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      Jeremy Lin Finally Loves ‘Linsanity’ Just As Much as You Do

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      A star turn with the Knicks in 2012 made Lin a cultural icon. But the focus on his race — Lin is Taiwanese American — made him uncomfortable for years.When he went from mostly anonymous to global celebrity in 2012, Jeremy Lin was overwhelmed by the attention and struggled to tune it out. For many people, he suddenly represented many things — a stereotype breaker, an inspiration — but, well, he just wanted to play basketball.“It was a tornado of emotion because there’s so much that was happening,” Lin, who is Taiwanese American, said in a recent interview. He added, “I didn’t even know what to feel like.”He captivated the sports world that February with star play for the Knicks, a stretch that included a seven-game winning streak and was dubbed “Linsanity.” Lin was uncomfortable with the term — and would be for years — but he was also fearful.“Fear of paparazzi,” he said. “Fear of people chasing down my family members. Fear of people trying to steal from me. Lie to me. Monetize off me. Fear of the people that I love. Fear of not living up to people’s expectations or missing out on opportunities and thinking that I had to take every single one of them off the court.”Lin had 38 points and 7 assists against the Lakers on Feb. 10, 2012. It was the highest-scoring performance of his Linsanity run that month.Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto AgencyA decade later, Lin has fully embraced the phenomenon that turned him into a cultural icon. Though he never again reached those basketball heights after leaving the Knicks for the Houston Rockets the next season, he still carved out a productive N.B.A. career — even winning a championship as a reserve on the Toronto Raptors in 2019.But the ascendant run in New York remains what he is most known for. It has been memorialized in an HBO short documentary out on Oct. 11 called “38 at the Garden.” The title refers to his 38-point Linsanity performance against the Los Angeles Lakers, whose star guard Kobe Bryant said before the game that he had not known who Lin was. The documentary also explores the persistence of anti-Asian bigotry.Lin spoke to The New York Times recently from China, where he will play for the Chinese Basketball Association. He discussed his evolving feelings on Linsanity and using his influence.This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.When someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, Jeremy, you mean X, Y and Z to me,” how does that make you feel today?Every year, I’ve gotten increasingly more grateful for it. Maybe because words of affirmation are not always my love language, but I’ve always kind of been like a “talk is cheap” type of thing. And so, when everyone is complimenting you constantly everywhere you go, who knows who actually thinks what?And I think now I’m starting to realize: “Oh, no: A lot of these people genuinely mean what they’re saying. I really impacted their lives.”How strange was it, if at all, to watch the documentary and to see that version of yourself from 10 years ago?It’s so crazy because it’s one of those things that I had watched it so many times and I was so aware of it, but I haven’t gone back and watched it in like seven years.I don’t look up those highlights. I don’t go back to them and watch them to make myself feel better or anything. I’m kind of like, I know that existed, and it was such a vivid memory for this stretch of my time. And then for me, like, my life and career moved on.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressI don’t want to call it Linsanity because I know you’ve had a complicated relationship with that word. So, that period of your life in New York, how do you reflect on it now?I’m very comfortable saying, “Oh, yeah, that was Linsanity.” That shows you where I’m at with it.Originally, I was like, I’ll never do anything around Linsanity. I don’t want to do a documentary or any of that stuff, or go back in time.But then, I was like, I have no problem with it. I would actually love to because it was a special moment and also because we need to be talking about it right now. Linsanity has become so much more important and valuable to me.You just mentioned that we need to be talking about this. Why is that?That was a moment that was so special for Asian Americans and minorities. It’s because there are so few of those moments. It’s because in general, society does not typically celebrate those type of moments. And because we don’t see that type of success from people who don’t look the part.What is the biggest misconception about that period of your life?The way that I left New York and the attacks on my character. I don’t mind getting criticism for my game. Or if I look a certain way. If I play a certain way or whatever. But when you talk about my character, that hits differently to me personally.My recollection is that the vast, vast majority of fans were not upset with you for joining the Rockets. They were upset at the Knicks for not keeping you.Yes and no. There was definitely a lot who were upset with me, but the narrative that came out was first that I went to the Rockets to ask for more money and that I was purposely putting New York in a tough position. That’s the narrative that was spun onto me and being called, like, you know, certain things or chasing the money.The real story is, I actually went to my agent and told him, “Can we go back to the Rockets and ask for a less lucrative offer? Because I actually want to go back to New York, and I want to go back to New York badly. And I don’t want there to be a poison pill.” That’s the true story. But that’s not the story that was thrown out there.“Saturday Night Live” did a sketch parodying the coverage of you at the time, a significant portion of which featured racist tropes. What did you think of that sketch?To be honest, I don’t even know if I ever watched it.The crux of the sketch was that headline writers and sports reporters couldn’t stop leaning into tropes when discussing you. How much did you notice that at all, if at all, during that period?That’s why this whole thing with Linsanity is complex. My whole life, I tried to run from being Asian, and when I was on the basketball court and the ball was tipped off, race did not matter. It was my safe space to be myself without having to be the token Asian. By the time that Linsanity came around and I got worldwide recognition, the only thing people really wanted to talk about was my ethnicity and my race and oftentimes in very demeaning and condescending and just racist ways.It was like the thing where I was like, I just don’t want you guys to talk about me being Asian. I just want you to appreciate what I’m doing on the court. I’m an artist, and you’re missing out on the art.I had to grow up in the sense of why am I, 10 years later, willing to go back in time? It’s because I didn’t use that time and that influence the way that I wish I did. I wish I’d talked so much more about me being Asian but talked about it in better ways versus trying to run from it.What is your hope of playing in the N.B.A. again?I’ve always had that hope. But that door seems to be pretty shut, and I feel like that was confirmed and double confirmed after what I had done in the G League and how well I had played and seeing that all the top scorers and all the top assist leaders all got contracts except for me. So, at that point, it was kind of like, there’s nothing else I could do.I’ve accepted all the challenges of all the front offices to go back and to show you guys that I can do this. And I did, and it wasn’t enough. I’ll always want to play in the N.B.A. I mean, I loved my time there. I love competing in that league, but I just don’t think that’s in the cards anymore. More

