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      Kyrie Irving Fined $50,000 for Attending Indoor Party

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonJames Harden Traded to the NetsThe N.B.A.’s Virus CrisisThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKyrie Irving Fined $50,000 for Attending Indoor PartyIrving, the star Nets guard, was found to have violated the N.B.A.’s coronavirus health and safety protocols that bar players from attending indoor social gatherings of 15 or more people.Nets guard Kyrie Irving was fined after a video emerged on social media that appeared to show him at a birthday party while not wearing a mask.Credit…Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesJan. 15, 2021, 12:56 p.m. ETThe N.B.A. has fined Nets guard Kyrie Irving $50,000 for violating the league’s health and safety protocols after a video emerged that seemed to show Irving maskless at a family birthday party last weekend.The league’s guidelines bar players from attending indoor gatherings of 15 or more people, as well as going to bars and clubs. The N.B.A., in its announcement of the fine on Friday, said Irving was in a five-day quarantine but that he would be eligible to return to team activities on Saturday if he continues to test negative for the coronavirus.But it is unclear whether he will return. Irving has been away from the team for what the team has called “personal reasons” since playing in a game on Jan. 5 Before a Jan. 7 game against Philadelphia, Nets Coach Steve Nash said he did not know why Irving wasn’t playing and that he had not heard from him. Since then, Nash has said he has been in touch with Irving, but has declined to provide more details.On Thursday, Nets General Manager Sean Marks said he was “disappointed” that Irving was “not amongst us, not in the trenches with us.”“I don’t want to speculate and say why he’s out and so forth,” Marks said. “I’ve had conversations with him, and I’ll continue to have conversations, and I look forward to him being back in the gym and he will address this and we’ll sit down with him.”The Nets have started the season 7-6, a slower beginning than many anticipated considering the team’s headline talents of Irving and Kevin Durant. If Irving does return Saturday, he’ll have a new teammate: James Harden, whom the Nets acquired from the Rockets earlier this week. In December, Harden was also fined $50,000 for violating the league’s health protocols by going to a large indoor party.This week, the N.B.A. released a stricter set of health protocols to combat a rise in coronavirus cases among players that has forced the postponement of several games. Among the new rules, players and staff are expected to confine themselves to their homes for at least the next two weeks, aside from going to practice and games, and doing essential activities.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Liberty Enter Free Agency ‘Absolutely’ Ready for Big Changes

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Liberty Enter Free Agency ‘Absolutely’ Ready for Big ChangesSabrina Ionescu’s ankle injury derailed the Liberty’s high hopes for her rookie year, but the team is again aiming to contend next season. This is how it can do it.Liberty General Manager Jonathan Kolb said the team is in position to capitalize on free agents’ desire to come to New York and join the young roster.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressJan. 15, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETAt first glance, the Liberty aren’t anywhere near contending in the W.N.B.A.They finished 2-20 during the bubble season in Bradenton, Fla., last year, and the numbers don’t get any more encouraging below that top line. The Liberty’s offensive efficiency, 87.3 points per 100 possessions, ranked at the bottom of the league — by a lot. The gap between the Liberty and the Atlanta Dream, ranked 11th of the 12 teams, was larger than the gap between Atlanta and the No. 1 team, the Seattle Storm.In years past, the off-season wouldn’t offer much hope for a team in the Liberty’s position, with the league’s best players locked into long-term contracts and few free agents expected to make big moves. But that kind of off-season is no longer the standard under the collective bargaining agreement signed last January. Last year, many big names, including Skylar Diggins-Smith and Tina Charles, moved to new teams: Diggins-Smith to Phoenix from Dallas and Charles to Washington from the Liberty.The timetable for a W.N.B.A. team to turn itself into a winner is significantly shorter under the new rules, which include a much higher max salary and fewer core designations — the league’s equivalent of the N.F.L.’s franchise tag.So for the Liberty’s general manager, Jonathan Kolb, that means this off-season is more than just a chance to improve at the margins. A winter that can both define the Liberty’s rebuild and catapult the team into the playoffs is within reach.“Absolutely,” Kolb said of whether the Liberty could expect a drastic change in 2021. “For the history of the league, up through last season, teams really improved via the draft. And you go back and look: Trades really weren’t much of a thing.”Salary Cap: Stick with the rookies.But a byproduct of the new C.B.A. is pressure on general managers. The max salary jumped 80 percent to $215,000 from $119,500, while the salary cap increased around $300,000, or about 30 percent. Suddenly, a status quo that had roughly 40 percent of the league earning a max salary couldn’t hold. Teams with multiple stars who could command max salaries as they completed their old deals spent big last off-season, setting themselves up to have to make difficult decisions this year and beyond.The Liberty, however, are overstocked with cap-friendly rookie contracts. The team is building around Sabrina Ionescu, last year’s top overall pick. A team that played seven rookies last season has similarly cost-effective young pieces up and down the roster as well.“The rookies will mature as players, and they’re going to be more ready to step in and be more efficient,” Kolb said. “And in terms of the system, I mean, of course, we will change things up. We’ve been deep diving into doing an autopsy of our season, and looking at all of it, offensively and defensively. And so I think it will be a combination of personnel and improvements.”Guards: Count on Sabrina Ionescu and Kia Nurse.Sabrina Ionescu reacted to a play from the bench wearing a medical boot last season.Credit…Julio Aguilar/Getty ImagesOne place the Liberty appear set is at the point guard position. Though Ionescu played only three games before an ankle injury ended her season, she quickly displayed the evolved offensive repertoire that turned her Oregon team into a juggernaut, and her 33-point effort against the Dallas Wings served notice that her production translates to the next level. When Ionescu went down, Layshia Clarendon, a former All-Star, took over point guard duties and provided veteran leadership. With Clarendon running the offense, the Liberty proved they could