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      Vanessa Bryant Uses Her Platform to Battle the Powerful

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      Through social media and a lawsuit, she is trying to hold law enforcement to account in ways that are uncommon for women, and especially for women of color.For years, under the power dynamics of Los Angeles policing, many victims who have accused powerful law enforcement institutions of wrongdoing have found their charges batted aside or buried in bureaucratic inertia.But in recent months the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has faced a new, potent adversary: Vanessa Bryant.By leveraging her wealth and celebrity, Bryant, 38, is flipping the usual script. Through social media posts and a lawsuit, she is holding authorities to account in ways that are uncommon for women, and especially for women of color. And she has done it all while she navigates her grief after the deaths of her 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and her husband, Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star, who were killed in a helicopter crash near Calabasas, Calif., in January 2020.She filed the suit in September against the Sheriff’s Department, four deputies, the county and its fire department for invasion of privacy and negligence after deputies used personal cellphones to take pictures of the site that included the remains of her husband, their daughter and the seven others who died.In mid-March, Vanessa Bryant shared an amended complaint and the names of the four accused deputies — Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell and Raul Versales — to her more than 14 million Instagram followers. County lawyers had tried to keep the identities of the deputies hidden, arguing, in part, that they could be the target of hackers. It was an odd argument, considering that the lawyers had said the images had been deleted. A federal judge sided with Bryant.In the month since Bryant shared the names of the deputies, the call for law enforcement accountability has remained at the forefront of public debate through the murder trail of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd.Bryant’s public campaign against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a high-profile but long-troubled institution, has caught the attention of community activists and legal experts who are accustomed to families, especially those of color, silently hoping for but not receiving what they would consider justice. Vanessa Bryant is Mexican-American, and her husband was Black.“She has the ability to speak out and highlight what have been deep-seated and pervasive problems in the Sheriff’s Department around corruption, secrecy and lack of accountability,” said Priscilla Ocen, a member of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission and a professor at Loyola Law School. “She has the means. She has the visibility and, importantly, she has the protection that is afforded based on her wealth and celebrity in ways that families in East Los Angeles or Compton just don’t.”Bryant, through her lawyer, declined to comment for this article. She has also filed a wrongful-death suit against Island Express Helicopters, the company that operated the helicopter that crashed.“Transparency promotes accountability,” said Luis Li, one of Bryant’s lawyers. “We look forward to presenting Mrs. Bryant’s case in open court.”The Sheriff’s Department, in response to a request for comment, referred to a tweet from Sheriff Alex Villanueva: “We will refrain from trying this case in the media and will wait for the appropriate venue. Our hearts go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.”The department released a statement last fall that said, “As a result of the swift actions we took under extraordinary circumstances, no pictures made it into the public arena.”The sheriff had assured Bryant that deputies had secured the crash scene to ensure her privacy, according to Bryant’s suit.The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2020 that a citizen filed a complaint after a deputy showed graphic photos of the crash victims at a bar. Instead of the complaint starting a formal inquiry, according to the suit, the deputies were told “that if they came clean and deleted the photos, they would not face any discipline.”The suit stated that Bryant “privately sought information from the Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department to assess whether she should brace for her loved ones’ remains to surface on the internet.”Firefighters worked the scene of a helicopter crash.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressShe asked if the photos had been secured and how far they had ventured. According to the suit, each department “refused to respond to all but one of Mrs. Bryant’s questions and asserted they had no legal obligation to assist.”The suit stated that Cruz, then a deputy trainee, received copies of the photos from Mejia. Cruz is accused of showing them to his niece at his mother’s house, while making a crude remark about the images of the bodies, and of showing the images at a restaurant in Norwalk, Calif., where he could be seen zooming in and out of the pictures on a security camera.“Many of us are on the receiving end of police mistreatment and we just have to swallow those indignities,” said Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California, whose father, Fred, used criminal law he taught himself in prison to be released after a significant portion of his sentence. “Grin and bear it, because we don’t have the social kind of capital to be taken as seriously as she’s being taken.”Law enforcement officials, Ocen said, typically shape the narratives that filter out of debated interactions. As a result, public opinion is often split about whom to sympathize with. Not in this case, she said.“There’s universal sympathy, universal outrage for the conduct of the Sheriff’s Department in trivializing, minimizing and desecrating the memory of Kobe Bryant and their daughter,” Ocen said.Villanueva, the sheriff, announced an investigation into the sharing of the photos in March 2020, before the suit was filed, and asked the county’s Office of Inspector General to monitor it.“That was a sham,” said Max Huntsman, the inspector general.By that point, Huntsman said, his office had started an inquiry into Villanueva’s announcement that the photos were ordered to be deleted. Additional efforts to monitor the investigation were stymied by the Sheriff’s Department, which only offered him periodic, redacted updates, Huntsman said.“You can’t really rely on an organization to investigate itself when it’s the one that may have behaved improperly,” he said. “And when an elected official is the person who may have behaved improperly, then somebody else needs to investigate them if you want it to be at all credible and have real accountability.”The watchdog positions of the oversight committee and inspector general were created as checks in the aftermath of department scandals before Villanueva’s tenure as sheriff.Ocen and eight other civilians make up the commission, which recommends department improvements. But the group does not have the authority to force the department to adopt policies or discipline personnel. Recently, voters granted the commission the power to subpoena records.The relationship between the Sheriff’s Department and the committee and inspector general is adversarial. Two years ago, the Sheriff’s Department began a criminal investigation into whether Huntsman had illegally obtained internal records.The issues highlighted by Bryant’s suit represent a broader pattern within the Sheriff’s Department, Huntsman said. In December, his office released a 17-page report highlighting what it called “unlawful conduct” by the department, such as threatening county officials, failing to disclose the names of officers involved in shootings and not enforcing Covid-19 safety directives.A month earlier, the commission unanimously approved a resolution that condemned Villanueva’s leadership and called for his resignation.In February, Sheriff Alex Villanueva answered questions about Tiger Woods’s car crash.