowed, the snubbed and the slighted more than the Heat did, with undrafted players scoring a league-high 33.8 percent of the team’s points during the regular season, according to N.B.A. Advanced Stats. The Nets ranked second in that category, with undrafted players accounting for 24 percent of the team’s points.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra noted that two of his best players — Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, who has been sidelined with a broken hand since the first round — were high first-round picks. Forward Jimmy Butler, who was brilliant on Wednesday, collecting 35 points, 7 assists and 6 steals, joined the team in a sign-and-trade with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. But he was a late first-round pick, by Chicago, in 2011. In other words, the Heat like name-brand stars, too.Some teams, like Oklahoma City and San Antonio, have stockpiled draft picks through trades, but the Heat have not. Instead, Spoelstra said, the team has needed to be creative about how to fill out its roster. Many of Miami’s undrafted players have come up through its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Spoelstra said players in the G League or from overseas are often just as talented as some N.B.A. reserves.“It’s all about timing and fit, and what a player’s fortitude is,” he said, adding: “If you have a big dream and want to be challenged, we feel like this can be the place for a lot of those kinds of guys.”Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem, center, rarely plays now, in his 20th season, but he unleashed a vintage performance on April 9 with 24 points. He’s retiring after the playoffs.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAnd if Spoelstra needs any help gauging (or enhancing) that fortitude, he can turn to Udonis Haslem, a power forward who went undrafted in 2002, spent his first professional season in France and joined the Heat the following year. Now 42, Haslem has been with Miami ever since.“I think organizations are doing a better job of doing their homework and not just assuming, because a guy didn’t get drafted, that he can’t help you win,” Haslem said. “You can’t measure character or discipline or accountability at the draft combine, and a lot of those things sometimes get overlooked.”Haslem has played sparingly in recent seasons, but he has outsize influence in the locker room, including as the self-appointed dean of the undrafted. Those who are new to the team get a one-on-one conversation with Haslem, who tells them about his three championship rings and about how anything is possible. But they had better be prepared to work, because Haslem will be watching.“I take it personally when an undrafted guy comes here,” he said. “I want them to be successful because I feel like that’s a piece of my legacy.”His legacy now includes the likes of Vincent, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was early in his rehab when Joe Pasternack was hired as the team’s new coach.“The first call I got,” Pasternack said, “was from Gabe Vincent saying: ‘Coach, tell me what you need me to do. Do you need me to call the players? Set up a team meeting?’ That left an impression.”Vincent was back in uniform for the start of his senior season. But after averaging just 12.4 points a game, he landed in the G League with the Stockton Kings. A few weeks into Vincent’s first season there, Pasternack had an opening for a full-time assistant and offered him the job. Pasternack believed in Vincent as a player, but he also knew he was grinding away without any guarantees.Miami Heat guard Gabe Vincent hurt his knee in college and went undrafted.Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports Via Reuters Con“I just saw so many kids in the G League not going anywhere,” Pasternack said. “But I also thought he was such an unbelievable leader that he’d be a great assistant coach.”Vincent politely declined the offer.“I was sort of like ‘Joe, what are you talking about?’” Vincent recalled, laughing. “I don’t know why he keeps telling that story, and I’ve told him that: ‘Joe, this does not make you look good!’”Vincent signed a two-way deal with the Heat during the 2019-20 season and slowly began to work his way into the rotation. He averaged a career-high 9.4 points a game this season. He is due for a significant payday this summer as an unrestricted free agent.Strus thought he could someday make a living playing basketball in Europe. That was the goal when he was at Lewis University. It was not until his second day on campus after transferring to DePaul that his mind-set changed. Dave Leitao, who was then the team’s coach, told him that he could have a future in the N.B.A.“It was huge,” Strus said. “I’d never been told that in my life.”As a first-year pro during the 2019-20 season, Strus was cut by the Celtics and then tore his left A.C.L. in a game with the G League’s Windy City Bulls. He signed a two-way deal with the Heat the following season. On Wednesday, he grabbed the game’s final rebound.“I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity they’ve given me here,” he said. More