play at the speed Coach Walt Hopkins preaches, finishing second in the league in pace.Ionescu’s return will give the Liberty even more options. Her pick-and-roll skills juiced the offense at Oregon, where she collaborated with rolling bigs like Ruthy Hebard (now with the Chicago Sky) and Satou Sabally (now with Dallas).It is easy to picture the team around Ionescu taking form. Kia Nurse, whose season-long shooting slump in 2020 came after her breakthrough All-Star 2019 season, seems likely to return to form. The perimeter looks that Hopkins’s system generates should be more fruitful with the sharpshooting of Rebecca Allen of Australia and Marine Johannes of France, both of whom opted out of the 2020 season over concerns about traveling to the United States during the pandemic.Bigs: Natasha Howard or Nneka Ogwumike?The team’s primary center from last year, Amanda Zahui B., is a free agent. Kiah Stokes, who recently signed an extension with the Liberty, is efficient around the rim but struggled from 3-point range for a team that gave everyone the green light to shoot from deep.The market ahead offers multiple ways to address this deficiency, while potentially pairing the younger Ionescu with a veteran big with championship experience. Natasha Howard, who was a bench player on Minnesota Lynx championship teams and then a vital part of the Seattle Storm title winners in 2018 and 2020, is a free agent. She shot 35 percent from 3-point range last year, while feasting on interior defenders worn down from trying to stop Breanna Stewart. But Howard was the fourth offensive option in Seattle, after Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd, and she could decide to join the Liberty and become more of a focal point. She averaged only 7.5 shot attempts per game in 2020.Then there’s Nneka Ogwumike, the longtime Los Angeles Sparks forward. Like Howard, she is a free agent, and like Howard, she was relatively low on the pecking order in Sparks Coach Derek Fisher’s offense last year, averaging a career-low 9.3 shot attempts per game. She’s also the president of the W.N.B.A. players’ union and, with a move to New York, would find herself a subway ride away from its headquarters.While Seattle and Los Angeles have given Howard and Ogwumike core designations, that only guarantees compensation for the teams should the players force their way out. That was how Charles and Diggins-Smith landed with new teams last season. A lineup of Ionescu and either Howard or Ogwumike, with the other returning Liberty players like Nurse and Allen, would be the framework for a true contender.Draft: Keep the pick — or cash it in?And the Liberty have the luxury of free agency coming before a draft, expected to take place in April, in which they again hold the top overall pick. That pick is a primary asset the Liberty can use to put the finishing touches on an off-season with a big free-agent signing or in a trade to acquire a second star to play alongside Ionescu.Kolb did not mention any free-agent targets, but he did indicate that he hoped most of the Liberty’s team-building work would be concluded before the draft. Then again, if the right players cannot be recruited this winter, it just means running the same play again in 2022, when players like Stewart and Jonquel Jones of the Connecticut Sun could hit the free-agent market.“I think the most exciting thing is, we’re in position to do something,” Kolb said. “We’re positioned cap-wise, flexibility-wise, that if they’re interested in coming to New York, we’re in a position to capitalize on it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Raiders Owner Mark Davis Is Set to Buy W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRaiders Owner Mark Davis Is Set to Buy W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas AcesIf the deal is approved by the league’s board of directors, Davis is expected to upgrade facilities for the team.The owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and perhaps soon the Aces, Mark Davis (in the white shirt) has often sat courtside at the W.N.B.A. team’s home games.Credit…Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021, 9:31 p.m. ETMark Davis has agreed to buy the Las Vegas Aces of the W.N.B.A. from MGM Resorts International, a move that may raise the visibility of the team, which arrived in the city three years ago. Davis is also the owner of the N.F.L.’s Raiders, who just finished their first season in Las Vegas after relocating from Oakland.The terms of the deal were not announced by the two sides, and the transaction must be reviewed by the W.N.B.A. and approved by the league’s board of governors, a process that could take weeks.The Aces, led by A’ja Wilson, the league’s reigning most valuable player, lost to the Seattle Storm in the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals, which were contested in a bubble environment in Bradenton, Fla.Davis is an Aces season-ticket holder and has often sat courtside at home games at Mandalay Bay Events Center, which is owned by MGM, since the team arrived in Las Vegas in 2018. On a conference call with players Thursday, Davis gave out his cellphone number and said he wanted to hear their ideas for how to best design a training facility, according to Jim Murren, the former chief executive of MGM Resorts International.“He’s passionate, he’s going to invest in the team, practice facilities, training facilities and propel the team further,” Murren said.The Aces, who are coached by the former N.B.A. star Bill Laimbeer, arrived in Las Vegas after MGM bought the team in 2017 and moved it from San Antonio, where the team had played since 2003 as the Silver Stars and the Stars.A spokesman for the team declined to say how much MGM had paid for the franchise. Murren said that W.N.B.A team transactions often include a mix of cash and a note, the value of which is based on various performance metrics.Calls to Davis’s spokesman with the Raiders were not returned.In a statement, George Kliavkoff, the president of Entertainment and Sports at MGM Resorts International, said that “Mark is a longtime champion of women’s basketball, and we believe he is the right person to lead the Aces into a new era.”Davis appears to be the first N.F.L. owner to buy a major stake in the W.N.B.A. Several other teams share a principal owner with the N.B.A. team in their market, including the Liberty with the Brooklyn Nets, and the Minnesota Lynx with the Timberwolves.The Aces are just the latest professional sports team to have arrived in Las Vegas in recent years. The Vegas Golden Knights of the N.H.L. began playing on The Strip in 2017 and went to the Stanley Cup finals in their inaugural season. The Raiders were lured from Oakland, in part by $750 million that Clark County provided to help pay for Allegiant Stadium.The N.B.A. has held a summer league in Las Vegas for more than a decade.At a news conference in December, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver stopped short of saying that expansion was looming but acknowledged that his 30-team league had begun to “dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion” after a difficult year financially for all sports leagues.Seattle is widely regarded as the N.B.A.’s No. 1 target for either expansion or the relocation of a current franchise, with Las Vegas in the next tier of candidates. To join the league, a new franchise would have to pay an expansion fee that could reach $2 billion.Marc Stein contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Durant, Irving and Now Harden. How the Nets Will Make This Trio Work