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“I’m on record saying that I think he’s a criminal, and I’m on record as identifying a bunch of conduct by the Sheriff’s Department under his watch that is completely unlawful,” Huntsman said. “We have a rogue law enforcement agency as a result of what they’re doing, but that doesn’t mean he has to resign. He has to start following the law.”In September, Bryant took notice when Villanueva called on LeBron James to double the reward leading to information on a gunman who had ambushed and shot two deputies.In response, Bryant posted screenshots from a Twitter user onto her Instagram story that read: “He shouldn’t be challenging LeBron James to match a reward or ‘to step up to the plate.’ He couldn’t even ‘step up to the plate’ and hold his deputies accountable for photographing dead children.”The suits, including ones from the families of the crash’s victims, are ongoing. Some change has already occurred.In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed into law a bill making it a misdemeanor for law enforcement and emergency medical workers to take photos of scenes that do not involve their work. The bill, H.R. 2655, was introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, Democrat of Carson, and violations carry fines of up to $1,000. Gipson named it the Kobe Bryant Bill.“Emergency medical workers not only have a responsibility to the victims, but also I believe to the family,” Gipson said. “There’s an obligation to protect the situation and not try to expose the family to further grief.”He added: “Hopefully this is a deterrent that will prevent this from happening again.” More

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      John Grisham Leaves the Courtroom for Basketball, and Sudan

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      Grisham has spent the past 30 years churning out legal thrillers, but the pandemic’s impact on college sports prompted him to shift his focus to a basketball novel called “Sooley.”There is a basketball term to describe the author John Grisham: volume shooter.Since releasing his first hit novel, “The Firm,” in 1991, Grisham hasn’t gone a year without publishing a book. This includes the dozens of easy-to-digest legal thrillers that have brought Grisham, a former lawyer, hundreds of millions of dollars in book sales, as well as film and television deals. There are seven children’s books, a Christmas novel (“Skipping Christmas,” which was turned into the 2004 film “Christmas With the Kranks”) and three sports novels.For his 46th book, “Sooley,” Grisham is bringing volume shooting to print, with his first basketball novel.It tracks a 17-year-old named Sam­uel Sooleymon, who leaves Sudan for the first time to play college basketball in the United States. While he is stateside, a civil war in Sudan rages on, leaving members of his family stranded in a refugee camp. He vows to rescue his family, especially as hopes grow that he will be drafted by an N.B.A. team.In an interview, Grisham, who played baseball and basketball at South Haven High School in Mississippi, said the idea for the story began three years ago, when he read an article about the South Sudanese national team competing in Hawaii at the World Youth Basketball Tournament. He combined their story with that of Mamadi Diakite, who is from Guinea and played four seasons at the University of Virginia. Diakite signed a two-way contract with the Milwaukee Bucks in November. (There is a familiar third source of inspiration, which would require a major spoiler.)“I’ve been wanting to write a book about college basketball for a long time,” said Grisham, 66. “I love sports. I love sports stories. I especially love college sports, and I especially love sad sports stories.”Grisham, who was a Democratic state legislator in Mississippi from 1983 to 1990, has begun branching out in recent years from his signature Southern legal thrillers.In a phone call, he discussed his research process, why the civil war in Sudan was a central story line and hating Duke University. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Doubleday PublishingDid you start writing this in 2020?I was sitting in a bar with a friend having a drink and they flashed on television, “March Madness is canceled!” And I thought that was the end of the world. I never thought they could cancel March Madness. And so I took it pretty hard. I thought, “You know, we’re all depressed about it.” And I said: “I’m going to think real hard. I’ve got some ideas about a novel for college basketball. So I’m going to start and then get it done this year.”What is it about the Sudanese civil war that interested you enough to include it as a major story line in this book?Just the sheer tragedy of that poor country. That they were fighting the civil war back in the early 1960s, when the south of Sudan hated the north. Religious differences. Ethnic differences. Language differences. And they just always were fighting each other. And the south was always the short end of the stick. And then in 2011, a deal brokered by the United States, primarily Susan Rice, did a great job. We intervened. Europe intervened.We all sided with the rebels, and then in 2011, there was a sort of peace deal, and they were given the right to vote in the South, and 99 percent of the South Sudanese voted for independence. I remember it vividly. It was a great day. It was the newest nation on earth, and it was going to be democratic, and it was going to be all these wonderful things, and people are going to get along and prosper and blah, blah, blah. And it lasted barely two years and a horrible civil war broke out again. Anyway, it’s just the tragedy of what those people have gone through and are still enduring.You very vividly describe some of the horrors that the refugees endure. Did you talk to refugees? How were you able to describe that?Well, first of all, I was able to pull together probably a dozen books. There’s some great books written by people who know the country, refugees, people who escaped, people who are still there, children. There’s just some phenomenal memoirs written by the South Sudanese. There’s tons of stuff online. I mean, you can watch YouTube videos all night long of the refugee camps, and it doesn’t take much to get the flavor of what’s going on there. It’s so awful and tragic, and the people are so resilient. But it’s also heartbreaking to see how they live and how dire their circumstances still are. So, no, I didn’t leave the computer. You know, honestly, the internet and Google have made book research so much easier because everything is there.I’m a huge reader. I love to read about places like that, as sad as they were. So I didn’t have to go chasing around to talk to refugees or refugee groups. I did chase down some basketball guys I know. I played the sport as a white kid in Mississippi in the late 1960s; that was one brand of basketball. It’s nothing like today. I don’t know the game inside now, like players and coaches do today.Tony Bennett [coach of the Virginia men’s team] is one of my heroes in life, and he knows so much about basketball. I love watching the games. I have no idea what’s really happening. He does. Coaches do. So I talked to coaches. I talked to a couple of former players, just about the ins and outs of college basketball.I couldn’t help but notice in the story that Sooley’s team at one point upsets Duke. You come from a University of North Carolina family. Was that a purposeful decision? (Grisham’s wife, daughter and son-in-law are U.N.C. alumni.)Very purposeful.I thought as much.We’re Tar Heels, OK? It’s an intense rivalry. You know, each team has a lot of respect for the other, great coaches and all that, but you know, we’re Tar Heel fans, and hey, they had to beat somebody, OK? It was so much fun.Most of your books take place in environments you grew up in. What was your level of comfort in centering a story on a trauma that, as a wealthy white person, is not something you ever saw firsthand?Well, I think I approach it differently. I hope to bring awareness to their problem, to their plight. I hope that people will, who maybe had not thought about it before, will show some interest in that, and then understand what these people are going through and maybe help in some way, maybe send a check.I’ve had several of my books, most of them dealing with wrongful convictions, where at the end in my author’s note, I would say: “These organizations are doing God’s work. If you’ve got a spare buck, send them a check.” And the money pours in. So, I mean, I do have that level of influence with some people. So I’m always aware of trying to help people along the way. Yeah, I mean, I’m a wealthy white person, so I’m not going to apologize for that. I’ve got to write something, OK? [Laughter.]What’s next for you?Halfway through the next legal thriller. I’ll finish it in July, wrote a thousand words this morning. That’s my routine.Is there another sport you’d like to write about?I have a golf book. I started playing golf at the age of 55, which was 11 years ago, which is insanity. It’s just very difficult to learn the game, as hard as it is, when you take it up at the age of 55, and it’s been a real struggle. It’s also been quite humorous.Are you an N.B.A. fan?Not at all. I have not followed the N.B.A. in 50 years. More

