Basketball

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      Domantas Sabonis’s N.B.A. Stardom Is Fueled by Family Legacy

      by

      The Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis plays with the bruising style of his father, Arvydas. It has made him an All-Star and helped the Kings break a 16-season playoff drought.For Domantas Sabonis, basketball has long been it.“Never a plan B,” Sabonis, 26, said. “Only basketball.”In many of his baby pictures, Sabonis said, he is holding a basketball. The same goes for his 1-year-old son.This makes basketball a sort of generational inheritance. Sabonis’s father is Arvydas Sabonis, a Lithuanian player who dominated in Europe, spent seven seasons in the N.B.A. and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.Now, Domantas is the Sabonis dominating. In his seventh N.B.A. season, he is a three-time All-Star and has helped the Sacramento Kings clinch a playoff spot for the first time since 2006, breaking the longest active postseason drought in the four major North American men’s professional sports leagues. Sabonis is the N.B.A.’s leading rebounder, one of its best passing big men and one of its most efficient scorers.From his game, one can easily draw a straight line to his father. At 7-foot-3, Arvydas was a slick passer with refined post skills and immense upper body strength. It wasn’t unusual to see him go at Shaquille O’Neal and hold his own. Domantas’s hands are drawn to loose balls around the basket, and defenders bounce off him like rubber. Arvydas had more of a shooting touch; Domantas is quicker, though not fast by today’s standards. Slow centers who stay near the basket have gone out of vogue over the last decade, but the 6-foot-11 Domantas has turned this bruising style of play in the paint into success for the Kings. In some ways, Domantas’s game is a stubborn tribute to Arvydas.“It’s the eyes, the fingers, the hands, the little gestures,” said his older brother Tautvydas Sabonis, who goes by Tuti. He added: “You throw a pass. It leaves his fingers like this and it’s like, that’s 101 Dad.”Tuti, on a video conference call from Lithuania, held his hands out wide to demonstrate.Sabonis is averaging 19.2 points per game and a league-best 12.4 rebounds per game this season.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated Press“The most important thing is they both get pissed the same way,” he said. “It’s the same characters, same mind-set. It’s ‘rah, rah, rah, rah, rah!’ Lithuanian. All the swear words you can imagine. Throw in a little English. Throw Spanish in there.”Tuti, 30, is a basketball coach in Lithuania and played professionally in Europe. So did the other Sabonis brother, Zygimantas, 31, who goes by Zygi. Domantas was born during the playoffs of Arvydas’s rookie year in the N.B.A. with the Portland Trail Blazers. A sister, Ausrine, was born the next year. Domantas and Tuti recalled that the Blazers’ practice facility had a children’s room where they would try all of the Gatorade flavors and play the “floor is lava” game while they waited for practice to be over. Players like Scottie Pippen and Rasheed Wallace would refer to Zygi, Tuti and Domantas as Sabonis Jr., Sabonis Jr. Jr., and Sabonis Jr. Jr. Jr. Guard Damon Stoudamire told them that his Afro came from sticking his fingers in an electric socket.Shortly before Arvydas retired from the N.B.A. for the second and final time, in 2003, the family moved to Spain. It wasn’t until Domantas turned 10, when he started playing basketball and watching YouTube highlight videos, that he understood his father’s prodigious basketball legacy, he said.“We knew he was a basketball player, but we saw him as our dad,” said Sabonis, who like his father is comfortable out of the limelight. “We didn’t know what he actually was.”He said his father didn’t push any of the children to play basketball. Neither did their mother, Ingrida Sabonis, a former Miss Lithuania. As a teenager, Domantas played professionally for the Spanish club Unicaja Malaga before he spent two years at Gonzaga. Tommy Lloyd, who as an assistant coach helped recruit Domantas to Gonzaga, said he talked to Tuti but didn’t meet Arvydas until after Domantas had committed to the college, which was unusual.Lloyd said Arvydas told him: “‘My son should have the right to make his own decisions. And I feel good as a parent allowing him to do that since I was never allowed to.’”The Blazers drafted Arvydas in 1986, but it took almost a decade for him to make his N.B.A. debut. Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, whose officials wanted Arvydas to remain an amateur so he could compete in the 1988 Olympics. After the Olympics, Arvydas doubted his ability to compete with the N.B.A.’s best because he’d had multiple Achilles’ tendon injuries. In 1990, Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union. Two years later, Sabonis played for the Lithuanian Olympic team, helping it win a bronze medal.(The American men — the Dream Team — got much of the attention at the 1992 Olympics, but Lithuania’s tie-dye warm-ups sponsored by the Grateful Dead also became a cultural sensation.)Sabonis is unusual in his limited shooting range, but his skill in the paint has been a boon for the Kings.Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesArvydas Sabonis spent seven seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers, beginning in the mid-1990s.Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesThe Blazers kept pitching Arvydas on coming to the United States. After years of wooing from lawmakers, diplomats and basketball executives, he finally relented.“If not N.B.A. now, never,” a 30-year-old Arvydas said at the time. “Last chance.”Arvydas, who declined a request for an interview, spent seven seasons with the Blazers between 1995 and 2003. He skipped one year, citing mental and physical exhaustion. Now he texts Domantas after each of his N.B.A. games, despite the 10-hour time difference between Sacramento and Lithuania. And if he’s not texting Domantas, he’s texting the siblings.“I think my dad’s our best friend,” Tuti said. “He’s amazing. He watches all of Domas’s games. He’s always calling me: ‘Are you watching?’ I’m like, ‘Dad, I’ve got to work tomorrow.’”While Arvydas has never coached his children, he’s always given one particular piece of advice.“You got to take care of the point guard,” Tuti recounted. “You’re not going to take care of the shooting guard because he’s there to shoot. The point guard, he’s going to give you the ball to score. So if you’ve got to take someone out to drinks, this is the guy you take care of.”For Domantas, that is De’Aaron Fox, a lightning quick 25-year-old point guard who has been Sabonis’s partner in lifting Sacramento’s fortunes. Fox has played in Sacramento for his entire six-year career, but Sabonis joined him only last season in a trade from Indiana.“They want me to be one of the main pieces and have a say and change something around,” Sabonis said. “And that’s just motivation.”Mike Brown, who is in his first season coaching the Kings, designed an offense that leaned into Sabonis’s passing skills, which helped balance the floor and give Fox more space to operate. It has been a resounding success: Sacramento has the N.B.A.’s best offense, and this season Fox made his first All-Star team. Fox said that Sabonis is one of the league’s best finishers and passers, and he sets strong screens to dislodge pesky defenders for his guards.“I think any offense can be successful around someone like that,” Fox said.Tautvydas Sabonis, No. 11, is one of Domantas’s two older brothers. He played in Europe and is now a basketball coach in Lithuania.Robertas Dackus/Euroleague Basketball via Getty ImagesSabonis’s hard-nosed play has easily won over teammates and coaches, and made him a fan favorite. He’s been playing through a thumb injury for much of the season, but he has not shied away from contact, whether in the post or while diving for a rebound. Brown recalled Sabonis apologizing to him once for a bad turnover. But Brown wasn’t concerned.“‘As hard as you play, I don’t know if I can ever get mad at you for turning the ball over,’” Brown recalled responding to Sabonis. “I said, ‘Just go sit down.’”It may seem daunting for Sabonis to follow in the footsteps of his famous father, especially in the withering spotlight of the N.B.A. But he insists that his father’s basketball legacy has not created extra pressure. In fact, he has embraced it, wearing his father’s No. 11 in college and with Indiana before arriving in Sacramento, where No. 11 is retired.“Since I was a kid, you always hear: ‘Your dad is better than you. Your dad’s this. Your dad is that.’ You hear it all the time in every game,” Sabonis said. “But if anything, without that, I wouldn’t have been where I am. If anything, I use it as fuel to be better.”Brown said that Sabonis “probably wants to be more impactful and better than his dad to show his dad, that yes, I can do this as your son.”Lloyd, the former Gonzaga assistant who is now the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Arizona, said that Domantas used to tell him that he was motivated by respect for his fathers and brothers.“He felt like he was carrying on the Sabonis basketball legacy,” Lloyd said. “And it’s something he took really, really, really serious. I don’t want to say there was a fear of failure, but there definitely was a want to succeed for the family name.”As far as their N.B.A. careers go, “Sabonis Jr. Jr. Jr.” has already surpassed his father, though the league never got to see Arvydas at his best. Domantas has helped revitalize a Kings franchise desperate for relevance. There’s been no intergenerational trash talk, though.“My dad loves it,” Tuti said. “He’s your son. He’s playing at the highest level ever. It’s not about accolades. It’s not about this. It’s just putting on the television and getting to enjoy your own son.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Basket

