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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

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      Pretty in Any Color: Women in Basketball Make the Style Rules

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      Angel Reese considers herself “a pink kind of girl.”Pink nails, pink hair tie, pink shoes, sometimes even “a little bit of pink in my lashes,” Reese said of the eyelash extensions she applies before basketball games. “Everything’s pink.”It’s all part of the pregame routine for Reese, who in May transferred to Louisiana State after a breakout season on Maryland’s women’s basketball team. Before Reese hits the court, she swipes on lip gloss and gels down her edges — her hairline — to prevent flyaways.“Grandma would always emphasize, ‘Don’t let anybody make your makeup sweat,’” Reese said.Reese’s devotion to her appearance for games expresses who she is as much as her playing style. Players in women’s basketball freely mix a traditionally feminine beauty standard with finishing touches that are popular in Black and Latina culture, like gelled edges. It’s a freedom that some say is an advancement in a sport whose athletes have historically been pressured to fit a mass-market ideal that has long benefited straight, white women. Reese is Black.But the introduction of name, image and likeness deals in college sports and an influx of marketing money in professional women’s basketball have added dollars-and-cents stakes to female players’ decisions to glam up. In interviews with a dozen college and professional players, women talked about how the decision on how to express themselves through their appearance has been changing.“I’ve never really felt the pressure until the N.I.L. thing started,” said Reese, whose endorsement deals include Xfinity, Amazon, Wingstop and a Washington, D.C.-area supermarket chain.Camille Lenain for The New York Times‘There is a pressure for me to look a certain way.’Stanford forward Cameron Brink usually applies concealer, eyebrow gel, mascara and maybe a little blush before she heads out for a game, but she scoffed at the idea of in-game touch-ups. “I look like this when I was playing, I’m going to live with it,” she said.Her shot-blocking was a key piece of Stanford’s run to the 2022 Final Four, where the team lost to Connecticut in front of 3.23 million TV viewers, a 19 percent increase over the previous season and a 49 percent bump from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. But there’s also a swelling fan base that follows Brink on social media. She posts makeup tutorials, which she loves because she views makeup as art. “It’s really relaxing to me,” she said. Brink has had deals with ThirdLove, Visible Mobile, the energy drink Celsius and Portland Gear.She acknowledged that her following — 203,000 on Instagram and 62,800 on TikTok — had built up at least in part “because I do play into that role of being feminine and dressing femininely.”“There is a pressure for me to look a certain way,” said Brink, who is white. “Sometimes it’s refreshing to go out and play sports and not worry about it.”Stanford’s Cameron Brink said that she felt some pressure to conform to traditionally feminine beauty standards but that her beauty routine was also something she enjoyed.Rikkí D. Wright for The New York TimesRikkí D. Wright for The New York TimesLast year, the N.C.A.A. changed its rules to allow college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses in marketing deals. Women’s college basketball players quickly began out-earning athletes in every other sport besides football, according to the marketing company Opendorse. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers, who is white, signed with Gatorade for an estimated $1 million.Blake Lawrence, a co-founder of Opendorse, said female college basketball players had outshined their male counterparts in the N.I.L. marketplace in part because of how they distinguish themselves through their appearance.“They’re willing to create content; they’re willing to create a character that you want to follow and cheer for while on the court, while on the track, while on the grass,” Lawrence said. “That may be through hairstyle changes; that may be through makeup changes; that may be through the accessories that you bring to the field.”But with that can come tremendous pressure to fit traditional notions of attractiveness, adding another layer of competition to college basketball.“Comparing yourself to other people — oh, this girl is really pretty; oh, she looks really pretty — it’s hard,” Oklahoma guard Kelbie Washington said.Washington enjoys spraying on perfume as part of her pregame routine (Jimmy Choo is her favorite), and she pays for eyelash extensions, which can cost more than $130 a set.“Everyone is human,” she said of the urge to compare herself with others. “Everyone has those emotions, whether they say it out loud or not.”