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      What to Know About the N.B.A. Draft Lottery

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      A draw on Tuesday in Chicago will determine the order for the first 14 picks in the 2023 draft, which will be held in June.Fans of the N.B.A. are about to take a break from praying that a wild, off-balance 3-pointer goes in and instead turn to praying that a particular envelope happens to contain the logo of their favorite team.The N.B.A. draft lottery may seem an odd spectacle, but it can affect the future of franchises for years to come. And this year, it carries special import: The winner will have the right to select Victor Wembanyama of France, who is predicted to be a game-changing superstar.When and where is the lottery, and how can I watch? The lottery is Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern in Chicago. ESPN will broadcast the event; you can also expect to find the news quickly on social media, as fans celebrate or lament the result.Who is in this year’s lottery? The 14 teams that did not make the playoffs are eligible; that includes the four teams that made the play-in games but failed to advance to the playoffs proper.It’s a little more complicated than that though. Because of past trades, the Dallas Mavericks will give their pick to the Knicks unless it falls in the top 10, and the Chicago Bulls will give their pick to the Orlando Magic unless it’s in the top four.How does it work? A random draw will be held to determine the top four draft picks, with weaker teams having better chances. Picks 5 through 14 will then be allotted in reverse order of the teams’ records.Who has the best chance at the No. 1 pick? Each of the three weakest teams in the regular season — the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs — has a 14 percent chance of getting the top pick.Who else has a chance at No. 1? The rest of the teams have smaller chances on a sliding scale, from the Charlotte Hornets at 13 percent all the way down to the New Orleans Pelicans, who had a winning regular-season record and have just an 0.5 percent chance at the top pick. The rest of the teams with a chance are the Blazers at 11 percent, Magic 9, Pacers 7, Wizards 7, Jazz 5, Mavericks 3, Bulls 2, Thunder 2, Raptors 1 (figures rounded to nearest percent).What about Picks 15 through 30? Those are all set, starting with the playoff team with the worst record, the Hawks, at No. 15, and moving down pick by pick to the better teams.Is what I see on TV the actual lottery? No. What you see is more of a ceremonial unveiling of the draft order. The actual lottery is held just before in front of a handful of league, team and news media witnesses sequestered in another room.I read that the lottery is fixed. Is that true? No. Conspiracy theorists sometimes claim that the league fixes the draw to benefit teams in big markets, notably for the inaugural lottery in 1985 when the Knicks won and earned the right to pick Patrick Ewing.There has never been any credible evidence that a draft lottery has indeed been fixed, and with no New York or Los Angeles teams in the draw, one hopes the conspiracy talk will be muted this year.When and where is the actual draft? June 22 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, for the ninth time in the past 10 years. (The exception was the pandemic year, when it was held via conference call.)Who will be picked? Everyone expects Wembanyama to go No. 1. Variously reported at between 7 feet 2 inches and 7-foot-4, he has an eight-foot-plus wingspan that makes him a nightmare on defense. He is quick, and he can score too. He is averaging 22 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks in the French league this season for Metropolitans 92, a team based in Paris. He won’t turn 20 until January and should have a huge upside.Unusually, prognosticators who think a lot about the draft are starting to come to a consensus on Picks 2 through 4 as well. Those look likely to be guard Scoot Henderson, who averaged 17 points a game with the G League Ignite; forward Brandon Miller of the University of Alabama; and guard Amen Thompson, who played with the City Reapers of Overtime Elite.But that could change depending on which team gets what pick, and stocks could rise and fall over the next month.What about the college player of the year, Zach Edey of Purdue? Despite his outstanding season, Edey is not rated highly by N.B.A. scouts. At 7-foot-4 and bulky, he looks like a classic N.B.A. center, but his inability to score from outside does not seem to fit the modern game. He could go somewhere in the second round.If my team gets the top pick, we’re set, right? Players like Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Anthony Davis all went No. 1, and Wembanyama looks surefire.But Greg Oden, Anthony Bennett and Ben Simmons also all went No. 1, a humbling reminder not to start counting championships just yet. More

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      Old Friends. New Team. Same Knicks Championship Dream.