      Golden State Falls to Denver for Another Road Loss

      by

      A loss to the Nuggets dropped the champions to 9-30 away from home.DENVER — As various members of the Golden State Warriors began to filter out of the visiting locker room at Ball Arena on Sunday night, Klay Thompson sat silently on a folding chair with his head bowed. He fiddled with a wristband. He was still wearing his game shorts.Thompson has coped with adversity, losing two seasons to injury. But the N.B.A. has a way of humbling even the most determined players. And in the glum aftermath of the Warriors’ 79th game of the season, Thompson was left to dwell on errant shots and missed opportunities. He was not alone.The Warriors are a tough team to figure out, and their 112-110 loss to the Nuggets on Sunday was another jumbled effort in a season full of them. They were thrilling and connected, then sloppy and disjointed. They led by as many as 15 points in the second quarter, then allowed all that good feeling to evaporate.“We stopped playing,” Coach Steve Kerr said. “We just lost our focus on both ends, gave up a ton of offensive rebounds, missed box outs. Offensively, we had several mindless possessions in a row, throwing the ball away, a bunch of shot turnovers — just bad shots.”Teams have wildly different agendas at this late stage of the season. The Nuggets, who are on the cusp of clinching the top seed in the Western Conference, have the luxury of prioritizing health. Nikola Jokic, the league’s back-to-back most valuable player, missed his third straight game with calf tightness.“There really is an injury there, and it’s just us being smart about it,” Michael Malone, Denver’s coach, said before Sunday’s game. “The type of injury he has, the worst-case scenario is he plays and it creates a much bigger issue where he’s out for an extended period of time. And I think we all realize that we’re only going to go so far when Nikola is such a big part of what we do.”The Warriors, on the other hand, are desperate to avoid the play-in bracket as the defending champions. With the top six seeds in each conference assured playoff berths, the Warriors (41-38) are now tied for fifth with the Clippers in the West after Sunday’s loss. Kerr likes the addition of the play-in — “It keeps things really interesting all the way down the stretch,” he said — but that does not mean he wants to be a part of it.The Warriors have three games remaining. After playing host to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday, they will go on the road to face the Sacramento Kings on Friday and the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.“We need to win out,” Golden State’s Stephen Curry said, adding: “It’s just understanding there’s a sense of urgency with these last three games, and not only the wins but the vibe you create going into a playoff series, because that does matter — finishing strong, finishing with a sense of purpose. You want to feel good about yourself when you turn the clock to the playoffs.”The real challenge is that the Warriors play two of their final three games on the road, where they have been awful this season. The disparity between their record at home (32-8) and their record on the road (9-30) is a mystery without an obvious explanation.“We’ve got to have faith in ourselves that we can figure it out,” Curry said.No solutions surfaced against the Nuggets, though it did look good for the Warriors, at least for a while. They assembled one of their familiar master classes in ball movement in the first quarter.There was Draymond Green tipping a pass to Donte DiVincenzo for an-up-and-under layup. There was Thompson drawing a cluster of defenders on a drive before dumping a pass to Anthony Lamb for an open dunk. The ball zipped from teammate to teammate. Green had five assists in the first quarter, and the Warriors assisted on 11 of their 13 field goals, committing only one turnover.But sustaining that sort of effort has been problematic for the Warriors this season, particularly on the road. They missed all eight of their 3-point shots in the second quarter and committed five turnovers.“It’s kind of been a vibe of how it’s been on the road for us all year,” Curry said. “There’s a four- or five-minute stretch and the wheels just fall off. And you not only give a team momentum, but you give them belief that they’re supposed to win that game. And that’s a dangerous position to be in with the amount of talent that’s in this league, no matter who you’re playing.”Curry and Thompson combined to shoot 17 of 56 from the field, and Golden State committed 15 turnovers. Add it up, and it was the game that the Warriors had “no business” winning, Curry said.The basketball gods concurred. After Thompson’s 3-point shot with 4.5 seconds left caromed off the back rim, he rebounded his own miss. But his desperation heave at the buzzer was swatted away by Jamal Murray, who had a terrific all-around game for the Nuggets with 26 points and 8 assists.“The season has been like this all year,” Kerr said. “It’s been stops and starts. Just when you think we’ve got some momentum, we give it back.”As the visiting locker room continued to empty out, Thompson finally rose from his chair and packed for the trip home. The team bus was idling outside.“We just have to keep pushing,” Kerr said. More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Basket