‘Women have to be so much more marketable than men.’TV ratings for college and W.N.B.A. games are rising, and the profiles of the players — among the most vocal and visible social justice activists in sports — are exploding.Within that explosion, Victoria Jackson, a sports historian at Arizona State, sees the players driving a generational shift, a reframing of norms. “Athletes themselves are pushing back against historical ideas of what it means to be a female athlete and what’s acceptable to be performed as a female athlete,” Jackson said, adding that the W.N.B.A. is “a good example” of that.Nefertiti A. Walker, an associate professor in sports management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a former college basketball player, said players didn’t necessarily feel as if they had to fit the usual standards.“What you’re seeing is certainly athletes now who, because of the changes we’ve seen in college sport — they all have pride nights, there’s gay marriage now — all these changes that have happened in their lifetime that signal it might be OK to perform their gender in a different way,” she said.That may be true on the court, but a recent swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated suggested a narrower view of sex appeal, which can be an important factor in marketing. The magazine included five W.N.B.A. players in bikinis and one-piece swimsuits with cutouts.Courtney Williams, an All-Star guard on the Connecticut Sun, said on Twitter that the shoot would have been better if it had included a player in a sports bra and baggy shorts. “There’s more than one way to look sexy, and I hope in the future we can tap into that,” she said.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesCamille Lenain for The New York TimesRikkí D Wright for The New York TimesGabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesJonquel Jones was the W.N.B.A.’s most valuable player in 2021. “If u don’t fit into the normal stereotype of what feminine is or what it ‘should be’ you lose opportunities,” Jones said in an August 2020 Twitter post. “Women have to be so much more marketable than men.”W.N.B.A. players, with a maximum base salary of about $230,000, earn far less than their millionaire counterparts in the N.B.A., making marketing dollars even more important. The W.N.B.A. has a pool of $1 million that it must spend on marketing deals for players, and each team has to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 per year on player marketing deals. Any unspent amount carries over to the next season on top of the minimum.The league said it selects players to participate in marketing efforts based on a variety of factors: on-court performance, an established personal brand with an active fan base, and the willingness to travel and participate in league events.“Ideas about bodies play out most explicitly on the bodies of athletes — harmful ideas and also positive ideas,” Jackson said. “That’s another way in which this can be a space of conflict and a space of harm, too, depending on the way those ideas are packaged and sold.”‘They have no idea about what a Black woman goes through, let alone an athlete.’Tiffany Mitchell likes to feel the swing of her ponytail as she runs the court.Mitchell, who is Black, has often worn her hair in long, braided styles past her waist since she starred at South Carolina from 2012 to 2016. This kind of protective hairstyling allows her to go longer between restyling and can prevent breakage during the grind of the season with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever.Those swinging braids became an issue during the W.N.B.A. off-season in December, when she was competing with the Melbourne Boomers, a professional women’s team in Australia. Basketball Australia, the sport’s governing body, said the league’s players had to tie their hair back or up, mistakenly attributing the policy to a FIBA rule that was no longer in effect. Mitchell, one of just three Black players on the Boomers’ roster, felt targeted, since she had never had to change her hair for other international competitions. Basketball Australia later apologized and rescinded what it called a “discriminatory” policy.“They have no idea about what a Black woman goes through, let alone an athlete,” Mitchell said. “So I think that me bringing it to their attention called out the ignorance because there have been players in this league that have had braids before me, and it was never an issue.”Tiffany Mitchell loves playing basketball while wearing long braids. But that became an issue when she was competing in Australia.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times‘When I look good, I feel good, I play good.’As early as fifth grade, Deja Kelly’s mother encouraged her to create a signature hairstyle.“She would call it a ‘D-I do’: If you want to go D-I, you have to look like you play D-I,” Kelly said.She adopted a slicked-back ponytail or a bun as her preferred hairstyles. Her glam routine now — eyelash extensions, a tight bun and detailed edges — “has never affected my performance” as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s leading scorer last season. Kelly has had endorsement deals with Dunkin’, Beats by Dre, Forever 21 and the sports drink Barcode, among others.