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      With Brittney Griner’s Release, Anxiety Turns to Relief

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      HOUSTON — Brianna Turner was sleeping Thursday morning when her mother burst into her room to say that Brittney Griner, her teammate on the Phoenix Mercury, had been freed in a prisoner swap after nearly a year of captivity in Russia.“I was debating if I was still dreaming or not,” recalled Ms. Turner, who grew up in the Houston area and watched Ms. Griner play in high school there, long before their years together in professional basketball. “I’m just really excited for her to feel safe, feel secure, be with her wife and kind of just, like, recover.”The sudden release brought forth an outpouring of gratitude and relief on Thursday after 294 days of anxiety and anticipation, from the suburbs of Houston to the streets of Phoenix, where Ms. Griner had held court as the biggest star in the W.N.B.A.Because she represented so much to so many, her imprisonment had hit especially hard. Ms. Griner had found support in the L.G.B.T.Q. community, whose leaders feared for her safety as a Black lesbian imprisoned in Russia, and in her native Texas, where pastors and politicians worked to keep her from being left to serve a long, harsh prison term.To some, her initial arrest on drug charges had seemed like a momentary spasm in the tense diplomatic relationship between the United States and Russia, a minor political situation that would quickly be resolved.But as the weeks stretched to months, concern grew — particularly over the summer, “when there was no contact,” said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, who had helped keep pressure on the Biden administration to negotiate for Ms. Griner’s release, including a rally in June in the city’s downtown.“We had no way of knowing if progress was being made or if we were losing ground,” said Bishop James E. Dixon, the president of the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., who worked with Ms. Jackson Lee. “The uncertainty was a burden to carry.”Ms. Griner was found guilty of trying to smuggle illegal drugs into Russia after the authorities found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her carry-on luggage on Feb. 17 as she traveled to Russia to play for a high-paying professional team during the W.N.B.A. off-season.Supporters of Ms. Griner watched with dismay as her situation worsened over the course of the year: from arrest, to courtroom appearances, to a sentence of nine years and then a transfer to a penal colony. “Each one of those moments, where you’re hopeful, but then hopes are dashed,” Bishop Dixon said.At a home just outside Houston listed as a former address for Ms. Griner, a basketball hoop lay rim-down in the backyard grass, visible from a neatly tended and quiet cul-de-sac. A sign on the front door suggested the long, arduous and public difficulties faced by her family: “No Media. No Trespassing. Just Pray. Thanks.”Ernest Alfaro, who lives two doors down, said he and his family had been praying for Ms. Griner and for her father, Ray, who he said still lived in the home. In a statement, members of the Griner family thanked President Biden and his administration and requested privacy “as we embark on this road to healing.”Since the time Ms. Griner disappeared into the Russian prison system, said Mr. Alfaro, a pastor at a local church, “We started praying for her family.”Ms. Turner, Ms. Griner’s teammate, said she had corresponded by letter with Ms. Griner during her confinement but had not heard from her since mid-October, when she was moved to the penal colony.“In the beginning, I felt denial, and then I was confused, and then I was like, ‘How is this possible?’” Ms. Turner said. “There’s so many millions of people that live in America, and I happen to know one of the few who are detained in Russia. Even today has felt surreal.”Vince Kozar, the president of the Mercury, had also been exchanging letters with Ms. Griner. The Mercury had tried to keep her plight in the public eye during her imprisonment as a way of reminding the Biden administration how many people wanted her home, Mr. Kozar said.So too did Chris Mosier, a pathbreaking transgender endurance athlete who has competed for the U.S. internationally.A Chicago resident, Mr. Mosier showed up at every Chicago Sky game with signs or T-shirts reminding people about Ms. Griner. He spoke about her whenever given the opportunity: at conferences around the world and across his social media accounts.“As an athlete, I feel really passionately about this, because this could have happened to any of us,” he said.And so on Thursday the tension of her captivity gave way to a kind of national exhalation.Carly Givens, a Phoenix Mercury fan, at a mural featuring Brittney Griner at the Footprint Center in Phoenix on Thursday.Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic, via USA Today NetworkOutside the Footprint Center in Phoenix, home to Ms. Griner’s team, Danae McKnight wore a “We Are B.G.” T-shirt and said she had felt she had to come to the stadium after hearing the news. “So I went, got a beer, celebrated a little bit — it just felt right,” she said.The imprisonment felt to Ms. McKnight and her wife as though “our friend or our loved one was locked up,” she said.Ms. Jackson Lee said that while Ms. Griner was initially stopping at a military base in San Antonio on Friday, it was not clear where she would go after that. “We’re just ecstatic for her wife, for her mother and father,” she said.Ms. Turner, her teammate on the Mercury, said that she did not know when she would speak to or see Ms. Griner — “I don’t even know if she has the same phone number,” she said — but that when they reunited, she would ask where she felt like eating. They bond over food, she said, and when playing on the road, they often visit the cookie chain Crumbl.