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonJames Harden Traded to the NetsThe N.B.A.’s Virus CrisisThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOne Basketball Might Not Be Enough for the New-Look NetsWith James Harden, the Nets now have an elite trio of ball-dominant playmakers. Yet there are key differences in how Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving thrive that could allow this grand experiment to work.From left, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.Credit…Getty Images, Associated PressJan. 14, 2021, 7:44 p.m. ETThe Nets’ jaw-dropping trade for James Harden has initiated a grand experiment never before tried at this scale: Can three ball-dominant playmakers coexist after spending most of their careers in offenses tailored to their needs?“Whenever you’re meshing personalities, we’ve got to wait and see how this all fits on the floor and so forth,” Sean Marks, the Nets general manager, told reporters Thursday. “I think these guys have given us the right answers. They’ve said, hey, they want to play together. They can see this fitting.”Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving aren’t the Nets’ first starry trio, much less the N.B.A.’s: Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James won two championships in Miami; Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce won one in Boston.But to give a sense of how unusual this new trio is, it’s useful to note just how much they have touched the basketball in their careers. A good measure of this is usage rate, which shows the percentage of a team’s plays taken up by a player’s shooting or turning the ball over. A-level stars are usually in the mid-to-high 20 percent range. Durant is at 30.2 percent, and Irving at 29.3 percent. But Harden is on another level: He is one of two players in N.B.A. history to reach 40 percent for a season, which he did in 2018-19 — 40.47 percent. The other was Russell Westbrook, Harden’s teammate last season, who did so in 2016-17.In the 1980s era of superteams, the Los Angeles Lakers teammates Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar never came close to reaching 30 percent. Larry Bird did so once with the Boston Celtics, barely. His teammate Kevin McHale, one of the best post players ever, didn’t get to 25 percent. Michael Jordan, at 33.26 percent, is the leader in career usage rate. His sidekick, Scottie Pippen, was more of a facilitator than a scorer (22.52 percent).The games of Harden, Irving and Durant overlap in many ways, but with key variations. All three are phenomenal ballhandlers, for example, but they get their points in different ways.To break down how they may work together on the Nets, we are going to mostly use stats from Durant’s last full season in the league (2018-19), when he was playing with Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, another ball-dominant star. We will use last season’s numbers for Irving (20 games) and Harden.No Man Is an Island (Unless He’s James Harden)The Nets’ stars have thrived on isolation basketball, meaning they take the ball and go against defenders one-on-one.In Houston, under Coach Mike D’Antoni, the Rockets emphasized isolation as the rest of the league was moving away from it, often giving Harden the ball and having his teammates stand around waiting for him to create shots. Last season, 45 percent of Harden’s possessions were isolations, nearly twice that of Westbrook’s, the second most in the league.It worked: Not only did Harden put up some of the best offensive numbers of any player ever, but the Rockets, during D’Antoni’s tenure from 2016-17 to 2019-20, were also a top offensive team. Now Harden will reunite with D’Antoni, who is an assistant under Nets Coach Steve Nash.But instead of being the offensive engine, as he was for the Rockets offense, Harden will be one of three elite options. Even this season, without D’Antoni as the head coach, the Rockets have led the league in isolations, in part because of Harden. The Nets were ninth in that category going into Thursday’s play, though it’s reasonable to assume they would rank higher if Irving hadn’t been out for personal reasons (he hasn’t played since Jan. 5) and if Durant hadn’t missed three games because of coronavirus protocols.Durant was in the N.B.A.’s top 20 in isolations, at 15.6 percent, in his last full season, still well behind Harden. This season, Durant is isolating less frequently than he was with Golden State (13.7 percent).This is where the adjustment will be the biggest for all the players. Harden is used to not only receiving the ball — but also to holding it and being in full control.Star Trek: First ContactWhere Harden differentiates himself the most from Irving and Durant is in how much more likely he is to hunt for fouls and get to the line. Harden has averaged at least 10 free throws a game in seven out of the last eight seasons. He often frustrates opponents, sometimes by purposely locking their arms while making halfhearted shot attempts.Irving is the opposite. He shies away from contact, opting to fade away rather than get hit. His career high in free throws per game came last season (5.1) when he played only 20 games. Durant has reached 10 per game just once in his career, but he has been better than Irving at getting to the line, averaging 7.7 foul shots a game in his career.Harden is also the most likely of the three to attack the basket, increasing his chances of drawing fouls — 41 percent of Harden’s shots last year came from within 10 feet of the basket, compared with 27.9 percent for Durant and 34.9 percent for Irving, according to the N.B.A.’s tracking data.Timing Is EverythingThe majority of all their shots tend to come from pull-up jumpers.But Harden holds the ball the longest before shooting — 55.6 percent of his shots came after he held the ball for at least six seconds. For Durant, that figure was 28 percent, and it was 44.7 percent for Irving.This was, in part, by design. In Golden State, Coach Steve Kerr insisted on constant ball movement, whereas in Houston, the system was set up for Harden to take his time and probe defenses. But even this season, Durant’s shots after six seconds have come at about the same rate as they did in Golden State.After Durant left the Warriors to sign with the Nets, he publicly complained about the motion offense the Warriors ran, saying that it was limited.Drawing a Line in the PaintDurant is the only one of the three who has much success posting up, or inclination to do so. Harden and Irving have spent their careers receiving the ball outside the 3-point line, whereas Durant, because of his height, has been able to make an impact in the paint. In the 2018-19 season, 10.6 percent of Durant’s shots came from post-ups, and he made half of them. This year, Durant is posting up slightly less (9.3 percent), but he has been more efficient, hitting 64.7 percent of these shots.Running on EmptyHarden likes to run in transition, more so than his new co-stars. In addition to isolations, fast-break scoring accounts for a good portion of Harden’s points. Last season, Harden was third in the league in fast-break possessions per game. Durant was ninth during his last season with the Warriors.But Irving certainly has the ball-handling skills to move the ball in transition the way Harden and Durant do, but he has preferred to navigate in the half-court, using his crossover and spin moves to get around defenders rather than pushing the ball up the floor quickly.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Houston Rockets to Trade James Harden to the Nets