“For me, when I look good, I feel good, I play good,” Kelly said. “That’s something I always prided myself in.”Walker, the sports management professor, said her studies on women’s sports pointed to a trend: Women in basketball are showcasing greater agency and self-determination by glamming.Video by Gabriella Angotti-JonesDiJonai Carrington of the W.N.B.A.’s Connecticut Sun said she felt that she played better after she had gone through her glam routine.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesGabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times“A lot of women’s basketball players feel free to express themselves, to perform in a way aesthetically that accomplishes whatever they want to accomplish,” Walker said. “Sometimes we underestimate how business savvy they are, particularly in this day and age.”Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington has had an endorsement deal with Savage X Fenty, Rihanna’s lingerie brand. She makes sure she has on her 20-millimeter mink eyelash extensions before every game. Her nails, typically coated with some sort of bright polish, are usually done with acrylic extensions. She’s grown so accustomed to applying gel to her hairline that it takes her only about 30 seconds.“I feel like I play better. I don’t know if I do or I don’t, but I just feel like I do,” Carrington said. “And I never have wanted to compromise one thing or another, whether that’s being a hooper and being a dog on the court and still being able to look a certain way.” More

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      NBA Campaign to Free Brittney Griner Is Mostly Low Key

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      Griner, the W.N.B.A. star, has been detained in Russia since February. The N.B.A., which founded the women’s league in 1996, has said it is working behind the scenes to help Griner.The N.B.A. is a $10 billion corporation that has the power and reach to promote not just its teams and players but to provoke discussion and debate around social issues. It has used that influence most prominently to fight racism in the United States.Yet when it has come to Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star who has been detained in Russia since February, the N.B.A.’s teams have been mostly absent from the public campaign for her release. The N.B.A. founded the W.N.B.A. and still owns about half of it, but the N.B.A. has been relatively muted outside of news conferences as Griner’s family, her agent and the women’s league and its players have led the public push for her freedom. N.B.A. players have also shown support.Officials in both leagues said they had stayed quiet at first at the urging of U.S. government officials who worried that publicizing the case would backfire and jeopardize Griner even further. But even after the U.S. State Department said that it had determined she had been “wrongfully detained” and government officials began regularly speaking about Griner, the N.B.A. and team owners remained mostly quiet, fueling sentiments that the case has not gotten the kind of spotlight Griner’s supporters have demanded.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver has said publicly that the league and its teams are using their influence and connections to help Griner in ways the public doesn’t see. It is difficult to say whether they are doing enough when even experts in diplomacy disagree on what “enough” would be or if public or private advocacy would be more effective.“There are no easy answers,” said Ian Bremmer, a political scientist who runs a political risk research and consulting firm. He added: “Could the N.B.A. have done more? Yes, they could have.”On the other hand, Bremmer said, pressure from the N.B.A. could prompt Russia to ask for more in a deal to release Griner. Experts have suggested that a prisoner swap could free Griner.“How you value all of those things depends on your perspective,” Bremmer said.Brittney Griner, right, the star center of the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury, has been detained in Russia on drug charges since February. Her next court hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.Evgenia Novozhenina/ReutersThe N.B.A. players’ union said its members had been deeply concerned about Griner, and it pointed to players’ public shows of support at playoff games and award shows and on social media. Silver and W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert have said that N.B.A. owners also care but have kept their advocacy out of the public eye. The New York Times contacted owners of all 30 N.B.A. teams — directly or through representatives — and none agreed to be interviewed about Griner.Through a spokesman, Silver declined to be interviewed for this article, but in a statement he reiterated his public comments that the league had been “actively engaged” with government officials and experts.