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      Ben Simmons Returns to the Court for the Nets

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      Nets Coach Steve Nash said he saw “glimpses of the potential” in a 6-point, 19-minute effort.Nineteen minutes, 6 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds in a preseason game.You could say that it’s nothing special. But you could also say that it’s one of the most important stat lines in the N.B.A. in recent years.Ben Simmons is back.After injury, mental health issues and disputes with management kept him off the court for more than 450 days, Simmons suited up for the Nets on Monday night in a preseason game against his former team, the Philadelphia 76ers, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.“I thought I was going to be nervous, but I wasn’t nervous; I was excited,” Simmons said after the game. “The only way you learn is making mistakes. I had a few out there tonight.”With the caveat that it was a preseason game, when defense can be lax and the pace a little slower, Simmons looked fairly comfortable and fluid on both ends of the floor, notably making some nice passes.And he showed off his unusual skill set. As Coach Steve Nash put it after the 127-108 Nets loss, the 6-foot-11 Simmons plays center on defense and point guard on offense.An Australian, Simmons was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft in 2016 after his freshman year at L.S.U. After missing a full season with a foot injury, he debuted for the 76ers in 2017 and had four effective seasons with the team, averaging 15 to 17 points a game and 7 to 8 assists and playing first-rate defense. He won the Rookie of the Year Award and made three All-Star teams in four seasons.But the 2020-21 season ended in disappointment, when Simmons passed up a seemingly easy dunk opportunity late in a decisive playoff loss in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Both the 76ers’ star, Joel Embiid, and their coach, Doc Rivers, expressed frustration with Simmons over the incident.The play also seemed emblematic of Simmons’s progress. Always excellent on defense, he never seemed to develop a great shot. In a game in which 3-pointers have become increasingly crucial, he has taken just 34 in his career, making only five.Over that summer, Simmons demanded a trade. When he returned to the 76ers in October he was kicked out of practice after refusing to participate in drills. He did not return to the court for the team that season, saying his absence was due to mental health reasons.In February, the 76ers finally traded him to the Nets in a deal that included James Harden going the other way. Soon after, though, he was diagnosed with back problems and while there was hope he could return for the playoffs, he did not.Now Simmons is finally back on the court and is being counted on to be a key contributor for the Nets, who were swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round last season.“Ben’s playing in a totally different unit than he’s played with in the past, different style, so it’s a big departure for him,” Nash said. “These guys haven’t played together, so we’ve got to go through this. It’s going to be ugly as times, but I thought as the half wore on we started to see glimpses of the potential.” More

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      This Is What Life After the N.B.A. Looks Like