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      ‘Do I Really Belong Here?’: Korean Americans in the N.B.A. Wonder

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      A small network of Korean Americans working throughout basketball are helping one another grow professionally and feel understood personally, while hoping to add to their ranks.Early this season, Evan Scott was officiating an N.B.A. game in Portland when a member of the Trail Blazers’ coaching staff approached him during a timeout.As a second-year referee in the league, Scott is accustomed to coaches complaining about calls during timeouts.Jon Yim had sought him out for a different reason.For much of Yim’s nine years as the Blazers’ video coordinator and player development coach, he has rarely shared the court with another Korean American. Scott, 28, is believed to be the first Korean American to officiate in the N.B.A.“It was a nice little interaction to feel recognized and recognize him, as well,” said Scott, who was born in South Korea and adopted by an American family. “We talked about how there are a couple of others around the league.”Recently, a small contingent of Korean-Americans have been hired for notable positions in the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. and the G League. But for decades, Korean Americans in basketball have privately assisted younger colleagues, toiling to create more representation at the highest levels of the sport.Early in Yim’s tenure with the Blazers, he was contacted by John Cho, who worked for 19 years as the Houston Rockets’ director of basketball technology.“If you need anything, let me know,” Yim recalled Cho telling him.Jon Yim is a player development coach and video coordinator for the Portland Trail Blazers, and he says he rarely runs across other Korean Americans in the N.B.A.Abbie Parr/Getty ImagesYim extended a similar offer in 2018, when Yale Kim began working in basketball operations with the Phoenix Suns. Like many of his Korean-American colleagues, Kim finished his playing career around middle school; in Phoenix, he was suddenly asked to scout college players. To ease the learning curve, Yim advised Kim on various video scouting technologies.“You’re always kind of reaching for people to look up to,” said Kim, 28. “I technically knew it’s possible to be a Korean American in basketball operations, but until you’re exposed to those people and find out about them, that’s when it feels attainable.”In Major League Baseball, a group of Black athletes created a similar network based on mentorship and discussing shared experiences in a professional sport where their representation has fallen well below what it is in the general population.There is believed to be only one player of Korean heritage who has suited up for an N.B.A. team. Ha Seung-jin, now a popular YouTube personality in South Korea, played 46 games for the Blazers in the 2004-5 and 2005-6 seasons. From 2018 to 2019, Ji-Su Park played for the W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces, and she is expected to be in camp for the upcoming season.Recently, there have been efforts to bring more players of Korean descent into the N.B.A.Milton Lee, the Nets’ director of basketball operations from 2010 to ’14, housed the Korean guard Daesung Lee in his New York apartment while Daesung Lee trained to prepare for the 2017 G League draft. They were introduced by Kiwook Kim, a Nets season-ticket holder from South Korea.Although Daesung Lee played one year with the Erie BayHawks of the G League before returning to South Korea, renewed hope surrounds the Davidson sophomore Hyunjung Lee, who was second on the Wildcats in scoring this past season.Eugene Park, the N.B.A.’s senior manager for elite basketball talent identification, scouted Hyunjung Lee at the league’s 2017 Asia Pacific Team Camp, then invited him to the N.B.A. Global Academy program for select young talent. In the off-season, Hyunjung Lee trains in South Korea with Brian Kim, who recently coached the G League’s Grand Rapids Drive and is another Park disciple.Park, who also plays pickup basketball with Milton Lee, wrote in an email that while he holds the same standard for every player he scouts, he keeps “a close eye on grass-roots basketball competitions in Korea with the hope of identifying more Korean prospects” to potentially recruit to the Global Academy.Davidson forward Hyunjung Lee was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer in the 2020-21 season, raising hopes that he can find a place in the N.B.A.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersPark added that more basketball employees of Korean heritage would “showcase a more complete picture of our history.”The news media and education systems in the United States have long struggled to properly characterize the depths of the Korean-American experience, the diversity of which is evident in the family histories of Park and his colleagues.Yim’s ancestors were among the first Koreans to come to the United States, arriving in 1905 and working as pineapple farmers in Hawaii. Scott was one of an estimated 200,000 children placed for adoption after wars and their resulting economic turmoil devastated the Korean Peninsula during much of the 20th century.Milton Lee said his father had escaped North Korea during the Korean War, never seeing his mother or sisters again; he immigrated to the United States and became a doctor. Arnold Lee, an assistant trainer with the Chicago Bulls, saw parallels between his family’s journey and the story told in the Oscar-nominated film “Minari.” His father was in his 20s when he visited America in the 1980s and decided to move here, looking to escape the financial uncertainty that gripped South Korea as it struggled to establish a democracy after decades of coups and military rule.“I hope others find strength in these Korean-American journeys and use that to propel out of their comfort zone,” said Marshall Cho, the boys’ basketball coach at Lake Oswego High School in Oregon. Cho, who previously worked in the N.B.A.’s Basketball Without Borders program, co-founded the Kimchi Family speaker series on YouTube to highlight the stories of Korean Americans in basketball.Rachael Joo, a professor at Middlebury College whose research focuses on how the sports media connects South Korean and Korean-American communities, called Korean N.B.A. employees “mavericks” for not having played professionally yet still breaking into a field dominated by former athletes.Because of their lack of playing experience, many Korean Americans in the N.B.A. say they have experienced impostor syndrome at various stages in their career.“Every day I feel like, do I really belong here?” said Arnold Lee, who has worked for the Bulls since 2016.Many of the Korean-American staff members interviewed said they had experienced racism within the game.Isaac Barnett, who is of Korean descent, officiated a W.N.B.A. game last season that involved Candace Parker and the Los Angeles Sparks. Barnett’s brother, Jacob, also officiates in the league.