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      Bill Russell Paved the Way for Black Coaches to Defy Doubters

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      When getting hired as a Black coach seemed “far-fetched,” as one coach said, Russell showed that it could be done — and that it could lead to championships.Bill Russell and Red Auerbach came to an agreement.Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching. Russell and Auerbach had created a dynasty together, with Russell dominating at center and Auerbach cementing their championship victories with plumes of celebratory cigar smoke.They would each write down their top-five preferred coaches to succeed Auerbach and consider any name who landed on both lists.They found no matches. Auerbach had already approached Russell about taking over the job and continuing on as a player, but Russell, who had witnessed the toll coaching took on Auerbach, quickly rebuffed him.Now, after the lists crisscrossed candidates, Russell reconsidered his position and figured nobody else, beyond Auerbach, could coach Bill Russell quite like Bill Russell.“When Red and I had started to discuss my becoming coach, there were some things we didn’t have to say,” Russell wrote in his book about his friendship with Auerbach, “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend,” in 2009. “For example, when I was finally named publicly, I didn’t know that I had just become the first African American coach in the history of major league sports.”It was 1966, and the distinction did not cross his mind until Boston news media members informed him. “When I took the job, one reporter wrote seven articles focusing on why I shouldn’t be coaching the Celtics,” Russell wrote.Russell, who died Sunday at 88, would go on to win two championships as the head coach of the Celtics, his 10th and 11th championship rings. He would also coach the Seattle SuperSonics and the Sacramento Kings and inspire a generation of Black players to try their hand at coaching, too. The skepticism that accompanied his hiring in Boston is perhaps less of an issue now, but still a factor in whether Black people are hired to coach in the N.B.A. today. Bernie Bickerstaff, who is Black, watched Russell take over as head coach of the Celtics just as he was about to enter into a life of coaching. He began as an assistant at the University of San Diego under Phil Woolpert, who had coached Russell at the University of San Francisco.Bernie Bickerstaff, who has been the head coach of five N.B.A. teams, said he was inspired by Bill Russell.Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images“At that time, you didn’t think about anything like that,” said Bickerstaff, who became the coach of the SuperSonics in 1985. “In fact, if you’re sitting back and you’re a young Black at that time, it seemed far-fetched.”Russell, the coach, mimicked Russell the player. He was a longtime civil rights activist who coached the Celtics during the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “It rubbed a lot of Bostonians the wrong way,” Russell wrote in his 2009 book. “At the time, Boston was a totally segregated city — and I vehemently opposed segregation.”He demanded respect and competed fiercely during an era when he had no assistant coaches. He played and coached the Celtics for three seasons before closing out the N.B.A.’s most successful and long-lasting championship reign.“That speaks volumes in itself for who he was as a person and a humanitarian, if you understand the culture of this country, especially in certain places,” said Jim Cleamons, who is Black and became the coach of the Dallas Mavericks in 1996.Al Attles and Lenny Wilkens followed Russell as the next Black N.B.A. head coaches. They, like Russell, led teams to championships. It took a while for the rest of the professional sports world to catch up. Frank Robinson, Russell’s former high school basketball teammate, became Major League Baseball’s first Black manager, in Cleveland, in 1975. Art Shell became the N.F.L.’s first Black head coach in the modern era for the Oakland Raiders in 1989.“Bill Russell was an inspiration, period, with coaching,” Bickerstaff said. “But as a human being, during times when it wasn’t popular to be someone of our complexion, he stood up and he represented. He had no fear. He was genuine. He was a success. He was a leader on and off the court.”Russell became the fifth person inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and a coach when he earned enshrinement as a coach last year.Jim Cleamons was the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks across two seasons in the 1990s. Tim Clayton for The New York TimesBy then, something that seemed far-fetched when Bickerstaff broke into coaching seemed common. Half of the N.B.A.’s 30 coaches will be Black heading into the 2022-23 season, including J.B. Bickerstaff, Bernie’s son and the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.But as recently as 2020, only four Black coaches roamed N.B.A. sidelines. “There is a certain natural ebb and flow to the hiring and firing, frankly, of coaches, but the number is too low right now,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said before the 2020 finals.Other sports leagues continued to lag. Nearly two decades after Russell won his first championship as a coach, Al Campanis, a Los Angeles Dodgers executive, expressed doubt about the ability of Black people to hold managerial level positions.“I don’t believe it’s prejudice,” Campanis said in an interview on ABC’s “Nightline” in 1987. “I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager.”M.L.B. recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut, yet only two of its current managers — Houston’s Dusty Baker and the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts — are Black.In the N.F.L., Brian Flores, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, recently sued the league over discriminatory hiring practices. Flores is the son of Honduran immigrants. The N.F.L. created a diversity advisory committee and mandated that every team hire a minority offensive coach after Flores’s suit.Russell did not talk often about being the first Black coach in a major sports league. But after his hiring, he felt the stress that awaited him as the “the first Negro coach,” as he wrote in his book.The hope of his relationship with Auerbach evolving from a superficial coach-player bond into a deeper friendship comforted him.“So I started looking forward to that,” he wrote.Russell left the Celtics in 1969 but took over the SuperSonics from 1973 until 1977. He guided Seattle to the franchise’s first-ever playoffs, but the success he found in Boston eluded him.Russell coached a final season with the Sacramento Kings in 1987-88 before he was fired and moved into the front office after a 17-41 start.J.B. Bickerstaff, Bernie Bickerstaff’s son, has coached the Cleveland Cavaliers since 2020. He’s one of 15 Black coaches in the N.B.A.Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images“With a lot of truly great players, it was tough for him to understand why regular players did not have the same drive, focus and commitment to winning that he did,” Jerry Reynolds, an assistant for Russell on the Kings, said in an interview Sunday. “There’s just not very many people wired like that. That’s why they’re great. In some ways, it was hard for him to understand that. Most of the guys, they wanted to win. They didn’t have the need to win every game like him.”All along, Russell remained true to who he was while coaching.Bickerstaff recalled Russell offering a set of golf clubs to one of Woolpert’s sons instead of signing an autograph for him — an act that Russell was known to steadfastly refuse throughout his career.Cleamons said that a booster introduced his high school team to Russell shortly after it had won the Ohio state championship. Russell hardly looked up from his soup. He hated to be interrupted from a meal.Cleamons understood the mind-set after reading Russell’s autobiography.Before being thought of as a basketball player, before being looked upon as a coach, Russell wanted to be viewed as a human being.“He was a little bit like Muhammad Ali,” Reynolds said. “He was always who he was. Society and people changed. Things changed to fit more like it should have been all along.” More