“Right now, she should prioritize her recovery and adjusting to being back home,” Ms. Turner said.Kendra Venzant, the coach of the Lady Cougars basketball team at Chester W. Nimitz High School, where Ms. Griner once played, learned of her release with a constant pinging and ringing on her cellphone as friends and relatives called and texted on Thursday.The two women had been teammates at the high school outside Houston — Ms. Venzant the senior point guard, Ms. Griner the towering freshman — and Ms. Griner had returned to the school as recently as last year to talk to the next generation of young players.“I immediately just thanked God, because you never know the time or the hour,” Ms. Venzant said, standing in her office before practice on Thursday. “That situation definitely touched my heart and the players, because I speak of Brittney Griner a lot.”The news of her release provided a burst of inspiration to the young players who had watched Ms. Griner put their school on the girls’ basketball map.“To know that she’s safe at home was definitely a blessing,” she said. “Nothing was going to steal my joy today.”Edgar Sandoval More

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      Griner’s Detention Showed the Strength and the Struggle in Women’s Sports

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      Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia on drug charges could be described through the lens of war and politics, with Griner, one of the world’s best basketball players, a casualty of an international struggle between superpowers.But in the nearly 10 months she was imprisoned until her release on Thursday, Griner became a symbol of much more: the inequities in men’s and women’s sports, the complexity of the fight for social justice, and especially the power of the W.N.B.A.’s players and their supporters, who steadily rallied for Griner’s freedom.“Women, when we’re advocating for something, when we want something to happen, we’ve got the strength of 10 men,” said Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. She added, “I hope people are watching.”Griner was released from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony in August, about six months after she was detained at an airport near Moscow when customs officials found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, heightening tensions between the United States and Russia.As the war in Ukraine complicated the White House’s negotiations for Griner’s release, the W.N.B.A. players’ union spearheaded a public campaign to free her. The players have earned a reputation for potent activism: In 2020, their support helped fuel the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s victory in a Georgia Senate race, and they dedicated their season to fighting systemic racism. This time, they leaned on President Biden to help one of their own.“We realized what power our voices have,” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. “Doing it for Brittney, I don’t think it was a burden for anyone.”Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, thanked the W.N.B.A.’s “fearless union,” in a statement celebrating Griner’s release.Disparities in SportsGriner, left, in 2021, alongside Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird. Griner has long been one of the W.N.B.A.’s top stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe spotlight of Griner’s detention brought questions about the modest W.N.B.A. salaries that push dozens of players to international teams in the off-season to make more money. Griner has been one of the W.N.B.A.’s biggest stars since the Phoenix Mercury drafted her No. 1 overall in 2013, and she won two gold medals with the U.S. women’s national team. Still, she was in Russia to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, which reportedly paid her at least $1 million, quadruple the maximum W.N.B.A. salary.“The players are going to do what they think is best for themselves,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said on Thursday, “but we definitely inform them all the time of the security risks of where they might be playing.”Dozens of American men still chose to play for Russian basketball teams during Griner’s detention, though most had little chance of making the N.B.A. But almost all American women stayed away. Many star W.N.B.A. players took pay cuts to compete for lower-paying teams in other European countries.Collier, who won the W.N.B.A. Rookie of the Year Award in 2019, said Griner’s “scary” ordeal had changed her mind about playing overseas again, even though staying home would cost her money and playing time. “For me, it’s not worth it,” she said.Since Engelbert became the commissioner in 2019, she has focused on adding sponsors and developing new ways for players to earn money, such as marketing deals with the W.N.B.A. But increasing the league’s profile and revenue has been a challenge in the face of a sports ecosystem that is mostly blind to female athletes because of its overwhelming focus on men’s sports.Big-name N.B.A. stars, such as LeBron James and Stephen Curry, leveraged that disparity and drew focus to Griner by publicly supporting her. But some critics wanted more vocal support for Griner from the N.B.A., which owns about 40 percent of the women’s league and has $10 billion in annual revenue. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said he had talked to political figures behind the scenes, but said government officials had asked the league to be low-key so as not to inflame tensions with Russia.Silver said in a statement on Thursday that he was happy Griner was coming home after enduring “an unimaginable situation.”Some have wondered whether an N.B.A. player like James would have been held as long as Griner, or detained at all. Before this episode, many average N.B.A. players would have been better known by the public than Griner, even though she’s at the top of her sport. The W.N.B.A.’s games can be hard to find, with broadcasts spread across multiple channels, streaming services and social media sites. The league has been around for 26 seasons, compared with 77 for the N.B.A.“We have to build more household names in this league,” Engelbert said.Gay, Black, Female and ‘Voiceless’Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressTed S. Warren/Associated PressGriner’s case was never simple. Even though she was said to have been in possession of only trace amounts of hashish oil, a cannabis derivative, she faced drug smuggling charges that carried the potential for a 10-year sentence. The U.S. State Department said in May that she had been “wrongfully detained,” indicating that she should be considered a hostage.“She was voiceless,” said Staley, who coached Griner on one Olympic team. “She was in a place that she couldn’t fight for herself. She couldn’t speak up for herself.”And Griner faced additional risks as a gay Black woman imprisoned in a country known for harsh treatment of people like her. In 2014, she became the first openly gay athlete to sign a deal with Nike. L.G.B.T.Q. civil rights groups, including the National Black Justice Coalition, have stood behind her. The coalition called Griner an “icon” and a “symbol of hope” in a statement as it thanked Biden for making her a “top priority.”It didn’t always seem that way to her supporters. As the months went by and Griner’s name dipped in and out of headlines, fans filled social media websites with the hashtag #WeAreBG to plead for people to care. Some pointed to Griner’s race as a potential factor in the broader public’s ebbing concern, saying that the falloff mirrored the way missing white women often draw more attention than missing Black women.Kagawa Colas, Griner’s agent, thanked “Black women, the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and civil rights leaders” in particular for standing with Griner.But even as Griner’s detention unified many athletes, fans and advocacy groups, it highlighted the unequal ways a push for justice could play out.“Brittney is going to have to endure the fact that we have people who are questioning why she’s home,” Staley said, referring to those who have criticized the government for not bringing home other wrongfully detained Americans. “Why did they choose her?”Experts have said that there are dozens of Americans held around the world, many of them classified as “wrongfully detained,” as Griner was. But often their families are their most vocal supporters, not legions of sports fans, famous athletes and other celebrities.Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife, said in a news conference with Biden on Thursday that their family would work to help free other detained Americans. Kagawa Colas said in her statement that “bringing our people home is a moral issue” and listed 13 Americans detained around the world that Griner’s closest supporters would work to release.“Our eyes have been opened through this process to your struggle and, as we have always done, B.G. and our coalition of activist athletes will ensure that silence is no longer an option,” she said. More

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      In LA Since the ’80s, the Clippers Are Finally Planting a Flag

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      Superstar players have chosen the oft-overlooked team, whose deep-pocketed owner is betting big — with his own money — that fans will choose it, too.LOS ANGELES — Steve Ballmer, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Clippers, is known for being a wacky guy. He sits courtside at home games and punches at the air wildly, leaping from his seat, dancing and shouting.He is intense.He once said he wanted to put spikes in the seats at the Clippers’ next arena to keep fans up and cheering. But he swears it was just a joke.What he really wants, and won’t get, is for the seats to vibrate.“Haptic feedback,” he said. “You know, BRRR.”If Ballmer had it his way, the whole city would buzz with excitement about the Clippers, the perennially unloved and underachieving little brother to the Lakers. He is spending his considerable energy, and billions of his fortune, to carve out real space for the Clippers in a crowded Los Angeles sports market.