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      Liberty Season Ends With Thrilling Loss in WNBA Playoffs

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      Sabrina Ionescu’s game-winner that opened the season had everyone thinking playoffs. Nothing from that point went as expected, including the team’s postseason run.The dramatic ending of the Liberty’s first trip to the playoffs since 2017 evoked memories of the start of this season.In the opener against Indiana, Sabrina Ionescu nailed a game-winning 3-pointer from the wing at Barclays Center with four-tenths of a second left and sent expectations soaring into the rafters. The Liberty started the season 5-1 and looked like a playoff team, easily surpassing their win total from last season’s 2-20 debacle.This time, with four-tenths of a second remaining in Thursday’s single-elimination first-round playoff game, the Liberty, trailing by a point, had a final chance to upset the Phoenix Mercury. As Sami Whitcomb inbounded the ball from the left side, players cut and sprinted in choreography. The first option — a lob pass toward the basket — wasn’t there, so Ionescu, coming off a screen, flared toward Whitcomb. Ionescu caught the pass from well beyond the 3-point line and launched a moonshot above the outstretched arms of Brittney Griner, the 6-foot-9 center.The last-gasp shot fell a foot short. The momentum of the fadeaway jumper, and contact with Griner, sent Ionescu skidding backward with an 83-82 loss. “It just didn’t go our way,” Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins said.With much to unpack after a thrilling game, the Liberty entered the off-season with plenty of promise, with the ball, and the franchise, in Ionescu’s hands. “I’m really excited for this next season, especially with this core group of players sitting next to me, to be able to grow from here,” Ionescu said, flanked by Betnijah Laney, the team’s leading scorer for the season, and Natasha Howard, its top rebounder, in the postgame news conference.Betnijah Laney was the Liberty’s leading scorer throughout an up-and-down season.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesAfter a transcendent career at Oregon that made her the easy choice as the No. 1 overall draft pick for the Liberty in 2020, Ionescu severely sprained an ankle in her third W.N.B.A. game and missed the rest of her rookie season. This season, she was hard to miss. Her game face stretched across the entrance of Barclays Center. Slam magazine called her the “The Next Queen of NY” on its April/May cover. She traded wisecracks in commercials with the 11-time N.B.A. All-Star Chris Paul, who was in the stands for the playoff game.Ionescu, 23, led the league in jersey sales this season, just ahead of Seattle’s Sue Bird, who has played in the W.N.B.A. almost as long as Ionescu has been alive. “She’s just done a really, truly magnificent job of balancing expectations that may have been unrealistic for a rookie,” Hopkins said.In her playoff debut Ionescu finished with 14 points, a game-high 11 assists, and 5 rebounds.It takes years, even for prodigies, to grow into their potential. Hopkins pointed to the Mercury’s Skylar Diggins-Smith, who at 31 made her first Olympic team this past summer, and scored a team-high 22 points against the Liberty. “She’s finally realizing her potential,” Hopkins said of Diggins-Smith.“For Sabrina to get to where she’s at — where she’s taking over a young team down the stretch, to execute, and to find success, and to hit big shots, and to shout back when somebody’s talking smack to her and not take it from anybody — it’s been really, really special,” Hopkins said. “I’ve never gotten to go through and watch somebody evolve as quickly as Sab has, and it’s been a privilege, honestly.”Even so, the team’s best player all season was Laney, who posted a game-high 25 points against the Mercury. Howard led the Liberty’s persistent defense with double and triple teams, limiting Griner’s ability to take over the game in the absence of Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, who did not play with an ankle injury. Ionescu, after starring as 2-guard in college, has learned to play the point, becoming more of a facilitator than a finisher.Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins criticized the league’s referees after the game. “The way they treated us was bad,” he said.