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      Among Pro Athletes, Bill Russell Was a Pioneering Activist

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      Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against segregation in Boston public schools and backed Muhammad Ali in his opposition to the Vietnam War.It’s easy to remember the shots that Bill Russell blocked or the N.B.A. championships he won. After all, there were so many of each that he is considered one of the greatest basketball players in history, and in some corners, the greatest, period.But after his nearly nine decades of life, his most consequential legacy has less to do with the sport he dominated than his work off the court. From the time he was a young man to his death at age 88 on Sunday, Russell was a civil rights activist who consistently used his platform as a celebrity athlete to confront racism, no matter whom it alienated or what it did to his public popularity. And he was one of the first to do so.Now, it is common for athletes across many sports to be outspoken, no doubt inspired by Russell. The N.B.A. players’ union encourages its members to be passionate about their politics, especially around social justice. Without Russell’s risking his own livelihood and enduring the cruelties he did as a Black player in the segregated Boston of the 1950s and 1960s, athlete activism would look much different today, if it existed at all.“The blueprint was written by Russell,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview on Sunday. He continued: “It is now trendy on social media to take a stand. He did it when it was not trendy. He set the trend.”Spike Lee, the director and longtime N.B.A. fan, said in a text message, “We are losing so many greats my head is spinning.”Lee said Russell “is right up there with Jackie Robinson as changing the game in sports and activism in the United States of America, and we are all better because of these champions.”Russell, a native of West Monroe, La., was a trailblazer from the moment he set foot on an N.B.A. court.“My rookie year, in the championship series, I was the only Black player for both teams,” Russell once quipped to an audience while accepting an award in Boston. “And see what we did, we showed them diversity works.”Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 in the prime of his playing career (he played for the Celtics from 1956 to 1969). He was invited to sit onstage behind King, but he declined. That same year, Russell offered his public support for demonstrations against segregation in Boston public schools, and addressed Black students taking part in a sit-in.When the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated, also in 1963, Russell contacted Evers’s older brother, Charles, in Jackson, Miss., and offered his assistance. The elder Evers suggested that Russell run an integrated basketball camp in the Deep South, something that would have been a significant safety risk for Russell. He said yes, and despite the death threats, went through with the camp.Russell, with Kenneth Guscott, left, and Marvin Gilmore, right, spoke at NAACP headquarters in 1964. Hal Sweeney/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesFour years later, when the boxer Muhammad Ali was faced with a torrent of criticism for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War, Russell, the N.F.L. star Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor and still playing at U.C.L.A.) gathered in Cleveland and decided to support Ali. This was not a popular stance, not that Russell cared.Russell wrote immediately afterward that he was envious of Ali.“He has absolute and sincere faith,” Russell wrote for Sports Illustrated. “I’m not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.”Russell’s activism made an impact on generations of athletes. That included Spencer Haywood, who played for Russell as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics, whom Russell coached for four seasons. (In 1966, Russell became the first Black coach in the N.B.A.)Haywood said in an interview on Sunday that he and Russell would often dine at a Seattle restaurant called 13 Coins after road trips, and Russell would regale him with stories about the civil rights movement. During these dinners, Russell lauded the young player’s willingness to sue the N.B.A. in 1971 for not allowing players to enter the league until four years after their high school graduation — a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and was eventually decided in Haywood’s favor.“He was teaching me because he knew what I had stood up for with my Supreme Court ruling,” Haywood said. “And he admired that in me. And I was so overwhelmed by him knowing.”Haywood said his teammates would jokingly refer to Russell as Haywood’s “daddy” because of how close they were. Sometimes, Haywood’s late-night talks with Russell came with surprising advice about activism.“He always used to tell me about not getting too carried away because we were in the ’70s,” Haywood recalled. “He was kind of guiding me, saying: ‘Don’t go out too far right now because you are a player and you need to play the game. But you’ve made one stand and you did great in that, but don’t go too far.’ He was, like, giving me a guardrail.”Russell never feared going too far as a player activist himself. He wasn’t deterred by the racist taunts he absorbed at games, or when vandals broke into his home, spray-painted epithets on the wall and left feces on the bed after he moved his family to Reading, Mass. When he tried to move his family to a different house nearby, some residents of the mostly white neighborhood started a petition to keep him out.“I said then that I wasn’t scared of the kind of men who come in the dark of night,” Russell wrote for Slam magazine in 2020. “The fact is, I’ve never found fear to be useful.”He didn’t always have the support of his teammates. In 1961, for example, the Celtics traveled to Lexington, Ky., for an exhibition game against the St. Louis Hawks. When the restaurant at the hotel would not serve the team’s Black players, Russell led a strike of the game. His white teammates played the game. Bob Cousy, one of Russell’s white teammates, told the writer Gary M. Pomerantz decades later for the 2018 book “The Last Pass: Cousy, the Celtics and What Matters in the End” that he was “ashamed” at having taken part in the game. President Barack Obama cited the 1961 story in giving Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.“For decades, Bill endured insults and vandalism, but never let it stop him from speaking up for what’s right,” Obama said in a statement Sunday. “I learned so much from the way he played, the way he coached, and the way he lived his life.”Russell addressed a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Boston in 2011.Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe activism didn’t stop as Russell got older. In recent years, Russell has been a public supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in 2016.“Bill Russell was a pioneer,” Etan Thomas, a former N.B.A. player and political activist, said in a text message Sunday. Thomas said Russell was “an athlete who used his position and platform to stand up for a bigger cause.” He added that “he was the type of athlete I wanted to be like when I grew up.”Russell’s influence in leading the 1961 strike could be felt in 2020, when the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play a playoff game as a protest of police brutality. On Twitter, Russell wrote that he was “moved by all the N.B.A. players for standing up for what is right.” In a piece for The Players’ Tribune weeks later, Russell wrote, “Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice, racists still hold the highest offices in the land.”Sharpton pointed to those actions as Russell’s legacy.“He did it before some of these guys were born,” Sharpton said. “And I think that what they need to understand is every time a basketball player or athlete puts a T-shirt on saying something about Trayvon or ‘I Am Trayvon’ or ‘Black Lives Matter’ or whatever they want to do — ‘Get your knee off my neck!’ — they may not know it, but they are doing the Bill Russell.” More