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      Knicks guards Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart were college friends, then took a twisty road to a reunion in the N.B.A.When Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson was asked if Josh Hart had changed much in the eight years they had known each other, he feigned exasperation and quickly said no. Then a little smile crept onto his face.“He’s still a 2-year-old,” Brunson said. “Loves candy. It’s like having — he’s older than me — it’s like having a little brother.”This was all news to Hart, also a Knicks guard, who countered that Brunson, too, has not changed a bit since college.“He’s a child, that’s what he is,” Hart said. “He’s the child. I’m like the parent.”The playful ribbing belies a relationship that was nurtured at Villanova and has remained strong even as the two have taken divergent paths in the N.B.A.Brunson, 26, was a freshman at Villanova in 2015-16 when Hart, 28, was a junior and they won an N.C.A.A. championship together. Hart made it to the N.B.A. a year later as a first-round pick for the Lakers in a draft-day deal with the Jazz. The next year, it was Brunson’s turn: The Mavericks drafted him in the second round. While Brunson spent the next four years in Dallas, Hart played on three different teams.Brunson, second from left, won an N.C.A.A. championship at Villanova in 2016 with Mikal Bridges, left, Darryl Reynolds, center, and Hart, right.Ronald Martinez/Getty ImagesThis year, Brunson joined the Knicks in free agency and has blossomed into a star who has helped carry the team to its best record since 2013. Hart arrived in February in a trade from Portland and has brought a tenacity off the bench that has helped the Knicks finish the season with optimism despite working through injuries.Hart and Brunson will have very different but important roles for the Knicks, the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, as they prepare for a first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, which starts on Saturday.“I think that they had a mutual respect for each other just because they’re competitive assassins,” said Kyle Neptune, Villanova’s men’s basketball coach, who was an assistant coach on the team from 2013 to 2021. He added: “They have just a sense of humanity and a sense of purpose and being good human beings. But then when you get them both on the floor they’re just absolute killers.”The ways Hart and Brunson have excelled with the Knicks reflect who they were as players in college.Brunson was able to connect well with his teammates back then, too.“His ability to adapt to new people is partially because he’s the son of a player and a coach that moved around like a military family,” said Baker Dunleavy, who was an assistant coach for Villanova from 2010 to 2017.He remembered Brunson having a sense of professionalism early on that was rare for someone his age.But, like he did in his N.B.A. career, Brunson had to wait before he could take ownership of Villanova’s locker room. Jay Wright, the former longtime Villanova head coach, remembered sensing that Brunson was a bit uncomfortable in his first year and that he held back some of his leadership ability because the team already had a point guard — Ryan Arcidiacono, who was a senior at the time. The next year, Brunson seemed more at ease as he took on a leadership role.“A born leader and just a guy that loved having everybody count on him,” Wright said.Brunson was the Knicks’ second-leading scorer this season with 24 points per game, up from 16.3 points per game in his last season with Dallas.Ken Blaze/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConHart had been named the most outstanding player of the Big East tournament during his sophomore year, and was a third-team all-American his junior year. He sometimes shocked his coaches with the audacity of the shots he took, but they happily accepted the results.Wright recounted several examples of Hart making big plays in high-pressure situations: regular-season games against top-ranked opponents, pivotal Big East tournament matchups and N.C.A.A. tournament games.“You just kind of knew this guy fears nothing,” Wright said.And he did love candy. Once, during a pause in one of Hart’s high school practices, Dunleavy saw Hart reach into a sock, pull out a bag of sour candy and tilt the bag so a few pieces fell into his mouth as if he was taking a sip of Gatorade.Villanova stressed the importance of good nutrition for their players, Wright said, but he was sure Hart found a way to hide candy in the locker room.“Don’t even get me started,” he said.Wright described Hart as more carefree than Brunson, and Brunson as a little more mature.Brunson spent his first four seasons with the Mavericks. He joined the Knicks as a prized free agent last summer, about a month after the team hired his father, Rick Brunson, who had worked with Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau before as an assistant coach.The Knicks were penalized a second-round draft pick in 2025 for beginning free agent discussions with Brunson before the league allowed.Brunson had been an emerging player in Dallas, playing alongside Luka Doncic, but he has thrived being featured more with the Knicks. His per-game scoring average has risen to 24 this season from 16.3 last season, and he is dishing 6.2 assists per game compared to 4.8 last season.Part of what has made him fit so well with the Knicks is the mixture of humility and confidence with which he plays and leads.