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonJames Harden Traded to the NetsThe N.B.A.’s Virus CrisisThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHouston Rockets to Trade James Harden to the NetsThe four-team deal will reunite Harden with Kevin Durant, whom he played with on the Oklahoma City Thunder.James Harden, an eight-time All-Star, had made it clear that he wanted out of Houston.Credit…Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesMarc Stein and Jan. 13, 2021Updated 7:55 p.m. ETThe Nets will embark on an ambitious attempt to blend three high-scoring stars together after they agreed Wednesday to acquire the All-Star guard James Harden from the Houston Rockets in a four-team trade — just one day after a disgruntled Harden publicly described the Rockets as “not good enough.”The trade, which will reunite Harden with the Nets’ Kevin Durant and send Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo plus four future first-round picks to Houston, was confirmed by a person close to Harden with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.“I can’t comment on the rumors, but we know this is a star’s league,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said Wednesday before his team played the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.Just a handful of games into his coaching career, Nash will soon have the luxury — but also the immense challenge — of overseeing a roster headlined by Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving. The Nets, widely billed as an Eastern Conference title contender, were off to a bumpy 6-6 start before the deal.Harden had been seeking a trade since November, reported a week late to the Rockets’ training camp and — in a nod to his friendship with Durant after three years playing together in Oklahoma City — had the Nets at the top of his list of preferred destinations. But the Nets had to fend off strong competition from the Philadelphia 76ers, who were also pursuing a trade with Houston. Philadelphia’s new president of basketball operations, Daryl Morey, has a relationship with Harden after bringing him to Houston through a trade in 2012, when Morey was the Rockets’ general manager.The Sixers had been trying to acquire Harden in trade packages built around the All-Star guard Ben Simmons, according to two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. The Rockets instead went ahead with a four-team trade involving the Nets, the Pacers and the Cleveland Cavaliers so they could bring Oladipo to Houston in the final year of his contract — and get a bountiful package of future first-round picks to replenish the draft assets they lost in trades to acquire Chris Paul from the Los Angeles Clippers and Russell Westbrook from the Thunder.The uncertainty surrounding Irving, who hasn’t played since Jan. 5 for personal reasons, made the Nets even more eager to find a workable trade for Harden and bolster their top-end talent, according to one of the people. There will be questions about the offensive fit when Harden arrives in Brooklyn and Irving returns to the lineup. But the Nets will be better insulated against a star player’s injury or absence and, perhaps more crucially, they will have swung a deal for a player Durant wanted to play with again.The trade calls for the Nets’ promising forward Caris LeVert to go to Indiana and for two other Nets — Jarrett Allen and Taurean Prince — to go to Cleveland. The Rockets will receive Cleveland’s Dante Exum and the Nets’ Rodions Kurucs in addition to three first-round picks from the Nets (2022, 2024 and 2026) and Cleveland’s first-round pick (via Milwaukee) in 2022. Houston will have the right to swap first-round picks with the Nets in the 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027 drafts.The Nets pulled LeVert, Allen, Prince and Kurucs out of their game against the Knicks in anticipation of the trade. ESPN first reported the agreement between the Rockets and the Nets; The Athletic first reported Indiana’s involvement in the trade.Harden won three scoring titles and the 2017-18 Most Valuable Player Award in Houston and led the team to the Western Conference finals twice in his first eight seasons there. Yet he was ordered away from the team Wednesday and told not to come to practice in the hours before the trade after blasting the quality of Houston’s roster.“We’re just not good enough,” Harden said Tuesday after the Rockets’ 117-100 loss to the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. “I love this city. I literally have done everything that I can. The situation is crazy. It’s something that I don’t think can be fixed.”Harden’s unhappiness in Houston had festered since the team lost to the Lakers in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs last season. Morey and Mike D’Antoni, who was Houston’s head coach last season and is now a Nets assistant coach, left the Rockets after the season. Houston also traded Westbrook to Washington for John Wall after Harden and Westbrook had played together for just one season.Harden, 31, had only grown more distant under the first-year head coach Stephen Silas in the wake of all those changes. Amid increasingly loud criticism of his commitment to the team and his conditioning, he averaged a lackluster 17.4 points on 37.8 percent shooting from the field in Houston’s last five games, four of them losses.Yet neither the potential pitfalls of bringing in Harden, nor the steep cost in draft picks, dissuaded the Nets. Sean Marks, hired as the Nets’ general manager in 2016, has assembled the most talented trio of N.B.A. players since the Durant-era Golden State Warriors or the LeBron James-era Miami Heat.This is not the first time that the Nets have gone this route. In 2004, they traded for a 27-year-old Vince Carter, who was almost as open about his displeasure with the Toronto Raptors as Harden was about his with the Rockets. Though that deal didn’t cost the Nets foundational pieces or many draft picks, and Carter played well, New Jersey only won two playoff