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      Johnny Davis knew the end was near.During the summer of 1985, Davis was gearing up for his 10th N.B.A. season when he noticed something about his familiar quickness — namely, that it was missing.Davis was just 29 at the time. But the hard mileage of a productive basketball career had worn him down.“I was getting by with experience more so than I was with athletic talent,” said Davis, a versatile guard in his prime. “It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t the same player.”Davis was fortunate in the sense that he had time to prepare for retirement — “I wasn’t caught off guard at all,” he said — but he still had to confront the big question: What now?As N.B.A. teams trim their rosters before the season begins this month, a new batch of players will find themselves asking that same question. There is always an end in professional sports: Athletes become former athletes; All-Stars become “Isn’t he that guy?” And while there are perks of reaching the highest level, no one avoids the fundamental challenge of ascension: coming down.“The day you leave the N.B.A., now they tell you to start over again,” said Quentin Richardson, a guard whose 13-year playing career ended in 2013 when he was just 33.While some players have the luxury of leaving the game on their own terms, most have that decision made for them by the effects of age and injury, their careers punctuated by the wait for another contract offer that never materializes.“The sport generally leaves you,” Davis, 66, said. “And now you’re in this place where you have to move on from something that you have done your whole life. And sometimes that means you have to re-identify who you are.”Pau Gasol: ‘Now it’s someone else’s turn’Pau Gasol had many highs and lows over an 18-year N.B.A. career. But he said retiring was a “celebratory moment.”Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesPau Gasol wanted to gather his thoughts.After playing basketball for Spain at the Tokyo Olympics, he returned to his Spanish mountain cottage last August to spend time with his wife, Cat McDonnell, and their young daughter, Ellie. Gasol went for quiet walks, and as he contemplated the past — his 18 seasons in the N.B.A., his title runs alongside Kobe Bryant — he found peace.A few weeks later, Gasol announced his retirement at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona’s famed opera house. He had just turned 41.“It was not a sad moment,” he said. “It was a celebratory moment.”Gasol had a long career, one that familiarized him with impermanence. He starred for the Memphis Grizzlies. He won two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers. He became more of a mentor with the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs, then spent his final months in the N.B.A. laboring with a foot injury. He adapted to the evolution of his role.“I’m not saying it’s easy,” he said. “There are times when you still feel like you should start or play significant minutes. But life moves on, and now it’s someone else’s turn.”Gasol won two championships on the Los Angeles Lakers with Kobe Bryant, front, in 2009 and 2010.Kevin Kolczynski/ReutersBefore the Tokyo Olympics, he won a Spanish league championship in his final season with F.C. Barcelona, the club that had given him his professional start. “It was kind of romantic,” he said.Gasol, now 42, has since kept busy with his foundation that focuses on childhood obesity and as a member of the International Olympic Committee, a consultant for the Golden State Warriors and a W.N.B.A. investor. He also squeezes in the occasional round of golf.Of course, there are days when he misses playing basketball. So he copes by reading books about personal fulfillment and retirement, some of them geared toward people in their 60s. He also keeps in touch with Dr. William D. Parham, the director of mental health and wellness for the N.B.A. players’ union.“I’ve talked to him several times to help me weather this,” Gasol said. “You have to understand that nothing will ever really compare to the thrill of playing.”Mario West: Knowing When to Move OnMario West spent several seasons in the N.B.A. Now, he helps players cope with the worries of moving on.NBPAMario West, 38, spends most of the N.B.A. season in locker rooms making connections with players by getting personal.He might mention how in 2009 Shannon Brown, then a Lakers guard, famously pinned one of his layup attempts to the backboard. (“I’ve been a meme,” West said.) Or how he played in the Philippines and the Dominican Republic after a few seasons in the N.B.A. Or how injuries changed his plans.Now, as the director of Off the Court, an N.B.A. players’ union program, West counsels players on life after basketball. Most of them are not stars. Most worry about surviving training camp, about extending their careers. West was like that. So he gives his cellphone number to each player he meets.“If guys call me at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., I’m going to pick up,” he said.Yes, even some professional athletes go into life-crisis mode in the middle of the night, when the house quiets and the internal voices of worry and insecurity get loud. Their financial concerns may not be relatable to the average person, but late-night stomach knots are a human experience.West, left, playing in the N.B.A. playoffs for the Atlanta Hawks in 2010. He spent three seasons with the Hawks.Grant Halverson/Getty Images“I answer every phone call,” West said. “We want to be the 411 and the 911.”West often works with Deborah Murman, the director of the union’s career development program, who helps players cultivate outside interests.“I like to say that it’s much easier to walk away from something when you have something you’re walking toward,” Murman said.West’s professional career ended in 2015, when he was 31. He still plays pickup basketball in Atlanta, where he lives with his family. He has two young sons, and he wants to stay in shape for as long as possible.“I remember dunking on my dad when I was 14, and he never played me again,” West said.In his own way, West’s father knew when it was time to move on.Jamal Crawford: ‘I Had Emotional Days’Jamal Crawford won the Sixth Man of the Year Award three times over a two-decade career.Cassy Athena/Getty ImagesEven now, Jamal Crawford has trouble making sense of why his playing career ended.He thinks back to the 2017-18 season, when he came off the bench and helped the Minnesota Timberwolves reach the playoffs for the first time since 2004. Crawford’s N.B.A. peers named him the teammate of the year — then he went unsigned for months as a free agent.Sure, he had some mileage. He was 38 and coming off his 18th N.B.A. season, but he was healthy. When an offer finally did surface, it was with the Phoenix Suns the day before the 2018-19 season. He signed up for one year as a role player on one of the league’s worst and youngest teams.“You found beauty in the fact that you were helping guys learn to be professionals,” he said.Crawford thought he set himself up well for a new deal that summer by ending the season with high-scoring games. He thought wrong. The next season started without him.“I had emotional days where I’d wake up and be like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I’m not getting a call,’ ” he said.His agent was, in fact, fielding calls — several teams had reached out to gauge his interest in joining a front office or a coaching staff in 2019-20 — but Crawford still wanted to play. He was mystified: Had his late-season scoring binge worked against him? Were teams concerned that he would be unwilling to accept a limited role?Crawford scored 51 points in one of his final N.B.A. games.Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressHe was still unemployed when the coronavirus pandemic forced the N.B.A. to halt play for several months in March 2020. When the season resumed that July, he joined the Nets and injured his hamstring in his first game. His season was finished. And though he didn’t know it, so was his career.Over the next two years, as he made his desire to play again known on social media and TV, he stumbled into a new vocation and passion: coaching his son J.J.’s youth basketball team in Seattle.