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      The Nets Dumped Steve Nash. Should It Have Been Kyrie Irving?

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      The star-loaded Nets have an awful record and parted ways with Coach Steve Nash. But a bigger problem with Kyrie Irving and his antisemitic social media post remains.Be careful what you wish for. That adage comes to mind when I think of Kyrie Irving and his misguided, misinformed and downright dangerous support of antisemitism.Nets General Manager Sean Marks, in announcing the firing of Coach Steve Nash at a news conference on Tuesday, tried to say Irving’s sorry-not-sorry stance over the antisemitic and conspiratorial posts he made on social media had nothing to do with the team’s decision to part ways with Nash.He said no players were consulted, and he urged reporters not to link the coaching change and Irving’s posts.But it’s hard not to separate Irving from the disaster the Nets have become, even though they were hyped before the season as a possible title contender behind the force of Irving and Kevin Durant.Irving’s offensive posts, while no longer online, are clearly overshadowing the Nets, and the league. Some courtside fans wore T-shirts reading “Fight Antisemitism” at a home game Monday against the Indiana Pacers, and Marks said that the team has been asking for advice from the Anti-Defamation League. He would not say if Irving has been part of those conversations.He really should be, and the N.B.A., sputtering from crisis to crisis this season, should be ashamed one of its franchises has to resort to such a dialogue.This episode shows that the athlete empowerment I’ve championed has a flip side: Irving needs to consider the power of his words and his role in spreading dangerous messages to millions.Irving, the Nets point guard, is a basketball star with a megaphone. Nike sponsors him and produces his signature shoe. He is a vice president of the N.B.A. players’ union. He is not only a regular in the nationally televised sports firmament, he has 22 million followers on Twitter and Instagram.He can use his platform for good, which he has done as one of the many famed Black athletes who stood against injustice during the tumult of 2020 following the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.But he can also do as he is now — use his status to inject poison into our world.Irving recently shared to his sizable social media following a link to a film that is a case study in antisemitic tropes and the disgusting narratives that have dogged and harmed Jews for generations. I will not give the movie any more credence or legitimacy by naming it. But let’s put it this way: Any narrative that claims Jews controlled the slave trade and worship the devil deserves the firmest of condemnations.And in case you missed it, this is not the first time Irving has gone down the rabbit hole. Just a few weeks ago, he was sharing an old video of Alex Jones railing against the so-called New World Order.Alex Jones. The alt-right talk show fraud recently ordered by a jury to pay nearly $1 billion to the families he defamed after their children died in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.Has Irving expressed any remorse or doubt for any of his posts? No, none. Instead, he doubled down, sticking to what has now become the script for public cowards, casting himself as a victim of reporters and anyone else who dares to ask about his support of hatred. “Why are you dehumanizing me?” he said after Saturday’s game, claiming he did nothing wrong and denying any responsibility.Irving has shown himself as a poor and unacceptable leader for the Nets. Yet if Nash goes because he’s proved to be a mediocre coach, why should the team tolerate someone like Irving?It was easy to shrug off Irving as eccentric when he claimed with a straight face that the Earth is flat.He’s clearly a man easily duped into following conspiratorial thinking and who fails to vet or think critically about the information he consumes.Then came more warning signs he would not shirk from peddling dangerous ideas. He held tight to his anti-vaccination beliefs during the coronavirus pandemic and refused to follow science during a public health crisis that has killed over one million Americans and decimated Black and Brown communities that Irving claims to care for deeply.It’s time for the N.B.A. to consider the ramifications of having him in the league.Kyrie Irving has caused a backlash over his antisemitic and conspiratorial social media posts.Monique Jaques for The New York Times“Let’s acknowledge that Kyrie is a basketball player, not a scholar, a subject matter expert on these issues,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said when we spoke Tuesday. “On the other hand, he’s a role model, one of the most beloved players in the league, let alone in Brooklyn. And I say that because when he tweets, it says something, and it sends signals, and people listen to him.”All of this feeds into a grim reality for American Jews. Fueled by antisemitism from several quarters, acts of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions reached the highest level seen in the nearly 45 years the A.D.L. has been tracking such hate crimes, according to Greenblatt.The sad paradox is that Irving plays for a team based in Brooklyn, where “we have seen a surge of antisemitism in recent years,” Greenblatt said. “Jewish people are getting harassed, Jewish homes and synagogues are getting vandalized. People are getting assaulted. What Kyrie did, considering the team he plays on, that’s why I think it struck such a nerve for so many people.”With fame comes responsibility. Part of that is the responsibility to gain critical understanding before using the power of your voice. Irving and others did that in 2020, ushering in a new age of empowerment, and athletes felt encouraged to speak up against authority. But he failed miserably with his recent posts.Should we hold out hope that he can redeem himself?Remarkably, Greenblatt believes he can. If, that is, Irving “will take the time to engage kind of in a process of learning and healing, working to better understand.”“I think all of us would be well served by this.”Greenblatt is ready for the call. Is Irving? More

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      The Nets’ Problems Are Bigger Than Steve Nash