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressScott said that fans in high school gyms and pro arenas had hurled slurs at him and that he had discussed the incidents with Isaac and Jacob Barnett, brothers of Korean descent who referee in the W.N.B.A. and the G League. The three of them grew up together in Northern Virginia, and the Barnetts encouraged Scott to become a referee.Microaggressions are also common. Yim recalled being introduced to an N.B.A. general manager during the summer league and that a colleague had reported back that the executive perceived Yim as passive and soft and as someone who should be “happy you have a job.”Yim, 36, is now well-regarded around the league. At 28, he gave up a teaching career to take an internship with the Los Angeles Clippers, getting to work at 6:30 a.m. to do everything from “wiping up sweat during pickup games” to training with players.Blazers Coach Terry Stotts has called Yim an “instrumental” part of his staff, and Yim has built a strong rapport with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, Portland’s star guards.Yim is also willing to be confrontational with referees. When he approached Scott this season, he started their conversation by arguing about what he thought was a missed foul on McCollum, before offering congratulations.“I was proud of him as a Korean for being the first Korean referee in the league,” Yim said. “Seeing him do it gave me some inspiration that I could be the first Korean head coach in the N.B.A. Evan thanked me and then said, ‘When you are a head coach, I will be the first to give you a technical.’“I said, ‘That’s a deal.’” More

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      Charli Collier Is the No. 1 Pick in the W.N.B.A. Draft

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      Collier, a 6-foot-5 center from the University of Texas, was selected by the Dallas Wings, which also picked Awak Kuier and Chelsea Dungee in the first round.Charli Collier, a center from the University of Texas, was selected No. 1 over all by the Dallas Wings in the W.N.B.A.’s virtual draft on Thursday, fulfilling the dream of her late father that she be the top pick. Collier, who is from Texas and was widely projected to be the first pick, averaged 19 points and 11.3 rebounds per game in the 2020-21 season.Collier, surrounded by her mother, brother and boyfriend, pointed to the sky as she was announced as the first pick.“We sat down in the hospital bed, and we wrote down goals,” she said, referring to her father, Elliott. “This was one of them. He’s here with me.”The Wings also had the No. 2 overall pick and used it to select Awak Kuier, who plays professionally for Virtus Eirene Ragusa in Italy. She will be the W.N.B.A.’s first Finnish player and, because of her defensive skills, has been compared to Chicago’s Candace Parker, who won last season’s Defensive Player of the Year Award with Los Angeles. This was the first time in league history that one team had the top two picks.The Wings also selected Chelsea Dungee of Arkansas, the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer, with the No. 5 overall pick, and started the second round by selecting Dana Evans, a 5-foot-6 guard from Louisville who twice won the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year Award.The Atlanta Dream, which were sold to new ownership in February, selected Aari McDonald of Arizona with the No. 3 pick. McDonald, a 5-foot-6 guard, emerged as a star for the Wildcats in the 2020-21 season, leading them to the N.C.A.A. title game for the first time in program history. McDonald scored more points than anyone in the tournament and helped keep UConn to its lowest-scoring game of the season in the national semifinals to advance to the championship, which the Wildcats lost to Stanford.The player-driven fight to oust the Dream’s now-former owner, Kelly Loeffler, because of the former Georgia senator’s disparaging comments about the Black Lives Matter movement was a defining effort during the W.N.B.A.’s 2020 season. The league, which has been ahead of others in discussions about social justice, plans to continue sparking discussions about advocacy this season, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters on Tuesday.“The players want to be about change, and they want to have their hand in that change,” she said. “Whether it’s civic engagement or voting rights or health equity or other issues that many of them are passionate about, I really look forward to seeing what they do this year and handling any crises that come our way.”The draft came as the spotlight had turned toward inequities between men’s and women’s athletics, with a focus on differences in facilities, coronavirus testing and meals at the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Engelbert addressed the disparities in an opinion piece on the league’s website earlier this month.“Sports is only one of the vast number of industries, markets, and forums where we need to drive more equitable representation,” she wrote, adding that the most important areas to change were “the number of female athletes sponsored by a company, the amount of money spent promoting the women’s game, and the breadth and depth of coverage dedicated to women’s sports.”Engelbert also said on Tuesday that the league was open to expanding, as women’s sports have gained more attention in recent years. Viewership of the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals was up 15 percent year over year, according to ESPN, and viewership of the title game was up 34 percent. The college championship between Stanford and Arizona was the most viewed title game since 2014, according to ESPN, which broadcast this year’s women’s tournament.During Thursday’s draft, which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, many draftees, like Collier, were shown celebrating their selections while surrounded by friends and family.The Las Vegas Aces picked the 19-year-old Iliana Rupert, a 6-foot-4 center from France, with the No. 12 pick and Destiny Slocum of Arkansas with the No. 14 pick. An emotional Rupert spoke with ESPN’s Holly Rowe with her mother and brother at her sides.“It’s really a family affair,” Rupert said of her late father, Thierry Rupert, who died in 2013 and played professionally in France. “And I am really happy to continue this and to continue to honor his name in the U.S. now.”Stanford’s Kiana Williams, who was drafted with the sixth pick of the second round by the Seattle Storm, spoke about the transition to the W.N.B.A.“I have the opportunity to learn from Sue Bird, one of the best point guards to play the game,” Williams said. “I’m leaving one winning atmosphere going into another winning atmosphere.”The season, the league’s 25th, will be played in teams’ home cities, some arenas with a limited number of fans in the stands, in accordance with local health officials’ recommendations. Each team will play 32 games in the regular season, down from the planned 36, with reduced travel because of the pandemic. The 2020 season was played in a bubble environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., because of the pandemic.The 2021 season tips off on May 14, when the Liberty host the Fever at Barclays Center. On Thursday, the Fever chose Kysre Gondrezick of West Virginia with the No. 4 overall pick in the first round, and the Liberty chose Michaela Onyenwere from U.C.L.A., at No. 6. Both teams are hoping to bounce back after down seasons last year.The Liberty used last year’s No. 1 overall pick to select Sabrina Ionescu, who severely sprained her ankle in her third game and missed the rest of the season.“I’m just glad were on the same side now,” Onyenwere said of Ionescu, who also played in the Pac-12, with Oregon. The Liberty also chose DiDi Richards, a guard from Baylor, in the second round.Arella Guirantes, a New York native who averaged 21.3 points per game in the 2020-21 season for Rutgers and told The New York Times that she hoped to play for the Liberty, fell to the second round. The Los Angeles Sparks selected her with the No. 22 overall pick. More

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      Bobby Leonard, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach, Dies at 88

