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      Nikki McCray-Penson, Basketball Star and Coach, Dies at 51

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      After a standout college career at the University of Tennessee, she won two Olympic gold medals, played nine years in the W.N.B.A. and was the head coach at two universities.Nikki McCray-Penson, an all-American point guard for the powerhouse University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a three-time All-Star in the W.N.B.A., died on Friday. She was 51.Her death was announced by Rutgers University, where she was about to enter her second season as an assistant coach of the women’s basketball team. The school did not say where she died or cite a cause. McCray-Penson had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.“Thank you my little sister, my friend, my foxhole partner, my teammate, my fast food snacker, my basketball junkie, my fellow Olympian, my gold medalist and now my angel,” Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina, where McCray-Penson was an assistant coach for nine years, wrote on Twitter.At Tennessee, McCray-Penson was a two-time all-American and a three-time all-Southeastern Conference player. She helped lead the Lady Vols to three consecutive regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament championships.She began as a defensive specialist, but she evolved into an offensive force.“It bothered her that she was considered so much of a defensive player,” her Basketball Hall of Fame coach, Pat Summitt, told The Tennessean of Nashville in 1994, late in McCray-Penson’s breakout season, when she averaged 16.3 points a game as a junior. “She wanted to develop the total game, and she has.”In the same article, McCray-Penson said, “I had to learn to respond when being criticized and learn from mistakes. Pat is not going to motivate you.” She added, “You have to come out with an attitude about yourself, and that comes from maturity.”Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist who collaborated with Summitt on three books, said in a phone interview that there was a special connection between the coach and McCray-Penson. “Pat glowed when Nikki came to visit,” she said.She added: “There were a lot of players who came to Tennessee who were like 15-story buildings, but the elevators only went to the 10th floor. Some kids found a way to get to the top and develop all their promise. Nikki was one of those.”McCray-Penson at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She was a two-time Olympic gold medalist.Darren McNamara/Getty ImagesAfter graduating from Tennessee in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in education, McCray-Penson became part of the U.S. team that would win the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. After an early-round victory over South Korea, in which McCray-Penson led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds, she said, “We want to be the best basketball team in history.”Overall, she averaged 9.4 points a game in the tournament and provided some of the stifling defense that limited opponents’ scoring. Four years later, when the U.S. team won the gold medal in Sydney, Australia, McCray-Penson averaged 5.1 points.By then, she had turned professional. With the Columbus Quest of the short-lived American Basketball League, which preceded the W.N.B.A. as a women’s league, she averaged 19.9 points a game, led the team to the league championship in 1997 and was named most valuable player.She did not stay with the A.B.L. for long. She jumped after one season to the Washington Mystics of the W.N.B.A., which had been created by the National Basketball Association.“I saw what the N.B.A. can do to promote women’s basketball,” she told The Associated Press in 1997.Starting in 1998, she spent four seasons with the Mystics, averaging 15.4 points a game and was chosen for three All-Star games. She had less success over the next five years, when she played in Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio and Chicago. She retired in 2006.McCray-Penson in Norfolk, Va., in 2017, when she was the women’s basketball coach at Old Dominion University there.Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot, via Associated PressShe quickly moved into coaching: She was an assistant women’s coach at Western Kentucky University for two years before moving to South Carolina in 2008, where she joined Staley, her teammate on the 1996 and 2000 Olympic teams.After helping lead South Carolina to its first N.C.A.A. women’s basketball title in 2017, McCray-Penson was hired for her first head coaching job, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. She coached the team to a 53-40 record over three seasons; in the 2019-20 season, she led the Monarchs to a 24-6 record and was named Conference USA coach of the year.In 2020, she was named the head coach at Mississippi State University, but she resigned for health reasons after a 10-9 record in her only season there.In 2022, Rutgers hired her as an assistant.“Simply put, Nikki is a winner,” Coquese Washington, the Rutgers coach, who was a teammate of McCray-Penson’s with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever, told The Associated Press. “She has excelled at the highest levels of our game.”McCray-Penson was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, in Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012.Nikki Kesangane McCray was born on Dec. 17, 1971, in Collierville, Tenn. Her survivors include her husband, Thomas Penson, and her son, also named Thomas. Her mother, Sally Coleman, died of breast cancer in 2018.“We know there’s no cure,” McCray-Penson told The Clarion Ledger of Jackson, Miss., in 2020. “We live with it. Every day, you don’t let that define you. You live life. You make every day count. That’s what I saw my mom do.” More

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      Miles Bridges Will Rejoin Hornets After Felony Domestic Violence Plea Deal