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      The Nets dumped their coach, but the team has never lived up to expectations. And there’s no clear path forward now.For the past three seasons, success for the Nets had been rooted in hypotheticals.Ever since the All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant joined the team in the summer of 2019, the Nets had been supremely talented on paper, with hopes of multiple N.B.A. championships. On the court, though, they were never good enough to contend. Their specialty, it seemed, was not playoff wins but off-court theater.Two weeks into a new season, one that was supposed to be a fresh start, the Nets are once again mired in drama. Last week, Irving posted a link to an antisemitic documentary on his Twitter account, drawing a public rebuke from the team’s owner, Joe Tsai. On Tuesday, the Nets announced that their coach, Steve Nash, was out. Hours later, General Manager Sean Marks sat down behind a microphone and tried to quiet the gathering storms.Marks expressed regret about having to fire Nash, but said that now that it was done, he would “like to get back to basketball,” to “focus on the things that are important.” Asked why fans would continue to cheer for the Nets with the team’s constant dysfunction, Marks replied, “Look, it’s understandable” if they don’t. He said the Nets had a “window” for winning, one he hoped the next coach would maximize with the current roster. But that may take longer than he likes: An hour or so after he finished his news conference, the Nets took the court and lost again, falling to the Chicago Bulls, 108-99.Marks’s problem, the Nets’ problem, is there is no real proof that this team or that any of the other teams assembled during Irving and Durant’s tenure was built to win a championship. Since 2019, the deepest the Nets have advanced in the playoffs was the Eastern Conference semifinals two years ago. Durant carried the offensive load largely by himself in that series, with Irving and the now-departed James Harden mostly sidelined with injuries. If Durant had worn a smaller shoe — one that kept his toe behind the 3-point line on a critical shot — the Game 7 overtime loss that ended the Nets’ season that year might have been a win.But “what ifs” have always been the story of these Nets.Jacque Vaughn, with Kevin Durant, was installed as the Nets’ interim head coach on Tuesday.Jessie Alcheh/Associated PressAfter an off-season in which it seemed as if Durant and Irving would be traded (Durant by request), both returned to Brooklyn instead. The Nets trotted out a revamped roster that also included Ben Simmons and Joe Harris, who were returning from injuries, and the new addition Royce O’Neale, but they struggled out of the gate. The Nets opened the season 1-4 even before the backlash to Irving’s antisemitic post began to take attention away from basketball. Simmons has missed the last two games with injuries. And Tuesday’s defeat dropped them to 2-6; at the moment, only the Orlando Magic (1-7) are keeping them out of last place.And while Nash paid the price for those struggles, many of the Nets’ issues are things that would have been problems for any coach: not only Irving’s social media and Durant’s changing commitment, but also Simmons’s difficulty finding his rhythm on the court; a lack of depth in the frontcourt; and an inability to close out games.“It was a difficult task, first of all, for Steve,” Harris said after Tuesday night’s loss to the Chicago Bulls. “It was not an easy job for him, given especially how much turnover we had.”“There was a lot going on,” he added, “and it made for a difficult job.”While Durant said he was “shocked” to wake up from a nap and find out Nash had been fired, he did not seem surprised by the move. Durant said he had not been consulted about Nash’s firing but admitted that he “knew that everybody was being evaluated.”“That’s just how it is in the league,” Durant said. “I like working with Steve. I like working with the coaching staff, and it was a roller coaster the last few years. But you know, at the core of it, basketball is something that we all love to do. So regardless of who the coach is, regardless of the circumstances, still got to come to work.”On Tuesday night, the Nets took the floor against the Bulls, with the assistant coach Jacque Vaughn in Nash’s seat. Vaughn will serve as the interim coach until the Nets find a permanent leader; he said he did not know how long that would take.But the Vaughn-directed Nets looked like the same team they had been all season. Simmons sat out with an injury. They struggled on the defensive end, and particularly at the end, when they allowed Bulls guard Zach LaVine to outscore the Nets by himself (20 points to 19) in the final period. And while Durant looked dominant with 32 points, the Nets again appeared to be a team with an incorrect combination of players.But, at least hypothetically, the Nets say they still believe they can win a championship.General Manager Sean Marks said he wanted the team to be able to focus on basketball.Jessie Alcheh/Associated Press“We got everything you need and more,” said O’Neale, who noted — correctly but rather optimistically — that there were still 74 games left in the season.Durant said the Nets’ issues, in fact, were not unusual.“It’s the N.B.A.,” he said. “Everybody got volatility. Outside people might look at what we do as bigger than what it is, but we come to work every single day. I mean, guys ask for trades before coaches get fired. You know, we have disagreements in our locker room. That happens in the N.B.A. But at the end of the day, we all came to work. It just didn’t work out on the floor.”It’s hard to say when it will work out. Simmons has a knee injury. Irving might be suspended for promoting the antisemitic documentary (Marks said the team was having internal discussions). And after Durant asked to be traded over the summer, it’s not hard to imagine him asking for that again.“I just want a good coach,” Durant said Tuesday. “I’m sure Sean and the staff will do a good job trying to figure that out.” More

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      Brooklyn Nets Fire Coach Steve Nash