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesIn just her sixth career pro game, Ionescu became the youngest player in league history to record a triple-double, with 26 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds in a win against Minnesota.However, ankle tendinitis hobbled Ionescu in June, and that, combined with the loss of Howard to a knee injury, stalled the team’s progress. The Olympic break helped Ionescu return to form, but the team’s play continued to plummet, and the Liberty won only two games in the season’s second half. The Liberty went into their final regular-season game on an eight-game losing streak but held off the Washington Mystics to keep their slight playoff hopes alive.With losses by the Mystics and Los Angeles Sparks on the final day of the regular season, the Liberty squeaked into the postseason. “Nobody thought we would be in this position,” Laney said after the Phoenix loss. “So the fact that we stuck together and made it here and fought hard, I’m really excited for what will come in the future.”Hopkins blamed the officiating after the loss, though he didn’t have an issue with the calls in the game’s waning moments.“There are a lot of things I want to say about the officiating in the W.N.B.A. and about the lack of respect this team’s gotten all season,” Hopkins said. “But I can’t say that, because referees are above reproach. They don’t have to go to a press conference after games. They don’t have to explain the mistakes they made, why they did what they do.“I don’t know where the accountability’s going to come from, but it needs to happen. It was a bad season. The way they treated us was bad.”Hopkins said the team was held to a different standard because it featured so many young players, including Ionescu and Michaela Onyenwere, who is the favorite for the Rookie of the Year Award. Against Phoenix, she played under nine minutes and didn’t score.Liberty fans in Arizona hoping for a last-second win.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesLaney is still building her résumé, fueled by disappointment and setbacks. Since the Chicago Sky drafted her in 2015, she was cut twice, by the Sky and the Fever, before she found a spot with Atlanta last year, when she won the league’s Most Improved Player Award. Then this season, she made her first All-Star team, with the Liberty, and led the team with 16.8 points per game.Against Phoenix, Laney made her team’s last shot, with 2.7 seconds left, to tie the game at 82. But the Mercury got the ball to Brianna Turner underneath the basket on the ensuing inbounds play, and Whitcomb fouled her. Turner’s first free throw rimmed out, but she calmly made the second, to give the Mercury the lead.After a timeout, the Liberty had the final chance to win. When Ionescu hit the floor after the missed shot, Howard ran over to help her up. Ionescu didn’t look angry or crestfallen when she walked off the court. Instead, she looked as if she was banking this experience for the future.She talked about the film work she had ahead of her in the off-season, the experience gained, the lessons learned. “We are going to start training camp at this level,” she said. “This is the foundation.” More

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      WNBA Playoff Preview: The Sun Are Ready to End the Storm's Reign

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      Connecticut has the league’s best record, but Seattle has the best track record. But none of that may matter if the Las Vegas Aces hit their stride.Had the Connecticut Sun not saved their fan appreciation night for the last game of the W.N.B.A. regular season, Coach Curt Miller may have preferred to forfeit.Already comfortably holding the No. 1 seed, Connecticut (26-6) wanted a win — but didn’t need one. The Sun just needed to stay healthy. Connecticut got the win — a 20-point blowout of Atlanta for its 14th victory in a row — but lost DeWanna Bonner for the game because of back tightness in the first quarter.The sight of her hobbling toward the locker room was anxiety-inducing for a fan base with high expectations. With everyone on the court, the Sun believe this is their year to bring the franchise’s first championship to Connecticut.But A’ja Wilson, last season’s most valuable player, and the second-seeded Las Vegas Aces (24-8) believe it is their year to win. After all, Wilson took the Aces to the finals in 2020, despite Las Vegas being without several key players because of injuries and medical exemptions. The Aces were swept by the Seattle Storm at the league’s Florida bubble. But now the All-Star center Liz Cambage is back, and Las Vegas’ formidable and explosive starting backcourt of Chelsea Gray and Riquna Williams has dominated and the team has gotten key contributions from the second-unit firecrackers Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young.A finals pitting the league’s best offense (Las Vegas) against the league’s best defense (Connecticut) would make for a fun battle for the W.N.B.A.’s 25th title crown. But when playoff action begins Thursday, with two single-elimination games, six other teams will be out to disrupt any potential storybook endings.Here’s what to expect.First Round: Single EliminationNo. 