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      Bridges will rejoin the team on a one-year contract after completing a suspension that will sideline him for the first 10 games of the season.Miles Bridges will return to the Charlotte Hornets on a one-year contract next season after he finishes a suspension for pleading no contest to felony domestic violence.Bridges, 25, had been a restricted free agent for the Hornets since June 2022, when he had been expected to negotiate for a $173 million maximum deal over five years. But on June 29, 2022, he was arrested in Los Angeles, accused of beating the mother of his two children in front of the children. In November, he pleaded no contest to one count of felony domestic violence as part of a plea deal that included three years of probation but no jail time.“I sincerely apologize for the pain, embarrassment and disappointment that last year’s incident caused so many people,” Bridges said in a statement through the team on Friday, adding that he was “grateful” to have a second chance to play. He had been with the Hornets since they acquired him in a draft-day deal in 2018. His new one-year contract is for $7.9 million, according to ESPN.Bridges will have to sit out for the first 10 games next season. The N.B.A. suspended him for 30 games in April, but gave him credit for 20 because he did not play last season. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver later told a group of sports editors that Bridges and the league had a “mutual agreement” that he would not play during the 2022-23 season, though he said the agreement did not constitute a suspension. However, in February Bridges had told The Associated Press that he might return in March.As part of his plea deal, Bridges was required to undergo a year of domestic violence counseling, complete 100 hours of community service and go to parenting classes. The victim was also granted a 10-year restraining order. Bridges initially faced several felony charges of domestic violence and child abuse.In the team’s statement on Friday, Hornets General Manager Mitch Kupchak said Bridges’s “commitment to counseling and community service” had factored into Charlotte’s decision to bring him back.“Throughout this process, we have taken a measured and serious approach,” Kupchak said. He added of Bridges, “He has shown remorse, indicated that he has learned from this situation and expressed that it will not happen again.”Bridges said that he had been in therapy and that he understood why people had questioned whether he deserved a second chance. He vowed to earn back everyone’s trust and confidence.Without Bridges last season, the Hornets were the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference. Charlotte’s best player, guard LaMelo Ball, also missed most of the season with injuries. The poor showing positioned the Hornets for a high draft pick, which they used on Alabama’s Brandon Miller at No. 2 overall.Michael Jordan, the former Chicago Bulls great who had owned the Hornets since 2010, announced last month that he would sell his majority stake in the team but stay on as a minority investor. More

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      Britney Spears Seeks Apology After Encounter With Victor Wembanyama’s Security

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      Spears said on Twitter that a member of an athlete’s detail had hit her outside a Las Vegas restaurant Wednesday night.The singer Britney Spears asked for an apology on Thursday after accusing a member of a star N.B.A. player’s security detail of striking her in the face outside a Las Vegas restaurant when she tried to greet the player, Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs.In a tweet about the encounter, Spears did not name Wembanyama, but in discussing the unnamed player she referred to public comments he had made to reporters hours before. Spears, 41, said that she had seen “an athlete” at two different hotels Wednesday night and “decided to approach him and congratulate him on his success” at the second one, outside a restaurant. Spears said after she tapped him on the shoulder, a member of his security team “back handed me in the face,” knocking her glasses off and causing her to nearly fall down.Spears said that she was still waiting for an apology from the player, his security and his team. Wembanyama, 19, was the No. 1 pick in the N.B.A. draft last month. He is expected to play in the N.B.A.’s summer league starting Friday in Las Vegas.The Spurs did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Thursday. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to an email request for comment. A person who answered the phone at the department’s public records office said they could not comment on a specific case and that it could take three to five days to respond to a records request.In statements to multiple news outlets, including Variety and People, the Las Vegas police said that around 11 p.m. on Wednesday, “officers responded to a property in the 3700 block of Las Vegas Boulevard regarding a battery investigation,” but that no arrests or citations had been made. The incident was first reported by TMZ on Thursday morning. Spears’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, said the Las Vegas police were investigating and declined to make further comment beyond Spears’s statement.Earlier on Thursday, before Spears’s tweet, Wembanyama offered a different version of events while meeting with reporters in Las Vegas. He said that “there was one person calling me,” but Spurs security had told him not to stop for anyone, since doing so could have invited a crowd. He then said that a person had “grabbed me from behind, not on my shoulder.”“I don’t know with how much force, but security pushed her away,” Wembanyama said, adding that he did not know that the woman was Spears until hours later. “I didn’t stop to look, so I kept walking and enjoyed a nice dinner.”Spears she was “not prepared for what happened” and that it was “super embarrassing” to discuss publicly.“However, I think it’s important to share this story and to urge people in the public eye to set an example and treat all people with respect,” she said.Wembanyama, at over 7 feet tall, is one of the most heralded N.B.A. prospects in recent decades. He averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game last season with Metropolitans 92, a French professional team.Claire Fahy More

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      GOATs Are Everywhere in Sports. So What Really Defines Greatness?