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      The Nets have struggled to a 2-5 start, and their star guard Kyrie Irving is under fire for promoting an antisemitic documentary.The Nets fired Coach Steve Nash on Tuesday as the team struggled on the court and faced criticism for the off-court actions of the star guard Kyrie Irving.Nets General Manager Sean Marks said the situation was particularly difficult because of his long relationship with Nash, a former teammate whom he hired to coach the team in September 2020.“We both felt that this was time,” Marks said at a news conference before the Nets faced the Chicago Bulls at Barclays Center on Tuesday night. “It was certainly trending that way, and to be quite frank, the team was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. We’ve fallen from our goals.”At 2-5, the Nets are among the worst teams in the N.B.A., despite starting the season with all three of their best players: Irving, Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons. Over the past week, the team has also been dealing with backlash after Irving promoted an antisemitic documentary on social media.Marks said he had not sought any input from the players on his decision to make a coaching change.“He has certainly not had an even playing field over two and a bit years here,” Marks said of Nash. “And for that, I certainly feel definitely some responsibility because this does not fall on him. I take a great deal of responsibility in creating the roster, hiring staff, bringing people in, whether that’s free agency or draft.”Nash, 48, was hired before the 2020-21 season, despite never having coached professionally at any level, even as an assistant. The Nets were criticized for hiring Nash, who is white, over experienced Black coaches. Jacque Vaughn, a Nets assistant coach, was chosen to be acting head coach Tuesday against the Bulls. Vaughn, who is Black, was passed over when the Nets hired Nash.Nash carried the pedigree of being one of the best point guards in N.B.A. history, having won two Most Valuable Player Awards during a celebrated career from 1996 to 2014. He initially surrounded himself with experienced coaches such as Vaughn and Mike D’Antoni, who had coached him as a player in Phoenix.Over a little more than two seasons, Nash led the Nets to a 94-67 record, a winning percentage of .584, but with only one playoff-series victory to show for it. Nash thanked the team Tuesday in a statement on Twitter.“It was an amazing experience with many challenges that I’m incredibly grateful for,” he said, adding: “I wish the Nets all the success in the world and the Nash’s will be rooting for our team as they turn this season around.”Nash faced problems from the start, including injuries (Durant; Simmons), trades (Simmons in; James Harden in, then out) and Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, which meant that he missed most of the 2021-22 season because of local rules.Irving returned in time for the postseason after New York City changed the rules, but the Boston Celtics swept the Nets in the first round of the playoffs, closing out the series in front of thousands of despondent fans in Brooklyn.“We had high expectations,” Durant said at the time. “Everybody had high expectations for us. But a lot of stuff happened throughout the season that derailed us.”Durant went to the team’s front office over the summer to request a trade. According to a report by The Athletic, Durant demanded that the Nets owner Joe Tsai choose between him or Marks and Nash. Tsai released a statement that said the team’s front-office staff and coaches had his support.Durant eventually relented and joined the team for training camp in late September. Hope blossomed anew: Durant, Irving and Simmons were expected to help form one of the more explosive starting lineups in the N.B.A.But the Nets sputtered, particularly on defense, losing five of their first six games this season. Marks said he came away from games this season feeling as though the players had not “bought in,” and he was now hoping to find “a leader” whose message would resonate with them. He said that he had not made a decision on the team’s next coach and would thoroughly vet any candidates.“We’re looking for somebody to have poise, charisma, accountability,” he said, adding: “We’re not playing up to our expectations of where we should be. So, you hope this new coach can come in here and put this group in the best possible place to succeed.”But Nash’s firing does not resolve the issue with Irving.At a testy news conference Saturday, Irving doubled down on his support of the antisemitic documentary. He has not apologized since then, but he deleted a tweet that linked to the documentary on Sunday.Irving did not address reporters after the Nets’ win over the Indiana Pacers on Monday, when several fans in T-shirts that said “fight antisemitism” sat in the front row. Marks said Irving would not be made available to answer questions Tuesday, adding that he wanted to let “cooler minds prevail.” He also said that the team had been in contact with the Anti-Defamation League for advice, but he would not say whether Irving had been part of those conversations.“Just trying to weigh out exactly what the best course of action is here,” Marks said. “Part of it is going to be getting the sides together so they can understand where people are coming from. There’s an education piece for everybody here.”Tania Ganguli More

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      The Young Pistons Are Trying to Bring Back That ‘Bad Boys’ Feeling