“It was the craziest thing,” Crawford said, “because I never knew that I would want to coach.”He shuttles his son to weekend tournaments. He diagrams plays on his iPad. He said he could see himself coaching for years to come. He announced his retirement from the N.B.A. in March but showed he still had it in an adult league in July.“Honestly, I have more fun coaching than I do playing — and I still love playing, by the way,” Crawford said. “If you’re an elite athlete and in that space for so long, you’re always going to be competitive. It doesn’t turn off. So, you need to find a way to channel it.”Cole Aldrich: Happy With Life After BasketballCole Aldrich, right, with his wife, Britt Aldrich, and their son, thought he would be away from basketball for just a year. Then the coronavirus pandemic changed his plans.Nikki JilekCole Aldrich would be the first to tell you that his circumstances are odd, that little about his life in Minnesota makes sense.He often hits the roads near his home on a fancy gravel bike. He’s “far too involved” in the construction of his new home. When he was golfing last fall, a member of his playing group asked him what he did for work. Aldrich, 33, told him he was retired.“You wouldn’t believe the looks people give you when you tell them that,” Aldrich said.In his former life, Aldrich was one of the top picks in the 2010 N.B.A. draft and spent his first two seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He bounced around the league as a backup center before signing a three-year deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves with $17 million guaranteed.Aldrich spent some time as a Knicks center in 2013.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“At that point, I felt like I could take a little bit of a deep breath,” he said.He was cut before the third year of the deal, then sprained his knee while playing in China. At home in Minnesota, his wife, Britt Aldrich, was pregnant with their first child. Cole thought he would take a year off before giving hoops another shot. But after his son was born and the coronavirus pandemic rocked the world, “an easy decision for me became even easier,” he said.It is a rare luxury, “retiring” in your early 30s with millions in the bank. But can this type of life — stay-at-home dad, part-time cyclist — last forever? Aldrich predicts that he will want another job at some point.“I want to go and have a career in some capacity,” he said. “But I don’t know what that looks like.”Many people are lucky if they can afford to stop working when they’re old enough to claim Social Security payments. But in the N.B.A. world, most careers are over before the player turns 30. Aldrich was done in the N.B.A. by 29 and had earned millions. His life is indeed odd in the big picture.Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles: ‘Is It Really Over?’Quentin Richardson, left, and Darius Miles, right, made the Los Angeles Clippers cool and exciting when they joined the team as rookies in 2000.Guillermo Hernandez Martinez/The Players’ TribuneDarius Miles had just finished high school. Quentin Richardson was 20 years old. They were Los Angeles Clippers rookies in the fall of 2000.Suddenly, the woeful Clippers were cool and exciting, if not yet particularly good.“We were like a college team playing against grown men,” Miles said.The players known as Q-Rich and D-Miles were fast and fun. Fans mirrored their signature celebration by tapping their fists on their foreheads. Then, after just two seasons, the Clippers traded Miles to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a more experienced player.All these years later, Miles and Richardson wonder what would have happened had the team kept them together. Miles, 40, hopscotched around the league before he played his final game in 2009. He became depressed and withdrew into a “cave” to cope.“Just losing your career, it’s one of the mental blocks that every player has,” Miles said. “Like, is it really over?”Richardson, 42, knew he was nearing the end when the Orlando Magic cut him before the start of the 2012-13 season. He sat by the phone for months, waiting for another offer. After a brief stint with the Knicks, he spent four years in the Pistons’ front office, but he did not feel as though his opinions were valued.“It was an experience that I would not like to experience again,” he said.Richardson and Miles reconnected in 2018. With Richardson acting as his editor, Miles spent months on an essay for The Players’ Tribune titled, “What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles?”Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles were drafted together by the Clippers in 2000.Chriss Pizzello/Associated PressHe wrote about growing up around drugs and violence in East St. Louis, Ill., and about “shady business deals” leaving him bankrupt. He wrote about the knee injuries that derailed his career and about being so depressed after his mother’s death that he holed up in her house for three years. And he wrote about the invitation from Richardson to move to his neighborhood in Florida.“Q kept hitting me up,” Miles said. “I had to let the storm pass until I could see sunshine.”Their chemistry birthed the podcast “Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles,” which offers a candid look at life in pro sports via interviews with current and former athletes and coaches.“Guys do want to talk, and they prefer it in this realm where they’re sitting across from us and they know they’re in a safe space,” Richardson said. “They know we’re going to look out for each other.”He said the N.B.A. and players’ union were helpful, too, as players transitioned into retirement.“They’re trying to make it as fail proof as possible,” Richardson said. “Obviously, things can still happen.”(In October 2021, Miles was one of 18 former players charged in an insurance fraud scheme. Miles, who has pleaded not guilty, declined to comment on the case through a publicist.)With their podcast, Miles and Richardson are figuring out their new lives, without straying too far from the game. For some players, that might be the best way to move forward.Miles said the podcast had helped give him purpose. “It’s the best doctor I got,” he said.Dave Bing and Johnny Davis: Charting a Path for OthersJohnny Davis is the chairman of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, which helps former players with health care and other post-basketball resources.Jacob Biba for The New York TimesGrowing up in Detroit in the 1960s, Davis had many Pistons stars to emulate whenever he hit the playground courts with friends.“One kid would want to be Jimmy Walker, and one would want to be Dave Bing,” Davis said. “I always wanted to be Dave Bing.”Today, Davis and Bing are connected in another way: Davis is the chairman of the National Basketball Retired Players Association. Bing, 78, co-founded the group in 1992 with four other former players — Oscar Robertson, Archie Clark, Dave Cowens and Dave DeBusschere.“We were at an All-Star Game where we talked about what we needed to try to do to help these players who were up in age,” Bing said. “Their health wasn’t all that good, and nobody seemed to care about them.”Dave Bing was introduced as part of the N.B.A.’s 75th anniversary team during the 2022 All-Star Game in February.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThe N.B.A. was not always the lucrative colossus that it is today. In Bing’s era, many players made ends meet with off-season jobs. Bing worked for a bank, first as a teller and later as a branch manager.“The guys today don’t have to work and might not have to really worry about a second career,” he said. “But in the era I played in, you didn’t have a choice. You’re done at 34, and you’ve got your whole life in front of you.”In 1980, he started Bing Steel with four employees. The company grew into a multimillion-dollar conglomerate, which he ran for 28 years before he was elected mayor of Detroit in 2009.The retired players’ association helps players with health care, education, career counseling and financial services. But Scott Rochelle, the organization’s president and chief executive, avoids using the word “retirement.”“I’ve got two or three guys who will see me and run away because they see me as the grim reaper,” Rochelle said. “We look at it as a change of direction. You don’t retire at 35. You just change your purpose and find something else that drives you from day to day.” More