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      Athletes from Tom Brady to Serena Williams to LeBron James have all been tabbed the Greatest of All Time. Faced with the term’s pervasive use, our columnist considers how sports heroes become transcendent.If you are reading this column, I have great news: You’re the GOAT!That’s right: Among those who have happened upon this space, I deem you the Greatest Reader of All Time.Then again, if you’re LeBron James, or Serena Williams, or Nikola Jokic — with that sparkling N.B.A. championship ring — well, you already know you’re the GOAT. Everyone has been saying so.“Bahhh, bahhh, bahhh,” goes the bleating of a goat. It’s also the sound made by James’s Los Angeles Lakers teammates when he walks into the locker room. GOAT hosannas are practically the soundtrack of his life.Driven by its pervasive usage around sports, five years ago the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster entered the term GOAT in the dictionary as an acronym and a noun.LeBron James is considered by many to be the GOAT in men’s basketball.Kyle Grillot for The New York TimesDefining the term as “the most accomplished or successful individual in the history of a particular sport or category of performance or activity,” a Merriam-Webster editor nodded to the pervasive use of Tom Brady’s name along with GOAT in a popular search engine as an example of why the acronym had become dictionary official.Yeah, I know — this GOAT thing, it’s a little confusing. To be the greatest implies singularity, no? But now there are GOATs everywhere we turn.Even worse than the acronym’s overuse is its doltish simplicity. There’s not enough nuance. Too much emphasis on outright winning, not enough on overcoming.What are our options here? Maybe we should ban the use of the term outright in sports, following the lead of Lake Superior State University, which cheekily ranked the hazy, lazy acronym No. 1 on its 2023 list of banished words.“The many nominators didn’t have to be physicists or grammarians to determine the literal impossibility and technical vagueness of this wannabe superlative,” read a statement from the university.Banning doesn’t quite seem like a possibility, however — not when a word has bored a hole this deep into our collective consciousness.No doubt, being a goat isn’t what it used to be. In sports, it was once a terrible insult, a term of shame hung on athletes who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Greg Norman, otherwise known as the Shark, was a goat for coughing up a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters, a tournament he lost by five strokes.Before Norman, there was the Boston Red Sox’ grounder-through-the legs-at-the-worst-possible-World-Series-moment goat, Bill Buckner.Need I say more?According to a Merriam-Webster editor, online searches for Tom Brady’s name and GOAT prompted the addition of the acronym to the dictionary in 2018.Elise Amendola/Associated PressMuhammad Ali is widely credited with first injecting the Greatest of All Time into the mix. When he went by Cassius Clay in the early 1960s, he recorded a comedy album anchored by the title poem, “I Am the Greatest.”After his upset win over George Foreman in 1974, he added a flourish, admonishing his doubters and critics, and reminding them of his status: “I told you I am still the greatest of all times!”But was it really Ali who came up with this particular egotistic flourish?Some say GOAT’s origins actually spring from a flamboyant, blond-tressed wrestler, George Wagner, who was known as Gorgeous George and who in the 1940s and ’50s earned lavish paydays by turning trash talk into fine art.In a precursor to W.W.E.-style braggadocio, Gorgeous George once claimed before a big fight that if he lost, he would “crawl across the ring and cut my hair off!” He added, “But that’s not going to happen, because I’m the greatest wrestler in the world.”Ali said he had learned a good chunk of his boastfulness from Gorgeous George.“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth,” the wrestler is said to have told Ali after a chance meeting. “So keep on bragging, keep on sassing, and always be outrageous.”This week marks the moment when sport’s most legitimate GOAT talk hovers over tennis and an event its organizers not-so-humbly call the Championships.Wimbledon starts Monday. The men’s favorite, Novak Djokovic, has 23 Grand Slam tournament titles, one short of Margaret Court’s record of 24. If he wins this year, his wildly devoted fan base will confidently proclaim the Serb’s GOAT status.That will drive fans of Rafael Nadal, who is stuck at 22 major titles, to distraction. They will argue that their idol would have won 25 major titles (or more) by now, if not for injuries.Then Roger Federer devotees will wade in. He had losing records against both Nadal and Djokovic. But, by goodness, he’s Roger Federer, fine linen with a forehand with 20 Slams and a raft of epic final-round battles to his name.Not so fast, Serena Williams adherents will remind. Not only does she have 23 Grand Slam titles — including one earned while she was pregnant — Williams braved playing in a mostly white sport and bent it to her will. Besides, she’s as much a cultural icon as an athlete. Can any male player say that?Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles in her career, bolstering her claim to being the GOAT of tennis.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThen there are the old-school partisans of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. Stop the unfairness, they will shout. No more comparing superlative athletes from vastly different eras.Time has changed everything in every sport — better equipment, better training methods, new rules — so how can we reliably compare? Before McEnroe lost to Borg in the 1980 Wimbledon final, neither had the benefit of sleeping, as Djokovic reportedly does, in a performance-enhancing hypobaric chamber.On and on the argument will go.That’s the craziness of it. The foolishness and the fun of it.Who’s the GOAT?Well, to be honest, I’ve got four. Willie Mays. Joe Montana. Williams. Federer.I can remember each for their sublime victories, of course. But also their stumbles. A 42-year-old Mays lost in the outfield. A fragile Montana in his twilight, playing not for San Francisco but Kansas City.I was on hand to see Williams struggle and come up short as she chased that elusive last Slam. I sat feet from Federer as he held two match points against Djokovic in the Wimbledon final of 2019. Then the Swiss crumbled in defeat.“For now it hurts, and it should — every loss hurts at Wimbledon,” Federer said at the post-match news conference. But, he added, he would persevere. “I don’t want to be depressed about actually an amazing tennis match.”No one escapes disappointment and frailty. But if we do it right, we soldier on.You know what that means? It means all of us can be GOATs!Bleat on, my friends. Bleat on! More

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      After Midnight at the NBA Draft, Dreams Still Come True

