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      Nets Rookie Day’Ron Sharpe Goes Apartment Shopping.

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      Day’Ron Sharpe, the 29th overall pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft, is making himself at home in New York as he gets ready for his first season alongside the Nets’ big stars.Day’Ron Sharpe ducked his head under the doorway instinctively and scanned his eyes across the apartment. Its shape was a straight line running perpendicular to him with two bedrooms and a bathroom to his left; another bedroom and bathroom to his right; and a kitchen, living room and balcony opening up in bright light from big windows before him.In that moment, it didn’t matter that this brand-new building in Downtown Brooklyn was still coated in dust. It didn’t matter that he’d just taken an elevator that had insulation on the walls and plywood on the floor. It didn’t even matter that the construction crew had left behind a ladder and soda bottles in the living room, or that the fire alarm was shrieking a low-battery warning every 60 seconds. All that mattered was this: He could imagine himself being at home in this apartment.Sharpe had been on his house-hunting journey for only an hour, and already he was behaving like a lifelong New York City apartment shopper. He overlooked the apartment’s flaws and instead focused on its attributes. He smiled and declared: “Oh, yeah, this is the one.”Sharpe wanted his new apartment to have enough room for his mother, father, cousin and, of course, video games.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhen most people enter the work force, they get at least some say in where they will live. But that’s not the case for elite N.B.A. prospects like Sharpe, a 6-foot-11, 265-pound center from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Phoenix Suns selected Sharpe with the 29th pick in July’s N.B.A. draft and traded his rights to the Nets. And his calendar over the next month was as crowded as the city itself. He first flew to New York to complete his physical and sign his contract. Then he returned home to North Carolina to pack his bags for Summer League in Las Vegas. He spent most of August in Nevada before making another pit stop in North Carolina on his way back to New York.Now it was Aug. 28, and Sharpe, 19, needed to find an apartment for the first time in his adult life. And he needed to do it before the Nets began their training camp on Sept. 28.If all of this felt overwhelming, Sharpe didn’t show it. He was dressed casually in gray sweatshorts, a black T-shirt and high-top Jordan 5s. From the back seat of his chauffeured black Cadillac Escalade, he marveled at Manhattan’s skylines and made mental notes of the restaurants people had recommended. On the way into the first apartment — a 1,600-square foot, 23rd floor three-bedroom with unobstructed views of Midtown — Sharpe saw an Ample Hills Creamery store. “That’s a huge bonus,” he said. “I’ve heard that ice cream is really good. I can’t wait to try it.”Sharpe had several priorities for his new apartment, and fortunately, he had the budget for them. The N.B.A. employs a pay scale for first-round picks, so Sharpe will earn around $2 million this year from his Nets salary alone, and more than $6 million if he does nothing more than remain on the team’s roster for three seasons. In a city where nearly half of all households spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and nearly a quarter spend more than 50 percent, Sharpe’s salary is a luxury. Although his financial adviser told him not to worry about his rent, the units he considered cost no more than $10,000 a month, which would amount to about 5 percent of his gross income.Besides staying within the budget, he wanted to be close both to the Nets’ practice facility in Industry City and to Barclays Center in Prospect Heights. He wanted a place that was pet friendly because he plans to adopt a dog. He wanted good Wi-Fi so that he could play Call of Duty: Warzone and NBA 2K. And he wanted a three-bedroom apartment so his parents, Derrick and Michelle Sharpe, and his cousin, Trevion Williams, could live with him.Sharpe, center, and his parents Derrick, right, and Michelle.