“The N.B.A. and its teams are also using their influence to draw attention to Brittney’s situation, but ultimately this is a matter to be resolved by the United States government due to the serious and complex geopolitical issues at play,” Silver said in the statement.The nuance of the league’s position isn’t lost even on those who are most intimately aware of what it means to be wrongfully detained abroad. Consider Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post opinion writer who was detained in Iran for a year and a half on spurious charges and freed in a prisoner swap in 2016.He prepared to question Silver in June before the N.B.A. finals at a news conference, one of the few the commissioner gives in the season.“I wanted to put him on the spot,” Rezaian said of Silver. “‘As a corporation, what are you doing for this employee of yours?’”But before he got a chance, Silver beat him to it, saying that the N.B.A. and the W.N.B.A. were working with the U.S. government and outside experts to try to expedite Griner’s release. Rezaian said he thought that Silver’s remarks were forceful and that speaking about Griner before being asked had been smart.“I thought it was wonderful that the commissioner used that moment of arguably his biggest platform of the year, or one of them, to call attention to the case,” Rezaian said. “If he can do that then, three and a half months into her detention, he could have done it earlier.“But I know they were being advised against doing it earlier. I don’t blame anybody for that. There is not an official handbook to deal with what to do when your loved one or employee gets taken hostage by a hostile state.”Griner, 31, has been detained since Feb. 17 after Russian customs officials said they found hashish oil in a vape cartridge in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. Her trial began July 1, and she pleaded guilty on July 7. She said she did not intend to break the law as she traveled to play for a Russian women’s basketball team during the off-season from her W.N.B.A. team, the Phoenix Mercury.Her next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. If she is formally convicted, which experts said had been likely even before she pleaded guilty, Griner could face up to 10 years in a penal colony. The U.S. State Department said it would work to negotiate her release regardless of the outcome of the trial.Her public support has remained strong, despite her guilty plea.“I get asked this question all the time — ‘Has the N.B.A. been helpful?’” Engelbert said. “Extremely helpful. We share a brand. We have N.B.A. after our name. N.B.A. team owners have reached out to me personally: ‘What can we do to help with Brittney?’”Engelbert said that an N.B.A. owner had connected her with the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, a unit of the State Department that handles the cases of Americans deemed wrongfully detained, even before Griner had been given that designation.Negotiations to secure the release of prisoners abroad are often conducted quietly. It is unclear what the N.B.A.’s role has been in applying pressure to government officials or assisting Griner’s family, but Engelbert said Silver had been personally involved in making phone calls to government officials on Griner’s behalf.By the time the State Department announced it had determined that Griner had been wrongfully detained, the W.N.B.A. season was about to begin, but just eight N.B.A. teams were still competing in the playoffs.“It takes a while to get to the realization that the person that you’re trying to influence is the president of the United States,” Rezaian said. “Because they’re the only one who’s in the position to make the kinds of concessions and decisions to make concessions that will free somebody.”He added later, “People come home when it becomes politically costly for a president for them not to come home.”The W.N.B.A.’s teams have honored Griner in many ways, including fund-raisers, court decals and T-shirts, and her family will still receive her full Mercury salary this season. Some N.B.A. players have spoken about her or worn clothing that drew attention to her detainment. The N.B.A.’s Phoenix Suns, who own the Mercury, added a decal to their court and have posted about Griner on their social media accounts, but few N.B.A. teams have made many vocal or public shows of support.Experts are divided on the impact of public pressure. Some believe it worsens Griner’s situation by giving the Russian government more leverage in negotiations. One Russian official said the publicity around her case was creating “interference” in making a deal.The Phoenix Suns included a decal with Griner’s No. 42 and her initials on their court during the playoffs. The Suns own the Mercury, which Griner has played for since 2013.