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      Mark Tatum, the deputy commissioner of the N.B.A., had an important job — though not a glamorous one — on Thursday night.He had the late shift.Shortly after 11 p.m., Tatum clocked in to begin announcing the names of the players who had been selected in the second round of the N.B.A. draft at Barclays Center. By then, the crowd had thinned, leaving just dozens of scattered fans — and sharply dressed but tired family members — as his audience. There might have been tumbleweeds somewhere.Commissioner Adam Silver had received prime billing at 8 p.m., calling the names and shaking the hands of the most-hyped prospects in the first round, such as Victor Wembanyama, Brandon Miller and Scoot Henderson — the top three picks.But Tatum was there for the confident players who were starting to feel snubbed, and for the long shots still hoping to be given a chance. Some of the players Tatum called — like Amari Bailey of U.C.L.A. — were with their family and friends up in the stands, not high-profile enough to be one of the 24 players invited to sit at the long tables draped with black tablecloths and gold basketballs on the floor of the arena. It looked like the most upscale cafeteria known to man.Mark Tatum on stage during the second round of the draft.The first pick Tatum announced, for the Charlotte Hornets at No. 31 overall, was James Nnaji, a center from Nigeria who came up and shook his hand. Art Nevins, a 34-year-old from Brooklyn, was still around to see it.A New Orleans Pelicans fan, Nevins had come with his friend John Traub, 33. Sitting in the stands, Nevins said he was sticking around for the second round to see if the Pelicans might be able to trade for Henderson, whom the Portland Trail Blazers had selected with the No. 3 pick.“I’m wide-awake,” Nevins said. “I’m ready.”It helped that because he had purchased his tickets with a particular credit card, he had received a voucher for two free drinks.Bailey, a point guard who spent one season at U.C.L.A., was selected 41st overall by Charlotte. He descended from the stands in a stylish white suit that appeared to be lined with pearls.Tatum, through a spokesman, said that he looked forward to announcing the second-round picks every year.“The second round is when the hard-core basketball fans at Barclays Center make the most noise,” he said.And they did: Even a single person’s cheers could be heard from the opposite side of the emptying arena.A few rows behind Nevins sat Christian Cabrera, a 22-year-old San Antonio Spurs fan who had made the trek from Atlantic City, N.J., to see Wembanyama be selected with the first pick. He wasn’t ready to leave.“You can’t be tired on a night like this,” Cabrera said. He added: “I’m a real fan, you know? I’m getting my money’s worth for the trip out here. I got to see Wemby up close and personal. I got to be on ESPN, so it was cool.”Amari Bailey, a point guard from U.C.L.A., was selected 41st overall by the Charlotte Hornets. He came down from the stands to meet Tatum on the stage.There’s always a chance of seeing history by hanging in there.In 2014, Nikola Jokic was sleeping in Serbia when the Denver Nuggets drafted him in the second round, and a Taco Bell commercial had been airing when Tatum announced his name. It seemed that only the people in the building had heard the call — the start of the N.B.A. career of a future champion and two-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award.Depelsha McGruder, who attended the draft with her 11-year-old son, Grant, said she went to Harvard Business School with Tatum. She said his affection for the night shift was genuine.“It’s still the N.B.A. draft,” said McGruder, an executive at the Ford Foundation. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, there’s still people here. This is one of the biggest nights in basketball. Hoop dreams are coming true.”One player sobbed in Tatum’s arms after his name was called.Rayan Rupert, a 19-year-old guard from France, was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 43rd pick.Tatum had another triumphant made-for-television moment, for those who were still awake and watching.Rayan Rupert, a 19-year-old guard from France, was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 43rd pick. Rupert was the last of the 24 invited players still remaining at the tables on the main floor. When Tatum announced his name, Rupert received a roaring standing ovation from the remaining crowd as he hugged his family and friends, with tears in his eyes.Most second-round picks will not have All-Star careers, though players like Jokic, Draymond Green, Dennis Rodman and Manu Ginobili have been exceptions. But judging by all of the hugs, cheers and tears deep into Thursday night, getting drafted, no matter how late, still matters.The 58th and last pick of the draft went to the Milwaukee Bucks, sometime after midnight.They chose Chris Livingston, a forward from the University of Kentucky. He was in the stands and made his way down to the stage.Tatum ended the night with a handshake.One pick acknowledged some of the few remaining fans while heading into the tunnel at Barclays Center. More

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      Thompson Twins Are Ready for the NBA, but Not to Split Up