“What does it take to succeed when you’re behind?” Ballmer, 66, said. “Well, it takes a while. You have to be patient. It takes a while to capture people’s loyalties. You have to be successful. You got to build a good product, which means we have to have good teams out there year in and year out. Got to win championships.”He added: “I have to live a long and full life so we can get there.”The Lakers have spent decades establishing their identity as one of the N.B.A.’s glamour franchises. They are the team of Showtime, of championships, of the league’s biggest stars, like Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Hollywood’s elite come to their games to see the show and to be seen.The Clippers have struggled to define themselves, but since Ballmer bought the team in 2014 its reputation has started to change.Stars like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have chosen to join the Clippers. The team is preparing to leave Crypto.com Arena, which it shares with the Lakers and other teams in downtown Los Angeles, for a glittering new arena 11 miles away in Inglewood in 2024. The once-dominant Lakers have made the playoffs just twice since Ballmer bought the Clippers, creating an opportunity for the Clippers to gain ground among local men’s basketball fans.They have a tough history to overcome.The Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has become known for his constant presence on the sidelines, though usually not like this: He’s often one of the most rowdy fans in the building.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressThe Clippers made only four playoff appearances between 1984-85, when they moved to Los Angeles from San Diego, and 2010-11, the season before they traded for the All-Star point guard Chris Paul. The Lakers won eight championships during that period.“The Clippers always been looked at as the other team,” said Paul Pierce, the Hall of Fame player who grew up in Inglewood and spent the final two years of his 19-year N.B.A. career with the Clippers.There were moments when the Clippers flashed into the imagination of the basketball world. In the early 2000s, a group of young players — Darius Miles, Lamar Odom and Quentin Richardson among them — earned fans’ adoration with their fun personalities and the playing style of an ultra-talented pickup team. But the Clippers made the playoffs only once in the first decade of the century.“The Clippers never really had a place, you know what I mean?” said Baron Davis, 43, a retired two-time All-Star guard who grew up in Los Angeles and played for U.C.L.A. “And I knew when I signed with the Clippers, my goals in three years, four years, we wanted to make it another destination in L.A.”They did not become serious contenders until they traded with New Orleans for Paul in December 2011 and ushered in the so-called Lob City era, named for the way Paul would connect with the high-flying forward Blake Griffin for thrilling dunks to punctuate fast breaks.That period coincided with a downturn for the Lakers, opening the door for some fans, particularly younger ones, to choose the Clippers.“The Lakers sucked when I first started watching basketball,” Charlie Muir, a high school senior, said at a recent Clippers game. He added: “I saw the Clippers. They had, like, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin. It was Lob City era so it was really exciting to watch.”The teams that included Paul and Griffin had their best shot at winning a championship in 2014, but fell short and had to deal with a scandal. During the playoffs that season, TMZ published audio of the team owner Donald Sterling making racist remarks about Black people.Blake Griffin, left, and Chris Paul, not shown, brought the Clippers into the so-called Lob City era in the early 2010s as they often connected for alley oops.Chris Carlson/Associated PressBallmer’s son called him within two days of that story breaking.“Dad, that team’s going to be for sale,” Ballmer recalled his son saying. “You need to buy it.”Ballmer, a basketball fanatic who is a former chief executive of Microsoft, lived in Seattle and had grown up in Detroit, so he wasn’t familiar with the dynamics of having two major teams from the same league in the same city.“The notion that, like, somebody you run into on the street might be against your team, to me, that was like, whoa, zany,” Ballmer said.For years, Loyola Marymount University published the results of an annual survey that asked Los Angeles County residents which sports team with Los Angeles in its name was their favorite. In 2014, when there were eight such teams, 6.7 percent of respondents chose the Clippers, significantly less than the Lakers (42.9 percent) and Major League Baseball’s Dodgers (33.8 percent) but still more than the five other teams.By 2021, the Lakers and Clippers had become less favored and the N.F.L.’s Rams, which re-entered the market in 2016 after two decades away, had picked up 6 percent of the vote. There are nine professional men’s teams that have Los Angeles in their name, a W.N.B.A. team, a National Women’s Soccer League team and two colleges with major sports programs — U.C.L.A. and Southern California — that all compete for attention.The Lakers have been bad more often than not over the past decade, but they won a championship — their 17th — in 2020, giving fans a reason to celebrate.Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesThe Clippers, Lakers and Kings have shared an arena since 1999, when Staples Center — which was renamed Crypto.com Arena last year — opened in downtown Los Angeles. The W.N.B.A.’s Sparks joined them in 2001. The Clippers have third priority, so they have to build their schedule around the Lakers and Kings. They cover the Lakers’ championship banners with their own signage during home games. There are 10 statues in the plaza in front of the arena: six honoring Laker greats, three featuring Kings and one of the boxer Oscar De La Hoya. Los Angeles is the only city in the United States where multiple pairs of teams in the same sports share buildings.