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      The rebuild in Detroit could finally turn the corner this year behind Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey.WASHINGTON — It was early in the fourth quarter, and the Detroit Pistons were attempting to come back from a double-digit deficit against the Wizards. Kevin Knox, a 23-year-old forward, committed an unnecessary defensive foul. Pistons Coach Dwane Casey’s head snapped downward ever so slightly, as if he were trying to suppress his frustration.On the next play, Knox committed another foul — this time against the star guard Bradley Beal on a step-back jumper. Beal hit the shot and the free throw. Now, Casey, in his 14th year as a head coach, was expressionless.This has been the job for him with the Pistons — being tolerant of mistakes. As much as he can let himself be. Growing pains, he calls them.“They’re going to make mistakes,” Casey said after the game Tuesday. “When you were a young writer, you probably made some mistakes in your writing. And it’s the same thing. Guys are going to make young mistakes.”The next night, the Pistons played the Atlanta Hawks much closer, but a series of mistakes down the stretch meant another loss, part of a 1-4 start to the season. Still, the kids are all right. Not good, mind you — not yet. But the Pistons are not expected to be terrible either, a shift from the last decade or so of Detroit basketball.The current roster — among the youngest in the N.B.A. — is filled with potential stars who are giving the fan base hope during a multiyear rebuild now purportedly entering its next phase. Leading the charge are Cade Cunningham, the first pick of the 2021 draft, and Jaden Ivey, the fifth pick of this year’s draft. If all goes well, Cunningham and Ivey could be the next great N.B.A. backcourt. However, that requires everything to go right — and most N.B.A. rebuilds do not.But first, don’t call it a rebuild. The Pistons brass has taken to calling the process a restoration.“Detroit’s been great,” Pistons General Manager Troy Weaver said. “My dad used to restore older cars, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”Weaver said there had been “two great iterations” of Pistons: Isiah Thomas’s Bad Boys in the late 1980s, who won two championships, and the early 2000s team with Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace, who won in 2004. Both versions were defined by a hard-nosed, not-always-pretty style of play.“We want to model that,” Weaver said. “A lot of people want to come in and reinvent the wheel. We want to stay true to what works in Detroit.”Detroit Pistons guard Chauncey Billups and teammates celebrated winning the 2004 N.B.A. championship.Paul Sancya/Associated PressAs that process continues, the team is also dealing with internal turmoil: Rob Murphy, the Pistons’ assistant general manager and the president and general manager of the franchise’s G League team, is on leave and under investigation for possible workplace misconduct, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak about the investigation. Murphy joined the franchise in March 2021, about a year after Weaver came to Detroit.When Weaver was named general manager in June 2020, he took over a franchise that had been to the playoffs only twice since 2009 and hadn’t won a playoff series since 2008. For more than a decade, the team had been directionless, led by ill-fitting sort-of stars like Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe. Weaver rapidly cleared out veterans with long-term contracts, such as the former All-Star forward Blake Griffin, and began to rebuild, er, restore. There are no players left from the team Weaver took over, a head-spinning roster turnover.“I didn’t expect it to be a whole new team,” Weaver said. “I thought it’d be a gradual process.”Cade Cunningham was the first pick of the 2021 draft.Rick Osentoski/Getty ImagesRebuilding in the N.B.A. usually comes in three phases. 1. Clear out dead-weight contracts. (Check!) 2. Accumulate high draft picks and use them on talented young players — which means losing a lot of games. (Check!) 3. Find success by trading developing players for stars (2008 Boston Celtics) or by watching those players become stars (the current Golden State dynasty).Point No. 3 is always the hardest, and many teams have failed. The Pistons have assembled a talented core, centered on Cunningham — fortuitous draft luck — and Ivey. Cunningham, a 21-year-old in his second year, has shown flashes of stardom. After a slow start during his rookie year, he averaged 21.1 points, 5.7 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game on 45.7 percent shooting over his final 20 games. He’s skilled at getting into the paint but has struggled with his jump shot. Cunningham seems to have embraced his role as franchise cornerstone, frequently being the first one off the bench to encourage teammates.“I feel like if I win games and I continue to help grow the organization, that will take us to another level and take my game and my social life in Detroit to another level,” Cunningham said.The 20-year-old Ivey has been an impactful player in the starting lineup already, averaging 16.0 points and 5.5 assists per game on 48 percent shooting in four games. He’s a creative finisher in the paint and is showing surprising 3-point shooting prowess (42.9 percent), despite not being a particularly strong shooter in his two seasons at Purdue University.Jaden Ivey has been an impactful player, averaging 16 points and 5.5 assists per game in four games.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressOther young players have shown potential, too. Forward Saddiq Bey, 23, dropped 51 points in a game last year. Center Jalen Duren, drafted eight picks after Ivey, has started his career on a strong note as well — averaging 8.2 points and 8.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game in only 21.4 minutes a game. He is the youngest active player in the N.B.A.Wins have, however, been hard to come by. Isaiah Stewart, a talented but raw 21-year-old center, is prone to lapses on defense. Against the Wizards on Tuesday, Stewart repeatedly left Kristaps Porzingis, a strong shooting big man, wide open from the perimeter, which Porzingis exploited. The next night, Atlanta’s Trae Young kept maneuvering into the paint for his patented floater, while Stewart repeatedly sagged off instead of aggressively contesting. Young finished with an easy-looking 35 points.Other young players are showing potential, too, including the 23-year-old forward Saddiq Bey.Doug Mcschooler/Associated PressLast season, Detroit finished with one of the worst records in the N.B.A. at 23-59. This year, if restoration continues according to plan, the Pistons should be significantly better.“We want to be competitive,” Weaver said. “Finally feel like we’re at ground zero. Now, we’re going to be competitive every night. We finally have enough depth to be able to do that.”But this is where rebuilding plans can go awry. Developing a young core requires patience, but the N.B.A. is a business: Detroit ranked near the bottom of the league in attendance last year, according to ESPN, and has already done a lot of losing this century.“The league is not going to wait for you just because you’re a young team,” said Cory Joseph, 31, one of the older players on the team.Coaches and general managers can feel pressure to win games — a natural byproduct of being in the world of competitive sports — but Weaver insisted that the organization was willing to be patient, regardless of the standings. There is a plan.“Every morning, you want to drink a cup of urgency, and at night you want to drink a cup of patience,” Weaver said, adding: “You’ve got to let it organically happen. And I think a lot of teams, they shortcut the process. They get impatient with process. We won’t do that.” More

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      A Tough Start in Texas Turned Jimmy Butler Into an NBA All-Star