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      Amen Thompson and his twin brother, Ausar, sat side by side amid a swirl of tourists at Carmine’s restaurant in Times Square on Monday around 8 p.m. They had flown into New York that morning for the N.B.A. draft at Barclays Center, and now they were trying to decide what dishes to share with their family. Their father, Troy, who is also their agent, ordered sautéed chicken, spaghetti with shrimp and a Caesar salad with anchovies on the side.Ausar tried an anchovy for the first time as he thought about the week ahead.“It’ll be a bittersweet moment when we’re drafted,” he said. “It’s something we’ve prepared our whole lives for, but it means we’ll be apart for the first time in our lives.“We keep acting like everything is normal, and we’re going to stay together like this forever, but it’s going to be over” — he picked his phone up from the white tablecloth and looked at an app — “in two days and 23 hours and 18 minutes.”The twins’ preparation for the N.B.A. began more than a decade before the Houston Rockets chose Amen and the Detroit Pistons picked Ausar in the first round of the draft on Thursday night. They grew up in Oakland, Calif., with Troy; their mother, Maya; and their older brother, Troy Jr., who played college basketball for Prairie View A&M. When the twins were 9 years old, they created a vision board to motivate them on their journey. It had handwritten goals, such as “become the greatest N.B.A. player of all time” and “become a multibillionaire” and “become 6 feet 9 inch.” It also included a child’s idea of concrete steps to reach the N.B.A., like “run two miles dribbling left-handed” and “eat vitamins every day, healthy foods and milk.”On a tour of New York last week, Amen and Ausar Thompson visited the Empire State Building.Ausar and his mother, Maya Wilson, viewed the city from the top of the Empire State Building.Ausar dribbled a basketball while waiting to start an interview for the “Today” show.Troy Thompson and Wilson, the twins’ parents, were interviewed on the “Today” show by Craig Melvin.The twins watched a funny video while waiting for breakfast smoothies.Before dinner on Monday, they’d seen their vision board on a billboard in Times Square.Amen jokes now that the only goal he regrets writing is the height. He and his brother measured in at 6 feet 5.75 inches at the N.B.A. draft combine in Chicago last month. “I should have said that I wanted to be 7 feet tall,” he said. “Then I’d really be 6-9 right now.”Their preparation ramped up in 2021, when they were among the first players to sign with Overtime Elite, a semiprofessional basketball league based in Atlanta. And it became a daily obsession beginning last June when Ausar and Amen attended an N.B.A. draft party for their friend Josh Minott, who was selected by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round. On his way home, Ausar decided he wanted to know exactly how many days, hours, minutes and seconds there were until he would become an N.B.A. player, too.He also wanted to know the exact amount of time he had left to be with his brother.That’s when he went searching for a countdown timer for his iPhone. He downloaded one and agreed to pay the $9.99 annual subscription fee. He scrolled through the photos on his phone and picked a shot of him and Amen celebrating on the OTE basketball court to use as a backdrop for the timer. Then he punched in the date and time of the next draft: June 22, 2023, at 8 p.m. There were 364 days to go.The twins signed autographs at the N.B.A. Store in Manhattan.Ausar, above, and Amen conducted spontaneous interviews in Times Square for Buzzfeed.When Ausar first turned on the countdown to the draft, time had seemed to saunter. The brothers were 19 then, and when the OTE season began on Oct. 20, there were still 245 days to go.Over the past year, Ausar checked the app as often as once a day but at least once a week. When he needed a little extra motivation to rise for an early alarm clock, he’d open the app. He would nudge his brother and hold his phone open when they had second thoughts about staying late again after another practice.They were part of OTE’s second draft class, but they were the league’s first players projected to be drafted in the first 14 picks, a segment known as the “lottery” and a signifier of top talent. And so the twins’ draft status was not just a matter of personal pride, but also a K.P.I. for OTE’s half-billion-dollar business.When the OTE season concluded — the twins’ team, City Reapers, won the league title on March 7 — there were just 107 days to go. When they arrived in New York on Monday, they knew it could be their last chance to be together for a while. “The longest we’ve ever been apart is two days,” Ausar said. “I went to Florida last year, and he stayed in Atlanta. He called me like 30 times!”Overtime Elite, a basketball league that