5 Phoenix Mercury (19-13) vs. No. 8 Liberty (12-20)The Liberty ended the regular season the way it began: with a glimmer of hope that the franchise can reclaim its bygone glory. A hot start earned Sabrina Ionescu honors for player of the week and Walt Hopkins the season’s first award for coach of the month, but the success did not stick.Before defeating the Washington Mystics in their final regular-season game, the Liberty had lost eight consecutive games. And while the win kept their playoff hopes alive, the Liberty’s ticket to the postseason came down to losses by two other teams on the final day of the season. Now, the Liberty must overcome a bleak 5-11 road record to win against a Phoenix team that thrives when cornered and happens to be peaking at the right time.The Mercury compiled a 10-game winning streak after the Olympic break but dropped their last three games with Diana Taurasi sidelined by an ankle injury. Yet even in its season-ending loss, Phoenix turned in one of its best performances of the season on the steam of role players like Sophie Cunningham and Shey Peddy.But Phoenix would be remiss to overlook the Liberty.The Liberty can force the Mercury into a scrappy battle if: Natasha Howard, the Liberty’s rebounding leader, can get the team second-chance scoring opportunities and involve Sami Whitcomb, the Liberty’s best 3-point shooter; Betnijah Laney, the team’s leading scorer; Michaela Onyenwere, the leading candidate for the Rookie of the Year Award; and Jazmine Jones, who can own the paint. A Liberty win is unlikely but not impossible.No. 6 Chicago Sky (16-16) vs. No. 7 Dallas Wings (14-18)Led by a combustible duo known as Marike — Marina Mabrey and Arike Ogunbowale — the Wings battle harder and smarter than their upside-down record indicates. Coach Vickie Johnson, in her first season, has persuaded players to buy into her rotation experiments. The result is a young and tough squad that fears no foe and has picked up wins over Chicago, Phoenix and Seattle.Candace Parker, a six-time All Star, won a championship with the Los Angeles Sparks. She’s the second-leading scorer, and top rebounder, for the Sky.Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesCandace Parker has made an undeniable impact in her first year in Chicago, helping the team to a seven-game winning streak in June. But the team has since limped to the finish. For the postseason, the Sky will be evenly matched with the Wings, though they play two different styles of basketball — with Dallas strong on the outside, and Chicago at its best inside. The Wings rank second in the W.N.B.A. in second-chance points per game (12.3) and lead the league in offensive rebounds per game (10). To win, the Sky will need to play better defense.Second Round: Single EliminationNo. 3 Minnesota Lynx (22-10) vs. Lowest-Seeded Winner in First RoundMinnesota achieved a level of success that seemed impossible after a series of injuries and absences left Coach Cheryl Reeve relying on multiple players on seven-day contracts. Minnesota started the season on a four-game losing streak that ended with the arrival of Layshia Clarendon from the Liberty in late May.Aerial Powers averaged 18 points per game in September, including a 27-point outburst in the season-closer against Washington. So, if Clarendon remains healthy, Sylvia Fowles continues her double-double ways and Powers stays hot, the Lynx should be able to handle whichever team advances to play them.A true title run, however, depends on Napheesa Collier finding the consistency that has thus far eluded her.Jewell Loyd scored 37 points in the Storm’s final regular-season game, a welcome close to an up-and-down post-Olympic run for Seattle.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesNo. 4 Seattle Storm (21-11) vs. Highest-Seeded Winner in First RoundEven amid personnel changes — Alysha Clark, Natasha Howard and Sami Whitcomb departing in free agency before the season and Noelle Quinn assuming head coaching duties with the season already underway — Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd let the rest of the league know just how serious they are about winning a third title in four seasons.But the Storm were not the same after the Olympic break, losing six of their 11 games, including a 32-point blowout to Chicago at home.Seattle was without Stewart (foot) for its last two matchups. And Loyd, in the season-ender, poured in 37 points. The Storm’s title chances improve with Stewart in the mix. But if she can’t play, or plays hobbled, Quinn has a deep well of talent to draw from — starting with Loyd.Semifinals: Best-of-FiveConnecticut’s Jonquel Jones, left, and A’ja Wilson of Las Vegas, right, could find themselves facing off for a championship soon. Each has lost in the finals.Dana Jensen/The Day, via Associated PressNo. 