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      Butler is impossible to miss as the fiercely competitive star of the Miami Heat. But he got his start at a small junior college in Texas after bigger schools overlooked him.TYLER, Texas — Jimmy Butler and Joe Fulce knew enough to find a basketball hoop that was a safe distance from anyone else who happened to be working out at Wagstaff Gymnasium. Sometimes, they would play to 11. Sometimes, the player with the ball would be permitted only one dribble. Sometimes, they’d go for hours. The rules? Depended on the day. As for calling fouls?“Had to be a straight hack,” said Fulce, an all-American forward who would try to use his long arms to neutralize Butler’s strength.At Tyler Junior College, a leafy two-year school about 100 miles southeast of Dallas, Fulce was among the teammates who came to understand how seriously Butler treated the combative art of one-on-one basketball. It was the most pure distillation of his competitive drive.“If you ask him to play one-on-one and you’re not really ready to play one-on-one with him, don’t do it,” Fulce said, “because it’ll mess up your relationship with him.”Before he went to Marquette and then entered the N.B.A. as a late first-round draft pick, before he famously eviscerated teammates at a practice in Minnesota and then fashioned the N.B.A.’s Covid-era bubble into his personal stage with the Miami Heat, Butler spent one season at Tyler that set the foundation for everything that followed.“It was the first time,” Butler said, “that someone actually took a chance on me.”By now, Butler has cemented his reputation as one of the league’s best two-way players, a six-time All-Star with an eight-figure salary who has positioned Miami as a perennial title contender. In his spare time, he works as a global pitchman for a low-calorie beer and drinks expensive coffee.Butler is a six-time All-Star and led the Miami Heat to the N.B.A. finals in 2020. Michael Dwyer/Associated PressThough the Heat have been uneven so far this season — they were 2-3 ahead of their game against Golden State on Thursday — Butler, 33, figures to have them in the mix again. He knows better than most that a strong finish is more important than a tough start.At Tyler, there are reminders of the year he spent there. Outside the gym is the “Jimmy Butler Lobby,” replete with a trophy case that includes photographs, magazine covers, his old jersey and a box of Corn Flakes with his image on it.But back when he arrived at the school in the summer of 2007, he seemed acutely aware of what was at stake: his future.As for his past? He could not go back. Even now, he has no interest in rehashing his childhood outside of Houston. On only a couple of occasions has he spoken about how his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, about how he survived by couch-surfing for several years before a friend’s family took him in.“I’m not personally going to talk about his business,” Fulce said, “but if you take everything away from somebody and you have to learn what that feels like at a young age, that would drive anybody to be like, ‘Yo, I’ll never go back to where I was.’ And a lot of people will never understand what that’s like because they can’t even imagine it.”Joe Fulce, right, said he told Marquette that he wouldn’t join the men’s basketball team unless Butler came, too.John Dunn for The New York TimesButler spent three seasons at Marquette before he was selected with the final pick of the first round of the 2011 N.B.A. draft.John Dunn for The New York TimesComing out of Tomball High School, Butler had a scholarship offer from Centenary, a small college in Louisiana that has since transitioned to Division III, and a partial offer from Quinnipiac. One afternoon, he got a phone call from Mike Marquis, the longtime coach at Tyler, who had heard about Butler from a Houston-area scout named Alan Branch.“He thought Jimmy was a better player than had been reported,” Marquis said. “So, we raced down and picked him up and brought him in for a visit. It didn’t take long to realize he had something special about him, just the way he carried himself.”On his daylong visit to Tyler, Butler toured the campus, asked lots of questions and participated in an open gym. He said in an interview that he had no biases about the quality of play at the junior college level — “I didn’t really have any offers, so how could I have preconceptions about anything?” he asked — but he came away impressed.“Those guys were really good,” Butler said, “and I don’t think I’d ever played worse.”Mike Marquis, who coaches the men’s basketball team at Tyler Junior College, said Butler would spend hours in the gym.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesStill, Marquis loved his attitude and his potential, and Butler signed his scholarship papers that day. At the first team meeting, a phone rang from one of the lockers, which was a violation of team rules. Butler was among those who could have identified the guilty party but no one gave him up, and Marquis had the team run sprint after sprint.“We were some loyal dudes,” Fulce said.It was, in its own way, a sign of early togetherness.“I think that rallied them more than any sort of team-building exercise we could have done,” Marquis said.The team lived at Bateman Hall, a red brick building that also housed the men’s soccer team. The players attended class, ate at Whataburger and roamed the aisles at Dollar General. They otherwise lived in the gym, Fulce said, and kept one another out of trouble. Ricky Williams, the team manager, enforced curfew as if it were the most important thing in the world.“Oh, my goodness, Ricky,” Fulce said. “If you didn’t get into a fight with Ricky, then you wasn’t trying to live.”Fulce got the sense from Butler that he was determined to absorb everything he could from everyone around him. Each day was an opportunity to learn and improve. In the preseason, Marquis said, Butler would come to practice early and stay late so that he could spend hours — yes, hours — working on his footwork.“All that pivoting,” Marquis said, “which is the sort of stuff he uses nightly now.”Tyler had a terrific season behind Butler, Fulce and Jamie Vanderbeken, a forward who would go on to play at Iowa State. Known as the “Three J’s,” they led the team to a 24-4 record ahead of a regional tournament game against Panola College, a team that Tyler defeated by 27 points the previous week.Playing at the Wagstaff Gymnasium at Tyler Junior College.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesButler spent one season, 2007-8, at Tyler Junior College. He scored 43 points in his final game, a triple-overtime loss.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesA trophy case in the Jimmy Butler Lobby at Tyler’s gym includes a cereal box with a photo of Butler, who was part of the U.S. men’s national team in 2016.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesFulce heard rumblings during warm-ups that a scout from the San Antonio Spurs was in the building — it was an indication, he said, that he and his teammates were on the right track — and they put on a show. In a game that went to triple overtime, Butler scored 43 points and collected 10 rebounds in a 123-121 loss that ended Tyler’s season.“It was Joseph Fulce’s fault and it was Jamie Vanderbeken’s fault because they fouled out of the game,” Butler said. “Joe fouled out at like halftime. And then Jamie fouled out two minutes after halftime. Two of our top-three scorers were gone.”Butler’s memory was rusty: Fulce and Vanderbeken both fouled out in the first overtime.“We actually argued about this a couple of weeks ago, and that was the first time we’d ever talked about the game,” said Fulce, a former college assistant who now runs his own player-development company. “I was like, ‘Bro, I didn’t foul out in the first half!’”After the season, Butler was weighing several Division I offers, including one from Kentucky. Fulce, who had already committed to Marquette, called Buzz Williams, the team’s new coach, and urged him to sign Butler.“If you don’t take Jimmy, I’m not coming,” Fulce recalled telling Williams.A week later, Butler and Fulce made their way to a McDonald’s near campus so that they could use the restaurant’s fax machine. Butler fed his national letter of intent to attend Marquette into the machine.“He really didn’t know what was coming next,” Fulce said. More