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesN.B.A. team owners have not been part of the public campaign. At a news conference during the summer league in Las Vegas this month, Silver said that Griner’s situation was not on the agenda during the league’s board of governors meeting but that individual owners had spoken to him about her.The Times then contacted at least one owner from each team. Eleven representatives declined on behalf of owners, including one who would not even pass on the request. One spokesman said the team’s owner was on vacation, and 16 teams did not respond. Two owners responded directly.“I can say that I have complete confidence that the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. league offices are doing everything in their power,” Jeanie Buss, the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, said in a text message.The Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban declined to be interviewed but said by email, “I do hope she gets out soon.”Five N.B.A. teams — in Phoenix, Brooklyn, Indiana, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. — own W.N.B.A. teams. Owners for those teams declined to comment, but each of those W.N.B.A. teams has publicly supported Griner.Engelbert said the N.B.A. had not asked team owners to avoid talking about Griner. She is part of the N.B.A.’s senior leadership team and reports to Silver.“The suggestion has been to support the administration and the State Department in the work that they’re doing in this complex situation to get Brittney home,” Engelbert said.Players have shown their support. During an N.B.A. players’ union meeting in May, Carmelo Anthony, a 10-time N.B.A. All-Star who spent last season with the Lakers, said the players should use the finals to highlight Griner.On June 2, the day of Silver’s N.B.A. finals news conference, Anthony posted a video on Twitter of himself discussing Griner. He has 9.2 million followers.“I wanted to use my voice to rally the basketball community,” Anthony said in a statement to The Times.At an N.B.A. finals practice two days after Anthony posted his video, nearly every member of the Boston Celtics wore a black T-shirt with orange lettering that said “We are BG.” Grant Williams, a Celtics forward and vice president of the players’ union, had the shirts shipped overnight for his teammates.Stephen Curry, second from right, a guard for the Golden State Warriors, honored Griner during the ESPY awards show on Wednesday alongside the W.N.B.A. stars Nneka Ogwumike, left, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, right.Mark Terrill/Invision, via Mark Terrill/Invision/ApStephen Curry and LeBron James, two of the N.B.A.’s biggest stars, have also spoken publicly about Griner.Tamika Tremaglio, the executive director of the N.B.A. players’ union, said she had been in contact with Terri Jackson, the executive director of the W.N.B.A.’s players’ union, since just after news broke of Griner’s detention about how N.B.A. players could help.When the N.B.A.’s union leaders met in Las Vegas this month, they asked for an update. Jackson, who was at the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game in Chicago, recorded a video that was shown to the N.B.A. players.“You could hear a pin drop,” Tremaglio said. “They were so pensive in terms of listening and hearing and understanding what was happening. It is something that we as a union also support the women. This is something we were critically concerned about, too.”Rezaian said public displays of support are important.During his 544-day detention in Iran, some of his most hopeful moments had come when he had heard that people were speaking about him, whether it was someone from The Washington Post or President Barack Obama.“That sort of thing just floods you with a sense of being alive and also of power,” Rezaian said. “The walls might be up around you, and you can’t break them down, but you’re still there. You still count. And people are doing what they can for you.” More

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      Charlotte Hornets’ Miles Bridges Faces Felony Domestic Violence Charges

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      Bridges, a Charlotte Hornets free agent, was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in front of their two children. He was arrested in Los Angeles last month.Miles Bridges, a Charlotte Hornets free agent, will be arraigned Wednesday on felony charges of domestic violence and child abuse, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday. Bridges, 24, faces one count of injuring a child’s parent and two counts of child abuse.In a news release from the district attorney’s office, Bridges was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in front of their two children in late June. Bridges was arrested on June 29 and released on $130,000 bond.The news release did not name any of the victims. Days after Bridges was arrested, Mychelle Johnson, a former college basketball player who has two children with Bridges, posted several photos on Instagram that appeared to show bruising and other injuries throughout her body. She did not name Bridges in her post and has since deleted it.Bridges is accused of causing “great bodily injury on the domestic violence victim,” according to the news release.