2 Las Vegas Aces (24-8) vs. Highest-Seeded Winner in Second RoundWilson and Cambage may be recognized as the team’s biggest stars, but they are not alone. Coach Bill Laimbeer has stacked his roster deep with superstars calling themselves a second unit. When Dearica Hamby, a two-time winner of the Sixth Woman of the Year Award, comes off the bench alongside a pair of gritty, former No. 1 draft picks at guard, Plum and Young, play intensifies, pace quickens and momentum shifts. Understanding Wilson and Cambage’s tendency to draw a lot of defenders, Laimbeer expects his second unit to feast on the scoring opportunities this presents.And they have — Plum, in particular. Her frenetic energy on defense has worn down offenses and her willingness to compile 30-point shooting performances when needed has kept the Aces in games. If Las Vegas makes a return to the finals, it will be because of its second unit and the steady, sometimes unsung, contributions of Williams and Gray.No. 1 Connecticut Sun (26-6) vs. Lowest-Seeded Winner in Second RoundIf Plum is the secret weapon for the Aces, the Sun’s is Brionna Jones: a 6-foot-3 forward who showcased a range of talent in increased minutes in 2020 that inspired Miller to keep her in the starting lineup. Remarkably light on her feet, Jones has sharp court awareness and quick hands that allow her to be at the right place at the right time for collecting rebounds and scoring on putbacks.And while Jones dazzles with the best spin moves in the game, Jonquel Jones keeps her head down, coolly carving up defenses and thwarting offenses. Their performances have been fostered by a complete team approach and riding the hot hand. Any player, whether Bonner, Briann January or Natisha Hiedeman, could go off for big buckets at any time. But Connecticut’s quest for a franchise-first title runs through the Joneses. More

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      Star Rookie and Veterans Steer Liberty’s Rocky Season to the Playoffs

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      Michaela Onyenwere, the favorite for the Rookie of the Year Award, and the veteran Betnijah Laney proved critical in what looked to be a down year.Michaela Onyenwere’s W.N.B.A. career began with a celebration that spread across social media timelines and mentions. When the Liberty drafted her No. 6 overall in April, a video stream of her dancing grandmother took center stage. Theresa Duru wore traditional Nigerian apparel, including a head tie, called a gele, that billowed toward the ceiling like a cumulus cloud as she busted moves and turned heads. Duru became a meme and a tagline: “We’re all Grandma.”For Onyenwere, the feel-good mood continued throughout the season. The 6-foot forward from U.C.L.A. started all but three games, averaged 8.6 points and 2.9 rebounds per game and became the lopsided favorite to win the Rookie of the Year Award.On Monday, Onyenwere was named rookie of the month for the fourth consecutive time, sweeping the award for the season. “Again,” her teammate Betnijah Laney said. “All year. Reigning rookie of the month. We know what that means.”Onyenwere said she knew who would be celebrating the most if she were to win the rookie award for the overall season. “I just can already imagine the call that I’m going to get from my grandma,” Onyenwere said. “Oh, my gosh. She’s going to be super, super, super excited. As soon as it happens, she’s going to be screaming on the phone.”The season has been an emotional ride for the 12-20 Liberty, full of setbacks and surprises. They went into their final regular-season game on an eight-game losing streak last week but held off the Washington Mystics to keep their slight playoff hopes alive.Though the Liberty won only two games after the Olympic break, a trip to the postseason for the first time since 2017 remained possible. To clinch the last playoff spot, the team needed the Mystics and the Los Angeles Sparks to lose on Sunday. After both teams obliged, Onyenwere, who watched the games with teammates, posted a happy dance on Instagram Live.Walt Hopkins, the team’s second-year head coach, was watching on Sunday, too. Hopkins, 36, holds master’s degrees from Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. His studies focused on applying findings from social, developmental and educational psychology to coaching settings.He often seems both earnest and erudite, a hoop head on the verge of delivering an academic dissertation at any moment.During a news conference on Monday, a reporter asked Hopkins what his Sunday was like, given that the coach likes to focus on only what he can control.