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      Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Others React to Bill Russell’s Legacy

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      Magic Johnson said the Celtics great was his idol. Michael Jordan called him a pioneer. Jaylen Brown called him one of the greatest athletes ever.Bill Russell had more N.B.A. championship rings than he had fingers and as many Most Valuable Player Awards as all other Boston Celtics players combined.But in the hours after Russell’s family announced his death on Sunday, N.B.A. players remembered him as so much more.Legend. Trailblazer. “Everything we all aspired to be,” Isiah Thomas, the Hall of Fame point guard from the Detroit Pistons, said in a post on Twitter.Russell, 88, spent 13 seasons with the Celtics in the 1950s and 1960s, including three as a player-coach. He was the first Black coach in the N.B.A., and he was known for his civil rights activism during and after his playing days. He has remained visible around the N.B.A. as a fan, mentor and symbol of greatness. The finals M.V.P. trophy is named after him, and he would often attend games wearing a purple hat with the initials of one of his favorite players, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020.Players across basketball generations hailed him on Sunday.From the 1980s, there were Thomas and another Hall of Fame point guard, Magic Johnson of the Lakers.“Bill Russell was my idol,” Johnson said on Twitter, citing Russell’s basketball talent and position on the “front line fighting for social justice.”He continued: “Despite all of his achievements, he was so humble, a gentle giant, a very intelligent man, and used his voice and platform to fight for Black people.”Michael Jordan, who dominated the 1990s with the Chicago Bulls, said in a statement that Russell was a “pioneer.”“He paved the way and set an example for every Black player who came into the league after him, including me,” Jordan said. “The world has lost a legend.”Notable players from the 2000s also spoke of Russell with reverence and a warmth that showed the Celtics icon’s lasting influence in the league.“I can go on all day about what u meant to me,” Paul Pierce, the Celtics Hall of Famer, said in a tweet.Pierce, too, called Russell a “pioneer” and “trailblazer.” He also mentioned his “great laugh” and shared a picture of Russell talking with Pierce and other N.B.A. players. “I’ll never forget this day we was like kids sitting around a camp fire listening to your stories,” Pierce wrote.Pau Gasol, whose Lakers faced Pierce in the finals twice, shared a picture on Twitter of himself with Russell, calling him “one of the most dominant players in @NBA history.”“I’ll forever be honored to have met you,” he said.Players from the 2010s and present day also pointed to Russell’s humor, activism and basketball skill.Noting on Twitter that there was no 3-point line or social media during Russell’s heyday, Celtics guard Marcus Smart posted a list of Russell’s accomplishments.“Just played and dominated in a day and a league that was def not soft,” Smart said.Smart’s teammate Jaylen Brown shared a photo of Russell with Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jim Brown in 1967, when a group of Black athletes were showing support for Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.Calling Russell “one of the greatest athletes ever,” Brown said: “Thank you for paving the way and inspiring so many Today is a sad day but also great day to celebrate his legacy and what he stood for.”In recent years, N.B.A. players — Brown included — have more prominently carried on Russell’s legacy of civil rights activism. Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, who was the president of the players’ union during its social justice efforts after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, also posted about Russell on Twitter on Sunday.“Unapologetically himself at all times!! The ultimate leader and just happened to be one of the best hoopers ever! RIP Mr Russell, you will be dearly missed,” he wrote. More