      The N.B.A. and Its Players’ Union Reach a Tentative Labor Deal

      by

      The collective bargaining agreement, which is said to create a new in-season tournament, must be ratified by the players and team governors.The N.B.A. and the N.B.A. players’ union have agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that will ensure labor peace, the league announced Saturday morning. The new deal must be ratified by N.B.A. players and the league’s board of governors before it becomes official.The deal includes the addition of an in-season tournament with monetary rewards for players and coaches who win it, the removal of marijuana as a banned substance, and a second luxury tax tier, according to a person familiar with the terms who requested anonymity because the deal is not ratified.The new collective bargaining agreement will begin next season and last for seven years, with a mutual opt-out clause after six years, the same person said.Although some expected that this collective bargaining agreement would lower the age limit for entering the N.B.A. draft from 19 to 18, the sides did not agree to that. The age limit will remain at 19, which means most players coming out of high school will need to wait a year before entering the draft.The league announced the deal in a tweet at 2:59 a.m. Saturday. The parties had agreed to extend the midnight deadline for either side to opt out of the current agreement, which has been in effect since 2017.Had the sides not agreed or come close by Friday, the league intended to exercise the opt-out clause, according to Commissioner Adam Silver. That would have caused the current collective bargaining agreement to expire on June 30 instead of next year, compressing the time the sides would have had to avoid a work stoppage.The N.B.A. has not had a work stoppage since the lockout in 2011, which delayed the start of that season until Christmas.This deal is the first negotiated by executive director Tamika Tremaglio, who began her tenure as the head of the union in 2021, and for CJ McCollum, the Pelicans guard who became its president in August of that year.The second luxury tax tier appears to be a compromise from what the league had wanted. The league had been concerned that some teams were at too great of a disadvantage because a small number of them vastly outspent the others through salary cap exceptions within the existing luxury tax system. This season, the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers are paying luxury taxes and spend far more on their star-studded rosters than any other team. To prevent that spending imbalance, the league had hoped to institute a fixed sum that teams could spend on salaries, but the union made clear early on that it would not accept any hard spending limit for teams.The sides hope the new tier will allow more teams to enter the luxury tax.Adding a tournament during the N.B.A. season had long been a priority for Silver.“It’s something that I remain excited about,” Silver had said during a news conference in September. “I think it continues to be an opportunity within the current footprint of our season to create some more meaningful games, games of consequence, during an otherwise long regular season.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Basket

      As Bargaining Deadline Looms, N.B.A. and Players’ Union Enjoy Friendly Ties

      by

      The connections between team owners and players are stronger now than in previous years. A deadline to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement offers a test of that relationship.Tamika Tremaglio, the executive director of the N.B.A. players’ union, organized a friendly social gathering ahead of this season between union officials and N.B.A. league executives: party games, cocktails and even a five-on-five basketball game. They would spend much of the next few months negotiating against each other for the next collective bargaining agreement, and Tremaglio first wanted them to have a little fun together.Tremaglio and N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver competed against each other in an egg toss.“For our benefit,” she said, “Adam and I, we didn’t have to play basketball.”The tenor of the relationship between the league and its players’ union seems a far cry from the contentious moments that have dotted their history: the players’ very first attempts to unionize in the 1950s; tense years in the 1990s; and antagonistic battle in 2011 that led to the league’s most recent lockout.Recently, the N.B.A.’s labor landscape has been peaceful, but the strength of that collegiality is being tested by pressure points during a negotiation that has addressed issues like the age limit for players entering the league, a possible in-season tournament and the league’s luxury tax system.One of those pressure points might come this week as the deadline for either side to opt out of the current agreement looms on Friday. Silver said on Wednesday afternoon that he can foresee a deal being reached by Friday, but the league would likely opt out if not. That would make the current collective bargaining agreement expire on June 30 instead of after the 2023-24 season and add urgency to the negotiations for a new agreement. Tremaglio said in a statement that the union does not plan to opt out.“If we don’t have a deal and the league decides to opt out, it will be disappointing considering all the work both sides have put into the negotiations, and the fair nature of our requests,” Tremaglio said.Whatever happens will be set against the backdrop of an era in which N.B.A. players and team owners have largely cooperated, making their dynamic look far different from the labor fights that have played out recently across numerous industries in the United States.People on both sides refer to the relationship between players and team owners as a partnership, and they often develop friendships with each other. During this period, star players have immense power over their careers on and off the court, and the league has benefited from lucrative media rights deals.“It’s not like you can draw a line and say previously it was bad and now it’s good or anything else,” said Jeffrey Kessler, the principal outside counsel for the union, who has been working with the union since 1978. “It just varies over time, shaped by a lot of different forces, shaped by the economics at the time, shaped by the personalities at the time, shaped by the experience. They go through different cycles.”Finances, as they often do with collective bargaining in any industry, have shaped the tenor of the relationship for decades. In 1954, when N.B.A. players first tried to organize, back pay for a group of players was among their top issues. The league recognized the union three years later.Over the next several decades, issues like pensions, free agency and players’ share of league profits became sticking points.“We were the first ones to establish a percentage of the growth revenue going to the players,” Junior Bridgeman, a former player, said, referring to the 1983 C.B.A., two years before he began his tenure as president of the players’ union as the league’s popularity was growing because of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. “No one thought at the time that the numbers would get to where they are today and it would be as meaningful as it is today.”Today, Bridgeman is a business magnate who built a fortune in the food and beverage industry, but when he first attended bargaining sessions, he considered it an unofficial curriculum for a master’s in business administration. He saw what mattered to the team owners and how they communicated.“Most of the meetings ended up being contentious to some extent,” Bridgeman said. He added: “We went to one meeting that lasted all of seven minutes. We got up and walked out. It was the art of negotiation in real life.”In 1995, the league locked out the players for the first time. Union leadership and the league’s representatives had agreed to a deal, but players were unhappy with basic terms and the way the negotiation was conducted. A group of high-profile players filed an antitrust lawsuit and moved to decertify the union.They reached an agreement before the season began, but the deal had an opt-out clause that eventually led to the longest lockout in league history, nearly canceling the 1998-99 season. The sides reached an agreement in January 1999.Silver has worked for the N.B.A. since 1992, spending much of his early years in N.B.A. Entertainment. He became the league’s deputy commissioner, serving under David Stern, in 2006, the year an age limit of 19 went into effect for the draft.The league’s next work stoppage came in 2011. Stern appointed Silver as the league’s lead negotiator for those talks. Silver chuckled at the title.“When David Stern is in the room, he’s the lead negotiator,” Silver said in a phone interview Monday.Stern, who died in 2020, was indeed still the face of those negotiations. His biting wit and tough demeanor led to memorable moments. Billy Hunter, then the union’s executive director, once said he thought the league’s claim that it was losing $400 million a year was “baloney.” Stern, whose family owned a deli, quipped in response: “I grew up at Stern’s delicatessen. He has his meat wrong.”As a player, Michael Jordan had been heavily involved in union battles. His name was on the antitrust lawsuit Kessler filed on the players’ behalf in 1995.In 2010, he became the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, and took an active role in labor negotiations later that decade. He is now the chairman of the labor relations committee.“The expectation maybe from some people on my side that when Michael was at the table, everything would be hunky-dory,” Silver said. “‘Oh, Michael Jordan is saying it. Therefore that must be a fair position.’”As a player, Michael Jordan, right, helped the league increase its popularity and was active in union battles. As a team owner, he took an active role in labor negotiations in the 2010s.Chuck Burton/Associated PressPlayers, he said, didn’t agree. Silver recalls the star guard Chris Paul, who was the president of the union from 2013-21, telling him: “No question I admire and trust Michael Jordan, but we’re now, in essence, adversaries in this process.”Silver believes the relationship between players and the league is more trusting now than in previous bargaining cycles, in part because the league is more open about its finances.“It doesn’t necessarily mean that it makes it easier to get a deal done,” Silver said. “But we’re now able to jump over what used to be months of back and forth over what the so-called truth was regarding the league’s financials.”Paul, who was drafted in 2005, said he has seen players become more interested and involved in understanding the business of the league now than earlier in his career. Silver has made a point to build personal capital with players. He also fostered a close relationship with Michele Roberts, Tremaglio’s predecessor, who held the post from July 2014 to January 2022. Roberts declined to be interviewed for this story to avoid the appearance she was trying to influence negotiations from retirement.“That’s one of his strengths,” Jerry Colangelo, who was an executive for the Bulls in the 1960s before leaving to work for and later own the Phoenix Suns, said of Silver. “He’s a communicator, a terrific communicator. David was a little bit more arm’s length.” He added: “Both are really good negotiators. Both really could be very tough when they need to be tough. But on a personal basis, Adam is more available.”Both Silver and Paul said that doesn’t mean negotiations are easier.“They always get contentious,” Paul said.Where that productive relationship helps is in times of unexpected upheaval, like when the coronavirus pandemic hit and caused the league to shut down operations in 2020.“The shutting down of the business, playing in a bubble in Orlando, all those things were far outside the scope of our agreement,” Silver said. He added: “The trust enabled us to sit down with the leadership at the union and with the leaders and with the players executive committee, and we worked through some really difficult issues.”Their shared stakes also helped them navigate the work stoppage that occurred in the bubble when players, led by the Milwaukee Bucks, decided not to play after a white police officer in Kenosha, Wis., shot a Black man named Jacob Blake. Before games resumed, players met with team owners over videoconferencing and asked them to commit to support social justice concerns.During the pandemic stoppage, Silver said he and other key league executives began having daily calls with Paul, guard Kyle Lowry and center Dwight Powell, who were part of the league’s competition committee. They checked in on how players were feeling about issues like returning to play, their own safety and the racial justice movements that were sweeping the country.When CJ McCollum replaced Paul as president of the union in August 2021, he was added to those calls. Silver said the calls are no longer daily, but still happen regularly.“We talk about everything,” McCollum, a Pelicans guard, said of his relationship with Silver. “The state of the game, where the game is at, ways to improve.”This season they discussed topics like an uptick in travel calls and changes to foul calls. When the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner was imprisoned in Russia, McCollum said they sometimes discussed what they could do to help the efforts to free her.Tremaglio, the N.B.P.A.’s executive director, said the party last fall helped her bolster her relationships with league executives, too.“We are in business together, right? We have a partnership,” Tremaglio said. “For me, I tend to do business with people that I like and know something about.” She added: “I thought it was really critical before we go into negotiations that we had a chance to really get to know one another.”There were some new faces in the union and new faces in the league office, and most of their interactions during the past several months had been held remotely.“I share her view,” Silver said. “I thought it was a great idea.”He added: “When you negotiate with a players’ association, or frankly any collectively bargained relationship, you get a deal done and then the next day you’re dealing with those exact same people and you’re living under that deal.”Tremaglio said the union won the games, though league sources dispute that contention. The stakes were lower that day, but their competitive natures persisted. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      4 People Accused of $13 Million in Pro Athlete Fraud Schemes