“I just got drunk,” Hopkins deadpanned. “I was just drunk the whole day.” Then he smiled and said he had watched the games and prepared for the Phoenix Mercury, who will play the Liberty in a single-elimination game on Thursday. Boring. But prudent.There were many unknowns entering this season. With one of the youngest teams in the league, the Liberty fortified their roster with veterans, including forward Natasha Howard, a three-time W.N.B.A. champion and the 2019 defensive player of the year; Laney, who was named the most improved player last season; and Sami Whitcomb, who won two championships with the Seattle Storm.The second-year forward Jocelyn Willoughby, the Liberty’s top performer in training camp, tore an Achilles’ tendon during a preseason scrimmage, ending her season and opening up a spot for Onyenwere.“Opportunity is really the thing that can separate a lot of very talented rookies for that rookie of the year race,” Hopkins said. In an unexceptional year for W.N.B.A. rookies — many of the top picks saw limited playing time — Onyenwere rose to the top of the class.Onyenwere led all rookies with 8.6 points per game. She started all but three games for the Liberty.Noah K. Murray/Associated Press“Michaela came into camp probably the most consistent shooter on the team in preseason. She was knocking down every shot,” Hopkins said. “Her athleticism, her explosion, her defensive versatility, and then her personality is absolutely wonderful, so she really separated herself in camp.”In the season opener, Onyenwere scored 18 points against Indiana, in a victory punctuated by Sabrina Ionescu’s game-winning 3-pointer with less than a second remaining. Onyenwere closed out the first month of her pro career with a season-high 29 points against Atlanta.“Coming in, I didn’t expect any of this,” Onyenwere said. “I didn’t put too much pressure on myself, because I know that if I do that, I won’t play as freely as I want to.” She continued to play with joy and purpose, though an elbow injury on her shooting arm affected her 3-point accuracy.“Mic rises to occasions in part because the pressure doesn’t affect her like it affects other people,” Hopkins said, using a nickname for Onyenwere. “I don’t think she internalizes it. I don’t think it becomes this emotional burden to her. I think it’s just like, ‘OK, cool, I got you,’ and I admire that. That’s something that’s not normal. It’s a rare characteristic.”After starting the season 5-1, the Liberty were the toast of the league, easily surpassing their win total from last season’s 2-20 debacle. The team’s first season at Barclays Center held promise mostly because of the return of Ionescu, the 2020 No. 1 overall pick from Oregon who severely sprained an ankle in her third W.N.B.A. game and missed the rest of her rookie season.Ionescu led the team in hype — “The Next Queen of NY” read the April/May cover of Slam magazine — and gradually adjusted to the challenges ahead of her, including playing point guard after starring as a 2-guard in college.“It’s like Sabs played two games and she’s never played in New York to be the queen of New York,” Hopkins said. “She’s just done a truly magnificent job of balancing expectations that may have been unrealistic for a rookie.”Sabrina Ionescu dealt with an ankle injury but was the Liberty’s second-leading scorer in her sophomore season.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesInjuries slowed the team’s early progress. Howard sprained her knee at the end of May and didn’t return to the lineup until mid-August. Ankle tendinitis hobbled Ionescu in June, and the winning pace tapered off the rest of the season.Laney proved to be the Liberty’s most consistent performer, completing a remarkable journey from castoff to All-Star. More journeyman than franchise player since the Chicago Sky drafted her in 2015, she was cut by Indiana after the 2019 season, found a spot with Atlanta last year, when she won the league’s Most Improved Player Award, then made her first All-Star team with the Liberty and led the team with 16.8 points per game this season.So which Liberty team will emerge in the playoffs? The one that was blown off the court by Connecticut, 98-69, in the penultimate game of the regular season? “An anomaly,” Hopkins called it. Or the sharpshooting, defensive-minded, cohesive bunch that beat Washington, 91-80, on Friday? “That is the team we are right now,” Hopkins said.Howard was a critical factor in the Washington win, scoring 24 points, with Ionescu adding 22, to keep the Liberty’s playoff hopes alive. Both will need to perform at that level against Phoenix.“I think we’re starting to come together,” Ionescu said after beating the Mystics. “Whatever happens the rest of the season, I don’t think it really matters. At the end of the day, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, but it’s only the beginning. I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this team.” More