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      A Paean to the Gods (and Shammgods) of New York City Hoops

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      Some of the most memorable characters in New York basketball history gathered in Manhattan for a screening of the documentary film “NYC Point Gods,” a tribute to — well, to them.There is little left that defines New York City basketball, save for the Knicks’ eternal search for an impactful lead guard. It’s a search that has always been inflamed, exacerbated and magnified by the abundance of point guards bred by the city.There was the incandescent Pearl Washington, who rode a motorcycle and sometimes wore a fur to playground games, and whose tremendous dribbling for Syracuse destroyed Georgetown’s dominant full-court press in the Big East tournament.And God Shammgod, the worshiped Harlem guard who played a game within the game by offering the ball up to defenders with his right hand and then ripping it back with his left. The move, still replicated in N.B.A. games by Russell Westbrook and others, is known as the Shammgod.From them and others, New York point guards learned that moxie, flair and unimpeachable handles were just as important as the ability to initiate an offense. But the era that established the archetype of the New York point guard — pillared in the 1970s and 80s by Catholic schools that have since closed for lack of funding and playground courts that saw their rims removed during the Covid-19 pandemic — is gone.For a rare moment on Wednesday night, it was reanimated at a screening of “NYC Point Gods,” a feature-length Showtime documentary that pays homage to the guards who gave the city its rep. The film was produced by Kevin Durant and his business partner and agent, Rich Kleiman. Durant, a New York transplant, wore Dior as he doled out hugs to the documentary’s subjects. Kleiman, a native, gleamed in gold aviator glasses as he introduced the film to shouts from the audience that referred to him as Ace, as in Rothstein, the protagonist of the movie “Casino.”Durant and God Shammgod greet each other at the premiere.Theo Wargo/Getty ImagesThe venue was Manhattan West Plaza, a cathedral to the power of real estate development ordained into usefulness by a New York tradition: hoopers paying homage to hoopers.That term is an honorific that disregards professional status and statistics and can be conferred only by another hooper. It doesn’t matter if you had a 20-year N.B.A. career or if your best performances are now remembered only by basketball griots. There’s a reverence among hoopers. Did you make those who watched you play love the game as you did? Did you give the crowd an “I was there when” story?Outside the Midnight Theatre, camera flashes greeted Rafer Alston and Kenny Anderson, who walked the red carpet with his mom. Sabrina Ionescu, of the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty, sidled up for hugs with Nancy Lieberman and Niesha Butler. Jayson Tatum, of the Boston Celtics, deferentially cupped hands with Anderson as Paul Pierce spelled his name for a puzzled list-holding publicist.Once the film rolled, though, the guards’ trademark toughness washed away as they listened to each other’s stories. “It was very emotional, not just for myself, but, you know, I lived and witnessed those stories of the other guys and girls also,” said Mark Jackson, a former Knicks point guard who starred at St. John’s. Seated alongside his four children, he dabbed at his eyes as he heard Kenny Smith, a Queens-born retired N.B.A. champion, describe how Jackson’s smarts led him to a nearly 17-year pro career.Mark Jackson with his children.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAt its heart, “Point Gods” is the hoopers’ oral history of how the city created a lineage at the position. Shammgod developed his dribble because his gym teacher, Tiny Archibald, told him it would make him perpetually valuable to any team. Only by watching a V.H.S. mixtape compilation of point guard highlights called “Below the Rim” did he learn of Archibald’s previous work.That revelation drew a crack of laughter inside the screening, where, earlier, attendees jostled over seats and settled in with the shoulder-to-shoulder intimacy of the city’s bandbox parks. Dao-Yi Chow, a lauded fashion designer, sat near a far wall wearing Jackson’s Knicks jersey. Clark Kent, whose real name is Rodolfo Franklin and who goes by the Rucker Park-ian nickname “God’s Favorite DJ,” held down a back-row seat. Kent produced a chunk of Jay-Z’s debut “Reasonable Doubt,” which dropped in 1996, the year Jeff Van Gundy took over the Knicks.For his part, Jay-Z had welcomed Shammgod on a nearby rooftop patio before the screening. The rapper and mogul was a mainstay of Rucker Park’s Entertainer’s Basketball Classic in the early aughts, and his attempt to woo Kareem Reid from a rival’s team with a bag of cash is told by that rival, the rapper Fat Joe. The exact sum, rumored to be in the thousands, is bleeped out in the retelling as Joe recounts the Mafioso-style meeting he had with Reid to convince him not to jump ship. Reid, who had a cup of coffee with the N.B.A.’s Hornets in 2003, stayed.When the film showed LeBron James, Beyoncé and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern (wearing Joe’s platinum and diamond chain) making summer pilgrimages to the park, a woman seated four rows from the screen yelped, “I was there,” “I was there,” “There too,” both tallying her attendance and bringing Harlem into the room.In another scene, the rapper Cam’ron — a Harlem native who played on several high school travel teams alongside some of the documentary’s subjects — explained that oohs and ahhs from the crowd were worth “five or six points” to a New York point guard.Cut to Anderson in a 1991 A.C.C. game. He’d been a high school legend at Archbishop Molloy in Queens, and New Yorkers who followed his career to Georgia Tech couldn’t wait to see him mix up Duke’s Bobby Hurley, who was notorious for his lax defense. The point guard cast hypes up what’s about to come, and Smith urges the director to pull the game footage up so he can narrate a grainy ESPN clip of the one-on-one clash.Kenny Anderson on the red carpet.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAnderson meets Hurley at the elbow, then takes his dribble behind his back and between his legs before gliding past a dazed Hurley for a floating layup. Unnoted was the fact that Duke won the game.Small matter. When it happened, only Dickie V’s hyperventilation on ESPN marked the moment as something special. “NYC Point Gods,” though, layered in the soundtrack of the hoopers who have told and retold the story as one of many chapters in their aggrandizing mythology.On film, though, Shammgod is awed. Stephon Marbury, who sported Anderson’s center-parted haircut in high school and followed him to Georgia Tech, leans into the retelling. The unscripted, ephemeral whoops from inside the screening, from N.B.A. stars and high school coaches and their playground peers, fell anew upon Anderson in the theater’s dark. More