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      He coached the Indiana Pacers for 12 seasons and took them to three A.B.A. titles. The governor of Indiana called him “the embodiment of basketball.”Bobby Leonard, an All-American guard for Indiana University’s 1953 N.C.A.A. basketball champions who later coached the Indiana Pacers to three American Basketball Association championships, died on Tuesday. He was 88.Leonard’s family said in a statement that he had experienced many ailments in recent years, but they did not provide the cause of death or say where he died. He had been living with his wife, Nancy (Root) Leonard, in suburban Indianapolis.Leonard was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2014 for taking the Pacers to A.B.A. titles in 1970, 1972 and 1973. He coached the team for 12 seasons, eight in the A.B.A. and four in the N.B.A. after the two leagues merged.“He has meant as much as anyone in the state of Indiana when it comes to the game of basketball,” Mike Woodson, who played for Indiana University in the late 1970s and became its head coach this season after many years in the N.B.A., said in a statement. “He played the game with great flair. He coached with undeniable passion.”Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana called Leonard “the embodiment of basketball.”Leonard was known as Slick. A 6-foot-3-inch guard, he was a fine playmaker in his seven seasons in the N.B.A. But his nickname wasn’t derived from his savvy on the court.As he once told the story to Carmel magazine, an Indiana monthly, while playing for the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s he was involved in a game of gin rummy with the team’s star center, George Mikan, on a preseason bus trip. “I blitzed him,” Leonard recalled, “and one of the players said that I was too slick. It stuck.”Leonard was an analyst and color commentator on Pacers broadcasts for some 35 years, beginning on television in 1985 and later moving to radio. He injected a colorful note with his exclamation “Boom, baby!” after an Indiana player hit a three-point shot.William Robert Leonard was born in Terre Haute, Ind., on July 17, 1932, one of three children of Raymond and Hattie Leonard. His father dug ditches during the Depression. “We used to stand in commodity lines, and they would give you a few cans of food and some flour,” he recalled in “Boom, Baby! My Basketball Life in Indiana” (2013, with Lew Freedman).Leonard was an outstanding basketball and tennis player in high school and then played for three seasons at Indiana University. His free throw with 27 seconds remaining gave the Hoosiers a 69-68 victory over Kansas in the 1953 N.C.A.A. championship game. He was named a third-team All-American in 1953 and a second-team All-American in 1954 by The Associated Press and was chosen for Indiana University’s all-century team.Leonard was selected by the original Baltimore Bullets as the 10th pick in the 1954 N.B.A. draft, but the Lakers obtained his rights in a dispersal draft later that year when the Bullets franchise folded. After serving in the Army, he joined the Lakers in 1956. He played for them for four seasons in Minneapolis and one season, 1960-61, after they moved to Los Angeles.His best season came in 1961-62, when he averaged a career-best 16.1 points and 5.4 assists with the expansion Chicago Packers. He was a player-coach in 1962-63 with Chicago, which had changed its name to the Zephyrs.When the team moved to Baltimore and became the Bullets (the second franchise by that name) in the 1963-64 season, he was the full-time coach. But he resigned after posting a losing record.Leonard watched as a banner in his honor was hung during halftime of a game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis in October 2014, shortly after he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.Aj Mast/Associated PressLeonard’s Pacer teams won 529 games and lost 456. He was voted the A.B.A.’s all-time most outstanding coach by a national sportswriters and broadcasters association.A banner at the Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse honors Leonard with the number 529.In addition to his wife, Leonard’s survivors include five children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.The Pacers and three other A.B.A. teams that joined the N.B.A. before the 1976-77 season were stymied by financial burdens imposed by the league — essentially the cost of their entry. Leonard and his wife turned to TV to boost ticket sales.“If it weren’t for Slick, this franchise wouldn’t be here,” the Boston Celtics’ Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird, who had played for Indiana State in Terre Haute and later was a coach and president of basketball operations for the Pacers, told The New York Times in 2000. “I can remember in 1977, he had a telethon. I can remember being glued to the TV watching him. He was singing ‘Back Home in Indiana,’ trying to do everything to sell season tickets. I know the history behind the Pacers, and most of the history is Slick Leonard.” More

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      5 W.N.B.A. Draft Hopefuls to Watch

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      A deep run in the N.C.A.A. tournament isn’t required for a basketball player to become a star or make it to the pros. These five women aim to prove it.W.N.B.A. teams covet versatile, two-way play, and scores of players in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament displayed the skill, basketball I.Q. and strength to thrive in the professional ranks on both ends of the floor.Several players who hope to be picked in the W.N.B.A. draft on Thursday night made deep tournament runs and had the big stages of the later rounds to prove their readiness. The players whose teams made early exits, however, were left to hope that their individual performances were strong enough to be remembered — or that one subpar outing would not overshadow an otherwise impressive collegiate career.Here’s a look at five players who either didn’t make or didn’t last long in this year’s tournament but may still be one of the 36 drafted Thursday night. With the league’s 12 teams allowed just 12 roster spots each, an even slimmer number will make opening day rosters.Chelsea Dungee, ArkansasDungee set the Arkansas women’s career record for free throws made in just three seasons.Sean Rayford/Associated PressThe Razorbacks’ first-round exit from the tournament was not a reflection on the 5-foot-11 guard Chelsea Dungee. Her game-high 27 points mirrored her high-scoring collegiate career, but they came in a game in which the opposing team, Wright State, hit 50 percent of its 3-pointers (to the Razorbacks’ 31.8 percent) in a 66-62 win.During her 2020-21 senior season, Dungee scored in double figures in all 27 games. She scored 30 points or more in 12 games in her career, the most in team history. Free throws are an important part of her offensive repertoire; she exploits mismatches, draws fouls and makes 80.2 percent of her shots from the line.Against Wright State, she made 14 free throws on 18 attempts — fitting for the leading free-throw shooter in Arkansas history. That she set the record for made free throws (552) in just three seasons — Dungee sat out the 2017-18 season because of N.C.A.A. transfer rules — emphasized her sharpshooting game. The record had been 485, by Bettye Fiscus in the 1980s.N’dea Jones, Texas A&MJones averaged a double-double over her last three seasons at Texas A&M and helped her team reach the round of 16 in this year’s tournament.