“He’s an honest leader,” Knicks center Mitchell Robinson said. “He knows when he’s right and he’s wrong, so he’s not afraid to admit stuff like that. And you kind of need that.”Robinson said Brunson texted him last summer to join him in New York for off-season workouts. He didn’t know Brunson before that, but they quickly developed the rapport of longtime friends.Hart has had an effect on his teams through his versatility on defense and on hustle plays — rebounding, chasing loose balls. He was traded twice before arriving in New York, first to the Pelicans as part of the deal that sent Anthony Davis to the Lakers, and then to Portland.For most of this season, Hart relished Brunson’s success from afar.“I think he kind of exceeded everyone’s expectations but his own,” Hart said, adding: “For me it’s just cool because I’ve seen all the work that he’s put in to get to this level.”On Feb. 8, their paths converged.Brunson was at Villanova for a ceremony to have his college jersey retired. Someone showed him the news on a phone that the Knicks had traded for Hart. Brunson shouted an expletive and then said “YESSS!” as he raised his arms victoriously. The people around him started to clap.“Like his big brother was coming home from college or something,” Wright said. “He was so excited. It was genuine, you know. After he saw, he just still kept walking around like: ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe. I can’t believe we have Josh. I’m so pumped we got Josh.’ He didn’t stop the whole night.”Hart has been effective throughout his career on hustle plays, including rebounding and chasing loose balls.Vincent Carchietta/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConHart, who had his own jersey retired by Villanova in 2022, had just spoken with Brunson that morning.“Neither of us, obviously, had any idea that was going to happen,” Hart said. “I texted him just about congrats on getting the jersey retirement. And he actually didn’t even say thank you.”In New York, Hart fit in immediately. He is now making better than 50 percent of his 3-point attempts, where in Portland he made only a third. His scoring has gone up, even though his minutes have gone down. The Knicks went on a nine-game winning streak starting with the first game Hart played for them.“I think his game could fit in well anywhere just because of all the things he does,” Thibodeau said. He added: “There’s no agenda other than winning. If you’re open, he hits you. If we need a big shot. He’s what I call a playmaker. Whatever the game needs.”Now, Hart and Brunson often do their postgame interview sessions together, trading off questions if one of them gets stumped. They sit together on the team plane, and, according to Robinson, tell inside jokes that their teammates don’t understand. Together, they will try to help this Knicks team become the first in a decade to win a playoff series. More

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      WNBA Draft: Aliyah Boston Goes No. 1 to Indiana Fever

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      Boston, a senior forward from the University of South Carolina, was the second-ever top pick from her college.When Aliyah Boston was 12 years old, she took a 1,700-mile journey with her sister to their aunt’s home in Massachusetts from the U.S. Virgin Islands, hoping to become a good enough basketball player to go to college for free and maybe one day make it to the W.N.B.A.Boston fulfilled that dream on Monday night at Spring Studios in New York when the Indiana Fever selected her with the first pick in the W.N.B.A. draft. Boston is the University of South Carolina’s second-ever No. 1 pick in the draft; A’ja Wilson was the first, in 2018.The Minnesota Lynx selected Diamond Miller, a guard from the University of Maryland, with the No. 2 overall pick. At No. 3, the Dallas Wings chose Maddy Siegrist, a forward from Villanova University.The Wings, who also had the fifth pick, shook up the night by trading future draft selections to the Washington Mystics for the fourth pick, Iowa State center Stephanie Soares. They took Connecticut guard Lou Lopez Sénéchal with the next pick.Boston’s selection didn’t come as a surprise. She had been linked with the Fever since they landed the first pick at the draft lottery in November. Boston, a forward, will join a former South Carolina teammate, guard Destanni Henderson, in Indiana.Henderson was in the audience recording on a phone and before Boston headed into a news conference they embraced and celebrated loudly.“She was like, ‘We’re reunited and we’re teammates again,’ and I was like, ‘And it feels so good,’ you know that song?” Boston said before singing her version of the song “Reunited” by the group Peaches & Herb.South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley, center, poses with Gamecocks players who were drafted on Monday, left to right: Laeticia Amihere, Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke and Brea Beal.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesWith Henderson in 2021-22, Boston had the best statistical season of her college career, ending it with a national championship win over Connecticut. Boston and Henderson will look to recreate that winning chemistry for the Fever, who have been something of a punching bag for the rest of the league.Indiana has not made the playoffs since 2016 and has finished with the league’s worst record in the past two seasons. Last season, the Fever finished with five wins; the second-worst team, the Los Angeles Sparks, had 13.“She’s going to have an immediate impact on this league,” Fever General Manager Lin Dunn said at a predraft news conference on Thursday. “And I’m just thankful — I think we all are — that she opted to come into the draft.”It was a South Carolina-laden first round as forward Laeticia Amihere was selected eighth by the Atlanta Dream, and guard Zia Cooke was taken 10th by the Sparks. Brea Beal, who anchored South Carolina’s perimeter defense, was selected by the Minnesota Lynx at No. 24. Alexis Morris, the star Louisiana State guard who helped the Tigers win their first championship just over a week ago, was selected by the Connecticut Sun with the 22nd pick.Boston had been a top player in college basketball since she arrived in South Carolina in 2019. She is a post-scoring, shot-blocking forward who anchored the Gamecocks as they amassed a 129-9 record over her four seasons. Boston was the consensus national player of the year in 2022 and won the Naismith Award for the defensive player of the year in each of her final two seasons.Alexis Morris, who won the N.C.A.A. championship with Louisiana State this month, was drafted by the Connecticut Sun in the second round.