offers players an alternate path to the N.B.A., hosted a party in the twins’ honor.Amen checked his phone while Ausar completed interviews.The Thompson family gathered for a portrait at the party.Amen ThompsonAusar ThompsonElijah King, 14, played basketball with Amen at the party.On Tuesday, they went to the Empire State Building for a tour and photo shoot. They’re both scared of heights and had to be assured that the railing was taller than them. Even then, they were apprehensive about climbing the ladder to an observation deck that isn’t open to the public. Then they went to a court to shoot a segment with the “Today” show, went to two brand photo shoots and finished the day working out with the popular N.B.A. trainer Chris Brickley.On Wednesday, they did a series of interviews arranged by the N.B.A. and then attended a meeting with the N.B.A. players’ union before making their way to Brooklyn for an OTE draft party. In an arts warehouse that had been converted into a content studio with a fenced-in basketball court, the Thompsons ran through five interviews in 90 minutes. They eagerly answered a question about what they were working on in their games (“shooting,” they both said) and tolerated another about whether they had twin telepathy (“no” was their curt response). After Ausar hit a deep 3-pointer over the fence, they returned to their hotel to try on their suits. There were 21 hours to go.On Thursday, draft day, they woke up at 9 a.m. to get touch-ups from a barber in their hotel rooms and then invited four camera crews — including one from their designer and one from The New York Times — to watch them get ready. They joked about a last-minute switch of their matching double-breasted suits by the designer Waraire Boswell. They also teased the idea of trading places with each other when they were selected, to see if anyone noticed. But in the end, Amen wore the cream suit, and Ausar stuck with navy blue.The fashion designer Waraire Boswell adjusted Amen’s suit as he and Ausar prepared for draft night.Piling into an elevator with another draft pick, Anthony Black, back center, on the way to the draft.About 30 minutes after the countdown timer expired, Amen was sitting at a long table with his family at Barclays Center when he received a phone call from the Rockets to let him know they would select him with the fourth pick. Ausar sprang up out of his seat to celebrate.“My heart was beating so fast,” Ausar said. “I was more worried about where he would be drafted than about where I would be. And I think I was happier for him than I was for myself.”As Amen made his way to the stage to shake the hand of N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, Ausar’s phone wasn’t ringing. Troy hadn’t heard anything either. Ausar was about to open Twitter on his phone to see if any of the N.B.A. insiders had tipped the next pick when he noticed that none of the TV cameras had moved from his table. When he saw Silver return to the podium, he sensed that he was about to be picked by the Pistons at No. 5.When he heard his name called, he stood and paused, almost instinctively looking for his brother, but Amen was already gone. He hugged his mother instead. Nearby, Amen was being connected to a microphone for an interview and punched his fist in the air when he heard his brother’s name. They didn’t find each other again until a few minutes later, but they only had enough time for a high-five before they were pulled in opposite directions for interviews.Amen, left, entered an after party with his girlfriend, Hannah Watlington, and Ausar walked in with his girlfriend, Ally Lo Ré.Entering the celebration after the draft.The twins’ family at the party.Ausar took a look at his N.B.A. draft card.After leaving Barclays, they went to another OTE party. “If I ever have a son who goes in the draft, I’m going to tell him to put up a sign at every party that says, ‘Please, no pictures,’” Ausar said and laughed. “I feel like all we did was walk in, take pictures for an hour and a half and then leave.”Finally, at 2 a.m., they collapsed into Ausar’s room and had a moment to celebrate with each other. The moment that they’d been counting down to since that draft party a year and a day before had come, and it had gone better than they initially imagined. “We didn’t just go top 10,” Amen said later. “We went top five.”The next morning, on their way to appear live on “Today,” they got an additional bit of good news from their father: The Rockets were going to let Amen first fly to Detroit to stay with Ausar until Sunday, and the Pistons were allowing Ausar to fly to Houston to return the favor for Amen. The countdown timer had expired 13 hours ago, and time had seemed to slow down again. For at least a few days longer, the Thompson twins would still be together.Amen and Ausar prepared for a final appearance on the “Today” show on the Friday after the draft. More