      by

      Prosecutors said the people, including a former N.B.A. agent, took money from professional basketball players and spent it on luxury goods and home renovations.Four people were arrested Thursday and charged with collectively defrauding four professional men’s basketball players out of more than $13 million, according to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.In one scheme, three players were allegedly persuaded to purchase more than $5 million worth of life insurance policies at an enormous markup. In another, a fourth player spent $7 million to buy a women’s professional basketball team, but prosecutors said the money never went toward a purchase. In the third scheme, a player spent $1 million to fund a player representation agency that never existed, according to the indictment.“These defendants believed that defrauding their professional athlete clients of millions of dollars would be a layup,” Williams said in a statement. “That was a huge mistake, and they now face serious criminal charges for their alleged crimes.”Darryl Cohen, Brian Gilder, Charles Briscoe and Calvin Darden Jr. were each charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.Cohen, who was formerly a broker at Morgan Stanley, was also charged with one count of investment adviser fraud. Briscoe, who was formerly a certified N.B.A. agent, was also charged with one count of aggravated identify theft.Cohen, Gilder, Briscoe and Darden could not be reached for comment, and court filings did not list lawyers for any of them. Brandon Reif, a lawyer who previously represented Cohen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.In a statement, Morgan Stanley, where Cohen worked from 2015 to 2021, said he had been “terminated” in March 2021 and had since been barred from the securities industry. “We fully cooperated with the investigation and have resolved clients’ claims related to Mr. Cohen,” a spokeswoman for the firm said.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint against Cohen.The identities of the professional athletes that prosecutors say were defrauded were not released. But many of the details of the life insurance scheme appear to match claims made by Jrue and Lauren Holiday, Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, who previously described allegations of being defrauded by Cohen to The New York Times.Jrue Holiday plays for the N.B.A.’s Milwaukee Bucks, and Lauren Holiday, his wife, is a former professional soccer player. Parsons and Lee are former N.B.A. players. They all said they had filed claims against Cohen with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees brokerage firms.According to the indictment, between about 2017 and 2020, Cohen and Gilder induced three N.B.A. players to purchase about $6.2 million in life insurance policies, from which Cohen and Gilder “secretly profited” about $4.5 million. Cohen allegedly gave about $200,000 of the money to a person with whom he was in a romantic relationship and used the other funds to pay off a former professional baseball player who was threatening to sue him, to pay his credit card bill, and to renovate his home, according to prosecutors.Another plan involved purchasing a women’s professional basketball team, according to the indictment. An N.B.A. player had wanted to purchase the team, but was forbidden from doing so by the N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement.The player discussed an “arrangement” with Briscoe, Darden and others, in which the player would indirectly buy the team through a company controlled by one of Darden’s relatives, prosecutors said. The player transferred $7 million to a bank account, which was controlled by Darden, to purchase the team. But instead, prosecutors said, Darden transferred more than $1 million to Briscoe and more than $500,000 to a relative, then spent the rest on cryptocurrencies, a house, luxury cars, art and a piano.Cohen, Briscoe and Darden are also accused of defrauding an N.B.A. player who wanted to start a player representation agency that he would run after he retired, according to court filings. The player gave Briscoe $1 million so the agency could pay expenses involved with signing a highly touted prospect. But prosecutors said the prospect never signed with the agency, and that the purported contract he signed was forged. The money allegedly was transferred to Briscoe, who paid off a debt and gave some of it to Darden, according to the indictment. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Basket