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      Rachel Nichols Joins Showtime After Contentious ESPN Exit

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      Nichols was pulled from the air at ESPN last year after The New York Times reported on disparaging comments that Nichols, who is white, had made about a Black colleague.One year after the high-profile canceling of her television show, Rachel Nichols is back.Showtime Sports announced Friday that Nichols would be joining the premium television network to contribute to its basketball coverage, with her first appearance coming on the “All the Smoke” podcast Friday.For five years, Nichols was the face of ESPN’s N.B.A. coverage, sitting down for interviews with big stars, covering the playoffs and hosting its daily basketball show, “The Jump.” But she was pulled from the air and her show was canceled last year after The New York Times reported on disparaging comments Nichols had made about Maria Taylor, who at the time was her colleague at ESPN.In a conversation with an adviser to the Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James that was unknowingly recorded in July 2020, Nichols, who is white, said that Taylor, who is Black, had been chosen to host 2020 N.B.A. finals coverage instead of her because ESPN executives were “feeling pressure” on diversity.Shortly after The Times’s report, Taylor left ESPN for NBC, where she hosts “Football Night in America,” among other duties. ESPN replaced “The Jump” with a similar daily show called “NBA Today,” which is hosted by Malika Andrews.On the “All the Smoke” podcast — which is hosted by the former N.B.A. players Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, who worked with Nichols on “The Jump” — Nichols made her most extensive comments yet on her departure from ESPN, though she revealed little that had not already been said or reported.Nichols said that the job of hosting N.B.A. finals coverage had been written into her contract with ESPN. But as the company was preparing for the unprecedented airing of the rest of the regular season and the playoffs from a bubble environment near Orlando, Fla., because of the coronavirus pandemic, she was asked instead to be a sideline reporter so that Taylor could host finals studio coverage.“They stressed it was my choice; they weren’t telling me to do this, because it was in my contract,” Nichols said on the podcast. “But they were putting a lot of pressure on me. I was being told, ‘Well, you’re not a team player.’ Which any woman in business knows is code, right?”An ESPN spokesman declined to comment last year when asked whether hosting the finals was in Nichols’s contract. The spokesman declined to comment when asked again Friday. Generally, most ESPN contracts for on-air commentators are what are known as “pay or play” contracts, meaning ESPN has the right to take anybody off the air for any reason, but the company must continue to pay them.Nichols was inadvertently recorded from her hotel room near Orlando. A camera in her room was left on after she finished taping for a show, feeding its recording to a server at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn. Her conversation came as the country was roiled by racial justice protests after the police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, and right after The Times reported that many Black employees at ESPN felt they were harmed by racism at the company.On the recording, the adviser Nichols was speaking to, Adam Mendelsohn, who is white, said he was “exhausted” by Black Lives Matter and Nichols laughed.Maria Taylor left ESPN and joined NBC, where she has covered the Olympics and hosts “Football Night in America.”Nick Cammett/Getty ImagesOn the podcast Friday, Nichols said she believed that ESPN was asking her to help fix employee and audience complaints about a lack of diversity in a way they would not have asked a man to do. “Do you think ESPN would ever say to Rece Davis: ‘Hey, we want to give Maria this opportunity. You go be the sideline reporter?’” Nichols said, referring to Davis, a white man who hosts “College GameDay.” “They don’t say that to men.”Nichols added that she attempted to set up a meeting to apologize to Taylor after Taylor learned of her comments but that Taylor would not meet with her.“I feel sorry that any of this touched Maria Taylor,” Nichols said. “She’s a fellow woman in the business. It wasn’t her fault what was going on.”Nichols, without naming anyone, said she thought “people who had bad feelings” held on to the hotel room recording, then leaked it to the media for “leverage with their own situations.”It is not immediately clear how big of a role Nichols will have at Showtime, which does not have rights to show N.B.A. games. According to a statement from Showtime, Nichols will “contribute to multiple programs and projects from Showtime Basketball across multiple platforms.” More

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      Boston Celtics Players ‘Shocked’ by Coach Ime Udoka’s Suspension

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      Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown said they had not spoken to Coach Ime Udoka since the team announced his full-season suspension on Thursday.CANTON, Mass. — Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics said he was preparing for the start of training camp last week when he learned that Ime Udoka, the team’s head coach, could have been facing a lengthy suspension. But Tatum was not privy to any inside information, he said. So, how did he learn the news?“On Twitter,” he said. “Like everybody else.”Tatum was among the Celtics players who, on Monday, spoke publicly for the first time since the team announced Thursday that it had suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season for unspecified “violations of team policies.” One by one, the players appeared on a dais for the team’s media day and, facing a bank of cameras and reporters, said they knew little about what had led to Udoka’s punishment.Marcus Smart: “It’s been hell for us. Just caught by surprise. No one really knows anything, so we’re just in the wind like everybody else. Last couple of days have been confusing.”Jaylen Brown: “Nobody really has any of the information.”Grant Williams: “I don’t know the facts.”For the players, Udoka’s absence — along with the secretive nature of the investigation into his misconduct — has been a troubling development as they try to reorient themselves for another crack at a championship run after losing to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals last season.One person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about it said Udoka had an inappropriate relationship with a female team employee. Another person who had been briefed said that Udoka’s violations involved one woman.Boston’s Jaylen Brown, left, is in his seventh season with the Celtics. He was the team’s second-leading scorer last season, Udoka’s first as head coach.Ezra Shaw/Getty Images“As far as initial reactions, I think we were all shocked at what was going on — a little confused,” Brown said. “But a lot of the information wasn’t being shared with us, or with members of the team, so I can’t really comment on it.”A Celtics spokesman declined to say how many violations there were.In a news conference last week, Wyc Grousbeck, the team’s majority owner, cited “privacy reasons” in declining to elaborate on the nature of Udoka’s misconduct. The Celtics’ decision to suspend Udoka came after a monthslong investigation by an independent law firm, Grousbeck said.On Monday, Tatum, Brown and Smart were among the team’s high-profile players who indicated that they did not know about the investigation while it was happening. In fact, Smart said, Udoka had recently visited him and a couple of teammates in Los Angeles. Smart was asked if anything about Udoka’s behavior struck him as unusual while he was in California.“Not to me,” he said. “I think that’s why we got so caught off guard, because it just seemed so normal.”Vague reports about Udoka’s situation emerged on social media Wednesday. At a team meeting the following day, few details were shared with players, Tatum said.“There wasn’t any more information that we found out than the things you guys heard,” Tatum said, adding: “It’s hard for me to answer if things were handled the right way or if they weren’t because, I guess for a lot of reasons, I don’t know all the details. I just don’t know.”Tatum and Brown, the team’s top two scorers last season, both said they had not spoken with Udoka since he was suspended. “It’s a lot to process,” Tatum said.Joe Mazzulla, 34, whom the Celtics hired as an assistant in 2019, will be the team’s interim head coach this season. Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations and Udoka’s predecessor, said last week that Mazzulla was the best choice for the role “by a long shot.” Mazzulla, who played college basketball at West Virginia, was previously the head coach at Fairmont State, a Division II college in West Virginia.As a college player, Mazzulla twice pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges, according to multiple news reports at the time — first, when he was accused of scuffling with police at a Pittsburgh Pirates game, and later after he was accused of grabbing a woman at a bar.“Listen, I’ve made mistakes,” Mazzulla said Monday. “I’m not perfect. I’ve hurt people, and I’ve had to use the situations I put myself in as a younger man to learn from and become a better person. That’s what I’ve tried to focus on: How can I re-create my identity as a person? How can I rely on my faith? And how can I just have a positive impact on the people around me?”Brown, who was the subject of trade rumors in the off-season after Kevin Durant asked to be moved from the Nets, was among the players who offered Mazzulla a public vote of confidence.“I believe in Joe,” Brown said. “Joe believes in me. I’ve had conversations with him. I don’t think he sees a limit on my game. I think he’s coming in excited, so I’m optimistic.”Joe Mazzulla, who had been an assistant coach for the Celtics since 2019, will be the interim head coach during Udoka’s suspension this season.Paul Rutherford/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMalcolm Brogdon, a veteran guard who was traded to the Celtics from the Indiana Pacers in July, said he was struck by Mazzulla’s self-discipline. Over the summer, Brogdon said, Mazzulla often beat the players to the team’s training center to lift weights each morning.One day, Mazzulla noticed that Brogdon was using a balloon to do breathing exercises. Mazzulla told Brogdon that he was a fan of breathing exercises, too.“He started explaining the theories behind them and the psychology of it,” Brogdon said. “So he’s a guy that’s paying attention to everything.”Still, Mazzulla acknowledged some of the realities of the situation: that people throughout the Celtics organization need time to “feel and heal,” that he never anticipated being in this position and that he likely will need to learn on the job.The players, too, seem aware of the challenges ahead of them.“Everything that we started to build,” Smart said, “is starting over in a sense.” More