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      Victor Wembanyama Has San Antonio Businesses Eager to Cash In

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      Mark Burnett can’t get Victor Wembanyama out of his head. Well, he could, but it would be like taking a knife to the “Mona Lisa.”Burnett, a San Antonio Spurs superfan, had Joe Barajas, a well-known local barber, shear Wembanyama’s likeness into the side of his head just over a week ago. He, like pretty much everyone else in the basketball world, had been expecting the Spurs to select Wembanyama No. 1 overall in the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.“I wanted to show Victor something special, that the city of San Antonio already loves him,” Burnett said at a draft night party at the Spurs’ home arena, moments before San Antonio indeed selected Wembanyama, who had shared a photo of Burnett on his Instagram account.Fanatical? Perhaps. But also eminently reasonable, and not just because of the immense promise of Wembanyama, a 19-year-old French basketball star. As San Antonio’s sole major professional sports franchise, the Spurs are the beating heart of the seventh-largest city in the United States.The Spurs introduced Victor Wembanyama at a news conference at their home arena, the AT&T Center, on Saturday.Darren Abate/Associated Press“I want to do the best I can in every aspect of the job,” Wembanyama said during his introductory news conference on Saturday in San Antonio. “The fans have been the best at their job. I can only hope to be at their level.”That magic, though, has recently gone missing in the River City. The Spurs have not been to the playoffs in the past four seasons; they had made it every year since 1997, winning five championships. A miserable 2022-23 campaign, where they tied for the worst record in the Western Conference, granted a silver lining: a tie for the best odds to receive the No. 1 pick in the draft. Now they have Wembanyama.“It’s going to be a huge uptick for the economy,” said Aaron Peña, who owns two bars in San Antonio and plans to open another in two weeks. “We’re already planning to host not only opening-night parties, but every Spurs game. It’s going to be a party.”For some business owners, the party has already commenced. Chip Ingram owns Roo Pub, an Australian-themed bar inspired by Patty Mills, a former Spurs guard from Australia. Ingram got a big crowd in his pub on May 16 after he announced that if the Spurs won the draft lottery that night, he would pick up the tab. That night might have cost him a pretty penny, since the Spurs won, but Ingram said the spotlight made it more than worth it.Matt Dawson, a Spurs fan, celebrated the draft at the Southtown 101 bar in San Antonio on Thursday in a T-shirt that turned the “W” logo for Whataburger into a symbol for Wembanyama.Josh Huskin for The New York TimesFans at the draft party at the AT&T Center on Thursday in San Antonio.Josh Huskin for The New York TimesIngram has spruced up his menu with a “Wemby Burger” that includes foie gras and French onion strings. After a $1 promotional deal on draft night, the burger now costs $21.50 — a nod to the Spurs legends Tim Duncan, who wore No. 21, and David Robinson, who wore No. 50. They, too, were No. 1 picks.Economic research casts some doubt on the potential strength of the Wembanyama effect in San Antonio. A 2017 paper from Daniel Shoag of Harvard University and Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute found that LeBron James’s return to Cleveland in 2014 boosted the number of restaurants and other eating and drinking venues close to the Cavaliers’ arena. But that wasn’t the case in Miami when James joined the Heat in 2010, though he had a significant effect on employment close to the arenas in both cities. Economists have long argued that professional sports franchises and their stadiums don’t do much to help local economies.“I think people are going to be into the Spurs no matter what, but this just does give more attention to San Antonio,” said Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio who was also the secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama. “It gives a boost to the city in terms of how much it’s in the national spotlight. It raises the profile and visibility of the city with people, and that’s always good for business.”Fans rushed to purchase Wembanyama gear at the Spurs’ draft night party.Josh Huskin for The New York TimesShea Serrano, an author and television writer from San Antonio, never passes up an opportunity to discuss his beloved Spurs. He said he “lost my mind” when the Spurs won the draft lottery.“It felt in the city at that moment like we had won another championship,” he said.Brandon Gayle, chief operating officer of the Spurs, said the team had seen a sharp increase in demand for season tickets — and from a younger, more diverse demographic than usual. San Antonio’s population is about 66 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race and 23 percent white alone, with less than 10 percent of residents who identify as Asian or Black/African American, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Gayle said the Spurs wanted to expand their reach further into Mexico and Austin, Texas, where the team has played several games in recent seasons.From the opening of the Spurs’ arena, the AT&T Center, before the 2002-3 season to the 2018-19 season, the last time the team made the playoffs, San Antonio always ranked in the top half of N.B.A. attendance. They were in the bottom five the past two seasonsCarly Tovar represents the second generation of a three-generation Spurs family. She attended the draft night party with her young son, Mario Calderon, and her father, Ralph Tovar, who started rooting for the Spurs when the team moved from Dallas in the 1970s. The Spurs won their first title in 1999, when Carly was in high school. Over the protests of her father, she went downtown to join in the celebration, where fans walked on the freeway, honked their car horns in jubilation and soaked in the victory over the Knicks.Ralph Tovar, left, his grandson Mario Calderon, center, and his daughter Carly Tovar, right, at the Spurs’ draft night party.Josh Huskin for The New York Times“I came up with David Robinson, Avery Johnson, and I was able to appreciate the next generation with Duncan and Robinson,” Carly said. “So now we get to see that happen for the third time.” She motioned to her son.Ralph agreed. “It’s good for our city,” he said. “It’s got what we call la lumbre, the fire.”The renewed energy around the Spurs has visibly changed San Antonio, in the form of striking Wembanyama homages from local artists. Oscar Alvarado, a tile mosaic artist who traces his family’s San Antonio roots back nearly 300 years, built an 18-foot-tall Wembanyama cutout from steel and plywood. Colton Valentine crafted a larger-than-life mural of Wembanyama palming two basketballs on the outside of a bar in the artsy neighborhood of Southtown, earning a visit from Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich. And Nik Soupe was perhaps the boldest of them all: He finished a mural of Wembanyama wearing a Spurs jersey nearly two months before the draft lottery.An art installation of Victor Wembanyama by San Antonio artist Oscar Alvarado.Josh Huskin for The New York TimesSeveral fans said Wembanyama’s ability to generate a palpable buzz was decidedly “un-Spurslike.” Duncan was notably quiet and rarely did interviews or commercials, much like Kawhi Leonard, who helped the Spurs win their most recent championship, in 2014.But so far, Wembanyama has reveled in the spotlight. He beamed in a video on Instagram as a horde of fans greeted him after he landed in San Antonio on Friday.“He should expect legions of little old ladies saying prayers in Catholic churches for the Spurs to win,” Castro said, “and his success being celebrated by people like he’s a member of their family. That’s the level of enthusiasm and how personally that a lot of folks take it over there.” More