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIf a dogged defender who made a name for herself by gobbling up rebounds and otherwise converting defense into offense is what a W.N.B.A. team seeks, it should look no further than N’dea Jones.Setting aside a freshman season in which she averaged only about six minutes per game, Jones was Texas A&M’s biggest double-double threat, averaging 10.1 points and 11.1 rebounds a game in her final three seasons. Jones’s offensive production climbed year over year, including in the 2020-21 season that was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic. She pulled down her 1,026th career board as a senior, becoming the team’s career leader. She finished with 1,056, after just 33 as a freshman.Jones’s double-double effort against Troy to open this year’s tournament was followed by a 9-point, 14-rebound performance that helped the Aggies advance past Iowa State to the round of 16 in overtime. Texas A&M’s tournament run ended there, against a formidable opponent: Arizona, the eventual tournament runner-up, which was led by point guard Aari McDonald.Kasiyahna Kushkituah, TennesseeKushkituah reliably forced Tennessee’s opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers.Brianna Paciorka/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated PressSometimes the box score does not reveal the full truth, and so it goes for the 6-4 center Kasiyahna Kushkituah, who averaged 6.8 points and 6 rebounds per game as a senior at Tennessee.Even while starting just 23 of her 100 career games, Kushkituah began to carve out a niche for herself as an agile big. Her quickness was central to her ability to disrupt opponents’ offensive schemes; if she failed to record a steal or a block, she could reliably force opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers. And if the ball ended up in her hands, she could use her impressive speed to score on the break.The 3-point shot is not in her arsenal, but she made half of her field goals. If she can improve her 47.5 percent free-throw shooting and maintain an appetite for offensive rebounds — which accounted for more than a third of her total career rebounds — she could become an important paint presence for any W.N.B.A. team seeking depth at center. In Tennessee’s first-round win against Middle Tennessee, Kushkituah scored 10 points and grabbed eight boards, five of them off the offensive glass.Lindsey Pulliam, NorthwesternPulliam finished her college career averaging 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game.Ronald Cortes/Associated PressCommonly referred to as Pull-Up Pulliam because of her smooth and reliable midrange shot, Lindsey Pulliam was the fastest player to reach 1,000 points in Northwestern women’s basketball history. A 5-10 guard, she finished her college career averaging a well-rounded 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game. Her career shooting averages of 37.9 percent from the field, 26.6 percent from 3-point range and 75.6 from the free-throw line may not be the best in her draft class, but she has increasingly demonstrated that she can sizzle in the biggest moments, in whichever way her team needs:With a game- and season-high 28 points, Pulliam carried the Wildcats to a double-digit win on Jan. 21; one week later, in a road game against Iowa, she helped Northwestern to a 7-point victory by converting 12 of her 16 free-throw attempts.On defense, Pulliam secured 10 rebounds in early February against Ohio State (to go with 15 points) to help power Northwestern to a 12-point win. Her four steals against Eastern Kentucky in December helped the Wildcats score 40 points off turnovers and 28 on fast breaks on the way to a 29-point victory.Unique Thompson, AuburnThompson grabbed 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor.Butch Dill/Associated PressOvercoming an 18-point deficit but ultimately losing to Florida in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament kept Auburn from being invited to the N.C.A.A. tournament, denying the 6-3 forward Unique Thompson a national stage.Despite the loss, Thompson, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, made her standard double-double contribution in her final collegiate outing. In 2020-21, she was one of two players in the nation to record two games of 20-plus points and 20-plus rebounds. As a junior in the 2019-20 season, she tallied her 21st double-double of the season and the 41st of her career, surpassing the three-time W.N.B.A. All-Star DeWanna Bonner for the most in team history.If Thompson can improve her 66.3 percent free-throw shooting, she will solidify an otherwise stalwart game that features 52.8 percent shooting from the field. With a proficiency for cleaning the offensive glass — Thompson gathers 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor — she is ready to contend in the most competitive league in the world. Even without a national tournament run, Thompson seems poised for a first-round draft selection. More

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      Injuries Are Raining on the N.B.A.’s Championship Parade

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      Pick a big-name N.B.A. star, and he’s probably been injured this season: LeBron, Giannis, LaMelo, A.D., K.D. and, now, Jamal Murray. What’s going on?Three-fourths of the N.B.A.’s regular season will be complete after Wednesday’s play, making this a natural time for you to press your favorite newsletter curator to pick a title favorite.It would be much easier to answer, sadly, if you could first tell me which of the league’s presumed championship contenders will be healthy in June or July.Prognostications didn’t seem all that daunting in December, when the Los Angeles Lakers looked like such a safe choice to back to repeat as champions, but it is a much more complex calculation at the quarter pole. The culprit: This grind of a season, marked by its numerous game postponements, endless health and safety protocols and arenas that were mostly empty for months, has been overtaken by injuries to marquee players.Late Monday, in the same game in which Stephen Curry supplanted Wilt Chamberlain as the leading scorer in Warriors history, Denver’s Jamal Murray crumpled to the floor in the final minute after a hard plant in the paint on his left leg. Tuesday morning’s grim diagnosis of a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament tear confirmed what many had feared in the moment.“Too many players getting hurt with this shortened season,” Josh Hart of the New Orleans Pelicans posted on Twitter after Murray went down.Sidelined himself by a recent thumb surgery, Hart inserted a face palm emoji into the tweet and added his hope that the league “not do this one again.”The Lakers have dealt with injuries to multiple players, most notably LeBron James, right, and Anthony Davis, second from right, but also Marc Gasol, left, and Kyle Kuzma, second from left.Elsa/Getty Images“This one” refers to a 72-game regular season stuffed between Dec. 22 and May 16 after the 2019-20 season did not end until October, because of the coronavirus pandemic’s interruption, and was followed by the shortest off-season in league history. The league and the players’ union agreed to that timeline, with a strong nudge from the N.B.A.’s television partners, which desperately wanted to start the 2020-21 season during the week of Christmas. The tight turnaround was expected to help maximize revenue after last season’s shortfall of $1.5 billion, and position the 2021-22 season to return to its usual October-through-June template. It was also designed so the league could finish the playoffs before the Tokyo Olympics in late July.But the rigors of last season’s finish in a bubble environment combined with a swift return to play this season and a compressed schedule because of the Olympics, prompted fears, like those voiced by Hart, of increased injury risk.It’s not clear that those factors are driving injuries this season, but many teams believe they are, even without supporting data. Multiple teams I’ve consulted asserted that this season’s combination of schedule density, travel demands and daily coronavirus testing that cuts into players’ rest time have increased injury risk.Teams are playing 3.6 games per week this season, compared to 3.42 per week last season, and taking 15 percent fewer flights, according to data provided by the league. An N.B.A. spokesman said, “The injury rate for this season is in line with data from the previous five seasons, including a 6 percent reduction from last season.”It is an eternal challenge for teams and those in the injury tracking business to conclusively attribute an injury to overuse. Some of this season’s most notable injuries, like LeBron James’s high ankle sprain after Atlanta’s Solomon Hill crashed into him, appeared to be freakish. The same holds for injuries sustained in hard falls by two of the league’s most prized rookies, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball (wrist) and Golden State’s James Wiseman (knee). Hart injured his thumb when he banged his right hand on the rim on a dunk attempt.Yet there are too many high-profile names on injury reports to shake the sense of crisis. A look at the teams that held the league’s top eight records entering Tuesday’s play showed that only two — Utah and Phoenix — were not dealing with major injuries.Los Angeles LakersThe Lakers, after starting the season as prohibitive title favorites, enjoyed that status for maybe two months before losing Anthony Davis (Achilles’ tendon and calf) in February and James (ankle) in March. The Lakers were 5-7 in their last 12 games without either of their twin pillars entering Tuesday’s play.The Nets’ James Harden has been out with a hamstring injury, as Kevin Durant, second from left, was earlier this season.Corey Sipkin/Associated PressBrooklyn NetsThe Nets have been widely billed as the most potent offense in N.B.A. history since acquiring James Harden from the Houston Rockets on Jan. 14. The problem: They’ve scarcely had an opportunity to illustrate their true capabilities, because Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have logged only 186 minutes together across seven games. Durant, who missed 23 consecutive games because of a strained left hamstring, and Irving have been in the same starting lineup only 14 times — and Harden injured his hamstring as soon as Durant came back. The Nets have been winning and scoring freely all season despite the injuries and Irving’s absences for personal reasons, but it’s difficult to gauge this team’s ceiling when we still haven’t seen the full squad.Milwaukee BucksGiannis Antetokounmpo has missed five consecutive games and seven of the past 12 with left knee soreness. Coach Mike Budenholzer said on Sunday that there was no timetable for Antetokounmpo’s return, which was unsettling enough, but it is also the first time in that Antetokounmpo, who won the last two Most Valuable Player Awards, has been forced to sit out more than two consecutive games.Philadelphia 76ersNow that the star center Joel Embiid is back after missing 10 games with a bone bruise on his left knee, Philadelphia appears to be the most fortunate contender on a list all would prefer to avoid. Not that the 76ers plan to gloat — not with Embiid’s injury history or when the Sixers are still waiting for the newly acquired George Hill to make his debut after thumb surgery.Los Angeles ClippersThe Clippers’ Paul George was named the Western Conference player of the week on Monday, but he began this month with an admission that it would be a “day-to-day process” to cope with a toe injury on his right foot that sidelined him for seven consecutive games in February. The Clippers have also been without their starting center Serge Ibaka for the past 15 games because of a back injury, and the point guard Patrick Beverley is expected to miss at least a month after surgery on his fractured left hand last week.Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers has come back from a toe injury with strong play, leading to player of the week honors recently.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressDenver NuggetsPerhaps sensing the Lakers’ vulnerability, Denver shed its reputation for caution when it comes to making trades by acquiring Aaron Gordon from Orlando at the trade deadline last month. The Nuggets won their first eight games with Gordon, collapsed in a home loss to Boston on Sunday in mystifying fashion, then watched in horror on Monday night in San Francisco as Murray — fresh off missing the previous four games with right knee soreness — sustained a catastrophic left knee injury that almost certainly changed the trajectory of Denver’s season.Murray was the fourth player to tear his A.C.L. this season, after the Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie, Orlando’s Markelle Fultz and Washington’s Thomas Bryant. The N.B.A. has averaged roughly three A.C.L. tears per season since 2005-6, according to data maintained by Jeff Stotts on his In Street Clothes website.“We are still in the collecting phase regarding the effects of the compressed schedule at this point of the year,” Stotts said. “I am concerned we will see more soft-tissue injuries here in April. They appear to be on the rise from the rest of the season.”As a huge fan of playoff suspense, as opposed to postseasons in which one juggernaut is seen as untouchable, I would normally celebrate how wide open this championship chase looks heading into the regular-season stretch run. When so much of the uncertainty is tied to injury, it doesn’t feel right at all.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeMarc Stein has a collection of Buffalo Braves trading cards.Marc Stein for The New York TimesYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Do you think Jeremy Lin’s high profile in speaking out against the rise in hate crimes affecting Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders is hurting him with the N.B.A.? — Tom GardnerStein: I know Lin has many fans who are dismayed that he has not been signed by an N.B.A. team, not even on a 10-day contract, but I don’t think teams are holding his activism against him. It would be shameful if they are; Lin should be applauded and supported in his efforts to bring more attention to anti-Asian racism.Lin hasn’t played in the league since the 2018-19 season, and a more likely obstacle to his getting back to the N.B.A. are questions about his mobility at age 32. But even that is probably not the biggest issue. Many teams, especially when trying to fill a roster spot with player on a 10-day contract, are hesitant to bring in an established player for a limited role. Doing so invites daily questions about the player’s status — as the New Orleans Pelicans found out after Coach Stan Van Gundy benched Isaiah Thomas for two consecutive games in the midst of Thomas’s 10-day deal that expired Monday.The Los Angeles Clippers’ DeMarcus Cousins, another former All-Star who recently signed a 10-day deal, has faced the same challenge. Teams are wary about how players accustomed to major roles will adapt to playing limited minutes, and they know they are going to face heightened scrutiny from the news media about how a player like Thomas, Cousins or Lin is being used. It’s much easier for teams, like it or not, to target players whose presence — and their subsequent release if things don’t work out — won’t cause a fuss.Lin tried to mitigate such thinking and prove his willingness to accept any N.B.A. role by spending nearly 45 days in the recent N.B.A. G League bubble at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. He also posted strong shooting percentages in his stint with the Santa Cruz Warriors (50.5 percent from the field; 42.6 percent on 3-pointers) and still has a month to attract interest.Q: There is no doubt that the Lakers are at risk to slip further in the standings, but the answer to what’s wrong with them is simple: injuries. Your contention that the Lakers’ roster moves have not “panned out” is reactionary.As difficult as the Lakers’ last two months have been, they are much better equipped to withstand the absence of their two best players with Dennis Schröder, Montrezl Harrell and Marc Gasol on the roster. They have also maintained the league’s top-ranked defense without LeBron James and Anthony Davis, even though we hear so much about the lack of rim protection compared to last season’s Lakers.I’m obviously willing to concede that this season is in jeopardy, because the Clippers, Utah, Denver and Phoenix have all improved, but the culprit isn’t the roster construction. It’s the injuries. — Jordan Baldridge (New York)Stein: You assembled some strong counters to last week’s piece on the Lakers and the mounting factors that have complicated their title defense, but I think we actually agree more than we disagree.I would argue that Schröder, Harrell and Gasol have been more up and down than you suggest — and that the Lakers’ aggressive posture at the trade deadline and their subsequent rush to sign Andre Drummond and Ben McLemore back that up. But that was just one item on a long list meant to convey how much more challenging this season has become for the Lakers than