      Grizzlies Guard Ja Morant Moves Toward ‘Redemption’ After Gun Video

      by

      Back from an eight-game suspension, the Memphis Grizzlies guard said he had more work to do to improve himself. But there was also a hint of defiance in his approach.MEMPHIS — When Ja Morant checked into his first game in almost three weeks on Wednesday, Grizzlies fans at the FedEx Forum wrapped him in the warm embrace of a standing ovation and prolonged roars.In a way, they offered him a protective shield from the harsh glare of the spotlight that has fixed itself on Morant, 23, ever since he blithely flashed a gun during an Instagram live session and was forced to acknowledge that some of his off-court behavior could hurt his bright future. Before Wednesday’s game against Houston, Morant had missed the Grizzlies’ past nine games — eight of them because the N.B.A. suspended him without pay for the gun incident. He was a little nervous about his return.“Seeing how the fans reacted to me being back definitely helped me a lot,” Morant said. “Made me feel good inside and yeah. It was, I don’t know. …”His voice began to trail off.“I can’t put it into words,” Morant said. “I’m kind of numb right now but thankful for everybody.”Behind the scenes, Morant had offered to come off the bench. The Grizzlies had won six of their last seven games with Tyus Jones starting at point guard. “I didn’t want to come back and mess any of that chemistry up,” Morant said.He had started every game in his four-year N.B.A. career, but he scored 17 points off the bench in the Grizzlies’ 130-125 win over the Rockets. He still showed some of the dynamism that has made him one of the most exciting players in the N.B.A.Morant is averaging a career-best 8.1 assists per game this season.Petre Thomas/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut his return has included a mix of contrition and defiance, the kind of uncertainty that can sharpen into a course correction or harden into regression. What is at stake for Morant is not just success this season; he could be one of the faces of the league for years to come. He is only 23 and has the skill and the style of a superstar, a brash confidence on the court and the talent to back it up. And now he has experienced one more element of stardom: a glimpse of how quickly it can all go away.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver noted Morant’s “enormous following and influence” in the announcement of the suspension, which classified the gun incident as conduct detrimental to the league. The Instagram live video was posted early on March 4, when, the N.B.A. said, Morant had been “in an intoxicated state” at a nightclub in the Denver area. Morant soon left the team and checked into a facility in Florida for counseling. He said he spent the time learning how to better deal with stress and improve himself.But the most important thing Morant said this week was that his work isn’t finished.“I’ve been there for two weeks, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely better,” Morant said. “That’s an ongoing process for me that I’ve still been continuing ever since I’ve been out.”The nightclub incident was just one in a series of concerning off-court situations in which people said they felt threatened by Morant or his associates, going back to last summer, according to reports in The Washington Post and The Athletic.During an interview with ESPN last week, Morant indicated he understood that he had played a role in those situations. But on Tuesday, while speaking with a group of reporters for the first time since his suspension, he responded defiantly when asked how he came to realize he was wrong.“I said I had a role, but I didn’t say anything about doing anything wrong, still,” Morant said. “So all those cases is sealed, so I can’t speak on those cases. When I have my time to, everybody will know the actual truth in every incident that I’ve been in.”Morant had rejoined the Grizzlies on Monday, but because he had not been working out while in Florida, he needed more time to prepare for a return. He addressed the team on Monday, but declined to share details of what he had said. It seemed meaningful to his teammates.“He’s talked to everybody, and the way he’s approaching things is very professional,” said Luke Kennard, who was traded to the Grizzlies six weeks ago. “And he’s keeping it straightforward with everybody. That’s what we want.”Morant is in his fourth season with the Grizzlies, having come to the team as a small but electrifying point guard out of Murray State. He is the leader on a talented young team that has been one of the best in the Western Conference all season even as Memphis has worked through extended injuries to key players.Last season, the Grizzlies had the second best record in the West, and businesses all over downtown Memphis painted images of Morant on their windows for the playoffs. The Grizzlies lost to the eventual champions, Golden State, in the second round, in a series that Morant thought Memphis could have just as easily won.Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Morant seemed hesitant to commit to playing on Wednesday, even though Grizzlies Coach Taylor Jenkins had said he expected him to. Morant said he was “completely sorry” for bringing negative attention to the team and his family. He was defensive at times. He admitted he was uncomfortable standing there. One reporter asked what role alcohol might have played in some of his mistakes, and instead of answering that question, Morant said he “never had an alcohol problem.”On Wednesday morning, Morant smiled and joked with his teammates during the Grizzlies’ shootaround. Blake Ahearn, one of the team’s assistant coaches, looked warily at the baseline where a crowd of reporters had gathered to watch the end of the session.“Lot of people here today,” he said.Memphis had suddenly become the center of the N.B.A. world for reasons it never wanted. And as always, all eyes were on Morant.“He’s been kindhearted, lighthearted, he’s smiling,” guard Desmond Bane said after the shootaround. “I think he’s in a good spot. We had a short conversation and he said it’s the best spot he’s been in mentally since he got drafted.”Tee Morant, right, Ja’s father, wore a hoodie with the word “redemption” on the front to Wednesday’s game against the Rockets. Tee is a regular and vocal supporter at Ja’s games.Petre Thomas/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBefore Morant left home Wednesday afternoon, he said, he reflected on his feelings — the excitement and the apprehension — and talked himself through them. He said he meditated before the game.About 45 minutes before the game began, Morant arrived on the court to warm up, and members of his family sat courtside. Some of them wore sweatshirts with Morant’s image printed on them along with the word “redemption.”“That was my family’s idea,” Morant said. “It’s me coming back after some negative things have been said constantly throughout this whole basically, what, year and a half now? How I felt? Kind of like a redemption, obviously.”There again was a little bit of defiance, an implication that the real problem had been what people said about Morant, not what he had been doing. But he followed it with words that sounded more introspective and contrite.“It could have been worse,” Morant said. “I got a second chance. I feel like it’s only going to make it right. Show who Ja is as a person. And that’s my family’s message with the hoodies.”When fans saw Morant arrive, they started cheering. Jaren Jackson Jr., who scored a game-high 37 points for Memphis on Wednesday, tried to remain stone-faced. That didn’t last long.“I was cheesing,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t hold it in, for real.”Jackson began tracking the cheers: how fans in the lower deck cheered as soon as Morant came onto the court. How the people in the upper decks didn’t see him at first, but then cheered when the video board showed him. How they cheered again when Morant entered the game with about three minutes remaining in the first quarter. How they cheered a first-quarter dunk that Morant had woven through two defenders to make.“We just wanted him back,” Jackson said, smiling.The Grizzlies wrote a feel-good story on Wednesday night, but it is one that is still unsettled.It has been a little more than a week since Morant returned from the counseling center in Florida. It was an extraordinary step to take during an N.B.A. season, but, as Morant has noted, too short of a visit to make the kind of change necessary to assure his future. He will have months and years to confirm the sincerity of his commitment.Morant has the support of Grizzlies fans, who cheered him throughout his return to play on Wednesday.Justin Ford/Getty Images More