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      Seimone Augustus Found Her Voice Long Before Coaching

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      The first time Seimone Augustus realized what she was capable of wasn’t when, as a 14-year-old, she landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated for Women next to the question, “Is She the Next Michael Jordan?”When Augustus, a W.N.B.A. legend who retired this year after 15 seasons, reflects on the moments that made her understand her potential, she thinks of the stands at Capitol High School in Baton Rouge, La. She led the team to back-to-back state titles, scoring 3,600 points and losing just seven games in four years.The school is at the center of the predominantly Black neighborhood where she grew up, a neighborhood she described as close-knit and full of “a bunch of people that you would never know who helped make my game the way it is.” With each win, though, the crowds that gathered to see Augustus play at the Capitol gymnasium started to look different.“The same white folks who, had we seen them driving down the street a year ago, would have been hitting the locks with their elbows and zooming through were suddenly embracing coming to the gym, wanting to experience whatever it is that they experienced while watching me play,” Augustus said.Only then did Augustus start to realize the kind of change her preternatural abilities on the court might enable her to push for off it. “I think it hit me then,” she said. “It was just a melting pot of people, the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen in my life.”Augustus ran practice drills with Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike in July.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesAugustus’s legacy as a player — a women’s basketball pioneer, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and the cornerstone of the four-time champion Minnesota Lynx, one of basketball’s great dynasties — isn’t in question. But she is also one of sports’ most forward-thinking and undersung activists. Now, as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Sparks, Augustus is working to help her players find the same solace and freedom that she did on the court and find ways to use their influence to advocate for themselves and their communities outside basketball.“How can I make this a safe space for you to just feel free and express yourself through basketball?” she asks them.Basketball has long served as that kind of refuge for Augustus.“Just being me was hard, to be honest,” she said, explaining that she was bullied in high school. “Every day walking down the hallway it was like: ‘She’s gay. She’s gay.’”Augustus’s parents and family supported her, but others were hostile. “You had parents coming up to my parents and saying, ‘Because your daughter is gay, she’s got my daughter feeling like she’s gay,’” Augustus said. “People I’ve never met in my life are blaming me for something that their child is now choosing to express.”At the same time, Augustus was racking up almost every accolade a high school basketball player could hope for — and trying to consider how the racist legacy of the Deep South community she grew up in would shape where she chose to play in college. Louisiana State University, her hometown school, did not employ a Black professor, Julian T. White, until 1971. “The whole recruiting process, I had so many people that were like, ‘Do not go there,’” she said.Ultimately, she decided to attend L.S.U. anyway: She wanted the chance both to stay close to home and to build a winning program instead of joining an established powerhouse like Tennessee or Connecticut. “I had a lot of elderly Black people that said, ‘Just to step on this campus was a lot for me, and I did that for you,’” Augustus said. “I think it helped give them a release. Like, at least we’re at peace enough to be able to enjoy this moment.”Those experiences laid the groundwork for Augustus’s transition to public-facing activism, which demanded self-assurance and sensitivity. Her first foray into advocacy was fittingly personal: She came out publicly in the L.G.B.T.Q. magazine The Advocate in May 2012, detailing her relationship with, and plans to marry, LaTaya Varner, who is now her wife.Augustus’s profile had never been higher, given that she had just led the Lynx to their first title, in 2011, and had been named the most valuable player of that year’s finals. But the decision was still risky. It would be years before the W.N.B.A. started a leaguewide L.G.B.T.Q. pride program, in 2014, and the timing was crucial since Minnesotans would vote on a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that November.