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“Family is the most important thing to me,” Sharpe said. “I wouldn’t be here without them, and I’m glad they will be here with me as I get my start in the N.B.A.”Sharpe grew up in Greenville, an eastern North Carolina city with a population a shade under 100,000. He was always a Tar Heel fan, and his childhood dream of playing basketball for them started to become a reality when he grew a foot between sixth and eighth grade and entered South Central High School at 6-foot-7. In 10th grade, he took his first trip to New York, for a basketball tournament. He gawked at the glowing billboards in Times Square and remembered thinking: “This place is seriously crowded.”As a high school junior, he led the Falcons to a 30-1 record and an Class 4A state championship. He got his first feel for living independently as a senior in high school, when he transferred to Montverde Academy, Florida’s prep powerhouse. He shared a room — and a bunk bed — with Caleb Houstan, who now plays for Michigan. Sharpe took the top bunk so that his feet could dangle off the foot of the twin bed. “People think I need a huge bed,” he said, “but I’d be happy if I just had a queen at this point.”There is a piano in the recreation room of one of the apartments Sharpe toured.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesSharpe came off the bench during his single season at North Carolina, but he had an outsize influence in his 19.2 minutes per game. His 18.2 offensive rebounding percentage was No. 1 in the nation, per KenPom.com. When Sharpe declared for the N.B.A. draft, North Carolina Coach Roy Williams, who retired after the season, called him “one of the greatest rebounders I’ve ever coached.” Sharpe’s averages per 40 minutes of 19.8 points and 15.8 rebounds pointed to his potential impact if he had been given more playing time. N.B.A. teams admired his ability to pass out of the post and his comfort in playing in a pick-and-roll offensive style that dominates the league. He figures to fit into the Nets’ rotation — which is thin on big men — early on this season.But before he finds his place with the Nets, he had to find his place in Brooklyn.He liked the 23rd-floor unit, even though the master bedroom, he said, “was smaller than my dorm room.” His realtor, Joshua Lieberman of Douglas Elliman, laughed and told him that was something he might have to live with. But Sharpe couldn’t abide by their pet policy. The building manager told him that he could have a dog, but it would need to be on the smaller side. “I want a big dog,” he said. “I mean, really big. I’m a big guy. I can’t be out here with a little Chihuahua.”Lieberman assured him that the issues with the second apartment — the one with the dust, the litter and the alarm — were to be expected in new construction. On the plus side, he’d be the first person to live in the unit, and among the first renters in the building, which featured a roof deck with a doggy playground, two lounges, a business center, a two-story gym with a sauna and a steam room, and a mini movie theater. Sharpe liked that he and his cousin could have adjoining bedrooms, while his parents had the master on the opposite end of the unit. “There’s two of them,” he said, “and only one of me. As long as I’ve got my bed and my games, I’m good.”Sharpe took his first trip to New York when he was in 10th grade and was awed by the billboards and crowds of Times Square.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesThe final listing for the day was in Brooklyn Heights, closer to the Nets’ practice facility. The building somehow had even more amenities, including a dance room and a virtual golf simulator, but the unit had only two bedrooms and one bathroom, and Sharpe didn’t want to make his cousin sleep on the couch all season. Not even an envy-inducing view of the Statue of Liberty could persuade him.After the final listing, he climbed back into the Escalade and asked the driver to take him downtown to get his parents some pizza. When the car stopped, he noticed that he was back at Ample Hills. Sharpe realized he was only a mile away from the apartment he had dubbed “the one” and he said that it was time to get some ice cream. Inside the shop, the first flavor he saw was Coffee Toffee Coffee, and he ordered it without so much as looking at more than a dozen other options. This was a day for decisiveness.He took the ice cream outside into Brooklyn Bridge Park. His realtor pointed to a spot where the rapper Nas had performed in 2016, and then he showed Sharpe ESPN’s South Street Seaport studios across the water. Sharpe took a big spoonful of ice cream and then leaned on the rail and looked out at the water. “Mm-mm!” he said. “I think I’m going to like living here.” More