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesIn her final year, Boston led South Carolina to its first undefeated regular season in program history. Boston’s numbers were down, partly because of South Carolina’s depth and a defensive strategy used by many opponents that made it difficult for her to get loose. The Gamecocks averaged the most bench points per game in Division I in the 2022-23 season with 36.1, almost 5 points per game more than the next closest team.With Henderson gone, South Carolina never found a reliable scoring guard next to Cooke. So all season, teams sagged off the other guards, daring them to shoot and helping in the paint to deny Boston the ball.That’s a strategy teams can’t employ in the W.N.B.A., because of both the scoring ability of professional guards and the league’s defensive three-second rule, which forbids defenders from standing in the paint for longer than three seconds unless they are within an arm’s length of an offensive player they’re guarding. So Boston will likely see much more one-on-one defense and space to roam than she had over her college career.“I’m really excited for that type of spacing,” Boston said in a recent interview. “Because I think it just shows everyone how they’re able to, you know, just use their talent and go to work.”For that reason, South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley encouraged Boston to enter the draft this year, after the team lost to Iowa in the Final Four.“There are defenses that are played against her that won’t allow her to play her game. And then it’s hard to officiate that,” Staley said.Staley added: “She’s meant everything to our program. She has been the cornerstone of our program for the past four years. She elevated us. She raised the standard of how to approach basketball. She’s never had a bad day.”Boston still had a year of eligibility remaining, the extra year granted to athletes by the N.C.A.A. due to the coronavirus pandemic. She likely would have been in the conversation for player of the year again, and South Carolina would have been a favorite to win the national title with her back.But perhaps the most significant incentives to stay were the earnings she could have made in college, thanks to rules that allow athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness.Maryland’s Diamond Miller was the No. 2 draft pick, by the Minnesota Lynx.Adam Hunger/Associated PressMany women’s basketball players, like Boston, can make more money from collectives and endorsements as college athletes than they can earn from W.N.B.A. salaries alone; the base pay for rookies this season will range from $62,285 to $74,305, depending on the draft round.That earning potential likely played a role in the decisions of the stars who weren’t at the draft this year. Several eligible players who may have been first-round picks opted to return to college, such as UConn’s Paige Bueckers, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, Virginia Tech’s Elizabeth Kitley, Indiana’s Mackenzie Holmes and U.C.L.A.’s Charisma Osborne. (The W.N.B.A. requires players from the United States to turn 22 years old in the calendar year of the draft.)That makes next year’s draft all the more exciting. It could be loaded with talent: L.S.U.’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, the two stars who headlined the Division I women’s tournament with their scoring and showmanship, will be eligible. (For her part, Reese said on a podcast that she is in “no rush” to go to the W.N.B.A. because she is making more than some top players in the pro league.)Still, there are only 12 teams and 144 roster spots in the W.N.B.A. Only 36 players are picked in the draft, and only about half of those players typically make an opening day roster. And without a developmental league like the N.B.A.’s G League, some of the best basketball players end up going overseas to play professionally.“Our top players will not make a pro team,” Arizona Coach Adia Barnes said, adding: “You’re competing against, like, 30-year-old women. It’s hard. It’s competitive.”Expansion seems like it could be an easy fix to this issue, but W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has cited financial concerns for why it’s not possible right now. Engelbert said in February that the league was not in a rush to add new teams but would like to see at least two new teams added in two to four years.“I’m not going to give a timetable,” Engelbert said on Monday night, adding: “The last thing we want to do is bring new owners in that are going to fail.”One of the league’s biggest issues has been how teams travel. W.N.B.A. players fly commercial, while most major college programs fly charter. Ahead of Monday night’s draft, the league announced it would offer charter flights for all postseason games and select regular-season games where teams have back-to-back games.“We intend to do more,” Engelbert said, adding: “We do need some patience and time to build it so that we feel comfortable funding something more substantial as we get into our ensuing years.” More

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      Jill Biden Stumbles by Inviting N.C.A.A. Winners (and Losers) to the White House