“I think anyone, to some degree, that is not the Lakers or Dodgers, there’s a challenger status that is a little bit unique,” said Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer.After 21 seasons in St. Louis, the Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016. They won the Super Bowl in the 2021 season, in Inglewood at SoFi Stadium, which they share with the Chargers.“Winning is the cover charge to getting people to appreciate you, especially if you’re in that challenger status,” Demoff said. But he added: “This is not a city where one championship can change your fortunes for a long time. That is just what’s expected.”Except for the Clippers, Chargers and the N.W.S.L. team Angel City F.C., which played its first season this year, all of the major professional sports teams in the Los Angeles market have won at least one championship.Thilo Kunkel, an associate professor at Temple University who studies sports branding, said it is possible, and necessary, for a team to build a brand independent of winning championships. He pointed to London, which has more than a dozen professional soccer teams, many of which have robust fan bases even when they are struggling.“Winning a championship is really putting all eggs in one basket, and that’s a basket everyone else wants as well,” Kunkel said. “A strategic way to build a brand community is creating a vision — who we are, what we stand for.”Both Kunkel and Demoff said the Clippers’ move to their own arena will be important to that end.“They’ve done a really nice job of finding their own lane in the sports brand world in Los Angeles, and now they can fully lean into that rather than having to take down signage from one game in 12 hours and put up something,” Demoff said.Ballmer’s financial commitment to differentiating the Clippers applies on and off the court. The team said it spent $10 million resurfacing 350 basketball courts in community parks around Los Angeles, and others in Inglewood, Moreno Valley (Leonard’s hometown) and Palmdale (George’s hometown). Ballmer spent $2 billion to buy the team, and he is financing the new arena, the $2 billion Intuit Dome.As the Clippers studied seating options for the new arena, they built more than 20 sets of small-scale grandstands, and Ballmer sat in all of them. In downtown Los Angeles at the Intuit Dome Experience Center, which includes sample suites and seating options, visitors can test the seats with haptic feedback (not spikes) that the team ultimately decided were too jarring. Ballmer’s goal is personalization: Clippers fans will even have some control over the temperature in their sections.To help amplify the crowd noise and create the kind of supporters section that is common in soccer stadiums, one side of the arena will have what Ballmer calls the “Wall of Sound”: 4,700 seats lined up without breaks for stairs or aisles.He has consulted his players and coaches about what to include in their new practice courts and locker rooms.Ballmer speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Clippers’ new arena, the Intuit Dome, in September 2021.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressThe players, of course, are the key to the whole revitalization.There was a time when it would have been unthinkable that superstars would choose the Clippers. Paul, after all, arrived via trade, and the team drafted Griffin No. 1 overall in 2009. But both Leonard and George spurned overtures from the Lakers and have settled in with the Clippers.“People like Kawhi because he’s soft-spoken — he don’t speak,” said Darrell Bailey, the superfan better known as Clipper Darrell. He added that he loved Leonard’s attitude. “At the end of the day, Kawhi comes and does his job.”The Clippers have kept a talented supporting cast around their stars, giving them the second-highest payroll in the N.B.A. For Ballmer, that could mean a big luxury tax bill, the financial penalty for the league’s biggest spenders.“I’ll pay it,” he said with a little sigh and shrug. In September, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $83 billion.“I’ve been extremely blessed financially,” Ballmer said. “Am I kind of an open checkbook where, you know, nothing’s too big? I don’t know. No one’s tested me on that. But I’m willing to spend.”Darrell Bailey, a superfan better known as Clipper Darrell, has followed the team since the early 1990s.Morgan Lieberman for The New York TimesBailey’s custom Clippers car.Morgan Lieberman for The New York TimesThe Clippers said they had seen a return on Ballmer’s investment. They hired three sports and consumer research agencies to study their fan base and found that it had more than tripled between 2014 and 2021. The Clippers said ticket sales and sponsorship revenue had also increased during that time.“You’ve finally got an owner that cares,” Pierce said.Before the season, Ballmer was asked if he was excited that the Clippers seemed to be healthy. He clapped his hands and the sound boomed as though a large balloon had just popped. Then he grinned and stuck out his tongue, lifting both feet off the ground as he rubbed his hands together.“Ohhh, yes, I am!” he said. “Yes, I am!”But Leonard, who missed last season with a knee injury, has played in just six of the team’s 25 games this year because of injuries. George recently missed seven straight games with his injuries. The Clippers are 14-11 — better than the Lakers but below reasonable hopes for a team with such big-name stars.While they are not resting all of their brand-building hopes on winning championships, they know how important on-court success is. Lest they forget, there are constant reminders of the championship expectations for Los Angeles sports teams. Some have won quickly after joining the fray, while the Clippers have yet to win a title in nearly four decades in Los Angeles.On Nov. 12, members of Los Angeles F.C., an expansion soccer team that played its first game in 2018, visited the Clippers. They brought along a prop that Ballmer posed with: the M.L.S. Cup trophy — their first — they had won a week before.Sopan Deb More