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      The W.N.B.A.'s Seattle Storm Are Winners. The City Should Fully Embrace Them

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      Inside the arena, Seattle Storm fans bring the passion. Outside, the city has yet to fully embrace a team that has won four W.N.B.A. championships.SEATTLE — What do I have to do around here to buy a cap that reps the best team in women’s basketball?That’s what I was thinking last week as I walked the streets of downtown Seattle, home of the W.N.B.A. champions, the Storm.In sports paraphernalia shops, I hunted for a green-and-gold Storm cap, a T-shirt, or maybe a replica of the team’s new black jerseys, anything that would show off my love for one of the premier teams in sports.What I found were stores filled with Seahawks, Mariners and Washington Huskies swag. I saw eager customers buying caps affixed with the ice blue “S” that represents the Kraken, the new N.H.L. team in town. The Kraken’s first game isn’t until next month.Each time I asked for Storm merchandise, I was met with bewilderment and surprise. One salesperson suggested Storm gear would surely sit untouched because of the demand for Russell Wilson jerseys. Another told me she could sell me a Storm bumper sticker, but she wasn’t sure where it was.Disappointed, I drove to a nearby suburb and found a sporting goods store in a mall. Here my question was answered with this:“Who are the Storm?”A series of championships has still not generated broad support outside core fans.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesIn their 21 years of existence, the Storm have been remarkably consistent. They hold four W.N.B.A. titles. The first came in 2004. The last in 2020. As the league heads into this season’s playoffs, which start this week, they are once again among its top four teams and stand a good chance of repeating as champions.Leading the reigning champions are three athletes of remarkable distinction. Jewell Loyd is an offensive spark plug with a game fashioned after Kobe Bryant, who was one of her mentors. Breanna Stewart, the league M.V.P. in 2018, is possibly the best player in the women’s game. Sue Bird, one of her sport’s few breakout stars, has spent her entire professional career in Seattle.These three women helped the United States win the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. At the opening ceremony, Bird carried the American flag in the parade of athletes.That’s who the Storm are.And yet in the stores I visited last week and on the streets of a city that touts itself as deeply progressive, I saw nothing to indicate that Seattle has a W.N.B.A. team, let alone passion for one.Merchandise is a metaphor, a signpost of something else: cultural capital. They don’t call all those hats, shirts, jerseys and sweatshirts “swag” for nothing, and the prevalence of it — or, in this case, the lack of it — speaks to something profound.The signal sent when gear is so hard to find and so rarely seen? Women remain an afterthought, which hits especially hard for a team sport played predominantly by Black women.The players notice.“You don’t see us repped as much as we should be,” Loyd told me, still sweating after a hard practice last week. “It is almost impossible to find a jersey. We are like a hidden gem. To put all of this work into something and we are not seen, what else do we have to do? We’ve won championships here and brought value to our city, and yet you can’t find a jersey?”Storm guard Jewell Loyd is one of the team’s stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThere is nuance to this story, though. True, in its 25th year, the W.N.B.A continues to struggle for hearts and minds. But after last season, when the league burnished its reputation for excellence and solidified itself as a leader in the fight for social justice, it is also making inroads.While viewership for most sports is declining in an era of cable television cord-cutting, the W.N.B.A.’s national broadcast ratings are on the rise. Player salaries are climbing, too, and several of the league’s stars feature in national advertising campaigns for large corporations. Eight players signed deals recently to represent Nike’s Jordan Brand, a number once unthinkable. In a first, one enduring star, the Chicago Sky’s Candace Parker, fronts the popular NBA 2K video game.The league has also successfully courted backing from companies such as Google, Facebook, AT&T, Nike and Deloitte, the professional services firm helmed by Cathy Engelbert before she moved to the W.N.B.A. in 2019 to serve as its commissioner.When I interviewed her last week, Engelbert spoke of the need to change and amplify the league’s narrative. She hailed the devoted, diverse, youthful and socially progressive fan base. She wants the W.N.B.A. valued in new ways that go beyond old metrics like Nielsen ratings.When I mentioned I rarely saw Storm gear in Seattle, my hometown, she hardly seemed surprised.“We need to do better” at marketing and telling the league’s story, she said. If that happens, sales of merchandise will rise, along with overall popularity. “I mean, everyone should know who Sue Bird is,” she said. “She happens to be one of our household names, but we don’t have enough of them.”The commissioner also singled out the importance of selling the game by highlighting individual stars and the intense rivalries among players and teams, akin to how the N.B.A. grew when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came to that league.The Storm’s Sue Bird is one of the sport’s best-known celebrities.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesOne such rivalry, between the Storm and the Phoenix Mercury, was on full display on Friday night.It was Seattle’s final regular-season game. Both teams had qualified for the playoffs, but much was on the line, including bragging rights between two organizations that have a history of epic clashes. More important, the winner would also get to skip the postseason’s first round.At that game — played 30 miles north of Seattle because the team’s typical arena is being renovated — I finally found rabid fans wearing their Storm swag. Caps, T-shirts, socks, face masks, sweatbands. A few fans donned green-and-gold shoes with player autographs. Some wore the uniforms of Bird, Loyd and Stewart from the Olympic team.Before 6,000 spectators instead of the 2,000 typically at the Storm’s temporary home, the teams put on a showcase of flowing, fast-paced basketball. Despite being without Stewart, who is nursing a foot injury, Seattle came out firing. Loyd hit a barrage of midrange jump shots and deep 3-pointers. On her way to a career-high 37 points, she scored 22 in the first quarter.The Storm won, 94-85, delighting a boisterous, fun-loving crowd. It was easy to feel the team’s intensity and to see how its firm base of loyal and diverse fans powered the W.N.B.A.But outside of such fans, away from its arenas, the league mirrors society and its inequities. All you need to do is walk the streets of Seattle and shop for a Storm cap to see that. More

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      Pascal Siakam Wants to Stay With Toronto Raptors