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      Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving Talk About Nets’ Rocky Off-Season

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      Durant had asked to be traded but stayed put. Irving said he had come close to joining another team but decided that staying in Brooklyn was his best choice.Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were expected to make the Nets instant title contenders when they joined the team in 2019, bringing two of the best offensive talents in the N.B.A. to a team that had just finished sixth in the Eastern Conference.But three years later, without any championships or finals appearances with the Nets, Durant and Irving spoke Monday about a rocky off-season that at times seemed like it might end with both of them playing for other teams.In June, Durant, 33, requested a trade, which he said Monday was because of uncertainty and accountability issues in the organization.“I want to be in a place that’s stable and trying to build a championship culture,” Durant said. “So, I had some doubts about that.”Despite his trade request coming just days after Irving and the Nets couldn’t agree to a long-term extension, Durant said that wasn’t a factor.Instead, he pointed to the Nets’ 11-game losing streak while he was injured last season as a worrisome signal about the team’s direction. At the time, he didn’t want his concerns to affect the team’s play on the floor, he said, so he waited until the off-season to make his trade request.“That’s what was putting doubt in my mind, is that when adversity hit can we keep pushing through it?” Durant said. “I’ve been on championship teams. I’ve been on teams that have been right on the brink of winning a championship, and they did those things. So, I want to be a part of a group that did that.”He added: “Winning and losing — I can take all that. I’ve been in the league for a long time. So, it’s not more so about just a result. It’s like how we get to that point. And I wasn’t feeling how we was getting to that point.”In August, The Athletic reported that Durant had told the Nets to choose between keeping him or keeping General Manager Sean Marks and Coach Steve Nash. The report drew the Nets’ owner, Joe Tsai, to release a statement of confidence in the Nets’ leadership. “Our front office and coaching staff have my support,” Tsai wrote. “We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”On Monday, Marks said, “That’s pro sports, right?” He added: “Everybody’s entitled to their opinions. And I think from us, it’s not to hold a grudge against what Kevin said, but it’s almost like: All right, that’s the way he feels. What’s going on here? Like, what do we need to change?”Nash said that he didn’t take it personally. “This is not new in the N.B.A.,” he said.“Kevin and I go way back,” said Nash, who worked with Durant in Golden State as a team consultant. “So, you know, families go through things like this.”The Nets shopped Durant to other teams, but on Aug. 23, Durant and the Nets announced that they had “agreed to move forward with our partnership.”Durant said he wasn’t disappointed or surprised to return to the Nets: “I know I’m that good that you just not going to give me away.”Before Durant’s trade saga began, there was the issue of Irving, whose contract negotiations and unwillingness to be vaccinated against the coronavirus dominated headlines for much of the past year. Irving said he felt as though the Nets had given him an “ultimatum.”“I gave up four years, 100 and something million deciding to be unvaccinated,” Irving said. “And that was the decision: It was contract, get vaccinated or be unvaccinated, and there’s a level of uncertainty of your future — whether you’re going to be in this league, whether you’re going to be on this team. So, I had to deal with that real-life circumstance of losing my job for this decision.”Irving, 30, was eligible for max contract extensions worth up to about $245 million, but he and the Nets did not reach an agreement on one. Instead, Irving opted into the final year of his contract, which will pay him $36.5 million this season. He said he had other options — but not many — and decided that staying in Brooklyn was the best choice for him. Irving played in just 29 regular-season games in 2021-22, mostly because he was ineligible to play at home because of local vaccine mandates.Marks said that not reaching a contract agreement with Irving was because of reliability, not Irving’s stance against the vaccine.“There’s no ultimatum being given here,” Marks said as Nash sat next to him and nodded his head in agreement. “It goes back to wanting people who are reliable people, who are here, accountable — all of us. Staff, players, coaches, you name it. I’m not giving somebody an ultimatum to get the vaccine. That’s a completely personal choice. And I stand by Kyrie, and if he wants, he’s made that choice. That’s his prerogative completely, and I totally understand that.”While the Nets were navigating Durant’s injury and Irving’s absences last season, they were also affected by the unclear status of guard Ben Simmons. Amid tensions in Philadelphia early last season, Simmons, 26, was traded to the Nets for James Harden in February. Simmons, who said he was dealing a lingering back injury and mental health concerns, has never played in a game for the Nets.He appeared to be close to suiting up in the first round of the playoffs, when the Nets were facing elimination against the Celtics. “That day I was was supposed to play Game 4, I woke up on the floor,” Simmons said Monday. “I couldn’t move, could barely walk.”Simmons had back surgery in May. He said he was cleared to participate in training camp, which begins Tuesday.“I’m excited to play with these guys,” said Simmons, who hasn’t played in an N.B.A. game since Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals with the Sixers. “I think it’s a good opportunity for us, and we have a lot to prove.” More