“Domestic violence creates physical, mental and emotional trauma that has a lasting impact on survivors,” George Gascón, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said in a statement. “Children who witness family violence are especially vulnerable and the impact on them is immeasurable. Mr. Bridges will be held accountable for his actions and our Bureau of Victim Services will support the survivors through this difficult process.”Bridges is a restricted free agent who just finished his fourth year in the N.B.A., all with the Hornets. Klutch Sports Group, the agency that represents Bridges, did not respond to a request for comment after the arrest and could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. The Hornets, in a statement, called the charges “very serious” but declined to comment further because it was a “legal matter.” A spokesman for the N.B.A. said the league was “investigating the allegations.”The N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement with its players’ union states that a conviction is not required for a violation of the league’s domestic violence policy. The agreement empowers the league to place a player on administrative leave while it investigates domestic violence accusations. The commissioner may, depending on the finding of the investigation, “fine, suspend, or dismiss and disqualify” a player “from any further association with the N.B.A.” for violating the policy.Bridges has been considered a rising star. Last season, he averaged 20.2 points, 7 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game — all career highs. His arrest came one day before the start of free agency negotiations and one day after the Hornets had extended him a qualifying offer, which allows the team to match any other offers he receives. He had been expected to command a maximum contract of around $173 million for five years, according to multiple media reports. A spokesman for the team said on Tuesday that the qualifying offer had not been rescinded. More

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      What it Takes to Be an NBA Head Coach

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      A weeklong camp helps professional basketball players learn what it takes to become a head coach. “I just know that I can’t play forever,” one attendee said.ORLANDO, Fla. — Justin Anderson was about to start his presentation at a white board in a mostly empty basketball gym when John Lucas III interrupted him.“Can I make a suggestion?” said Lucas, who spent the past year as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers. “You going to respect a coach with a backwards hat on?”“I mean, yeah. That’s me, right?” Anderson said, drawing a murmur of chuckles from the eight people gathered in folding chairs. Anderson, wearing a dark blue baseball cap, said he wasn’t trying to be funny.“Have you ever seen your coach wear a hat in practice?” Lucas said.“Nah, you right,” said Anderson, 28, a six-season N.B.A. veteran. He took off the hat.He turned back to the white board and started his presentation: a mock breakdown of the Phoenix Suns.At first, he seemed nervous.“We’ve got Phoenix tonight, fellas,” Anderson began, alternating between shuffling his hands and pointing at the white board, which had notes organized into sections like “Keys To Win.” “We don’t know what the status is of Chris Paul. He’s been out. If he’s out tonight, they’re going to probably insert Cam Payne. He’s been averaging, I believe, 16 over the last five.”Within the next couple of hours, Anderson and a group of current and former N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players would be coaching the country’s best boys’ high school players at an annual camp run by the N.B.A. players’ union. For decades, this weeklong camp has served a dual purpose: to put a spotlight on top teenage prospects for scouts and to provide a training program for players eyeing coaching as a future career.John Lucas III, right, has run the coaching camp for several years. He said a core tenet of professional coaching is “being able to deal with egos.”Jacob Langston for The New York TimesBoston Celtics Coach Ime Udoka, New Orleans Pelicans Coach Willie Green and Jerry Stackhouse, who coaches the Vanderbilt University men’s basketball team, have attended the camp.This year’s coaching group included one player from the W.N.B.A.:Marie Ferdinand-Harris, a retired three-time All-Star. The N.B.A. players ranged from those who had brief careers, like Peyton Siva, who appeared in 24 games for the Orlando Magic in 2013-14, to the more established, such as Rodney Hood, who has been in the N.B.A. since 2014.“I just know that I can’t play forever. I dealt with a serious injury when I tore my Achilles’,” Hood, 29, said, referring to a 2019 tendon injury. “Just understanding that, I did a lot of thinking about what I’m going to do after basketball, and I want to stay involved with the game.”For Ferdinand-Harris, 43, the camp was a test drive to see if she enjoyed coaching.