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      Nike and Kyrie Irving Officially End Relationship

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      The sportswear giant suspended its partnership with the N.B.A. star last month, after he posted a link to an antisemitic film on social media.Nike and the N.B.A. star Kyrie Irving ended their business partnership on Monday, finalizing a break that began when the sportswear giant suspended the relationship last month after Mr. Irving posted a link to an antisemitic film on social media.“Kyrie Irving is no longer a Nike athlete,” Nike said in a statement.Mr. Irving’s contract with Nike, which has produced the basketball star’s shoe line since 2014, was set to expire in October 2023. At the time of the suspension, Nike said it would not release Mr. Irving’s latest shoe, the Kyrie 8.“We mutually decided to part ways and we just wish Nike all the best,” Shetellia Riley Irving, Mr. Irving’s agent, said. She declined to comment further.Mr. Irving, 30, was also suspended by the Brooklyn Nets last month, though he returned to the team on Nov. 20.A few days after his initial post with the link to the film, Mr. Irving posted an apology on Instagram. “To All Jewish families and Communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize,” he wrote.Mr. Irving’s suspension last month came shortly after Kanye West made a series of antisemitic comments, causing numerous companies to cut ties with him. Notably, Adidas ended its relationship with Mr. West, who goes by Ye. Adidas, which had an entire division devoted to manufacturing and selling Yeezy merchandise, said it would likely face a loss of 250 million euros, or roughly $246 million, this year from ending that partnership.Mr. Irving’s shoes have been popular with fellow players and fans. Still, analysts have pointed out that Nike earns far more from ties to other notable stars, especially the basketball great Michael Jordan. Last year, the Jordan brand, which includes sneakers and other athletic wear, accounted for $5 billion of Nike’s $44.5 billion in total revenue. More

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      The Celtics Have Found a New Way to Be Better Than Everyone Else

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      Boston was the best defensive team last season en route to the N.B.A. finals. Not so much this year. A scorching offense has helped them to the best record this year.BOSTON — The Celtics have been many things this season.Explosive from the 3-point line. Unguardable in transition. A nightmare for defenders, who have witnessed another leap in the twin-pronged development of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, two young players who, around this time last year, were coping with criticism about whether they could coexist. Now, they have the Celtics positioned as a presumptive favorite to return to the N.B.A. finals — and perhaps win it all.Yet for all their pyrotechnics on offense, the Celtics have had their issues on defense. Through the early weeks of the season, Boston has been more pasta strainer than steel curtain when it comes to thwarting open looks. Considering everything else that the team can do — namely, score oodles of points — the Celtics have offered up some decidedly mediocre defense.But that may be changing, which is awful news for the rest of the league.Facing the Celtics last week, the Dallas Mavericks were trying to sustain a late-game surge when their All-Star guard, Luka Doncic, found a seam to the basket — only to have his finger roll rejected at the rim by Tatum. The Celtics came away with the ball and pushed it ahead to Brown, who sank a 3-pointer to seal the Boston win.As that sequence was playing out, Tatum and Doncic were left in quiet conversation at the other end.“I told him that I didn’t want him to dunk on me,” Tatum said later. “He looked at me and was like, ‘You thought I was going to dunk it?’ I was like: ‘You never know.’”The Celtics, who have won 13 of their last 14 games to improve their record to a league-best 17-4, still have a middle-of-the-pack, bend-but-don’t-break defense under Joe Mazzulla, their interim coach. Their defensive rating, which is a measure of points allowed per possession, ranked 14th in the league entering Tuesday. But over their past eight games, the Celtics have produced a top-10 defense — a sign of growth as they lean into Mazzulla’s up-tempo style while compensating for the injury absence of Robert Williams III, their starting center.Celtics guard Marcus Smart, right, who won the Defensive Player of the Year Award last season, is defending centers more often this year with center Robert Williams III out injured.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press“Our offense is so good that it hides some of our defensive flaws,” Marcus Smart, the team’s starting point guard, said in an interview. “But we’re continuously out here working, and it’s only going to get better with time.”And it will presumably improve even more later this season. After Williams underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in late September, the team said he would resume “basketball activities” in eight to 12 weeks. There are no certainties about his health, of course, but even if Williams were to return at less than full strength, his mere presence around the rim would help. Last season, he was named to the N.B.A.’s all-defensive second team.In his absence, Smart, who is 6 foot 3, has spent more time guarding opposing centers than he would prefer. After he averaged 1.7 steals a game last season, when he won the N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, Smart is averaging just 1.1 steals this season, a dip that can be attributed to his playing out of position.