series with Carter.Then came the ill-fated deal with Boston in 2013 for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry, who were past their primes. It was supposed to transform the Nets into finals contenders after their move, combining Pierce and Garnett with Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez and Deron Williams. They won one playoff series and were stuck in the N.B.A.’s wilderness for years while the Celtics rebuilt their young core with the draft picks they got from the Nets in the trade. Boston added future stars like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; Pierce left the Nets after one season, and Garnett was traded in his second.If the Harden deal goes as poorly, it will be worse. This time around, the Nets gave up more picks, and two players with significant potential in Allen and LeVert. Allen, a 22-year-old center, was on pace for a career season, and LeVert, 26, is a dynamic guard who can score. The duo was a big reason the Nets were able to emerge from the N.B.A.’s shadows so soon after the failed Pierce and Garnett trade.Even so, the Harden trade gives the Nets three elite scorers and playmakers no team can match. That could mean easier looks for everyone as defenses scramble, but what made Harden successful in recent years was having the ball in his hands full time and breaking defenses down through isolations. Continuing to play like that doesn’t seem feasible with two ball-dominant stars on the floor as well, which Nash, with D’Antoni’s help, will have to figure out.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      No Bubble for the N.B.A. Season? It’s a Problem

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAre the Knicks Back?A Year of Kobe and LeBronMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballNo Bubble for the N.B.A. Season? It’s a ProblemCoronavirus cases, and game postponements, are piling up less than a month into the season. The league is turning to stricter rules off and on the court, but that may not be enough.The N.B.A. is tightening its rules after a number of teams, including the Boston Celtics, have been hit hard by positive coronavirus tests and potential exposures.Credit…David Butler Ii/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 13, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs long, costly and emotionally draining as 2020 was for the N.B.A., beyond the universal strain of a global health crisis, not every one of those 366 days was dour. The league was applauded often for how it responded to the challenges.Twelve days into a new year, and just three weeks into a new season, echoes of that smartest-league-in-the-world praise are faint. The N.B.A.’s attempt to stage a high-intensity, face-to-face indoor team sport during a pandemic has quickly proved to be as complicated as feared. Five games from the first 23 days of the 2020-21 schedule have been postponed because teams had too many players unavailable, either because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols or injuries.League officials had an inkling it might go like this. For the first time, they released a schedule for only the first half of the season, to build in flexibility to cope with coronavirus-related interruptions. They anticipated turbulence after opening night was moved to Dec. 22 and braced for criticism for returning to play less than three months after completing a season in a bubble. Yet there was an unmistakable sense of rising anxiety leaguewide as general managers, players’ union representatives and team owners held meetings Monday and Tuesday in the wake of multiple postponements, even though a review of the league’s protocols had been planned between Jan. 6-13.“This is the N.B.A. in 2021,” Stan Van Gundy, the coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, said Monday after his team’s game against the Dallas Mavericks was called off. “I know it’s cliché, but in this year, it’s absolutely true: It is literally one day at a time.”Van Gundy also spoke about how the situation “scares me,” noting he is 61 years old. The coach’s candor, which doesn’t always land softly, will surely be appreciated by others in the game who don’t feel as emboldened or secure to speak up.The league office, to be fair, would have preferred returning to a bubble like the restricted campus used to complete the 2019-20 season at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. Officials initially proposed playing in regional bubbles, at least at the start of the season until vaccines were widely available, as a compromise. When pretty much no teams or players wanted to do any of that again, largely because of the isolation and mental toll, it was agreed to start play in their home markets in December. That was the timetable favored by the league’s television partners and, according to N.B.A. estimates, worth at least $500 million in preserved revenue versus waiting until January to give players more time off.The N.B.A. has expanded its rules around masks, requiring players to wear them at all times when they are in the bench area.Credit…Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe league is determined not to pause the season, despite the mounting postponements, in part because officials believe even more players would be infected if they were not subject to the N.B.A.’s health protocols. Money must be assumed to be a key factor, in addition to any protective motivations, but the league’s ability to stick to that stance and avoid at least a temporary pause is being severely tested. While January lives up to the dire projections of health experts who said it would be the pandemic’s worst month yet, multiple teams (Boston, Dallas, Miami and Philadelphia) are struggling to meet the minimum requirement of eight players in uniform for games.“We are committed to proceeding with our industry, and we’re doing it with all the best science and adherence to the protocols, but ultimately we’re not in control,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said.The league and players’ union announced changes to the N.B.A.’s nearly 160 pages of health and safety guidelines on Tuesday, including instructions for players and team personnel to stay home “at all times” for at least the next two weeks outside of team and essential activities. For all the understandable unease at the moment, league officials have maintained that amendments were always likely.