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      Victor Wembanyama Picked No. 1 Overall by Spurs in 2023 NBA Draft

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      Wembanyama, the 19-year-old French basketball star, had been perhaps the most-hyped prospect since LeBron James.Victor Wembanyama had grown up in the suburbs of Paris dreaming about this moment since he was 12 years old. He had long felt as though he was different from everyone else, as though he could be great — and not just in basketball.He’d spent the past several months, and even the last few days, exuding cool calm about his future. But when his moment finally arrived, he couldn’t help but cry.The San Antonio Spurs selected Wembanyama No. 1 overall in Thursday’s N.B.A. draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. In doing so, they officially started the N.B.A. career of one of the most highly anticipated prospects in league history.“One of the best feelings of my life,” Wembanyama, 19, said. “Probably the best night of my life. I’ve been dreaming about this for so long. It’s a dream come true. It’s incredible.”The Charlotte Hornets selected Alabama’s Brandon Miller with the No. 2 pick. The Portland Trail Blazers chose Scoot Henderson, a guard from the N.B.A.’s G League Ignite, with the third pick. The Thompson twins from Overtime Elite, a semiprofessional league for prospects, went next. Houston took Amen Thompson with the fourth pick, and Detroit selected Ausar Thompson at No. 5.The Charlotte Hornets selected Alabama’s Brandon Miller with the second pick.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesScoot Henderson was the No. 3 pick overall, by the Portland Trail Blazers.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesEach team had five minutes to make its selection in the first round. Although the Spurs’ pick had been submitted early in the allotted time, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver waited until all five minutes had elapsed before announcing the selection.“Longest five minutes of my life,” Wembanyama said.His stomach began to flutter, and his family members grew quiet. They began looking at their watches.Then Silver finally called Wembanyama’s name, and a new chapter of his life began. He hugged his sister and his brother, who both cried with joy. He hugged his parents and then his agents.Later, backstage, someone handed him a Spurs jersey with his name on it.“Someone knew this was happening somehow,” he quipped.In San Antonio, Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich was thrilled.“He’s not LeBron, or Tim, or Kobe, or anyone else,” Popovich told reporters there. “He’s Victor.”Wembanyama talked about working to win a championship as soon as possible, and about the Texas breakfast tacos he’d heard so much about.Fourteen players from outside the United States have been selected first overall in the N.B.A. draft. Wembanyama is the first international top pick who did not play high school or college basketball in the United States since the Italian player Andrea Bargnani, whom the Toronto Raptors selected first in 2006.At more than seven feet tall, with the agility and ball-handling skills of a much smaller player, Wembanyama has drawn comparisons to N.B.A. stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant. He has long admired those players, but he has often said he doesn’t want to be like anyone in particular. He has said he wants to “be something that’s never been seen before and will never be seen again.”Fans line up outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn before the N.B.A. draft.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, the N.B.A. took the unusual step of hosting a news conference just for Wembanyama before the other prospects addressed the news media in groups.“Welcome to San Antonio,” a reporter from Texas said during Wembanyama’s news conference. With the draft still a day away, the reporter quickly added, “Not yet.”Wembanyama smiled.“Not yet,” he said.Wembanyama had been projected as the No. 1 pick for this draft even before the 2022-23 season.The Spurs won the draft lottery in May, as Wembanyama watched with friends and family in France.“I was just thinking I was feeling lucky that they got the pick as a franchise that has that culture and that experience in winning and making, creating good players,” Wembanyama said on Wednesday. “I really can’t wait.”The Spurs have had a strong history with French players and with the top pick in the draft.They drafted the French point guard Tony Parker late in the first round in 2001. He won four championships with the Spurs and was named the most valuable player of the finals in 2007. Another French player, Boris Diaw, spent more than four seasons in San Antonio and was part of the 2014 championship team.The Spurs have also had great success making the first pick in the draft. In 1987, they used the No. 1 pick to take David Robinson, who won the league’s M.V.P. Award in 1995, was a 10-time All-Star and won two championships with the Spurs. Then in 1997, San Antonio chose Tim Duncan first overall. Duncan went on to win five championships and two M.V.P. Awards, and he was named finals M.V.P. three times.Coming into a team with that kind of history might seem like a lot of pressure for a teenager like Wembanyama, but he has appeared to be unruffled by it.Spurs fans at Barclays cheer for Wembanyama.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe 2023 draft class onstage with N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver. Wembanyama stood at the back, a head taller than everyone else.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Wembanyama had been asked about a comment from a pundit, who said that his career would be a disappointment if it wasn’t like that of Durant or the Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon.Wembanyama calmly dismissed the premise.“I’ve got such high expectations for myself that I’m immune to all this stuff,” he said. “So I really don’t care.”Wembanyama grew up in Le Chesnay, west of Paris, but left at age 14 to live about 20 minutes away in the dorms of his childhood club, Nanterre. He went to high school across the street. He has played professionally in France since he was 15, often competing against and with players much older than him. It meant he had few opportunities to lead a team.But last season, he starred for Metropolitans 92, a French club based in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. Most of his games were broadcast on the N.B.A. App.“Only this year I had the opportunity to learn to know this kind of responsibility,” Wembanyama said. “It is the best thing I learned in my career so far.”The team had created a plan to prepare Wembanyama physically and mentally for the N.B.A. In turn, Wembanyama became deeply invested in his teammates’ growth.One day in April, he told his agent Bouna Ndiaye that he needed a second athletic trainer because the first was overloaded. Ndiaye, assuming Wembanyama meant a second trainer for himself, found one and had been prepared to pay the second trainer’s salary to satisfy his client. But Wembanyama told him the trainer was for the whole team.“He told me, ‘Yeah, but you don’t understand,’” Ndiaye said. “‘My teammates need that. Because I believe in this team.’”Wembanyama said it felt “surreal” to hear his name called at the draft.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe club eventually agreed to hire another trainer.Wembanyama was named the most valuable player of his French league, the youngest ever to win that award, and led his team to a second-place finish. They lost in the finals last week.He got to New York on Monday, excited to experience the city he had seen only in films and on television.He rode the subway to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx from Columbus Circle in Manhattan on Tuesday. He jumped over the turnstile as he exited the train station in homage to Jacques Chirac, the former French president, who hopped a turnstile in the Paris metro in 1980. Wembanyama threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Yankees’ game against Seattle and laughed after it sailed wide.It had otherwise been difficult for Wembanyama to simply go out and see the city. The anticipation for what heights his career could reach had been building even before Thursday’s official welcome into the N.B.A.He was the first player to walk into the green room at Barclays Center on Thursday night. About two and a half hours before he heard his name called, he walked onto the stage for a moment. As he left the floor a minute later, he turned back to look at the stage one more time.“This is when it started to feel a little bit real,” Wembanyama said after he was selected. “It still isn’t completely real. At that moment I started visualizing.”In San Antonio, Spurs fans felt a new sense of hope after a stretch of losing seasons. They walked around yelling “Go Spurs Go!” In one bar, fans passed around a cutout of Wembanyama’s head for photographs.At a draft night party at the Spurs’ arena, the crowd was chanting “Wemby” an hour before the draft had even begun.Wembanyama said he had felt “so much love” from Spurs fans since San Antonio won the draft lottery last month.“I think there’s murals of me in the city center in San Antonio,” he said. “It’s just incredible. I could not ask for a better welcome than this.”Santul Nerkar More