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      In the fall of 2019, Pascal Siakam was riding high. He had just finished his third N.B.A. season and was well on his way to becoming basketball royalty in Canada, having just helped lead the Toronto Raptors to their first championship, alongside Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard. Siakam was awarded a maximum contract extension, which gave him the status — at least financially — reserved for stars. He rewarded that faith from the Raptors by making his first career All-Star team that season.This was an unexpected rise for Siakam, a Cameroon native who only picked up basketball at age 17 and spent two years at New Mexico State University before the Raptors selected him late in the first round of the 2016 draft.Now, Siakam, 27, is facing questions about whether he can truly be a long-term cornerstone in Toronto. Last season, he struggled. The Raptors, who so recently had been top contenders, were one of the worst teams in the N.B.A., playing home games in Florida because of pandemic travel restrictions. Siakam’s play was well below a level expected of a star. To make matters worse, Siakam contracted Covid-19, causing him to lose 20 pounds. And then there was a postgame blowup with Coach Nick Nurse in March borne out of Siakam’s frustration with losing.While Siakam’s play picked up in the last months of the regular season, he suffered a left shoulder injury that required surgery and ended his season in May. He is expected to miss the start of the 2021-22 season.“I never had surgery before,” Siakam said in a recent interview. “I’m from Africa; I mean, if anything, my mom would try to give me some home remedy or something that can cure anything.”Trade rumors have circled Siakam, but Masai Ujiri, who runs basketball operations for the Raptors, has downplayed trade talk publicly, as has Siakam’s agent, Todd Ramasar. In a conversation from Los Angeles, where he is rehabbing his injury, Siakam said he wants to stay in Toronto long-term, but admitted that after receiving the contract extension, he had some frustrations with Toronto’s front office. He also discussed his rehab, his relationship with the Raptors and Lowry’s departure to the Miami Heat.As he works his way back from surgery, Pascal Siakam has been training at Toyota Center with Earl Watson, an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors.Jessica Lehrman for The New York TimesHow is rehab going?I was expecting it to be worse, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I would say just, I think the first two weeks or three weeks was the worst, just because I couldn’t sleep. I have to find a position to get comfortable. I had to sleep on the couch for two weeks because I couldn’t sleep on the bed. I’m a side sleeper. So I couldn’t do that.Are you even shooting or doing anything basketball-wise?Yes. I’m shooting, ball handling. I think at this point in the process I look better than I thought I was expecting at least or I’m doing more than I thought I would do at that time.I was about to challenge you to one-on-one, but I won’t.Definitely not right now. I don’t think I can beat anybody one-on-one right now.Were you surprised that Kyle Lowry left for Miami?I wouldn’t say I was surprised by it because obviously I could see it coming. When I was a rookie, these were the people that we look up to, right? It was Kyle. It was DeMar [DeRozan]. Kyle was like our big brother. We looked up to him and DeMar. So it was weird, obviously, to see them go. Sometimes, I’ll be thinking, “OK, Kyle is not here anymore, right?” You don’t really put it in perspective. Some of the questions obviously about what the team wants to do and things like that, they ask you. And before you felt like all those questions, I didn’t really have to answer them, because I felt like Kyle was there and now he’s not there.Have you guys talked since he left?We talk. We texted.Obviously, it’s all love. He was just telling me: “This is your team. You know, I love you. Everything that we went through.” And: “Go ahead and do it. I’ll be watching out and see it.” And I think the same thing even for me. Honestly, he’s a legend, a Toronto legend. For me, [I said] “Hey, good luck out there. I’ll kick your butt when I see you.”For the first time in his N.B.A. career, Siakam will be playing without Kyle Lowry, who left for Miami. “Kyle was like our big brother,” Siakam said.Chris O’Meara/Associated PressWhat do you think the 17-year-old version of you would say to the 27-year-old version of you?Yeah, it’s impossible. At that point in time, I wasn’t really thinking that I was going to make it to the N.B.A. and I was going to be this big. That I was going to be at this level, win a championship. I could never even get myself to dream about those things. One, because obviously, basketball wasn’t my first choice. And then secondly, I just couldn’t see myself doing those things. Because I was going to business school and I planned to go to college for business in Cameroon.With Kyle gone, obviously now you’re even more of the guy now. Your agent says you’re happy in Toronto. Masai Ujiri, the team president, said your relationship is pretty healthy with the organization. How would you characterize it?I think it’s growing, obviously. Because I just think that for me, I feel the love. Obviously, Masai, we go way back and I’ll always have a ton of respect for Masai and everything that he’s done for the continent [Africa].For me at that point when I started becoming that person, I just felt like there wasn’t that much level of communication, to be honest. And that was the only thing really that I felt. It was like, “We got you the max contract, but