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      It’s a Long Leap From Sports Team Owner to U.S. Senator

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      Alex Lasry, son of a majority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, learned there’s a difference between making fans happy and appealing to voters.MILWAUKEE — When Alex Lasry dropped out of the Democratic primary for Senate in Wisconsin on Wednesday, he said “there was no path to victory,” something no owner of a sports franchise ever wants to admit. He said he had concluded he could not beat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and urged voters to rally behind Barnes to defeat the Republican incumbent, Senator Ron Johnson, in November.Lasry, 35, is a son of a billionaire owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, and has an ownership stake of his own valued at more than $50 million. He made the team, the 2021 N.B.A. champion, the centerpiece of his campaign by playing up the work he had done as a Bucks executive to help build Fiserv Forum and deliver higher wages to union workers. He frequently donned Bucks quarter zips, vests and other gear. He even traveled around the state with the N.B.A. trophy, drawing criticism for using it as a campaign prop.There are plenty of former athletes and coaches who have made the jump from the playing field or the sideline to Capitol Hill: Bill Bradley, J.C. Watts, Tom Osborne and, more recently, Tommy Tuberville.But it is much less common for the owners of sports franchises, whose faces are not so familiar, to inspire the same level of electoral fandom.Lasry’s wife, Lauren, held their daughter, Eleanor, as he spoke with a fairgoer. A native of Manhattan, he moved to Milwaukee in 2014 to work as a Bucks executive.Sara Stathas for The New York TimesSome owners have had a hard time keeping sports out of the conversation. During his unsuccessful Republican primary campaign for Senate in Ohio, Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians, was lambasted by former President Donald J. Trump over the team’s decision to change its name from the Indians, which Trump mocked as a sop to the politically correct.And in Georgia, Kelly Loeffler attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, so incensing members of the W.N.B.A. team she owned at the time, the Atlanta Dream, that they campaigned against her. She lost her Senate seat to Raphael Warnock, whose 2022 opponent is Herschel Walker, the former N.F.L. running back.Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, a previous owner of the Bucks, was a rare team owner who made it to Washington. But he was already a known quantity through his family’s grocery and department stores and as chair of the state Democratic Party.“Herb Kohl put in the legwork,” said State Senator Chris Larson, a Milwaukee County Democrat who dropped out of the primary last August and endorsed Barnes. “Lasry and his family were just trying to come in and buy that.”Alex Lasry grew up in Manhattan as a son of Marc Lasry, a hedge fund manager and Democratic fund-raiser. A star point guard for his high school team who continues to play pickup basketball regularly, Alex Lasry moved to Milwaukee in 2014, after his father was part of a group that purchased the Bucks that year from Kohl for $550 million.Marc Lasry, center, celebrated after the Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns to win the 2021 N.B.A. championship at Fiserv Forum.Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesWhen he began his Senate candidacy in February 2021, Alex Lasry had to overcome skepticism that his résumé was light on accomplishments and heavy on nepotism. By late June, he had surged to a clear second in a crowded field of longtime politicians, according to a Marquette Law School survey. He had also lined up an impressive roster of supporters — including Cavalier Johnson, the mayor of Milwaukee — as well as labor leaders who credited him with being a strong community presence.“I find him very easy to talk to, very down to earth,” said Daniel Bukiewicz, president of the Milwaukee Building & Construction Trades Council.Lasry largely self-funded his campaign, pouring $12.3 million into it even though he initially said he would depend on grass-roots support. In the second quarter of 2022, his campaign spent $6.7 million — or more than his Democratic rivals combined.He also had some notable donors from the sports world, like Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf of the Chicago Bulls, who were beaten by the Bucks in the playoffs this year, and Stephen Pagliuca and David Bonderman, owners of the Boston Celtics, the team that bounced the Bucks from the playoffs. Other contributors were Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner; Jason Kidd, the Bucks coach when Lasry arrived in Milwaukee; Casey Close, a prominent sports agent; and Rachel Nichols, a former ESPN broadcaster.Alex Lasry, left, celebrated with Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, in March 2019 after the announcement that the Democratic National Convention would be held at Fiserv Forum. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, via Associated PressOn his Senate disclosure form, filed in August 2021, Lasry listed $100 million to $273 million in assets. One investment was his partnership in Sazes Partners, a family holding company, records show.Through Sazes, Lasry reported owning $5 million to $25 million of Sessa Capital, a private equity fund. John Petry, the founder of Sessa Capital, has played in charity poker tournaments with Marc Lasry to benefit Education Reform Now, a nonprofit advocacy group.The Lasry family’s ties to Sazes did not become public before he quit the race, but they might have caused a stir if they had. Sessa is the fourth-biggest shareholder in Chemours, a manufacturer of PFAS, which have been linked to cancer and are often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in water. Chemours is among the companies being sued for environmental contamination — including, last week, by Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul of Wisconsin.Asked last week about Lasry’s substantial family stake in a major Chemours shareholder, Christina Freundlich, a campaign spokeswoman, said that Lasry applauded the efforts of Evers and Kaul “holding any and all polluters accountable” and that he has urged Congress to establish PFAS regulations.No matter. By Wednesday it was game over. At a news conference in front of the Fiserv Forum, Barnes praised Lasry’s campaign, saying he departs without having made any new enemies.That’s a notable achievement for a politician or a sports owner.Kitty Bennett More

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      Liz Cambage and the Los Angeles Sparks Agree to a ‘Divorce’

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      A four-time All-Star has another split with a W.N.B.A. team.The four-time W.N.B.A. All-Star Liz Cambage and the Los Angeles Sparks are parting ways, the latest thorny ending for the star center who only three months ago confidently declared that the team was “where I want to be.”On Tuesday, the Sparks announced that they and Cambage, 30, had agreed to a “contract divorce” just five months after the team added her to its roster. A 6-foot-8 Australian, she averaged 13 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 25 games this season; she still holds the W.N.B.A. single-game scoring record with 53 points.“It was a surprise — I didn’t know what really escalated it,” Fred Williams, the team’s interim coach, said at a media availability on Tuesday. “A lot of it could have been things off the court, off floor, who knows. Having conversations with her afterward, it just felt it was good for her personally to make that move. All we can do as an organization is support that and her decisions and just move on.”For the team, he said, “it’s a new day, new atmosphere, for us in this gym.”In a statement announcing the move, Eric Holoman, a managing partner for the Sparks, said, “We want what’s best for Liz and have agreed to part ways amicably.” A representative for Cambage did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Cambage’s departure is her third split with a W.N.B.A. team in five years. She also has said she has “zero” interest in playing again for her home country. Cambage was accused of using a racial slur against opponents while playing for Australia in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics; she has denied the accusations.Cambage, who grew up outside Melbourne, Australia, was drafted second overall by the W.N.B.A.’s Tulsa Shock in 2011 as a cornerstone for the then-struggling franchise. She took a four-season hiatus from the league before rejoining the team, which had relocated to Dallas and rebranded as the Wings. Cambage joined the Las Vegas Aces in 2019, but only after demanding a trade out of Dallas one year into a multiyear contract.Though Cambage sat out the 2020 season because of Covid-19 health concerns, she and the Aces made the W.N.B.A. semifinals in 2019 and 2021. She left the team as an unrestricted free agent after the 2021 season, but she did so with a parting shot by criticizing the W.N.B.A.’s pay structure when the Aces signed Becky Hammon as head coach for $1 million.Cambage had long set her sights on the Sparks. She joined the team as one of the league’s most visible — and at times polarizing — personalities, going to Los Angeles with a large social media following and a style that packed a punch. Cambage has also been public about her difficult mental health journey and treatment for depression, which she has said contributed to her rocky start with the Shock.Cambage is signed to the talent agency IMG, has modeled sportswear for Adidas and is a brand ambassador for Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty lingerie line. She is also a D.J. and is signed to Wasserman Music.“I had been living someone else’s dream, chasing that for a minute,” she told The New York Times in May. “But now I’ve realized that this has always been my dream, being here in L.A. and playing here.”The Sparks, who missed the W.N.B.A. playoffs last year for the first time since 2011, added Cambage to a frontcourt that included Nneka Ogwumike and her sister Chiney, both former No. 1 overall picks, in hopes of moving into championship contention. The team (12-15) is in sixth place in the league.Cambage, who said she had recently recovered from her third bout of Covid-19, was enduring the second-lowest scoring season of her W.N.B.A. career. She was part of a Sparks rebuild under Derek Fisher, the former N.B.A. player who was brought on as general manager. But the Sparks fired Fisher in June and replaced him with Williams, who also coached Cambage in Dallas.“I have to respect what she wants,” Williams said. “You have to listen because it could be something else, could be something that’s not related to basketball.”Williams said he hopes Cambage has another opportunity to play.“I think she has room right now to check the temperature of herself,” he said. More