“We have a lot of protocols in place, but the protocols are kind of our starting point,” said John DiFiori, the N.B.A.’s director of sports medicine. “We made a lot of adjustments in Orlando and, really, it’s the lesson that we learned. This is an evolving situation — always — from the medical and scientific side, as well as just the experience of not being in a bubble and trying to manage the logistics of travel and people living in their communities and having life events that occur.”The conversation with DiFiori took place on Thursday, before Sixers guard Seth Curry was hustled off Philadelphia’s bench at a Nets game in Brooklyn when his coronavirus test result that was expected to arrive on Friday came back early — and came back positive. To that point, there had been only one postponement: Houston’s season opener on Dec. 23 against Oklahoma City, when the Rockets could not field eight players in uniform.Since the Sixers-Nets game, it has been chaos.A lot of that stems from how thoroughly the league insists on contact tracing after a positive test to try to prevent spread. The time-consuming nature of the tracing was a primary factor in postponements on Sunday (scuttling Miami’s ability to play the Celtics in Boston) and Monday (preventing Dallas from hosting New Orleans). But Tuesday’s new measures requiring team personnel to stay home and outlawing guests at team hotels were essentially an admission that previous efforts to get everyone in a 46-person traveling party to behave as if they were ensconced in a bubble have fallen short.A new set of stricter masking regulations was implemented as recently as Jan. 5, but the league mask policy on benches and flights and in team meetings was stiffened again Tuesday. The league also warned against “extended socializing” in a bid to curtail pregame and postgame greetings between players on opposing teams.Whether these prove to be any more than cosmetic changes depends on each team’s vigilance in enforcing them, along with the protocol officer assigned to each team by the league from a private security firm. Skeptics will point out that it has always been against protocol for coaches to routinely pull down their masks to relay instructions to players, but it happens anyway.Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc RiversCredit…Chris Szagola/Associated PressSacramento Kings Coach Luke WaltonCredit…Rich Pedroncelli/Associated PressLos Angeles Clippers Coach Tyronn LueCredit…Harry How/Getty ImagesToronto Raptors Coach Nick NurseCredit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressPhiladelphia Coach Doc Rivers revealed recently that he was fined $10,000 by the league for doing so and called it “the right thing to do.” He has since asked one of his assistant coaches, Eric Hughes, the athletic trainer Kevin Johnson and “whoever else is behind me on the bench” to warn him when he is in violation.“I bet 20 times they had to remind me to put the mask back on,” Rivers said. “The players can’t hear me through the mask, so I’m taking it down to talk and I forget to bring it up.”One team I spoke to this week said that the benches, locker rooms and planes had been identified as prime trouble spots for keeping players distanced. That’s in addition to the potential problems on the floor.One that Rivers has mentioned frequently is the risk for overuse injuries on teams that have to play with skeleton squads, since the N.B.A.’s eight-man minimum was not designed with a pandemic in mind. Another possible issue is the league’s contention that the virus is unlikely to be transmitted during live action unless players spend at least 15 minutes within six feet of each other. It is fair to wonder whether those guidelines for close contact properly account for the amount of shouting, heavy breathing and chest-to-chest grappling that takes place on a basketball court.So much to think about, then, as the N.B.A. tries to cope with even meaner curveballs than its outdoor counterparts faced, from Major League Baseball’s coronavirus outbreak with the Miami Marlins in July to the N.F.L.’s need to postpone or move several games because of the virus en route to the playoffs. N.B.A. rosters, compared with baseball’s or football’s, are much more likely to take an irreparable hit when multiple players are lost.“It’s a lot,” Washington’s Bradley Beal said Monday night. “But this is what we agreed to do.”The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: The N.B.A. made a deal with the Capitanes de Ciudad de México to become the 29th G League franchise and play this season. What is their status? — @JDogindy from TwitterStein: Capitanes won’t be one of the 18 teams in the forthcoming G League bubble at Walt Disney World, but I’m told that the team is expected to begin playing in the 2021-22 season. The assumption, if we dare, is that neither the N.B.A. nor the G League will be gripped by a pandemic by then, making it easier to finally embark on this long-anticipated grand experiment with the league’s first franchise outside the United States and Canada.The G League bubble will feature 17 of its 28 current franchises and the Ignite select team, which gives elite draft prospects like Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga and Daishen Nix a different path to the professional ranks than playing in college or overseas. There is a fee of about $500,000 for the N.B.A. teams that are sending their G League affiliates to the bubble. Some parent clubs balked, because of the cost or because they intended to use their players on two-way contracts at the N.B.A. level for the entire season to mitigate potential roster shortages caused by injuries or virus protocols.On the players’ side, there is added incentive for those aspiring to reach the N.B.A. Participation in what some are calling the “glubble,” or the “gubble,” not only showcases them in a well-scouted league but puts players into the N.B.A.’s coronavirus testing program. That will shorten the quarantine-related delays all new players face when they are signed by an N.B.A. team. Monday’s G League draft attracted nearly 200 players for less than 30 available roster spots.Q: We need a better name than “baseball-style series” when a team plays two road games in a row against the same host. They don’t play two-game series in baseball. — @MackMachine80 from TwitterStein: Agreed. I’ve had similar thoughts every time I type the phrase.Sadly that is also an admission that I haven’t come up with anything better. The description stems from baseball’s distinction as the only major team sport known for parking its teams in the same city for three or four days, but I’m with you — and open to suggestions. Send them in.Unclear, though, is whether these are schedule anomalies we will be discussing beyond this season. It’s something the league is studying after the absence of travel was frequently cited as one of the pluses of the Disney World bubble. The reduction in travel these two-game sets provide is sensible this season, when teams are trying to protect their traveling parties from the virus, but I am not a fan because they are yet another factor in teams’ dwindling home-court advantage these days.Mostly empty arenas, the added comfort road teams are finding on those two-game excursions and sudden player absences have contributed to home teams’ underwhelming records through Monday’s play: 41-39 (.513) in the Eastern Conference; 34-39 (.465) in the West. These are obviously small sample sizes, but the early pace is worrisome. In the N.B.A.’s most recent season with teams playing exclusively in their arenas in 2018-19, Eastern teams went 341-274 at home (.554) and Western teams went 388-227 (.631).Q: Are you a big Marvel guy? — Adam HowesStein: Not really. I posted a tweet Sunday praising the San Antonio Spurs for their use of the popular Spider-Man vs. Spider-Man pointing meme from my favorite animated series, but I really didn’t consume much animated programming in my youth (or thereafter).I was infected with extreme sports nerdity so early that, even by age 9, I was already obsessed with playing Strat-O-Matic baseball — to the point that I turned a big white toy chest in the garage into a faux manager’s desk so I could pretend to be Billy Martin or Bob Lemon.Yet I do still love the original “Spider-Man” animated series (especially Season 1) that debuted in 1967. The episode that produced the meme of Spider-Man and his impostor pointing at each other, “Double Identity,” is a top-three episode in my personal rankings. So I applaud any time someone on N.B.A. Twitter finds a well-crafted reason to bust it out.The No. 1 episode in those rankings, for the record, is “To Catch A Spider.” That’s the one in which Spider-Man has to defeat several of his arch enemies, including my beloved Electro, after Dr. Noah Boddy breaks Electro, Vulture and the Green Goblin out of jail.Numbers GameKawhi Leonard played with a mask for six games.Credit…Tony Avelar/Associated Press12:07Washington’s Bradley Beal guarded Boston’s Jayson Tatum for 8 minutes 22 seconds on Friday night, and Tatum guarded Beal for 3 minutes 45 seconds, according to advanced tracking data from the league. The friends from St. Louis spent a combined 12 minutes 7 seconds in proximity to each other without masks during the game and had an extended postgame discussion, leading the N.B.A. to place Beal in its health and safety protocols after Tatum later tested positive for the coronavirus.15Guarding another player during a game is typically not considered close contact by the league for the purposes of contact tracing. The N.B.A. has taken its cues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to define close contact as spending at least 15 minutes within six feet of another person while not wearing a mask. The league said its research showed that it was rare for two players to spend that much time within six feet of each other during game action.60Only 29 players have scored at least 60 points in an N.B.A. game. The most recent two — Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Washington’s Beal — did it three days apart last week.44.4Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers shot a mere 44.4 percent from the field (48-for-108) in the six games he played wearing a clear shield over his face. Leonard is a career 49.0 percent shooter and had 35 points Sunday (including a career-high-tying seven 3-pointers) in his first game after shedding the mask. The protective gear was required after Leonard took an inadvertent elbow from his teammate Serge Ibaka on Christmas Day that required eight stitches in his mouth.3,663The Toronto Raptors had averaged 3,663 fans for their first three home games in Tampa, Fla., before it was announced Saturday that fans will no longer be admitted through at least Feb. 5 because of a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the area. That leaves five N.B.A. teams currently allowing reduced crowds for home games: Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans, Orlando and Utah. There was a maximum capacity of 3,800 at Tampa’s Amalie Arena, which the Raptors are using as their temporary home this season because of travel restrictions between the United States and Canada.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Knicks Are Off to a Decent Start. Is This a Drill?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAre the Knicks Back?A Year of Kobe and LeBronMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Knicks Are Off to a Decent Start. Is This a Drill?A more aggressive Knicks team has excited fans early, racking up big wins over Milwaukee and Utah. But they’ve lost three in a row, a worrisome sign for fans who’ve been let down before.Reggie Bullock celebrated with Austin Rivers as the Knicks beat the Utah Jazz at Madison Square Garden last week.Credit…Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 13, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThe last time the Knicks won at least half of their first 10 games was during the 2017-18 season, when they were 6-4. They finished the campaign 29-53.This season, the Knicks started 5-5, and some fans are daring to hope that maybe this Knicks team is different. Maybe this one can break the playoff-less streak that began in 2013-14. The bad news is that the season is headed in the wrong direction. The Knicks have dropped three in a row to put them at 5-6, with multiple blowout defeats.Coach Tom Thibodeau has this team playing hard, and the Knicks have beaten good opponents, including the Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks. Entering the Charlotte Hornets game on Monday, the Knicks had the eighth best defense in the league. They are now down to 13th after losing to Charlotte, 109-88.The Knicks haven’t fielded a top-10 defensive team since the 2011-12 season, when their fifth-ranked defense took them to the playoffs. The unfortunate flip side: This year’s team has one of the league’s worst offenses.The Knicks have also struggled with injuries: Alec Burks, Austin Rivers and Obi Toppin have all missed time — three offensive-minded players.Something the Knicks have in their favor is that this season has produced lots of strange results, and not just for them. Night after night, in part because of the shortened season, no crowds, the pandemic and minimal time in training camp, lots of teams are losing big or to opponents who did not seem like threats. Some teams, like the Toronto Raptors (2-8), who are based in Florida because of the virus, are underperforming. Several top players, like Boston’s Jayson Tatum and the Nets’ Kevin Durant, have missed multiple games because they tested positive for, or were potentially exposed to, the coronavirus.The shortened season helps the Knicks in another way. Banking wins early on gives them cushion against the losses that are almost unavoidable as the season grinds on. But it is still early, as Knicks fans learned in 2018.Here is a look at what’s gone right and wrong for the Knicks so far.The New and Improved Julius RandleThe biggest reason the Knicks have been competitive this year is Julius Randle, who has started off strong. Randle is averaging 22.1 points, 11.2 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game — all on pace to be career highs — on 49.4 percent shooting. He is averaging more assists this year than his last two years combined. If he keeps this up, Randle should deservedly make his first All-Star team.He looks more comfortable on the floor, and Thibodeau has been adept at taking advantage of Randle’s versatility — for example, making sure he’s getting the ball on different parts of the court, rather than simply trying to bulldoze opponents in the post. Randle is skilled at creating for his teammates. The issue is that the Knicks don’t have many playmakers