are you the guy?” I think that’s something that I was struggling with.What do you mean by that?Obviously, Kyle was there, being a point guard. Kyle was, to me, always the greatest Raptor of all time. I think he was always like, “I was the guy.” I had the contract, but I never really felt like I was the guy, to be honest.You wanted them to say, “You know, here’s the max contract. You’re the guy. You’re the centerpiece that’s going to take us to the repeat championship.”Yeah. I never really felt like there was that. And I think those conversations are happening now.Trade rumors are part of the business. But there must be a part of you after this season that said, “Whoa, I won a championship for you guys. I became an All-Star.” Is there a human side of you that is like, “Man, that’s messed up?”Yeah. I think it is. Definitely. And I think it’s something that I’ll probably definitely struggle with. You know? And I think even just like the negativity about my name. For me, it was weird. Because I’m like, “Damn.” I’m such a positive person, the people that know me. People see my story, understand where I come from and all the things that I’ve been able to achieve so far in my career. It has always been about positivity, right? It’s always like good things. “How can you hate this person”-type of thing.Coming to Toronto, I always felt like it was a perfect mix. Me and Toronto was always perfect because, OK, I’m international, I love the diversity about being in Toronto. I understand being an underdog. Toronto always feels like it’s that underrated type of city. The people always feel like they never get respect from the general American media.I think for me, just seeing the negativity and all the slanders about me, it just made me feel some type of way, obviously, to be honest. It was just kind of disappointing and just kind of like, “Man.” I really did feel like just me going through tough times, it’s not going to change everything, right? I felt like we were connected. And obviously I understand like, man, this is a sport, right? You get paid the big bucks. You get paid to perform. I get that and I understand it.Part of Siakam’s rehabilitation has been working with Robert Spang, a physical therapist. Jessica Lehrman for The New York TimesWas there any irritation from you toward the Raptors that your name was surfacing so much in trade rumors?It didn’t bother me really, because I never really heard anything from the Raptors. Even all the news I was seeing it was never like: “Oh. The Raptors wanted to give up Siakam for this.” It was always like, “The Warriors like Pascal,” or it was always, “The Kings like Pascal,” or this. There was never nothing where it was like, “The Raptors wanted to give away Pascal.”With the understanding that things can change — it’s a business, things can change with you, things change with the organization — as we sit here right now, do you see yourself in Toronto long term?I do.I’m a really prideful person and I always want to be the best player that I can be, and the bubble wasn’t that. So I get it, I understand it, but also for me what really hurt me is one of those things about my dad or like, “Oh, your dad wouldn’t have been proud of this.” [Siakam’s father died in a car accident in 2014.]You were seeing that on social media?People, they told me about it because I was really off social media. I didn’t want to know about it, but I heard it was like, racist comments and things like that. For me, those were just the things that were sad about the whole thing.Last season, you had that blow up with Nick Nurse. As you think about it now, did you feel like that was a low point in the season? Or was it blown out of proportion by people like me?No, I don’t think it was that bad. Obviously, losing is not fun, right? No matter what you can say about the Raptors, we’ve been part of winning. OK, there’s years where we didn’t do well in the playoffs or whatever the case might be, but we’ve always had winning seasons since I’ve been here. It was always about winning. I mean, when you talk to Masai, he can’t finish three sentences without talking about winning. This is who we are. What we do in Toronto since I’ve been there is about winning. That’s all we do.Siakam and Coach Nick Nurse had a notable dust-up last season, but Siakam says that was just them being “grown men.”David Zalubowski/Associated PressFair point. But this seemed like it went a little further.This is what happened: It was after a game. I’m just so frustrated. It’s like, “Oh, we’re losing and I’m just mad I didn’t play and I could’ve really helped my team.”And we’re having a losing season and I think those things happen between a coach and a player. Obviously, I probably used language, uh, people use. It is what it is, but I don’t think it was such a big deal because after that situation happened, we talked. We are on good terms.It was just an argument. Literally one argument and like: “Oh, I’m mad at this. I’m yelling and this is it.” That’s it. Grown men.What are your expectations of yourself as you enter the new season?I feel like when the season was ending, I was catching a rhythm, finally feeling good. “Man, I just had Covid. Lost 20 pounds.” These are things that I was going through, and I feel like I’ve always gotten better in my eyes. And I think there’s another level that I can definitely get to. And for me, I definitely see myself as an All-Star. Potentially, wanting to be a most valuable player in the league one day. But for me, I do think that there’s definitely a lot more to unleash into my dream that’s going to take me to the next level.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.Jessica Lehrman for The New York Times More