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      Greg Lee, a Key Member of Two U.C.L.A. Title-Winners, Dies at 70

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      A master of the assist, he played alongside Bill Walton and Jamaal Wilkes on teams that John Wooden led to the N.C.A.A. championship in 1972 and 1973.Greg Lee, the point guard for Coach John Wooden’s unbeaten U.C.L.A. teams that captured the 1972 and 1973 N.C.A.A. basketball tournament championships, died on Wednesday in San Diego. He was 70.His death, at a hospital, was announced by the U.C.L.A. athletics department, which said the cause was an infection related to an immune disorder.At 6 feet 4 inches, a good size for a guard of his era, Lee became a starter in his sophomore season.He joined center Bill Walton and forward Jamaal Wilkes, U.C.L.A.’s stars, on the Bruins team that defeated Florida State for the 1972 tournament championship. Concentrating on a playmaking role since U.C.L.A. had a sharpshooting frontcourt, he handed out 14 assists in 34 minutes on the court while Walton connected on 21 of 22 shots, scoring 44 points, in the Bruins’ victory over Memphis State in the 1973 title game for their seventh consecutive national championship. Both those teams went 30-0.By U.C.L.A’s standards, the 1973-74 season, when Lee was a senior, proved something of a disappointment. The Bruins’ winning streak ended at 88 games when they were edged by Notre Dame, 71-70. They were defeated in double overtime in the N.C.A.A. tournament semifinals by North Carolina State, which went on to capture the title, and they finished with a record of 26-4 — impressive for almost any team, but not U.C.L.A.Lee averaged only 5.8 points a game for his three varsity seasons, but he averaged nearly three assists a game as a senior. His U.C.LA. teams had an overall record of 86-4.He was named a three-time academic All-American.Lee was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the seventh round of the 1974 N.B.A. draft and by the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association in its draft. He played briefly in the A.B.A. and, after becoming a free agent, reunited with Walton on the N.B.A.’s Portland Trail Blazers, who obtained him in a trade with the Hawks. He got into only a few games with the Blazers.Lee later played pro basketball in Germany for several seasons. But if his basketball career was over when he returned to the United States, his athletic career was not.He hadn’t played volleyball at U.C.L.A., but he joined the professional beach volleyball circuit in Southern California and went on to enjoy success in both singles and, teamed with Jim Menges, a former volleyball player for the Bruins, doubles. In their 30 matches between 1973 and 1982, Lee and Menges won 25 doubles titles and finished in second place three times and in third place once.Gregory Scott Lee was born on Dec. 12, 1951, in the Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles, the youngest of three brothers. He starred in basketball at Reseda High School, where he was coached by his father, Marvin, who had played for U.C.L.A. in the 1940s under Wilbur Johns, the Bruins’ coach before Wooden. He was named the Los Angeles city player of the year during his junior and senior seasons at Reseda, when he averaged close to 30 points a game.He later earned teaching credentials from U.C.L.A. and taught mathematics and coached basketball and tennis at Clairemont High School in San Diego, whose 1979 class inspired Cameron Crowe’s 1981 book “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and its 1982 movie adaptation.He is survived by his wife, Lisa; his son, Ethan; his daughter, Jessamyn Feves; his brother, Jon; and two grandchildren.Lee was grateful to Wooden for his guidance.“He did the same things with his stars as he did with his scrubs,” he was quoted as saying in “How to Be Like Coach Wooden: Life Lessons From Basketball’s Greatest Leader,” by Pat Williams with David Wimbish (2006). “He always focused on the details. He was a teacher who happened to be a basketball coach.” More

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      An Indiana Family Lives in a Basketball Gym (Seriously)