    • 188 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      NBA ‘Bad Boy’ Wants Players to Do as He Says, Not as His Teams Did

      by

      Joe Dumars was on the 1980s Detroit Pistons teams known for their hard fouls. But players and coaches who step out of line today can expect fines and suspensions — from him.Joe Dumars chuckled at his desk in Midtown Manhattan as framed portraits of links to the N.B.A.’s past — Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Gus Williams — loomed behind him.His Detroit Pistons of the 1980s were notorious for the bruising physicality of Rick Mahorn, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman and earned their Bad Boys nickname with a knock-you-down-and-answer-questions-later bully brand of basketball.No way could Dumars pick just one particularly egregious play to characterize the teams.“I’ve had Rick and Bill say to me, ‘Next time he gets it, let him beat you.’ They would drop people,” Dumars said. “They wanted to send a message. They didn’t take a night off of being physical.”They are also like the portraits in Dumars’s office — pieces of a bygone N.B.A. era. Dumars, 59, oddly enough, is the one making sure of it. He develops new rules and imposes discipline in his first year as the N.B.A.’s executive vice president, head of basketball operations.Yes, a principal member of the Bad Boys is charged with punishing those who would dare throw elbows and punches just like his Pistons teammates did.“It’s really good to have somebody that knows what it looks like,” Dumars said. “There is no utopian view here. I know the ugly side of it. I know the physical side of it. I know the nasty side of it.”A fight between the Detroit Pistons’ Bill Laimbeer and the Chicago Bulls’ Will Perdue during the 1991 N.B.A. playoffs.Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesThis season, players and coaches have been fined or suspended for many infractions: hitting, kicking and throwing balls into the stands; grabbing one player by the neck; striking another in the groin; making obscene gestures and using inappropriate language. So many players were suspended after a melee between the Magic and the Pistons that the punishments were staggered to ensure that Orlando had enough players to continue competing.Discipline in the N.B.A. is more consuming and complex than ever, as it’s easier for wayward behavior to be captured, broadcast, debated and overblown. Players are fined for offensive social media posts, and fans can share videos and screenshots of bad interactions with players. Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was recently suspended for eight games after livestreaming a video on Instagram while holding a gun in a nightclub. It’s not the same league Dumars played in for 14 years.“I’m not a traditionalist in the way that the game can’t ever change,” he said.‘Got away with it’In late January, a general manager sent Dumars a video of an opponent stripping the ball from one of his team’s players. The defender jumped and swung where he thought the ball would be, but he hit the player’s head instead and was called for a foul. The G.M. wanted the call to be upgraded to a flagrant foul.Dumars, who was Detroit’s president of basketball operations for 14 seasons, knows from experience that teams will try to extract an advantage by almost any means. That often includes tattling to the league.Dumars and four or five people review foul calls by cycling through clips from several angles. Monty McCutchen, a former longtime official, and Byron Spruell, the president of league operations, are usually part of the process.The former referee Monty McCutchen spoke to a referee during the 2019 summer league.David Dow/NBAE, via Getty Images“You’re trying to drive consistency, so people know that you’re fair about this,” Dumars said. “Everything that we do, there’s precedent.”The review group concluded that the head-hitting play did not meet the criteria for a flagrant foul. “He was going for the ball and he happened to catch the guy,” Dumars said.The play probably would not have received a second thought during Dumars’s N.B.A. career from 1985-99.“Outright brawls where guys are flinging punches, throwing guys over the scoring table,” Sam Smith, a longtime basketball writer, said of the league’s rivalries of the 1980s. “Fights going into the stands. Stuff that nobody in this generation has witnessed.”Smith wrote “The Jordan Rules,” the 1991 book that detailed the Bad Boys’ ruthless strategies to try to stop Michael Jordan with hard contact when he played for the rival Chicago Bulls.Although the Jordan rules are nostalgic hyperbole to an extent — “just trying to make that guy most of the time go left,” Dumars said — those Pistons teams ensured opponents’ aching bodies wouldn’t let them forget who they had played the night before.Smith said, “There hasn’t really been a rivalry since the Bulls and the Pistons, a rivalry in the sense of absolute bitterness where the teams hated each other and wanted each other not just to fail, but for careers to be over.”Michael Jordan battles for position against Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pistons circa 1990 at the Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit.Allen Einstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesDumars drew just four technical fouls over his 14 seasons. “I was out of control,” he joked. “But one of those was rescinded.”The N.B.A.’s sportsmanship award is named after him now, but he wasn’t always the court choir boy. He’d speed up to try to initiate contact when he saw a big man approach to set a screen.“The referees never looked at me in a negative way because they assumed I wasn’t trying to do that,” Dumars said. “I probably got away with it a little bit more than I should have, just on reputation.”The N.B.A. didn’t call flagrant fouls until the 1990-91 season. The year before, on-court altercations led to 67 fines (of 101 total fines) and eight suspensions. Typical seasons in the Bad Boys era had about 40 fines and a half-dozen suspensions for on-court altercations. Last season, there were 48 fines — 15 for on-court altercations — and 180 flagrant fouls. The N.B.A.’s data on individual and total flagrant fouls goes back to only the 2004-5 season, a league official said.“It’s a different game and if you tried to play the style that we played, in today’s game, you’d be in foul trouble,” Dumars said.And if you complain about it, you might get in trouble, too.‘Junking the game up’Toronto’s Fred VanVleet knew the consequences. “I’ll take a fine,” he said before profanely criticizing the referee Ben Taylor by name after a recent game against the Los Angeles Clippers. “I don’t really care.”Dumars fined him $30,000 the next day for “public criticism of the officiating.”Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, left, was fined $30,000 for criticizing officials in a news conference this month. He singled out Ben Taylor, right, who had called him for a technical foul against the Clippers.Cole Burston/Getty ImagesPlayers and coaches often complain about officiating, even if it costs them. In December, for example, Dallas Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd was ejected and fined $25,000 for confronting a referee during a game. The week before, Sacramento Kings Coach Mike Brown was ejected and fined $25,000 for “aggressively pursuing” an official during a game.Some players, like Golden State’s Draymond Green, have argued that they were unfairly called for technical fouls, or that they were punished more harshly than others for similar violations. The N.B.A. rescinded a technical foul that had been called on Green’s teammate Jordan Poole this month after he bounced the ball to a referee.The punishments and the pushback aren’t unique to basketball, and Dumars said he’s open to hearing the grievances. His phone number is plastered around league locker rooms. Players, agents and coaches sometimes call. Mostly, it’s general managers, his former peers, politicking, complaining and gossiping.One of Dumars’s former colleagues recently called him, bemoaning that his team had allowed 68 points by halftime.“You know what the shame of it was?” he told Dumars. “We were up by 5.”Many rules changes over the years have made it easier for players to score, such as one of Dumars’s initiatives for this season: stiffer penalties for defenders who commit blatant fouls to stop breakaway plays.Teams are averaging 114.5 points per game this season, the most since the 1969-70 season. Fast break points are up. A new player tops 50 points, it seems, nearly every night.“The game is so clean now, it’s just about who’s the best player,” Dumars said. “There’s nothing that’s junking the game up.”‘Protect the game’A car arrived at the N.B.A.’s Midtown headquarters in January to transport Dumars to that night’s game between the Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.“Joe D,” a Madison Square Garden security guard said with a fist bump. “It was better in the ’80s and ’90s.”Dumars smiled, taking an elevator up to the court level. Knicks General Manager Scott Perry pulled him aside for a short conversation. A fan offered to buy him a drink. “I don’t drink,” Dumars said, “but I’m addicted to popcorn.”Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka exchanged pleasantries with Dumars on the way to his seat.“You’re just a steward of the game,” Dumars said. “You have to be there to protect the game and make sure that it’s clean.”Bedel Saget/The New York TimesDays earlier, referees had missed a clear foul by Boston’s Jayson Tatum on the Lakers’ LeBron James that would have allowed James to shoot free throws to try to win the game in regulation. Instead, Boston won in overtime. Dumars was happy that the referees immediately owned up to the blown call after the game, which rekindled a debate about how instant replay and coaches’ challenges should be used in the future.“Usually, something happens in the game that sparks a conversation, so that’s on the table now,” Dumars said.The Knicks-Lakers matchup featured few disputed plays and no technical fouls. Dumars watched, marveling at the longevity of James, who ended the night with a triple-double and would soon break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record.The Lakers beat the Knicks in overtime. Dumars walked inside the underbelly of the Garden to an elevator, then to a car to take him back to his apartment.The job doesn’t keep Dumars up at night, the way, say, trading a player once did.It does keep him busy. Over the next few days, Memphis’ Dillon Brooks hit Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell in the groin and Orlando’s Mo Bamba and Minnesota’s Austin Rivers fought. Brooks, Bamba and Rivers were all suspended. Mitchell was fined for retaliating by throwing a ball at Brooks and pushing him.“You’re just a steward of the game,” Dumars said. “You have to be there to protect the game and make sure that it’s clean. There’s always something. There will be something.” More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Basket