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      Howard Garfinkel's Five Star Basketball Camp Made Hall of Famers. Now He's One, Too.

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      Howard Garfinkel co-founded the Five Star Basketball Camp, which trained big-name stars like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Grant Hill.Grant Hill was introduced to the Five Star Basketball Camp in the form of a Sports Illustrated article that was published in 1984, when he was 11 years old. As Hill flipped through the pages of the magazine, he found himself transfixed. To him, Five Star sounded like basketball nirvana, an exclusive destination where promising players could consume the game.“It was like this mythical place where you could go — if you were fortunate enough to go — and then maybe have a chance to play in college,” Hill said. “I remember being blown away by the idea of it.”Long before the advent of the internet and the proliferation of online scouting services, and long before the emergence of high-profile summer circuits for elite prospects, there was one man, Howard Garfinkel, and one pre-eminent camp, Five Star, which he co-founded in 1966. For several decades, it was the place to be for young players: the place to learn, the place to compare yourself with your peers, the place to draw the attention of college coaches who worked as instructors.Garfinkel, a raspy-voiced New Yorker who died in 2016 at age 86, will be posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday as a contributor to the game, an honor that many in his orbit consider overdue.“Garf affected more coaches and more players — from Michael Jordan on down — than anyone in the history of our game,” said John Calipari, the men’s basketball coach at Kentucky and a former Five Star camper and instructor. “It’s just a shame he’s not here.”Garfinkel is part of a 16-member Hall of Fame class that includes, among others, Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh and Chris Webber; the perennial W.N.B.A. All-Stars Lauren Jackson and Yolanda Griffith; and Bill Russell, who had already been enshrined as a player in 1975 but will be honored this time for coaching the Boston Celtics to a pair of N.B.A. championships.In a telephone interview, Calipari described Garfinkel as a Runyonesque figure, a throwback from central casting. He ate onion sandwiches covered in salt. He chain-smoked cigarettes. He did not drive. He greeted campers each morning by blasting Frank Sinatra from loudspeakers. He wore orange pants that were adorned with stains from lunch, and he would deign to wear only T-shirts and polos with chest pockets. In fact, he would thank the coaches who gave him pocket-less T-shirts, then toss the shirts in the trash.“He knew what he wanted to wear,” Calipari said.It was no surprise, then, that Garfinkel, the son of a garment worker, built Five Star in his blue-collar image. It was a teaching camp, Calipari said. The players cycled through stations where they worked on fundamentals, and the instructors were often luminaries from the coaching world: Hubie Brown, Chuck Daly, Mike Fratello. For them, Five Star was more like a think tank — an opportunity to share ideas and learn from one another.“Nothing like it exists anymore,” Calipari said.Games were played on cement courts, and opposing teams typically went shirts and skins. For reasons that were unclear even to those who knew him best, Garfinkel was opposed to the idea of putting numbers on the backs of the players’ T-shirts. It was a unique form of stubbornness that made it difficult for college coaches to identify the prospects they were scouting.“You’d be like, ‘Garf, you’ve got 400 players here,’” Calipari recalled. “But it didn’t matter. You literally had to go to the scorer to figure out who the hell you were watching: ‘Who’s the kid in the blue shorts?’”Garfinkel in his office in 2011 still working on his report.Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesGarfinkel prohibited dunking. Players were celebrated for voluntarily working on their games at “Station 13,” a sort of basketball outpost where the guest clinicians included the likes of Mike Krzyzewski, the men’s coach at Duke. Players paid to attend the camp, and while a select few were awarded scholarships, they earned them by busing tables at mealtime.“There was something cool about how the best players were serving the other campers,” Hill said. “There was a real life lesson in that.”Hill was a high school freshman when he secured his long-awaited invitation to Five Star that summer at a small college outside of Pittsburgh. His high school coach handed him a brochure, and Hill studied every word, every photograph. “It was like, ‘Wow,’” he said.At the time, Amateur Athletic Union basketball was not nearly the colossus that it is today. Instead, Five Star was the hub for up-and-coming players like Hill, whose coach at the camp that summer was a young college assistant named John Calipari.“From sunup to sundown, it was basketball,” Hill said.Garfinkel also had a Five Star “Hall of Fame,” which was an extensive collection of newspaper clippings about camp alumni who had graduated to the N.B.A. — players like Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Isiah Thomas — that he would attach to poster boards and hang in a hallway. Whenever Hill had free time, he would read the stories and study the photos and dream.“There was so much history, and you were starving for content and information,” he said. “It was such a different time.”A Five Star fixture throughout high school, Hill attended the camp for the final time before the start of his senior year. By then, he had established himself as one of the country’s most prized recruits, with North Carolina and Duke vying to land him. Hill said he was probably leaning toward North Carolina when Garfinkel pulled him aside and told him that he thought Duke was the perfect fit for him.It was no secret that Garfinkel thought highly of Krzyzewski, and Garfinkel shared his opinion without pressuring Hill, who said he knew that it was his decision. But after visiting Duke three weeks later, he understood that Garfinkel had been right all along. Hill went on to win a pair of national championships at Duke before he became a seven-time N.B.A. All-Star.“It worked out pretty well,” Hill said.Grant Hill was considering going to Duke’s rival — the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill — but a nudge from Garfinkel steered him to Duke.Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesThe landscape has changed, of course. Youth basketball is big business, and the top players crisscross the country to play in summer tournaments sponsored by sneaker companies. Their highlights are readily available to anyone with a cellphone or an internet connection, and college coaches no longer flock to remote camps in search of undiscovered gems — because there are no undiscovered gems, not anymore.There is a natural tendency to be nostalgic about the past. Calipari, for example, mourned the loss of basketball instruction in the summer. In that sense, Five Star is a comparative relic.“Everything now is: Just go play,” Calipari said.Still, in his own way, Garfinkel was a folksy precursor to the power brokers — the scouts and the coaches and the sneaker executives — who now wield outsize influence at the grass-roots level. After all, Garfinkel was a businessman, too. He ran his camps and, for many years, sold subscriptions to a scouting report, High School Basketball Illustrated, that he assembled with Tom Konchalski, a close friend who died last year.In a 2013 interview with The New York Times, Garfinkel said he was troubled by the handful of “bad apples” who were taking advantage of young players for their own financial gain.“I’m certainly no saint,” he said. “But I can tell you that when it came to basketball, I earned an honest living. I never made a dime sending any player to any school.”More than anything, Calipari said, Garfinkel was fiercely loyal. A lifelong bachelor, he cared about the coaches and the players who formed his family. Hill said there was an innocence to Five Star, and perhaps that has been lost, too.“Things have become more sophisticated now, a little more glamorous,” Hill said. “And I’m not saying one is better than the other. But I will say that I’m glad that I played and came through when I did.” More

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      ESPN Cancels Nichols's Show After Maria Taylor Comments