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      The Lakers Can’t Make a 3-Pointer

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      Russell Westbrook is getting most of the heat, but the Lakers’ problem is its roster.LOS ANGELES — As Lakers guard Russell Westbrook went up for a 3-pointer against the Clippers, his home crowd groaned before the ball even left his hand. The shot clanked off the rim, justifying the fans’ apprehension.Westbrook missed all six of his 3-pointers in the game on Thursday. It was a microcosm of the two biggest issues facing the Lakers this season: Westbrook and shooting. Again and again on Thursday night, the Lakers faithful remained subdued as the team kept shooting. And missing. And shooting. And missing some more. There were enough bricks that the Lakers could offer themselves up as an infrastructure project.Through the first two games of the season, the Lakers have shot an almost unfathomable 19 for 85 from 3-point range (22.4 percent). That was the biggest factor in a blowout loss to Golden State in the season opener on Tuesday and in a 103-97 loss to the Clippers on Thursday night.In a league where deep shots have evolved from being quirky additions to being the driving force of contemporary scoring, the Lakers constructed their roster without enough players equipped to maximize that style of play. This summer, the Lakers let more formidable shooters like Wayne Ellington and Malik Monk walk, and instead opted to bring in the athletic guard Lonnie Walker IV and Dennis Schröder, neither of whom is known for perimeter prowess.It’s not that the Lakers are in a shooting slump. If someone put tap dancing shoes on a flamingo, one would not say the flamingo was struggling to be Fred Astaire. It’s that — as LeBron James factually noted after Tuesday night’s drubbing by Golden State — the Lakers just don’t have many good shooters. They weren’t built for this.LeBron James had 20 points on Thursday, but, like everyone else, he was cold from outside. He was just 2 of 8 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“We’re getting great looks, but it could also be teams giving us great looks,” James said. “To be completely honest, we’re not a team that’s constructed of great shooting. That’s just the truth of the matter. It’s not like we’re sitting here with a lot of lasers on our team.”And yet the Lakers have launched a bevy of 3s. The penetration skills of Anthony Davis and James have generated open looks outside for other Lakers, but both Golden State and the Clippers also continuously dared the Lakers to shoot.“They want to give us those shots?” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said Thursday. “We will accept it wholeheartedly. That’s the way we want to play. We want to play fast, physical and free.”He added: “We see these guys making shots in practice and shootaround. They’ve got to do it on game floor. It’s as simple as that.”The Lakers climbed back from multiple deficits on Thursday to keep the game close down the stretch. But they weren’t able to sustain their periods of strong play. After the game, James was asked about his “laser” comments.“I love the way we’re playing basketball right now,” James said. “We’re really sharing the ball offensively. We’re moving bodies. And I think we will begin to knock down shots.”James does have good reason for optimism, but it has to do with the other side of the ball. In the loss to Golden State, the Lakers had a defensive rating of 107.0, which would have been good for fourth in the N.B.A. last season, a fact that guard Patrick Beverley pointed out after the Thursday morning shootaround. The Lakers were even better on Thursday with a rating of 100.0. When the Lakers fell into deficits against the Clippers, they turned up the defensive intensity and forced several turnovers to get out in transition to get back in the game.“I’m definitely not going to sit here and harp on what we can’t do every single game,” James said. “That’s not leadership. What I know we can do: We can defend our ass off.”The Clippers turned the ball over 22 times Thursday, contributing to some of the Lakers’ 15 fast-break points. This is where Westbrook’s skills can be useful to the Lakers. He had five steals Thursday, and as he is known to do, immediately focused on pushing the ball down the floor off those forced turnovers.Anthony Davis had a scary fall against the Clippers, but he returned to the game and led all scorers with 25 points. He was 2 of 4 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressBut Westbrook remains a lightning rod for criticism, at times unfairly. He missed all 11 of his shots against the Clippers, much to the chagrin of the crowd. But through another lens, Westbrook played the exact type of game that the Lakers need from him.“We’ve all had bad shooting nights,” James said. “I’ve had bad shooting nights. Everybody in this league has had bad shooting nights. Who cares? I thought he played a great game. Defensively, he was in tune. He was locked in. He pushed the tempo. He just didn’t make any shots. That’s OK.”A key criticism of Westbrook last season was his penchant for turnovers and for playing out of control. He had only one turnover on Thursday while quarterbacking the offense. Westbrook has also been bashed for his shot selection. He has, so far, focused on taking fewer shots of higher quality. Almost all of his 11 shots on Thursday were strong looks.Westbrook is not the issue for the Lakers; that would be roster construction. But if the 33-year-old Westbrook cannot be at least a passable shooter, defenders won’t have to pay him much attention, leaving James and Davis with less room to operate. And if the Lakers want someone other than Westbrook to be their starting point guard, there aren’t many better options on the bench. (And Westbrook has grumbled about coming off the bench.)The Lakers and Westbrook are, for now, stuck with each other. However, Westbrook’s frenetic energy could be a boost for a team suddenly reliant on fast-break points to counter its bad shootingThe Lakers are a work in progress, and while the team lacks shooters, the 3-point shooting percentage will almost surely increase from the low 20s. That improvement, combined with their defensive effort, left Ham upbeat despite the difficult start to the season.“The way we stepped out there and scrapped, even when we did get down, to be able to get back in the game, make it a game, that’s the definition of identity building,” Ham said.He added: “I’ll sleep well. I won’t be angry or depressed. And we still have 80 games left, but we’re trending in the right direction.” More