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      Brittney Griner’s Lawyers Argue for Leniency in Russian Court

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      Wearing a black and gray sweatshirt with the slogan “Black lives for peace” printed on the back, Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star who has been detained in Russia on drug charges, appeared in a court near Moscow on Tuesday as her defense team continued to present evidence that she had not intended to break the law.She was escorted to a courtroom by a group of police officers, one of them wearing a balaklava, and stood in a metal cage, holding photographs of her relatives, teammates and friends, according to video footage from the scene published by Russian state television.After being detained in a Moscow airport one week before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ms. Griner has become an unlikely pawn in a diplomatic game between Moscow and Washington. With her guilty plea making the verdict seem a foregone conclusion, experts said that her best hope was that the Biden administration could find a way to swap her for a high-profile Russian being held by the United States.During court hearings, her defense team argued for leniency, saying that Ms. Griner had not intended to smuggle narcotics into Russia and that, like many other international athletes, she had used cannabis to help ease pain from injuries.A narcology expert testified in court on Tuesday, Ms. Griner’s lawyers said, to present a case that in some countries, including the United States, medical cannabis “is a popular treatment, specifically among athletes.”“With the prescription in place, Brittney may have used it for medical, but not for recreational purposes,” said Maria Blagovolina, one of Ms. Griner’s lawyers and a partner at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin & Partners, a firm in Moscow.At the previous hearing, the lawyers presented a note from Ms. Griner’s doctor recommending cannabis to treat her pain. Ms. Griner was also expected to appear in court on Wednesday, when she could be called to testify.Ms. Griner had traveled to Russia because she played for a team in the country to earn extra money during the off-season. Russian customs officials discovered two vape cartridges with hashish oil — a cannabis derivative — in her luggage.Ms. Griner was taken into custody near Moscow and accused of willfully smuggling the vape cartridges, a charge that can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.On July 7, Ms. Griner pleaded guilty to the charges, saying that she had unintentionally carried a banned substance into Russia because she had packed in a hurry. The Russian authorities have signaled that no possible exchange can take place before a verdict in court.American officials have said that they are doing all they can to return Ms. Griner home, arguing that she was wrongfully detained. Last week, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that such statements were “political, biased, and illegitimate.”“If an American citizen was detained on drug trafficking charges and she does not deny it herself, then this should correspond to Russian legislation, and not to the laws adopted in San Francisco,” Ms. Zakharova said. More

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      All the Pieces Seemed to Align for the Liberty Except One: Winning