“Right now, the move is more women involvement, and not just in the women’s side of basketball but also in the men’s side,” she said. “They’re looking for qualified women to step into roles.”The camp began the night before Anderson’s whiteboard presentation. Lucas, who played for six N.B.A. teams, has run the coaching program for the last three years after participating as a player for eight. His father, John Lucas Jr., has held coaching roles in the N.B.A. since the early 1990s and helps scout players for this camp. The younger Lucas, 39, assigned each coaching attendee a team to scout and discuss. There also was a video conference call with David Fizdale, who has experience as an assistant and head coach in the N.B.A.A core tenet of professional coaching, Lucas said, is “being able to deal with egos.” How to handle a superstar player who demands that you use a challenge. The importance of making eye contact when addressing your team. When to use profanity. When not to.Marie Ferdinand-Harris, center, was a three-time All-Star in the W.N.B.A. With the push to have more women in coaching roles, she said she wanted to try it out.Jacob Langston for The New York Times“You have to be able to deal with everybody on that team that has been the man on their team before — their whole lives,” he said. “How can you get these 15 guys to buy into a system and to work as a unit?”Anderson took note of the lessons about superstars.“I’ve been around the humblest of superstars like Dirk Nowitzki,” he said. “I’ve been around a lot of guys who are maybe a little bit more needy. But I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me was once you’re done being a player, it starts all over again. It goes back to level one and you have to almost build your résumé up again.”The N.B.A. has long been criticized for how few Black coaches it often has, despite having mostly Black players. The tally fluctuates, but currently 15 of the 30 head coaches are Black — the most ever — and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra is of Filipino descent. Two years ago, the number of nonwhite coaches was only seven. The coaching camp can help Black players in particular get noticed for jobs, but it’s no guarantee.Often, former players are hired as player development coaches — if they’re hired at all — and don’t get to have significant input on tactics.“I started as a player development coach,” Lucas said. “And I was put in those positions: ‘Go talk to this person. Go talk to that person. What’s going on? Why is he acting like this? Oh, can you still play? Jump on the court. Now we need you five on five. Three on three. Four on four.’ So they still see you as a player, but it’s on you to take yourself out of that.”Lucas talked to the camp group about ascending the coaching ranks.“Would you take a $25,000 job?” Lucas said. “Because that’s what video guys get.”“So, why do they come at us with that?” said Jawad Williams, who played abroad and in 90 N.B.A. games with Cleveland from 2008 to 2011.“Because it’s their way of being like, ‘Do you really want it?’” Lucas said. “You see what I’m saying? Like, you just got done probably making $500,000.”“I’ve gotten multiple calls like that,” Williams, 39, said. “I’m not doing that. I can do it.”Williams said he had been a scout for several N.B.A. teams. “But they still come at you: ‘We’ve got this entry level video coordinator or internship,’” he said.The coaching camp helps pros learn how to think like coaches — which means being able to criticize other players.Jacob Langston for The New York Times“That’s their way of hazing you,” Lucas said, as several players nodded. “You start all over.”Lucas said players should consider money and team culture when deciding whether to take a job. Then some of the players offered their insight. Siva, who played under Rick Pitino at the University of Louisville, said that Pitino would be the last coach he would call for a job.“I know his system. I can tell anybody who plays for him. I can tell you everything he’s going to say,” Siva said. “But as a culture, I know me as a person. I wouldn’t handle it now as an employee of his. I know what hours he wants his coaches in. I know the work he expects.”Lucas also talked about the importance of being honest with players. He asked Hood if a point guard he had played with had an ego. Hood said the guard was a good teammate.“I know that’s your boy,” Lucas said. “You’re a coach now. I caught you. You don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. You’re still a player. See how I got you?”Hood acknowledged that this teammate occasionally did “dumb stuff,” using a different word than “stuff.”At the end of the camp, Lucas leads mock interviews, acting as a head coach hiring assistants. The transition to coach from player can be challenging in many ways, but Lucas offered a simple piece of advice.“Just be you,” Lucas said. “The worst thing I see in coaches is they try to mimic somebody else.” He added, “Where’s your voice at?”Just don’t wear a baseball cap. More