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      The Milwaukee Bucks Are Betting on Déjà Vu

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      Of course Giannis Antetokounmpo is back this season — but so is almost everyone else. Continuity could give Milwaukee an edge amid the N.B.A.’s roster upheavals.PHILADELPHIA — After Khris Middleton spent his first season in professional basketball with the Detroit Pistons and the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the N.B.A. Development League, he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. At the time, he was merely hoping for steady employment.A few weeks later, when Middleton arrived in Milwaukee for training camp before the start of the 2013-14 season, he was not the only fresh face. He was joined by Giannis Antetokounmpo, a precocious draft pick who proudly professed his love for fruit smoothies and was similarly awe-struck to be in the presence of veteran teammates like Caron Butler, O.J. Mayo and Zaza Pachulia.“They were basketball gods to us at the time,” Middleton said, “just because they’d been so successful in the league for so many years and we were trying to learn everything we could from them.”Even then, Middleton was savvy enough to understand that it would take time to build winning habits. Milwaukee went 15-67 that season to finish with the worst record in the league while ranking last in home attendance. The Bucks were not a product that many people wanted to buy.“It wasn’t going to be an overnight success story,” Middleton said. “We settled in for the long haul.”On Thursday night, as the Bucks christened their new season with a 90-88 win over the 76ers, their days of hard-won habit-building were the stuff of ragged memories. Milwaukee has made six straight playoff appearances, winning a championship in 2021, and figure to be in the mix to win it all again this season.Brook Lopez is in his fifth season with the Bucks. He’s been a steady scorer and defender.Matt Slocum/Associated PressIt helps that Antetokounmpo is one of the best players in the world. After a busy summer that included the release of “Rise,” a Disney+ biopic about his life, and a run in the EuroBasket tournament with Greece’s national team, Antetokounmpo crammed 21 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists into 36 minutes against the 76ers.“They know how to play with their star,” Sixers Coach Doc Rivers said.But that only comes with continuity, patience and stability — concepts that are increasingly foreign in pro sports.Antetokounmpo and Middleton have been with the Bucks since the dark ages. Brook Lopez and Pat Connaughton, two other members of the team’s core, came to Milwaukee before the start of the 2018-19 season, which was also Mike Budenholzer’s first season as coach. And 14 of the 17 players on the current roster were with the team last season. One of them, Wesley Matthews, made the go-ahead 3-pointer against Philadelphia.“I think it helps us to start the season when other teams have new players, new additions, new coaching staff — all those kinds of changes,” Matthews said. “For the most part, we’re the same team. So being in moments like this, we’ve been there before.”Now in his 15th season, Lopez has played for teams where it took time “to figure stuff out,” he said. Where players needed weeks, or even months, to feel comfortable in new systems. Where training camps included exercises designed to enhance chemistry.“They’re good things, and that’s why people do them,” Lopez said. “But we don’t necessarily need to make people do team bonding or anything like that. It’s very natural around here. We have people hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, and we’re all glad to be a part of this.”Not that the Bucks have been immune to disappointment. In 2018-19, they had the league’s best regular-season record, then lost to the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference finals. It was more of the same the following season: best record, early exit (this time to the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals).“We were disappointed in ourselves,” Lopez said. “We knew we had more to give and more to achieve as a group. We knew we could be better.”After a period of uncertainty for the team and collective anxiety for the Milwaukee area, Budenholzer returned as coach, the Bucks bolstered their backcourt by trading for Jrue Holiday, and Antetokounmpo agreed to a mammoth contract extension. Several months later, the Bucks were N.B.A. champions for the first time since 1971.“The fact that the franchise stuck with us and kept the team together shows that they believed in what they were trying to build,” Middleton said. “And we all wanted to stay and get the job done.”They all were part of Milwaukee’s championship team in 2021: Jrue Holiday, center; back, left to right: Khris Middleton, Lopez, Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis.Morry Gash/Associated PressThe Bucks have that feeling again after losing to the Boston Celtics in the conference semifinals last season. It hardly helped that Middleton missed the series with a knee injury. And they are not yet whole this season, either: Middleton is rehabilitating from wrist surgery, and Connaughton has a strained calf.Still, the Bucks have their foundation in place.“We’re not talking about our basic defensive or offensive principles,” Connaughton said. “Everybody already knows them. Instead, we’re talking about how to improve.”This is a critical season for Milwaukee. Lopez is in the final season of a four-year deal, and Middleton, who signed a five-year contract with the Bucks in 2019, has a player option for next season. Their futures are uncertain. But nothing lasts forever, and the Bucks want to capitalize while they can. It has taken a long time for them to reach this stage, to have so much familiarity with one another.“It’s rare,” Middleton said. “It’s definitely rare.”On Thursday morning, as the team wrapped up a pregame workout, Middleton was accosted by Joe Ingles, one of the team’s newcomers. After edging Middleton in a friendly shooting competition, Ingles wanted to make sure everyone knew it: “We’ve got 81 more games, and it’s 1-0 to Joe.” Middleton shook his head and laughed.“This,” he said, “is one of the reasons I wish we didn’t make any changes.” More