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      Rachel Nichols said in a recorded conversation that Maria Taylor, who is Black, was tabbed to host 2020 N.B.A. finals coverage because the network “felt pressure” on diversity.ESPN has taken Rachel Nichols off its N.B.A. programming and canceled “The Jump,” the daily basketball show she has hosted for five years, the network confirmed Wednesday.The show’s cancellation comes one month after The New York Times reported on disparaging comments made by Nichols about Maria Taylor, one of her colleagues at ESPN at the time. In a conversation with an adviser to the Lakers star LeBron James, Nichols, who is white, said that Taylor, who is Black, had been chosen to host 2020 N.B.A. finals coverage instead of her because ESPN executives were “feeling pressure” on diversity.Nichols, who was in her hotel room at the N.B.A.’s Walt Disney World bubble in 2020, was unaware her video camera was on and the conversation was being recorded to an ESPN server. Taylor has since left ESPN and joined NBC.“We mutually agreed that this approach regarding our N.B.A. coverage was best for all concerned,” said Dave Roberts, the executive who oversees ESPN’s N.B.A. studio shows.The moves were first reported by Sports Business Journal.It is unclear whether Nichols will be on ESPN’s airwaves again. She signed a contract extension last year, but ESPN declined to say whether she will appear on other shows. A representative for Nichols did not respond to a request for comment.In a post on Twitter, Nichols thanked the show’s crew and wrote that “The Jump was never built to last forever but it sure was fun.”In the wake of the Times report, ESPN removed Nichols from her role as a sideline reporter for the N.B.A. finals and canceled one episode of “The Jump.” But she continued hosting the show through the finals until Aug. 16, when she went on vacation. Malika Andrews hosted for the rest of the week in her absence.Outside of games themselves, “The Jump” was ESPN’s most prominent N.B.A. programming. Nichols frequently interviewed stars and newsmakers like Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., on the show. “The Jump” was nominated for one sports Emmy, as was Nichols for her hosting role, but it never found huge viewership.Roberts is the ESPN executive who decided to end “The Jump” and pull Nichols from N.B.A. studio programming. Two weeks ago, he received a promotion and took over some of the duties previously held by Stephanie Druley, the executive who previously oversaw N.B.A. studio programming and the person who had to deal with Nichols’s comments on the recorded call.The cancellation of “The Jump” is just one part of a broader reshuffling of ESPN’s daytime lineup.On Tuesday, ESPN announced that Max Kellerman was leaving “First Take” — where he had sparred with Stephen A. Smith — to host a new show that is being developed. That show will likely be in the afternoon, as will be a new daily N.B.A. show that will supplant “The Jump.”Besides creating the new basketball show, before the N.B.A. season begins in eight weeks, ESPN will also have to find a replacement for Taylor as host of “N.B.A. Countdown,” ESPN’s pregame and halftime show. More

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      Westbrook Always Plays With Stars. But Will They Align on the Lakers?