“Because I’m guarding the post so much, you don’t want to gamble too much,” Smart said. “It’ll be different when Rob is out there and I can gamble. But without him, I have to be solid for my team and control that back line.”The Celtics were all about grinding opponents to smithereens last season, when they led the league in defensive rating. Ime Udoka, who was in his first season as the team’s coach, made defense his priority, and it was a winning strategy. In the playoffs, Boston advanced to the N.B.A. finals before falling to Golden State in six games.Mazzulla, though, was made interim coach on the eve of training camp after the Celtics suspended Udoka for the season for unspecified “violations of team policies.” (According to two people with knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to discuss it, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate.)But while Mazzulla was an assistant under Udoka last season, he has not tried to replicate Udoka’s approach. Instead, Mazzulla has done things his own way — by recognizing the team’s unique offensive abilities. Entering Tuesday, the Celtics were leading the league in scoring, 3-pointers, 3-point percentage and offensive rating.It is also worth noting that, as a part of Boston’s off-season trade for Malcolm Brogdon, the Celtics gave up Daniel Theis, a defense-minded center. The trade, of course, was worth it: Brogdon, a point guard, has been terrific coming off the bench, and Theis has yet to play for the Indiana Pacers this season because of an injured knee.In any case, the Celtics have essentially been daring opponents to keep up with them. Sometimes, Smart said, that may mean that the Celtics give up an extra offensive rebound or two as they look to break out and run.“When you’re not really boxing out as much and having as many guys stay back, your defense is going to take a hit,” Smart said. “But we’re going to get it together.”For his part, Tatum has clearly taken another step as a defender by averaging a career-best 1.2 blocks a game. He recently described himself and Brown as “two of the best two-way players in the league.”Tatum left his imprint on the Mavericks last week. Late in the second quarter, Tatum raced in as a weakside defender to swat a layup by the Mavericks’ Dorian Finney-Smith. Tatum corralled the rebound, brought the ball upcourt himself and got fouled attempting a 3-pointer. He made all three free throws.“That’s what’s going to make him an even greater player — being able to do it on both ends,” Smart said. “We know what he can do on the offensive end. Everybody knows. But it’s even more detrimental to a team when you’re locking them up.”There are times, though, when it may not even matter.On Monday, the Celtics hosted the Charlotte Hornets, an injury-marred team that has taken up residence in the Eastern Conference basement. With Brown and Al Horford sitting out the second game of a back-to-back, Mazzulla went with a deeper rotation. Blake Griffin, who had been collecting dust bunnies on the bench for nearly two weeks, made his third start of the season and scored on the team’s opening possession. The Celtics sank 10 3-pointers in the first quarter and led by as many as 30 points before halftime.They were well on their way to another rout in a season full of them. More

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      The Utah Jazz Are Defying Everyone Who Said They Would Lose

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      Many fans and pundits expected the Utah Jazz to tank this season for a better draft pick next year. Instead, they’re among the best teams in the N.B.A.SALT LAKE CITY — The crowd roared and bounced so enthusiastically that seats in the upper deck of the arena were shaking.The public address announcer had been crowing since the third quarter that the Jazz were about to win the game, urging the Utah fans to believe it too. With 23 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Jazz up by 1 point, shooting guard Malik Beasley sank a 3-pointer and began dancing. Then his entire team rushed from the bench to surround him in celebration. When their opponent, Memphis, lost the ball on a last-second play, the fans erupted.It felt like a playoff game instead of what it really was: the seventh game of a season in which Utah is supposed to be — at least according to basketball pundits — tanking its season to gain favorable positioning in the June draft.But the Jazz (12-7) have not been playing that way. They sit near the top of the Western Conference and their players have been defiant in the face of outsiders’ disregard for them. It’s still early in the 82-game season, but the Jazz have been enjoying their success.