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      The first lady waded into the aftermath of a women’s basketball championship game that was about more than who won and who lost.WASHINGTON — It was, to borrow from sports parlance, an unforced error.Jill Biden, the first lady, attended the N.C.A.A. women’s championship game last weekend, sitting in the stands with college basketball players and telling them about how far female athletes had come. On Monday, she was still so excited that she said she hoped to invite Louisiana State, the team that had wrested the title from Iowa on Sunday, 102-85, to the White House.“But, you know,” she added, “I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”And with that, Dr. Biden stumbled into the fraught tradition of White House sports invitations, which have become more politicized by the year as the forces of race, social justice, gender and politics continue to reshape the realms of athletics and fandom.Sports fans, newscasters and the athletes themselves quickly pointed out to the first lady that White House invitations were only to be extended to winners. But the game was about more than just who won and who lost.The story featured Angel Reese, the star forward for L.S.U., who led her team’s efforts to topple Iowa and their premier guard, Caitlin Clark. Ms. Reese is Black and Ms. Clark is white. And Ms. Clark, the consensus national player of the year who used a dismissive hand gesture to antagonize her opponents, never took as much criticism for her behavior as Ms. Reese did for brandishing her championship-ring finger to Ms. Clark during the title game, as the Tigers pulled away to win.“If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House,” Ms. Reese said on a podcast. She indicated on Tuesday that she would not accept an apology anyway and left it an open question whether she would visit the White House. “We’ll go to the Obamas. We’ll see Michelle; we’ll see Barack,” she added.Her comment dismissed the cleanup effort conducted on behalf of Dr. Biden, a first lady who makes few public mistakes but whose missteps have drawn rebukes from vocal groups who have said she lacks cultural knowledge.Last summer, she was criticized by Latino groups when she compared the diversity of the Hispanic community to the breadth of breakfast taco options available in Texas. In 2021, she botched the Spanish saying “sí se puede” during a visit to the first headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America.Katherine Jellison, a historian who studies first ladies, said the current role, which has no formal expectations, was surrounded by more cultural land mines than in years past, both because of the immediacy of the social media response and because of the array of platforms available to critics.“I would just say there is more awareness and also more ways to comment through social media as well as traditional media,” Ms. Jellison said. “In that way, it’s definitely a new ballgame.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Both Ms. Clark and Ms. Reese have given multiple interviews about the White House invitation, with Ms. Clark saying she did not believe runners-up should attend. And Ms. Reese has been particularly vocal on Twitter, calling the first lady’s invitation to both teams “a joke” and retweeting a message from the sportscaster Chris Williamson: “Your apology should be as loud as your disrespect was.”On Tuesday, Vanessa Valdivia, the first lady’s press secretary, said Dr. Biden was trying to spotlight all female athletes when she suggested inviting both teams.“The first lady loved watching the NCAA women’s basketball championship game alongside young student athletes and admires how far women have advanced in sports since the passing of Title IX,” Ms. Valdivia wrote on Twitter, referring to the landmark 1972 law that prohibited gender discrimination in sports. “Her comments in Colorado were intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes. She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”The first lady has invited female athletes to the White House before, and has used those invitations to highlight issues surrounding equity in sports. On Equal Pay Day in 2021, she delivered remarks alongside Megan Rapinoe and Margaret Purce of the U.S. women’s soccer team, both of whom have been vocal in pushing for female athletes to be paid the same amount as male athletes.“You know I’m old enough that I remember when we got Title IX. And we fought so hard, right? We fought so hard,” Dr. Biden said in her remarks on Monday. “And look at where women’s sports has come today. So we got to keep working. We got to keep working.”Sports teams began visiting the White House in 1865, when President Andrew Johnson welcomed baseball’s Washington Nationals and Brooklyn Atlantics. And in recent years, some athletes have forgone the ceremonial visit in exchange for the opportunity to share their views on the invitation — or the president.The golfer Tom Lehman once turned down an invitation from President Bill Clinton, whom Mr. Lehman called a “draft-dodging baby killer.” In 2012, Tim Thomas, a goalie for the Boston Bruins, skipped a championship ceremony hosted by President Barack Obama because, he said, “the federal government has grown out of control.”No president has drawn more protests than Donald J. Trump, who was also known to rescind invitations if he received word that athletes planned not to attend. In 2018, he revoked an invitation to the Philadelphia Eagles over a debate about players kneeling during the national anthem at games.On Tuesday, President Biden said both the men’s and women’s basketball champions would be invited to the White House. (No word on Iowa, though.)“We can all learn a lot from watching these champions compete,” Mr. Biden said on Twitter, adding, “I look forward to welcoming them at each of their White House visits.” More