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      Russell Westbrook has played with the N.B.A.’s best, with limited success. Here’s what that says about him, and what it could mean in Los Angeles.Russell Westbrook is coming off one of his best seasons, having posted a career high in rebounds and another in assists that was enough to lead the N.B.A. And for the fourth time in five seasons, he averaged the vaunted triple-double, typically defined as reaching double-digit numbers in points, rebounds and assists. Before Westbrook, it seemed almost impossible to average a triple-double once, much less multiple times.But those numbers weren’t good enough to land him on the All-Star team last season, the first time the 32-year-old hadn’t been selected since 2014. It was in part because his Washington Wizards were not very good. But the Wizards’ barely making the playoffs was a perfect microcosm of the general debate about Westbrook’s legacy: It’s not a sure thing that Westbrook’s style of play is conducive to winning basketball, even with his gaudy numbers.And now Westbrook is with the Los Angeles Lakers, traded for the third time in three years. Former Most Valuable Player Award winners like Westbrook typically do not play for four different teams in successive seasons while still putting up numbers comparable to when they won the honor.Westbrook will again have superstar teammates, this time LeBron James and Anthony Davis on an unequivocally so-called superteam. On paper, this new iteration of stars assembled to chase a championship should easily compete with teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, the reigning champions, and the Nets, both of whom have star trios of their own.Westbrook is a less efficient shooter than Kyle Kuzma, right, one of the players he was traded for.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThis will most likely be the best chance Westbrook has had to win a championship.These Lakers are better than the Oklahoma City Thunder team Westbrook helped take to the finals in 2012 alongside a young Kevin Durant and James Harden, where the three M.V.P.s-to-be were outmatched against the James-led Miami Heat superteam. These Lakers are more talented than the 2017-18 Thunder team with Carmelo Anthony and Paul George, which bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. When Westbrook reunited with Harden — now a bona fide star — in Houston in 2019-20, James’s Lakers easily dispatched them in the postseason’s second round. And it goes without saying that the current Lakers team is better than last season’s Wizards, even though Westbrook was playing with Bradley Beal, one of the league’s best scorers.Westbrook has not lacked for star teammates, but he has lacked the success that is expected to come with having them, and that may be an indictment of his style of play: high-volume scoring, weak shooting and elite rebounding that is devalued in favor of shooting. Some of this is also an indictment of the rosters Westbrook has played with. The 2017-18 Thunder team had an ill-fitting Anthony, who had difficulty adjusting to a lesser role. In Houston, the Rockets traded away center Clint Capela and opted to play small ball, which had limited effectiveness. In Washington, the Wizards dealt with injuries to key players, like Rui Hachimura and Thomas Bryant, and were hampered by a coronavirus outbreak.But if Westbrook can’t figure out how to win next to James and Davis, who won a championship with some of the players the Lakers traded for Westbrook, it will be a blow to Westbrook’s legacy.The Wizards lost in the first round of the playoffs last season.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAfter Durant left the Thunder in 2016, Westbrook became the focal point, and the Thunder were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round for three straight years.A large part of the issue with Westbrook is that he has been an inefficient scorer for much of his career. His career true shooting percentage — which accounts for free throws and 3-pointers — is 52.8 percent, whereas the league average is around 55 percent. And he takes up a lot of possessions to score his points as a result.His defense has also been suspect.This is where his joining James and Davis makes for a fascinating, and potentially treacherous, situation. Two of the players the Lakers traded for Westbrook — Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — were helpful defensively and with floor spacing. That meant they didn’t need the ball in their hands to make their presence felt on the floor. Kuzma shot 36.1 percent from 3 last season, while Caldwell-Pope was at 41 percent. Westbrook’s career average from 3 is 30.5 percent. A data point helpful to Westbrook: Kuzma shot only 31.6 percent from 3 in the Lakers’ championship year.The fit with Westbrook, James and Davis will be a mad experiment. Westbrook needs the ball in his hands to be effective, while James usually runs his team’s offense. James’s best teams have been loaded with shooters to toss the ball to when he drives into the paint. Davis is one of the most offensively skilled big men but, like Westbrook, inconsistent from 3, at 31.2 percent for his career. Even James is a career 34.5 percent shooter from deep — around average.This means the Lakers will presumably start three players who aren’t the most reliable shooters in today’s N.B.A., which is so dependent on efficient offense generated by spacing. The Lakers have some counters with their other additions: Kent Bazemore, Anthony and Wayne Ellington — all of whom shot better than 40 percent from 3 last season.Westbrook’s addition to the Lakers makes this one of the most intriguing roster constructions in the last decade.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWestbrook’s career usage rate — how often he uses possessions — is 32.51 percent, second to only Michael Jordan in N.B.A. history. James is fifth at 31.55 percent. If Westbrook is using more possessions than James next season, something has gone terribly wrong. For the Lakers to be at their best, Westbrook is going to have to take a back seat, and some players — think Allen Iverson — don’t adjust well to that, because their skills and ego don’t allow them to.Players have steadily complimented Westbrook as a teammate. But does he know that he will have to watch the ball a lot more than he’s used to? With the Wizards last season, according to the league’s tracking numbers, Westbrook’s usage percentage with Beal on the floor was about 26 percent, compared with 33.9 percent when Beal was off. For Beal, his rate was at about 29.8 percent with Westbrook on, and 38.2 with him off. But the Wizards didn’t have a third player of Davis’s caliber.Westbrook will be helpful if he plays to his strengths. He is a relentless slasher and because of his ball-handling and penetration, he will create easier shots for James and Davis. He also pushes the fast break. The Lakers were 21st in pace last season, making them one of the slowest teams, while Westbrook’s Wizards were the fastest. Westbrook plays every possession as if he is trying to outrun a vengeful lightning bolt, and that’s if he’s not the lightning bolt himself. That will help the Lakers add a new dimension to their offense: Westbrook and James are among the best fast-break players the league has seen.Westbrook’s days of averaging a triple-double are most likely behind him. Davis and James are exceptional rebounders and playmakers, leaving less for Westbrook to put on his plate, at least statistically. But Westbrook’s addition to the Lakers, as well as that of Dwight Howard and Anthony, makes this one of the most intriguing roster constructions in the last decade.But if Westbrook is unable to jell with his latest batch of star teammates, the Lakers may end up being an ill-fitting, must-watch mess. More

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      The Knicks May Not Be Dreaming Big Enough

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      The Knicks had a good season — but good enough to just run it back? It doesn’t seem like it, and yet that appears to be their strategy.Imagine you own a brand-name company with a beloved product. For decades, because of poor design decisions, the company has released versions of the product that have gone over poorly with customers — think Coca-Cola Bacon. But you put a new leadership team in place. More

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      The Nets Don’t Need More Stars. A Little Help Will Do.

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      The team’s top-level talents have their roles. But it’s around the edges, in rim protection and bench scoring, where some growth is needed.It seems nice to be the Nets.Yes, their season ended prematurely after a disappointing second-round loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the playoffs. But the defeat could easily be chalked up to injuries to their star guards, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. And even then, the Nets almost won the series, thanks to the heroics of Kevin Durant. More