“On the inside, we always thought we were going to compete,” Jazz forward Kelly Olynyk said. “We kind of let everybody else think and say what they want.”The N.B.A. is driven by stars, so when Utah jettisoned its two perennial All-Stars over the summer, its path seemed clear: Utah was heading into a dramatic rebuild, resting its hopes on getting high picks and making the right choices with them. Right?Kelly Olynyk was one of several players to join the Jazz over the summer through trades. He played for the Detroit Pistons last season, and has started every game for Utah this year.Nick Wass/Associated PressThe bottom-three teams in the standings at the end of the season will each have a 14 percent chance of securing the top draft pick, a selection likely to be used on Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 French prodigy. Even the second pick would net a valuable prize — the G League Ignite guard Scoot Henderson, who graduated high school early to begin his professional career. Before the season, any list of teams likely to draft Wembanyama included the Jazz.Just a few years ago it might have seemed unfathomable that the Jazz would be in the hunt for the top pick any time soon. Utah had expected center Rudy Gobert, 30, and guard Donovan Mitchell, 26, to deliver playoff magic together for years to come. Utah had acquired both in draft-day deals with Denver: Gobert in 2013, and Mitchell in 2017.In their five seasons together in Salt Lake City, they were named to a combined six All-Star teams but never got past the conference semifinals. The Jazz had the best record in the N.B.A. during the 2020-21 season, but still made a second-round playoff exit. Last season, Utah lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, and then Coach Quin Snyder resigned after eight years with the team.“I strongly feel they need a new voice to continue to evolve,” Snyder said in a statement released by the team at the time. “That’s it. No philosophical differences, no other reason.”The Jazz hired Will Hardy, a former Boston Celtics assistant, who at 34 is one of the youngest coaches in the league. Then they set to work dismantling their roster.In July they traded Gobert, a three-time defensive player of the year, to Minnesota for four first-round draft picks, a pick swap and five players: Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Leandro Bolmaro and the rookie center Walker Kessler, through his draft rights.Then they traded Beverley to the Lakers for Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson.Donovan Mitchell, left, and Rudy Gobert, right, spent five seasons together in Utah but never made it past the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs. The Jazz traded both over the summer.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressIn September, they traded Mitchell to Cleveland for three first-round draft picks, the right to swap two more first-round picks and three players: Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton and Ochai Agbaji.A few weeks later, Utah traded the talented forward Bojan Bogdanovic to the Pistons for cash, Olynyk and Saben Lee, whom they later released.Olynyk, Vanderbilt and Markkanen slid into the starting lineup. Utah also started the returning guards Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson, who won the 2020-21 Sixth Man of the Year Award.These were established N.B.A. players with starting experience, but few onlookers believed they could actually compete — or that the front office would want them to.ESPN ranked Utah 25th in a preseason ranking of all 30 N.B.A. teams. According to Basketball Reference, the Jazz were tied with the Pistons, Thunder, Magic, Pacers, Kings, Spurs and Rockets — who all missed the playoffs last season — for the worst odds to win a championship this season.Their over/under for wins was set at 23.5. Utah is already more than halfway there just a quarter of the way through the season.The Jazz startled league observers with a 123-102 win in their season opener against the Denver Nuggets, a team led by Nikola Jokic, who has been named the league’s most valuable player the past two seasons.“Every game people are surprised that we win,” Markkanen said. “We got a great coaching staff, we got great players on this team, so we can beat anybody when we play our best basketball. We try and have that underdog mentality going into games.“People really are not expecting a lot from us. Use that to fuel us — not that you really need that; we obviously go out there and compete every night. Just if we ever need some extra motivation, I guess.”The Jazz have gotten important contributions from several players, but Markkanen, 25, has undergone a bit of a personal renaissance with Utah, his third team.He’s averaging 22.4 points, 0.9 blocks, and 2.4 assists per game, all better than his career highs. His 8.5 rebounds per game this season are his most since his second N.B.A. season when he averaged nine per game with Chicago. It had been 15 years since a Jazz player had at least 70 points, 25 rebounds and 10 assists through the first three games of the season, until Markkanen did it with 72 points, 29 rebounds and 11 assists through his first three games.Hardy has helped the Jazz, who had 15 new players at training camp, jell quickly.“A young coach coming in demanding that effort from you, but then at the same time he’s like: ‘Go have fun. Be yourself. Let’s play,’” Conley, 35, told reporters this month. He added: “We’ve got a great joy for the game right now, and it’s a lot of fun to be around.”They’ve beaten struggling and surging teams alike. They’ve won games in which they’ve had early leads, and they’ve won with come-from-behind efforts. A recent three-game losing streak hinted at their flaws, but they followed it by beating the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers, teams that have been playing well this season.“Winning’s fun,” Olynyk said. “Winning’s a lot of fun.” More