“That was like the first time I actually stepped out and used my voice,” Augustus said. “I felt like I was at a place in my life where I was ready to be open with people. I don’t think it was a big surprise, but for the people that needed it, it really helped them. I had so many people that came over, like, ‘I was able to tell my mom after 40 years.’”She continued to speak to the news media about the issue, telling her own story as a rebuke to the proposed Minnesota amendment. It was defeated, and same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states soon after Augustus and Varner were married in 2015.“When she came out in 2012 and then started doing so much intentional work in Minnesota around marriage equality, we saw Seimone and then other players within the W.N.B.A. kick off conversations that became really reminiscent of the athlete activism of the ’60s,” said Anne Lieberman, director of policy and programs at Athlete Ally.Those conversations were never more influential than in 2016, when the stars of the Lynx — including Augustus — began to publicly support the Black Lives Matter movement. They spoke out against police brutality and wore shirts during warm-ups that bore the movement’s slogan in the wake of the police killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling before Colin Kaepernick, for the same cause, made waves by taking a knee during the national anthem at N.F.L. games.For Augustus, both killings resonated deeply. She had spoken out about racial profiling by the police in suburban Minneapolis in 2012, where Castile was killed four years later; the corner store where Sterling was killed was the same one where she used to buy snacks when she was growing up in Baton Rouge.“Obviously, we’ve all been stopped by the police before,” Augustus said. “My dad has been in town in Minneapolis and gotten stopped by the police. That could have very well been my father or cousin or uncle or anybody.”The W.N.B.A. fined players for wearing the shirts, before rescinding the fines after player and public outcry. Four Lynx security guards, all off-duty police officers, walked out during a game in response to the players’ actions.“​​We had cops walk out on us and leave the Target Center wide open for people to just — if they wanted to come in and do something to us, we didn’t have anyone there to protect us,” Augustus said. “Because we wore T-shirts. Because people don’t want to be held accountable for their actions.”In the wake of George Floyd’s murder last year, the W.N.B.A. more proactively encouraged player activism as a part of its identity — four years after the Lynx first took a stand. “Now it’s like, ‘We’re celebrating you!’ And we’re like, ‘Uh huh, you’re celebrating now, but in years prior, it was kind of hard to get you to embrace it,’” Augustus said.Sparks Coach Derek Fisher said Augustus “played the game with a flair and a confidence.”Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesShe still remembers meetings where the league, she said, tried to goad players into wearing more makeup and skimpier uniforms, and how in her first years of playing it was the players with husbands and children who seemed to get all the publicity. “They would say, ‘We don’t have a cool factor,’ and I’m like, ‘We cool, what are you talking about?’” Augustus said. “It’s insane the conversations we had to have.”In an emailed statement in response to Augustus’s comments, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert cited the emphasis on L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights by the league’s Social Justice Council, which was established last season.“The W.N.B.A. has long been one of the most inclusive and welcoming sports leagues in terms of its commitment to players and fans,” she said, adding, “Today, that commitment continues to grow with countless demonstrations of inclusivity and with an understanding that there will always be more work to do.”Augustus has always prioritized the game itself, and that’s no different now that she’s a coach. But the seemingly effortless way in which she has integrated fighting for herself and her community into her basketball career seems likely to rub off on her protégés.“She played the game with a flair and a confidence that would tell you that she wants to be the loudest person in the room, but she really doesn’t,” Sparks Coach Derek Fisher said. “She just wants to help people get better and serve others.” More

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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