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      Ben Simmons Finally Plays, but the Nets Lose

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      A rusty Ben Simmons isn’t the difference maker in his first appearance for Brooklyn.Ben Simmons smiled and chuckled about the way he had been acting all day. Wednesday was the first time in 16 months that he had played in a meaningful basketball game, and he seemed positively effervescent.“I think I was just too excited, honestly,” he said Wednesday night at Barclays Center. “It was just great to be out there.”The outing did not go especially well. Simmons scored only 4 points and fouled out, perhaps a function of his enthusiasm, and his team lost, 130-108, to the New Orleans Pelicans in the N.B.A. season opener for both teams. He was a bit rusty having missed all of last season with mental and physical health problems, starting in Philadelphia before he was traded to Brooklyn. But just the fact that Simmons played in the game was momentous.His availability is emblematic of where the Nets find themselves at the start of this season. Kevin Durant is still on the team. Kyrie Irving should be available all season. And now Simmons is healthy. This season could offer a final word on what the Durant-Irving Nets can be, and how they respond to the pressure of having the pieces in place to be real contenders.“Now you can see who we really are,” Nets forward Markieff Morris said. “Would you rather be a team where you have championship aspirations and a lot of pressure on you to win? Or would you rather be a team that’s tanking trying to get the No. 1 pick? You got to pick your poison in this league. Playing with pressure is a good thing.”It has been three years since Durant and Irving chose to join the Nets in free agency. Their arrival demanded patience, at first because Durant was working through an Achilles’ injury that would cause him to miss the entire 2019-20 season. That season was also interrupted by the onset of the pandemic, and when the season finished in the N.B.A. bubble, Irving did not join the team as he recovered from an injury.Zion Williamson looked fairly sharp on Wednesday, scoring 25 points in his team’s win.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe 2020-21 season was short, but the Nets finished it with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. James Harden had joined them through a trade in January. They lost the conference semifinals in seven games to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks.Then everything unraveled.Irving decided he would not get vaccinated against the coronavirus, which meant he could not play any home games because of a local mandate. The Nets said they did not want a part-time player, until they did. They later did not agree to a maximum contract extension with Irving when they could have, and Irving affirmed his player option to stay in Brooklyn for the final year of his contract.Frustrated by Irving, Harden asked for a trade and got it, swapping places with Simmons, and then more patience became necessary. Simmons, who hadn’t felt mentally able to play until the trade, missed the rest of the season with a back injury that required surgery. He spent the off-season healing and said he felt fully healthy at the start of training camp.This summer’s final drama for the Nets came when Durant requested a trade in July. The Nets never found the right offer, if such a thing even existed for a player of his caliber. Reports surfaced that Durant had wanted General Manager Sean Marks and Coach Steve Nash fired. Durant has not confirmed those reports, and Nash referred to the whole episode as though it were a family disagreement.The silver lining of an off-season that threatened the team’s stability was that the Nets were returning with two of the best players in the game and a third more talented than most in the league.All that’s left is for them to prove they can actually do this.Wednesday’s game offered an inauspicious start to that quest. The Nets trailed the Pelicans by as many as 26 points and were outscored by 36-4 on second-chance points, a symptom of inconsistent effort.“The same plays that demoralize the fans at home, demoralize us as players,” Irving said.Pelicans forward Zion Williamson, like Simmons, returned after missing all of last season, in his case with a foot injury. He looked less rusty than Simmons did, scoring 25 points, and New Orleans took advantage of his play.“I think they beat us in every category tonight,” Nash said. “Clearly, we started the game a little hectic, a little bit rattled to start the year. Sometimes that’s normal. First night out excitement. New group. It was a little clunky at times.”Durant led all scorers with 32 points, making 11 of 21 shots, with four blocks, a steal, two assists and three rebounds.If one were to overreact to an opening night result, one might say these Nets are in big trouble. But the way they played Wednesday didn’t match how they played in preseason games, perhaps hinting at their ability to play much better.There were flashes of positivity in Wednesday’s game as well. On one play, Irving darted in front of Larry Nance Jr. to steal the ball and throw it to Simmons for a dunk.The Nets finally had the full team together on Wednesday night.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesBut to compete in the East this season will be no easy task. Milwaukee, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, is still as formidable as it was two years ago when it won the N.B.A. championship. The Boston Celtics seem determined to improve upon last year’s finals loss to Golden State. The Philadelphia 76ers, led by Joel Embiid and Harden, will also challenge for supremacy in the conference.In the waning seconds of Wednesday’s game, Durant sat all the way back in a seat on the bench with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up tightly over his head. Occasionally, he turned to Simmons, who sat next to him, and said something as they watched the Pelicans complete their 22-point victory.“We got 81 more of these,” Durant said later. He added: “It’s about just bouncing back, coming to work tomorrow and figuring it out.” More