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      WILKINSON, Ind. — Many people in basketball-obsessed Indiana claim to eat, sleep and breathe the game. This summer, in a microscopic rural town about 30 miles outside Indianapolis, a house went up for sale that would give its occupants little other choice.“Rare opportunity for your very own high school gym,” began the listing for the Wilkinson High School gymnasium, which was erected in 1950, fell out of use two decades later and at some point afterward underwent a perfunctory residential conversion.Kyle and Lauren Petry were not looking for a new home when they stumbled upon the listing, and they certainly had no interest in one built inside the rickety skeleton of a 72-year-old gym. But because they lived nearby, because it all seemed so absurd, they stopped in for a look.The pictures, they thought, had not done the space justice. They were awed by its cavernous proportions — most of the 11,000-square-foot gym was left untouched — and humbled by its antique aura. Then they walked away, happy to leave it in the realm of fantasy.A week and a half later, while sitting in church, the couple experienced a moment of clarity. They wanted to own it, they realized. They called the real estate agent that morning and made an offer. It was accepted before they went to bed.The concept of home-court advantage, for the couple and their three children, suddenly took on new meaning.“It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard of,” Lauren Petry said of the house, “and the coolest thing I’d ever heard of.”Lauren Petry in front of the gym. “It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard of, and the coolest thing I’d ever heard of,” she said.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesLittle did the Petrys know their house-hunting fever dream was only beginning. The next morning, Roy Wilson, the couple’s real estate agent, called to tell them that the listing had gone viral on social media, seemingly overnight, and was being covered in several news outlets.In the age of Zillow surfing — the sort of aimless, daydreamy scrolling of real estate sites that became something of a national pastime at the height of the coronavirus pandemic — the listing was pure catnip. The whimsical text oozed small-town charm. The rustic pictures evoked childhood emotions. The kitchen and living room, featuring the original maple floor and regulation basketball lines, seemed like sight gags. (Not everybody was seduced: “I have zero fond memories of high school gym,” someone replied to a Tweet from the account Zillow Gone Wild.)Calls from journalists and curious buyers from as far away as Singapore soon flooded Wilson’s office. The Petrys’ winning offer that Sunday — for $300,000, a hair more than the list price — had been only the fifth bid in three weeks. In the three days after the listing went viral, there were 49 more, some of them for well over double the price, the Petrys were later told.Wilson, 71, whose high school graduation ceremony had been held in the gym, could not offer the callers much. The Petrys’ bid had been accepted, meaning the wave of eager buyers had to be turned away. And because the deal had not closed, he could not publicly name the family. Photographers and camera crews showed up at the gym anyway, trying to get pictures through the windows.“It was a hubbub,” said Cheryl Middendorf, 68, who attended school in the district. She now runs an insurance agency a couple of blocks from the gym that is one of the few businesses in Wilkinson, which has a population of only a few hundred people.Among miscellaneous furniture, boxes await unpacking.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesThe viral moment faded as quickly as it appeared. The worldwide attention subsided. What remained, though, was a quintessentially Hoosier story, one whose ending is still being written.The Petrys — who have three children: Carson, 12; Kaylynn, 9; and Kyla, 8 — said they want to refurbish the court and open it up somehow to the Wilkinson community. They have pondered starting a partnership with the school district or simply hosting events, like pickup games and movie nights, on their own. They both grew up in the area (and met while riding horses in the fifth grade) and now feel a responsibility to honor the history of the building.In many ways, they have their work cut out for them. The space is enormous: More than half the original gym, with its weathered gray bleachers, was left in its original form. The previous owners then constructed a bilevel, three-bedroom home in the remaining area inside the structure. The gym can be entered from a door in the living room, and the court can be stared at from any number of large windows in the home.The Petrys realized one night that a colony of bats had taken up residence in one corner of the gym. Spiders continue to emerge all over the house. Moving has been a slow process, but they have positioned a dining table in the kitchen, near the top of the key, and plan to install an island inside the paint.“We’re still walking around here thinking, ‘What did we just do?’” said Kyle Petry, who estimated the cost of renovations, over a period of years, would eventually exceed the original cost of the home.The people of Wilkinson are rooting for them, waiting to see what happens next, well aware of what is at stake.Basketball maintains a fervent following in Indiana, and the state’s high school gyms from the first half of the 20th century occupy an almost spiritual place across its landscape, like the bygone churches dotting the Italian countryside.Kyla Petry rides her bike around the boxes.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesSeveral nearby gyms have their own claims to fame. A 20-minute drive east, for instance, will take you to the New Castle Fieldhouse, the largest high school gym in the United States. Ten minutes in the other direction is the former high school court where much of “Hoosiers,” the 1985 film starring Gene Hackman that captured the state’s deep reverence for the game, was filmed.“Most of these country schools didn’t have enough boys for football, so basketball was king,” said Neil Shaneyfelt, the board president of the Hoosier Gym, which operates today as a museum and event space. “The crops are in, so what do we do for entertainment during the cold months in Indiana? You might as well have shut the towns down, because everybody came to the ballgames.”Other than churches, gyms were often the only large communal spaces in these rural towns. Along with basketball games, they hosted sock hops, ice cream socials and graduations.Wilkinson was no different. Greg Troy, 72, grew up six miles north of the school, watched games there as a young child and eventually played for the varsity team. He recalled the thrill of seeing the bright lights of the gym from the main road on the way to Friday night games, knowing the room would be packed.“It was always noisy,” Troy said of the building, “always smelled good, like popcorn.”The tragedy for old-timers and basketball lovers is that so many of these storied Indiana gyms have fallen out of use. In 1959, a state law forced hundreds of tiny school districts to consolidate. That year, there were 724 basketball-playing high schools in the state, according to a 2009 story in the Indianapolis Star. Fifty years later, there were 402.Some gyms have been saved, with at least a few others becoming private homes. Others have fallen into disrepair. Many are gone altogether.Kyle Petry, right, and his father, Scott, examine carvings on an original wooden school desk left in the home.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesThe Wilkinson gym started to fall out of use when the school consolidated with nearby Charlottesville High School in 1965. The building was sold in the 1970s to a local family seeking a larger space for its hardware store. For a time the family also used an adjacent classroom building — which has since been demolished — as a restaurant serving homey classics like beef Manhattan and pork, beans and potatoes.“People would come in and say, ‘Huh, this is the old basketball floor, isn’t it?’” said Terry Molden, 79, who owned the store with his family. “And I would say, ‘Yeah, and you’re out of bounds.’ ”Two decades ago, the Molden family sold the gym to Jeff and Christy Broady, a local couple, who lived in the gym while gradually constructing the home, piece by piece, all around them. The price back then was $85,000, according to Wilson, who worked on the deal, with few people interested.Today, people have been clamoring to get inside.Soon after the Petrys moved in, a few local children followed the Petrys’ kids off the school bus and into their home to play. The next day, there were a few more. The number kept trickling upward, until one day there were almost 20 children shooting hoops and riding bicycles around the court.“I was like, ‘Do your parents know that you’re here?’” Lauren Petry said, laughing.Older residents have taken notice, too. The day before the family moved in, an anonymous visitor dropped off a box of black-and-white photos of the gym with a note that read, “I think you should have these.” The Petrys were also given a dust stack of yearbooks from the 1950s.The Petrys have a photo showing the construction of the Wilkinson High School gym.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesPeople continue knocking on the door, asking to see the place, reminiscing about little life events from long ago.In this spirit, the Petrys have decided to reserve one entire wall near the front door of the house, where the concession stand used to be, as an exhibition space to hang memorabilia from the school. They have a classroom desk that students carved their names into a century ago. A local collector offered to donate a varsity cheerleader uniform from the ’50s.“It’s this little time capsule where you can go back and remember a time when things were slower,” Lauren Petry said of her odd, new home. “Basketball takes you back to that, that nostalgia, that warm feeling. I think people are responding to that. Their hearts gravitate toward it.” More