they anticipated.You highlighted one of the bigger worries: The Lakers’ competition looks much tougher this season. Finishing fifth or sixth in the Western Conference is so daunting because it would likely mean a first-round matchup against the Clippers or Nuggets.An even bigger problem that I contend has been glossed over: We can’t just assume that the Lakers will bounce right back to being championship favorites as soon as James and Davis return to the lineup. Their injuries were significant setbacks that have to be managed cautiously, especially in the case of Davis, who has missed more than two dozen games already. He’s going to need some time to re-acclimate and restore belief in his body.Q: How about a newsletter story sometime on those Buffalo Braves cards you mentioned? Or a picture? — Paul QuintilianStein: I’m not sure that I should subject our loyal and patient readers to the full depths of my Buffalo Braves nerddom, but hopefully there is no harm, since you asked, in enclosing a picture (shown above) of the various Braves team sets and loose singles that I keep within arm’s reach on my desk whenever I need a dose of youthful inspiration.I’ve saved as much as I could from my youth but have also made a habit in adulthood of collecting Buffalo sports artifacts from the 1970s that I coveted but that eluded me at the time. Growing up is hard.Numbers GameChicago’s Zach LaVine scored 39 points in the first half against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, and finished the game with 50.Brett Davis/USA Today Sports, via Reuters12.3I praised Ben Simmons for his sensational play in February (21 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.8 assists per game for the month) because it was a tremendous response to nearly being traded to Houston in January for James Harden. But Simmons hasn’t been the same player since the All-Star break as Philadelphia grapples with the Nets and Milwaukee for the East’s No. 1 seed. In his last 15 games, Simmons averaged just 12.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6 assists per game — and his shooting in that span declined to 47 percent compared to 57.8 percent in 31 games before the All-Star break.5With 50 points in a loss to Atlanta on Friday night, Chicago’s Zach LaVine became the fifth player in franchise history to record at least one 50-point game, joining Jimmy Butler, Jamal Crawford, Chet Walker and a certain Michael Jordan. In his 13 seasons as a Bull, of course, Jordan scored at least 50 points in 38 regular-season games.30With 30 rebounds on Saturday night against Detroit, Portland’s Enes Kanter became just the fourth player to post a 30-rebound game since Dikembe Mutombo and Charles Barkley each had one in the 1996 calendar year. The only others to reach the 30 threshold in the 25 years since Mutombo and Barkley, according to Stathead: Dwight Howard (2017-18 season), Andrew Bynum (2011-12) and Kevin Love (2010-11).7Moves at the trade deadline nudged Dallas above Washington for the most international players in the league with seven: The Mavericks acquired Nicolo Melli (Italy) to join Luka Doncic (Slovenia), Josh Green (Australia), Maxi Kleber (Germany), Boban Marjanovic (Serbia), Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia) and Dwight Powell (Canada). The Wizards have six — Deni Avdija (Israel), Davis Bertans (Latvia), Isaac Bonga (Germany), Rui Hachimura (Japan), Alex Len (Ukraine) and Raul Neto (Brazil) — after sending Moe Wagner (Germany) to Boston last month as part of a three-team trade.10Jeremy Lin is the only player who finished in the top 10 in scoring in the N.B.A. G League’s recent six-week bubble who has not spent any time in the N.B.A. this season. Playing for the Santa Cruz Warriors, Lin was seventh in scoring at 19.8 points per game but is still waiting for a 10-day contract offer. The other two players on that list besides Lin who were not already contracted to N.B.A. teams when the bubble began — Henry Ellenson and Oshae Brissett — parlayed their G League stints into 10-day deals. At 32, Lin was also the only player among those 10 older than 24.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Stephen Curry Passes Wilt Chamberlain as Warriors Scoring Leader

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      Players must be great to set their franchise’s career scoring record. But they also need to hang around.It was significant that Stephen Curry had 53 points on Monday night. It was significant that the Golden State Warriors won the game at home, over a tough Denver Nuggets squad, as they fight for a playoff spot.But long after the single-game scoring outburst and this year’s playoff race are forgotten, the night will be remembered as the one where Curry passed Wilt Chamberlain as the Warriors’ career scoring leader. His postgame total of 17,818 surpassed Chamberlain’s 17,783. Rick Barry, Paul Arizin and Chris Mullin trail them.Curry was 10-for-18 on 3-pointers, 4-for-6 on 2-pointers and 15-for-16 on free throws.“Any time you hear his name,” he said of Chamberlain after the game, “it’s kind of daunting, because you know his records are so hard to — some of them are even impossible to eclipse.”Though surpassing Chamberlain in anything is momentous, team scoring records are something of a quirky statistic. They reward great talent, naturally, but they also reward longevity at a single franchise.Curry was able to take the lead because Chamberlain, who averaged 41.5 points a game during his time with the Warriors, played only five and a half seasons with the team before being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers and then the Los Angeles Lakers. Three of Chamberlain’s seasons with the Warriors came when the team was still in Philadelphia. The Sacramento Kings’ career scoring leader is Oscar Robertson. If you don’t remember the Big O lacing them up in Sacramento, that’s because he played for the Cincinnati Royals, who didn’t arrive in California until the 1985-86, after a stop in Kansas City. Still, the record is his.The all-time leader of all-time franchise leaders is Karl Malone, who scored 36,374 of his 36,928 points during his 18 seasons with the Utah Jazz. (The other 554 points were added in a late-career cameo with the Lakers at age 40.)No player has more points for a single franchise than Karl Malone, who scored 36,374 points for the Utah Jazz in 18 seasons with the franchise.Robert Sullivan/A.F.P., via Getty ImagesNo one has scored more N.B.A. points than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has 38,387. He ranks first on the Milwaukee Bucks’ career list despite leaving after six seasons (with Giannis Antetokounmpo in hot pursuit). Abdul-Jabbar is also in good company on the Lakers list, behind only Kobe Bryant and Jerry West, who spent their entire careers in Los Angeles.The only players in the overall scoring top 10 not to lead a team are Shaquille O’Neal, whose prime years were divided among the Magic, Lakers and Heat, and Moses Malone, who played for seven N.B.A. teams (and two in the A.B.A.).Even though O’Neal, Malone, and now Chamberlain are not among them, the roster of franchise scoring leaders are virtually all great players. Only two of those who are eligible are not yet in the Hall of Fame. And one of those, Walter Davis of the Suns, who made six All-Star teams and tallied 19,521 total points, maybe should be.Perhaps the most forgotten team leader (could it be because of his common name?) is Randy Smith, who poured in 12,735 points for the Clippers franchise, mostly when they were the Buffalo Braves. Just a seventh-round draft choice, he wound up being known as the Iron Man for playing in 906 consecutive games (a record later broken by A.C. Green).At the bottom of the team leaders chart are the Nets, who have suffered from not keeping their superstars around. Buck Williams left after eight seasons, Vince Carter after four and a half. Julius Erving remains the most famous Net for many, though he played with them for just three seasons, all in the A.B.A. Nevertheless, he’s seventh on their career scoring list.At the top of that list is Brook Lopez, whose 10,444 points for the Nets were 4 more than Williams. Lopez won’t be adding to that total, as he was traded away in 2017. More