      Willis Reed, Hall of Fame Center for Champion Knicks, Dies at 80

      by

      He was beloved by New York fans for his willingness to play hurt, as memorably exemplified in the decisive Game 7 of the 1970 N.B.A. finals at Madison Square Garden.Willis Reed, the brawny and inspirational hub of two Knicks championship teams that captivated New York in the early 1970s with a canny, team-oriented style of play, died on Tuesday. He was 80.His death was confirmed by his former teammate Bill Bradley, the former United States senator. He said Reed had congestive heart issues. It was not clear where Reed died, but he had been under treatment at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Bradley said.Reed was notably absent last month, for health reasons, when the Knicks celebrated their 1972-73 championship team during a 50th-anniversary halftime ceremony at Madison Square Garden attended by many former members of that squad, including Bradley, Walt Frazier, Dick Barnett, Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas. Reed spoke to the crowd in a prerecorded video.In an era when Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain were the more celebrated big men, Reed was a highly skilled 6-foot-9 center with a resolute physicality that was much admired over a 10-year career, though it was marred by injury and ended at 31.It was Reed’s willingness to play hurt that brought him his greatest measure of respect and fame, and his grittiness was never more exemplified and celebrated than on May 8, 1970, in the decisive game of the National Basketball Association finals.Days earlier, he had torn a right tensor muscle, which originates in the hip and extends to the thigh, while driving to the basket on Chamberlain during the first quarter of Game 5 at Madison Square Garden — a game the Knicks rallied to win without him. Saving whatever he had left for a possible Game 7, he sat out Game 6 in Los Angeles, in which Chamberlain scored 45 points.When the Knicks went out to warm up before the start of Game 7, Reed stayed behind in the trainer’s room for treatment. As everyone in the packed Garden anxiously awaited word on whether he would play, he made his way stiff-legged through the players’ tunnel and emerged to a crescendo of cheers to join his teammates, who were already warming up.“You’re five stories above the ground and I swear you could feel the vibrations,” Reed said in 2009. “I thought, this is what an earthquake must feel like.”Limping noticeably, he hit his first two southpaw jump shots for his only points of the game. Frazier carried the Knicks from there, with 36 points and 19 assists, and the Knicks, with a 113-99 victory, clinched the franchise’s first title.In 1990, around the 20th anniversary of Game 7, Reed told The New York Times: “There isn’t a day in my life that people don’t remind me of that game.”Heroism Under DuressHis threshold for tolerating pain — however much dulled that night by pregame injections of carbocaine, a powerful derivative of novocaine — has for decades been invoked as a standard measure, a “Willis Reed moment,” for athletic heroism under physical duress.“It was the best example of inspiration by an individual in a sporting event I’ve ever seen,” Bradley once said.Reed won the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award for the 1969-70 season and was named the M.V.P. of the championship series. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1965, was voted an All-Star seven times and won another N.B.A. title and finals M.V.P. with the Knicks in 1973. For his career, he averaged 18.7 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.He was chosen by the N.B.A. for its 50th and 75th anniversary teams. In 1996, he was chosen by the N.B.A. as one of its 50 greatest players. His No. 19 uniform jersey — white with blue and orange trim — was the first to be retired by the Knicks, on Oct. 21, 1976. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.After his playing days, Reed was a coach or executive for the Knicks, the New Jersey Nets and the New Orleans Hornets. He was part of the Nets’ front office when the team lost consecutive N.B.A. finals in 2002 and 2003. He also coached at Creighton University from 1981 to 1985, and was an assistant coach in the N.B.A. for the Atlanta Hawks and the Sacramento Kings.Reed, a Louisiana native, was an avid outdoorsman. His hobby fit his playing persona as a rugged, proud man whose patience wore thin with those who challenged or crossed him.The Knicks’ starting five after winning a playoff game against the Milwaukee Bucks in 1970. From left were Dick Barnett, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Reed. Dan Farrell/New York Daily News Archive, via Getty ImagesOn Oct. 18, 1966, at Madison Square Garden, the Los Angeles Lakers learned the hard way that Reed was no one to fool with. Beginning his third season with the Knicks, Reed was embroiled in a battle with the Lakers’ Rudy LaRusso, a bruising 6-foot-7 forward. Throughout the game, Reed had been complaining to the officials about LaRusso’s tactics, but when his pleas were ignored he acted on his own.Lined up at the free-throw line late in the third quarter, Reed elbowed LaRusso to the side of the head. On the way up court, LaRusso responded with a chopping punch. Reed, in a sudden fury, shook off Darrall Imhoff’s bear hug from behind and floored the 6-foot-10 Imhoff, cutting him near the eye; he broke the nose of John Block, a 6-foot-9 rookie, who had foolishly stepped into his space; and he finally chased LaRusso into the Lakers’ bench, throwing wild punches and sending several of the players fleeing from Reed’s range.A grainy black-and-white film of the melee surfaced in 2014 in an ESPN documentary on the Knicks teams of the early 1970s. In the film, “When the Garden Was Eden,” Reed sheepishly called it “a good fight.”He also recalled being upset that none of his teammates had joined the fray and noted their reticence in the postgame locker room. Barnett later said that he had remarked, “Man, you were winning.”A Gentle GiantOff the court, Reed was a much gentler giant, flashing an easy smile and typically extending a large hand to greet friends and acquaintances. Within the Knicks organization, he was known to be generous with teammates in an era when financial rewards in professional sports were not as substantial as they are today.