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      Despite a more stable home at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a new coach and stars in place, the team has struggled with injuries and gaining traction in the competitive New York sports market.The Liberty had seemingly done everything right.They moved into a new home last year at Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn. The star power of a top draft pick and a roster with depth to match promised a strong season this year. There was a new coach. Even a new-look mascot.But even as all the pieces fell into place for the Liberty, one of the W.N.B.A.’s original eight teams in 1997, there has been one glaring exception: winning.“Lately I’ve been feeling like maybe this is where we’re supposed to be right now,” said Francois Monroc, 41, a fan who watched the Liberty beat the Chicago Sky, 83-80, on Saturday in a rare strong showing. “There is a lot of ambition for players in New York, and people living in New York want their teams to succeed. It’s hard to accept failure. New Yorkers are very impatient, waiting and waiting is tough.”The Liberty are 10-17 this year. The team started the season 1-7 before turning it around in June, only to lose momentum this month after the All-Star break.The win on Saturday night against the Sky (21-7), the defending champions and the top team in the league, broke a five-game losing streak and served as a balm on a rocky season.A spate of injuries has left the Liberty with a poor record, just when a winning season could have helped the franchise get a better foothold in the hypercompetitive New York market.New Yorkers could use a winner. The last team in the four major sports to win a championship was the Giants, who won the Super Bowl after the 2011 season. The Liberty haven’t won a championship, and the Nets, their arena-mates at Barclays Center, haven’t won one since their days in the American Basketball Association.“We are trying to get a ring,” said Janice Battle, 74, who has stuck by the team despite its ups and downs. “That’s been a little disappointing. But it’s exciting to belong to a team, a professional women’s team, right here in Brooklyn.”Battle has been following the team since that first season and has traveled with the team as it played in five locations over the years, from Madison Square Garden to White Plains, N.Y., and now to Barclays Center, which the team has called home since 2021.“Every year it’s hard, but you know, you’re a fan,” Battle said with a slight shrug. “There’s the Yankee fans. There’s the Met fans. There’s the Giants fans. So I’m a Liberty fan. I love them.”Still, enthusiastic supporters or not, with just nine games left in the regular season, their chances of a postseason are waning.Much of that pressure rests on the shoulders of Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft. Ionescu played only three games in the 2020 season at a so-called bubble in Florida before suffering a season-ending ankle injury.As Ionescu began to recover, more injuries plagued the team. Jocelyn Willoughby tore an Achilles’ tendon before the 2021 season and Natasha Howard missed 15 games because of a knee injury; all three came back this season, only for the team to lose Betnijah Laney, who was named to her first All-Star team last season, to a knee injury this season.The Liberty have had some flashes of success. Ionescu set a franchise record for points in a game against the Las Vegas Aces earlier this month, finishing with 31 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists for her third triple-double of her career. On Saturday, Howard secured her sixth double-double for the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds.Fans had hoped that a new coach could more consistently make something of the team’s core group of Ionescu; Howard; DiDi Richards, a second-year guard; Stefanie Dolson, a veteran center; Michaela Onyenwere, the 2021 W.N.B.A. rookie of the year; and the reserve center Han Xu. Marine Johannes, a guard added midseason, has also become a rotation player.The Liberty hired Sandy Brondello, the former head coach of the Phoenix Mercury, to try to jump-start the 2022 season. That hasn’t always been the case.“I think that the players’ ability is one thing, but the coach’s ability to get the best out of their players in a consistent manner is probably more important,” said Dara Ottley-Brown, 59. “That’s the challenge here.”The team still has attendance problems. Attendance averages around 5,100 fans per game this season, leaving the Liberty ranked eighth out of the 12 teams. Saturday night’s game had 6,926 on hand; a July 14 game against the Las Vegas Aces, one of the best teams in the league, drew 9,896, a record for the season so far. Barclays Center has a 17,732-seat capacity, but the upper tier seats are often roped off for Liberty games.“It’s a combination of being on a roller coaster with the team, but also just watching and figuring out how women’s basketball can have more traction,” said Martha Stark, 62, who went to high school at Brooklyn Tech just a few blocks from the arena and has been a season-ticket holder since 1997.Elaine Kim, 47, has been coming to Liberty games with her 12-year-old twins since they were little, and said it’s been fun to watch the team — and the mascots — evolve. Ellie the Elephant was introduced as the team’s new one in 2021.But Kim said she believed the league and its teams still needed more investment to make a bigger splash. Low salary caps, irregular access to games on television and few marketing dollars compared to their male counterparts have long dogged the W.N.B.A., despite a growing fan base.“The W.N.B.A. needs the kind of investment that the men sports get,” she said. “We’re proving that there’s a lot of interest, that it’s economically viable.”No doubt, there is some excitement around the team despite its record but ultimately New York demands winners, no matter the sport.“I know the record isn’t necessarily exactly what we would want it to be,” said Alex Don, 26. “But from last year to this year, you can definitely start to see the improvement and see where we could maybe be two or three years down the line.”Don and his group of friends, including Paul Garlick, find satisfaction in watching the team evolve “as opposed to hopping on the bandwagon when they’re good,” Garlick said.On Saturday, the Liberty and the Sky went point for point until the bitter end, with a key 2-point jumper from Ionescu in the final seconds and a block by Onyenwere on Candace Parker sealing the game and snapping the Sky’s six-game winning streak.Howard said the win was an opportunity to right the team’s course.“We found ourselves in this game right here,” she said. “That’s one thing we’ve definitely talked about — we need to learn how to win games. That’s a start right there.”They face Chicago again on Friday.Young Liberty fans like Isabella Taylor, 6, point to high hopes for a broader following for the team.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesJanice Battle has been a Liberty fan for 26 years.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesPaul Garlick and his friends all share a season ticket package.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesYuuki, left, and Ayumi Chang-Yasui, 12-year-old twins, saw the Liberty defeat the Chicago Sky on Saturday.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFrancois and Felicia Monroc during the game on Saturday. Francois got hooked on the W.N.B.A. in the 1990s when he was a teenager.Calla Kessler for The New York Times More