or shooters around him to ease his burden.The Curious Case of RJ BarrettRJ Barrett, 20, is playing a lot of minutes this year — 37.9 minutes per game, vs. 30.4 his rookie year. Barrett is, however, shooting a dismal 36.5 percent from the field and 18 percent from deep, both down from his rookie year, when he also struggled. RJ Barrett is averaging more shots than points.Credit…Adam Hunger/Associated PressWatching the games, you can see Barrett’s improvement in other areas. He plays more aggressively, has developed into a strong rebounder (7.6 rebounds per game for a guard is impressive) and has improved his passing. He is a solid defender.The consistency is not there, though, and the inefficiency is problematic: Barrett is averaging more shots than points. On opening night, Barrett shot 11-of-15 from the field for 26 points against the Indiana Pacers. The next game, against the Philadelphia 76ers, Barrett shot 2-of-15 from the field for 10 points. And then he shot poorly again for the next three games.His inability to shoot puts more pressure on Randle. Barrett is making only 26.5 percent of his shots when there isn’t a defender within six feet of him. He’s also hitting only 17.4 percent when he catches the ball and shoots it.But Barrett is still impactful for the Knicks, despite his scoring woes. His net rating (essentially a measure of how much better or worse a team is with a player on the floor) is minus 2.8. This isn’t ideal, but it is among the best on the team among those who receive serious minutes. When Barrett isn’t on the floor, the Knicks’ net rating is minus 13.8. That’s a bigger gap than the one for Randle, who is their best player.Mitchell Robinson, the EnigmaIt’s almost time for the Knicks to commit to an extension with Mitchell Robinson, who is now in his third year. It is difficult to gauge his true value. He’s a more traditional center who can’t spread the floor and mostly gets his points on dunks.And like Barrett, Robinson is a mixed bag.Through 11 games, Robinson’s production in several categories has decreased even as he has played more minutes (30.1) than usual, though the extra time seems to have given him room to grab more rebounds than before (8.1 per game). He is also below his per-game career averages in blocks (1.9) and field-goal percentage (68.2 percent; still very efficient).The biggest improvement for Robinson is that he’s been able to stay on the floor. Before this year, he struggled with foul trouble, but now he doesn’t jump for up-fakes as often, making it harder for defenders to draw fouls. That was his biggest weakness. Now, not so much.Elfrid Payton’s PlaymakingThe Knicks don’t have many players who can break down defenses, which is what makes Elfrid Payton essential for Thibodeau. The Knicks cut him in the off-season and re-signed him to a cheap one-year deal. He is probably not a part of the Knicks’ future plans. But he has been a steady, veteran presence on the floor, which they have needed.He is not much of a shooter, but he is skilled at getting into the paint. This year, he’s scoring above his career average with 14.5 points a game, and is tallying 4.3 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game.Payton, 26, now in his seventh season, also does not make many mistakes on the floor. For the most part, he stays within himself and takes care of the ball. (His turnover percentage is an below-average 14 percent this season.) He’ll most likely never be a starter on a championship team, but he’s been a nice pickup for the Knicks.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      N.B.A. Investigating Kyrie Irving Over Maskless Party Video

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAre the Knicks Back?A Year of Kobe and LeBronMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. Investigating Kyrie Irving Over Maskless Party VideoThe Nets said they were aware of the video, which appears to show their guard attending a large indoor party, which would violate the league’s coronavirus protocols.Kyrie Irving last appeared in a game for the Nets on Jan. 5. He has been out for what the team has called “personal reasons.”Credit…Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressSopan Deb and Jan. 12, 2021Updated 9:59 p.m. ETThe N.B.A. is investigating whether Nets guard Kyrie Irving violated the league’s coronavirus protocols after a video emerged Monday on social media that appeared to show him at a crowded indoor party without wearing a mask.The N.B.A.’s health protocols prohibit players from attending indoor social gatherings of 15 or more people. If the league determines that Irving broke these rules, he could be fined 1/81.6 of his estimated $33 million annual salary (more than $400,000) for each game he has to miss while quarantining. The length of the quarantine depends on several factors, such as the setting of the violation and how long the player was there.Sean Marks, the Nets general manager, said in a statement that the team was aware of the video, which it described as showing Irving at a “family gathering.”“We are reviewing the circumstances with both Kyrie and the N.B.A. in order to determine compliance with health and safety protocols,” Marks said.Representatives for Irving could not immediately be reached for comment.It’s unclear when and where the gathering took place, but the video of it compounds puzzling aspects of the season for Irving, who has not played since Jan. 5 for what the team has called “personal reasons.”Ahead of last Thursday’s game against Philadelphia, Nets Coach Steve Nash said that he had not heard from Irving and did not know why he wasn’t playing. Before Tuesday night’s game against Denver, Nash declined to say more than that the organization had been in touch with Irving.“There’s been communication, but I think that’s all in-house,” Nash said. “We keep that to ourselves, and we try to figure out our home front privately.”Asked if he was confident that Irving would return this season, Nash said: “Sure. Like I said, right now, I’ve got to focus on coaching this team and getting the best out of them. So I can’t make any predictions, prognostications about things that are outside of this building.”In his statement, Marks said that Irving’s return had “yet to be finalized.”“In the meantime, we will continue to stay focused on our organizational goals,” Marks said. “Kyrie will have the opportunity to address his absence when he is ready to do so.”After Tuesday’s win over the Nuggets, the Nets were 6-6 for the season but 4-3 when Irving had played. He was off to a stellar start, averaging 27.1 points and 6.1 assists on 50.4 percent shooting in seven games. The Nets also went without Irving’s co-star, Kevin Durant, for a week because of the N.B.A.’s health protocols.James Harden, the Houston Rockets guard, was fined $50,000 earlier in the season after attending an indoor party with more than 15 people on Dec. 21, the eve of the season’s opening night. Irving was also fined $25,000 that month, for refusing to speak to the media.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More