“Willis would always take the rookies under his wing,” Frazier, a Hall of Fame guard on those championship teams, was quoted as saying in “Garden Glory: An Oral History of the New York Knicks,” written by Dennis D’Agostino and published in 2003. “He would loan you his car or money. That was his personality.”He was also recognized as a natural leader. Shortly after the brawl with the Lakers, he was named team captain — a role he had filled for his high school basketball and football teams and during his junior and senior seasons as a star at the historically Black Grambling College (now Grambling State University). He was just 24.Reed after the Knicks beat the Lakers on May 8, 1970. Off the court, he was a gentle giant, flashing an easy smile and typically extending a large hand to greet friends and acquaintances. Associated Press‘We Made the Best of It’Willis Reed Jr. was born on June 25, 1942, in Hico, La., the only child of Willis and Inell Reed. As a young boy, he lived on a 200-acre farm owned by his grandparents, Baptist teetotalers who preached commitment and hard work.When Reed reached school age, his parents moved about 10 miles away to Bernice, a town of three square miles in north central Louisiana that was then a thriving lumber and agricultural community. His father worked in a sawmill factory, and his mother worked as a domestic.Reed grew up with an acute sense of what Jim Crow law meant: separate but not really equal. “Didn’t have the houses the white folks have, didn’t have a car,” he said in 2009. “But the situation was what it was. We made the best of it in Bernice until it changed.”Still, Reed always maintained, he never harbored ill feelings for white people. He believed that attending an all-Black high school, Westside, a few miles from Bernice, provided role models for him he might not have had in an integrated school.Reed attempted to block a shot by Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics in a mid-1960s game at Madison Square Garden.Ken Regan/NBAE, via Getty ImagesMost prominent was the school’s basketball coach, Lendon Stone, who wore a jacket and tie to school every day and demonstrated to Reed that he could avoid the backbreaking work his father did.Reed majored in physical education at Grambling and planned on being a teacher until he became a dominant player, averaging 26.6 points and 21.3 rebounds per game as a senior. The Knicks drafted him with the first pick of the second round in 1964, after 10 other players had been chosen. With their first-round pick, the Knicks selected another big man, Jim Barnes, who had beaten Reed out for a spot on the 1964 United States Olympic team.Reed believed he was better than Barnes and most of the other first-round picks, and he was determined to prove it. When he was offered his first Knicks contract, for $11,000 with a $3,000 signing bonus, he told Eddie Donovan, the team’s general manager, that he wanted a bigger bonus. Told that the team wanted him to earn it on the court, Reed accepted the challenge and vowed to make Donovan pay him after the season.As team captain, Reed took his leadership responsibilities seriously, and Red Holzman, his coach, relied on him to motivate and police teammates as the Knicks improved dramatically from the middle to the late 1960s.They narrowly missed making the N.B.A. finals in 1969, losing a tough six-game series to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. With Russell retired by the next season, the Knicks reeled off 17 early-season victories in a row, equaling a record then held by Boston.Reed battled for the ball with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Milwaukee Bucks, then known as Lew Alcindor, in a 1970 Eastern Division playoff game.Associated PressTriumphs and ChallengesThey appeared to be a team of destiny. But along the way to the championship there were significant challenges, one of which was internal and demanded Reed’s exceptional leadership to quell a festering internal conflict.In mid-January of that season, Cazzie Russell, the Knicks’ best offensive substitute, was late to a practice on an off-day in Detroit. Driving out of Ann Arbor, where he was visiting with friends, Russell was pulled over by the police and ordered out of the car at gunpoint. When he produced a driver’s license, the officers apologized and explained that an African American male with a beard had broken out of prison. Russell, who was African American, had a beard.Upon arriving at practice, upset by what he considered to be a case of racial profiling, Russell began throwing elbows at the Knicks’ white players, in particular Bradley, a college rival at Princeton who had joined the Knicks after Russell and who eventually took his starting forward position.Reed halted the scrimmage, approached Russell and asked what he was doing. In “The Open Man,” a diary of the 1969-70 season, the Knicks’ Hall of Fame forward Dave DeBusschere recalled that Russell blurted out, “Be quiet, Uncle Tom.”For Reed, a child of the segregated South, it was deeply offensive to be spoken to in such a way, especially in front of his teammates. Russell quickly realized the risk he had taken. He had made his N.B.A. debut in 1966 on the night Reed brawled with the Lakers.Reed returned to Madison Square Garden in 2010 to join his former teammates in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Knicks’ first championship.Jason Szenes/The New York TimesBut when Reed was at Grambling in the early 1960s, his team occasionally competed against white teams in the national small-college tournament. His coach, Fred Hobdy, admonished his players about allowing the incendiary issue of race to infect their mental preparation and execution.“He used to say, ‘Listen, you guys are athletes, and you don’t need to be out there demonstrating — the best thing you can do is what you do best,’” Reed said in 2009.On the Knicks, which had Black and white players, Reed intuitively recognized the danger of the team splintering or Russell being emasculated if he overreacted to the insult.Reed stepped forward and issued a blunt warning to Russell: Be quiet, play the right way, or “this Uncle Tom will be kicking some ass.” Given a moment to gather himself, Russell apologized.The Knicks kept winning, and Russell helped them hold off the Baltimore Bullets in the decisive game of a first-round playoff series, on a night when Bradley played poorly and the team needed a fourth-quarter lift.Recalling the incident in 2010 when he was back in New York for a 40th-anniversary celebration, Russell called Reed “an amazing man.”Bradley said the incident with Russell captured the essence of Reed, whom he called “a strong and selfless leader, who was the heart of our team.“Even as the league’s M.V.P.,” Bradley continued, “he knew that the individual was never as important as the team, and that points were transitory, championships were forever.”Reed’s greatest triumphs were the two championships in New York, but his most deflating career moment also came at Madison Square Garden. On Nov. 10, 1978, he was summoned there by Sonny Werblin, the Garden’s president, and fired just 14 games into his second season as Knicks coach, despite having made the playoffs in the previous season.Reed did return to the Knicks in a nominal administrative role around the turn of the century. But he accepted an offer to join the New Orleans front office as vice president of basketball operations in June 2003. His widowed mother’s health was failing, and he relished the opportunity to be closer to the home he had built for her in Bernice.The plan went awry when Inell Reed died four months later.Reed’s survivors include his second wife, Gale Kennedy, and a daughter, Veronica, whom he had with his first wife, Geraldine (Oliver) Reed. A son, Karl, also from his first marriage, died in 2017 at 53. In 2005, the New Orleans franchise was temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Two years later, approaching his 65th birthday, Reed retired from basketball.On a lush, sprawling property not far from Grambling, with oak trees and man-made streams, Reed built a home far from the bright lights of New York, where he could count on being recognized and extolled by baby boomers on sight.Upon his retirement, Reed told The Times, “Call me in Louisiana and my wife will tell you I’ve gone fishing.” More