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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

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      Arella Guirantes' Killer Sidestep Is Clearing a Path to the WNBA

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      Arella Guirantes, the star Rutgers guard, hopes to be drafted by her hometown team, the Liberty, this week. But no matter where she ends up, she said she’ll be ready.Arella Guirantes has seemed destined for the W.N.B.A. ever since she stood 4 feet 7 inches tall as a fifth-grader on the varsity team in summer league at Bellport High School on Long Island. Her basketball skills have always been steps ahead of her peers’, and her ambition to be the best against any level of competition has pushed her to the next level.Guirantes, 23, remembers a game from her senior year at Bellport, not for scoring 58 points, but for what she didn’t do. She was alerted with around 2 minutes left that she had scored 50 points, but she wanted 60. She’d missed her team’s first blowout loss against that day’s opponent, Kings Park High School, for showing up 20 minutes late to school.“I just like mentally took a note,” Guirantes said. “When I play them again, I’m going to kill them.”Guirantes brought that competitive fire to Rutgers, where she led the Big Ten in scoring as a redshirt junior during the 2019-20 season with 20.6 points per game and topped that number in the 2020-21 season with 21.3 points per game. Now she appears on the brink of her W.N.B.A. destiny, with the draft on Thursday and Guirantes projected to be one of the top picks.“I mean, every day in practice, she was always that one player that you knew that was just going to compete,” said Kelley Gibson, a former recruiter and assistant coach at Rutgers. “You know, players show up and just sometimes work hard in practice, but Arella competed.”Guirantes is foremost a scorer, and an efficient one at that. In her redshirt senior season, she shot 41.6 percent from the field and 37.8 percent from 3-point range on 4.3 attempts per game. She also had per-game career highs in assists (5.2) and steals (2.2) steals. She was named first team All-Big Ten for the second consecutive year and awarded All-Big Ten Defensive Team honors.No. 11-seeded Brigham Young upset Guirantes and No. 6-seeded Rutgers in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament with a 69-66 victory.Chuck Burton/Associated PressOne of Guirantes’s signature plays is the jaw-dropping sidestep she uses to create space away from her defender off the dribble. She absorbs contact with her strong frame to fade away and shoot off either foot, moving in either direction using constant changes in speed.“You know what, now that you mention that, she did hit me with a couple of those,” said Dennis Smith Jr., a point guard with the N.B.A.’s Detroit Pistons, who has trained with Guirantes.Guirantes’s individual moves are stellar, and her series of jabs, in-and-outs and spins led her to finish in the 86th percentile of all scorers in isolation situations, according to Synergy Sports. But W.N.B.A. front offices are just as excited by her success in pick-and-roll situations. She ranked in the 90th percentile of all players as the ballhandler during the 2020-21 season, according to Synergy Sports.Scoring isn’t the only reason Guirantes’s name has shot up draft boards. Defensively, she’s a hawk, plucking passes and stripping ballhandlers. She’s also a bully down low, afraid of no one. “Oh, yeah, one thing I can tell you for sure,” Smith said. “She ain’t ducking no smoke. That’s a promise. She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Despite standing six inches shorter than the 6-foot-5 Charli Collier of Texas, who some think could be drafted first over all, Guirantes recorded more blocks per game. She credits many of her defensive instincts to her time playing middle blocker in volleyball. “I think I have a good just I.Q. for the game to understand where people on offense are going, when they’re going to put the ball up,” she said. “I have good timing.”The W.N.B.A.’s 2021 draft class isn’t heralded as a strong one, but an experienced scorer like the 5-foot-11 Guirantes could be an immediate-impact player for a contender. She’ll be up against the likes of Aari McDonald from Arizona, Dana Evans from Louisville and Rennia Davis from Tennessee to be the first guard taken off the board. Unlike those three, her team, a No. 6 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, was upset in the first round, by No. 11-seeded Brigham Young, 69-66. Fortunately for her, scouts have had five years to assess her talent.“I don’t know if she’s separated herself,” said James Wade, head coach and general manager of the Chicago Sky. “I think when you talk about big guards, you can mention Davis in the same breath. I think it’s more of what you’re looking for and how they kind of fit into your team and the players that you have.”He continued: “I do think that she is a high-quality guard because of all the things that she can do — her strength, the fact that she can create her own shot. I think she has certain qualities that separate her from the bunch, but at the same time it depends on what you’re looking for, versatility defensively or versatility offensively, which I think she has a lot of offensively.”Detroit Pistons guard Dennis Smith Jr., who has trained with Guirantes, said she’s not afraid to challenge anyone. “She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressWade said he believed Guirantes would be selected within the first six picks, three of which belong to the Dallas Wings. Mock drafts place Guirantes as high as No. 3 to the Atlanta Dream. Guirantes said she will be happy no matter where she lands, but the Long Island native is making it no secret that she’d love to play for the Liberty, who hold the No. 6 pick.“That would be a dream come true,” said Guirantes, who grew up going to Liberty and Knicks games at Madison Square Garden with her family and friends from the Boys and Girls Club. The Liberty now play at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.“The Garden has a special feel, but the transition to the Barclays I can’t say is a bad transition,” Guirantes said. “I’d really love to play at the Barclays Center.”The W.N.B.A. draft will be held virtually for a second straight year because of the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, and Guirantes will be lying low until then, working on her game and training. She plans to watch the draft with her family and sweat out the moments until her name is called. In the meantime, she’ll try to avoid looking at mock drafts and people critiquing her game on social media. Maybe playing with Donkey Kong in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video game on her Nintendo Switch against Smith will pass the time.Wherever Guirantes lands on Thursday night, she’s going to be ready.“My short-term goal is to really come in and make a quick transition,” Guirantes said. “I know it’s a lot easier said than done. But I want to make a huge impact and be in the running for rookie of the year. I think if you’re not going for rookie of the year, then you’re not really trying to help your team as much as you think you are.”She knows about starting strong: In only the second game of her college career, with Texas Tech before she transferred to Rutgers, she sank a buzzer-beating shot to force overtime against Texas A&M.“I really want to make a strong first impression in the W.N.B.A. because the way you start your career is important,” Guirantes said, adding: “That translates to overseas, too. They’re watching. A strong first year in the W.N.B.A is important.” More

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      Twins, Timberwolves and Wild Postpone Games After Shooting

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      With the Minneapolis area on edge, M.L.B., N.B.A. and N.H.L. teams decided they could not play on Monday following the shooting of Daunte Wright.Professional baseball, basketball and hockey games in Minnesota were postponed on Monday in response to tension and unrest after a police officer shot and killed a Black man during a traffic stop north of Minneapolis.The Minnesota Twins postponed their afternoon game with the Boston Red Sox and were quickly followed by the N.B.A.’s Minnesota Timberwolves calling off a game against the Nets and the N.H.L.’s Minnesota Wild postponing a match against the St. Louis Blues.With the region on edge as the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer facing murder charges in the death of George Floyd, continues in Minneapolis, the Twins said it would not have been appropriate to play. The police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., where the latest shooting took place Sunday, said that the victim, Daunte Wright, 20, was shot accidentally by an officer who had intended to use a Taser.“Our community’s been through a lot, and we have a trial taking place just blocks away from Target Field,” said the Twins team president, Dave St. Peter, in a video news conference with reporters. “Emotions across our community, emotions across our organization, are raw.”He added that baseball seemed “a little less important” now, and that the Twins prioritized safety and compassion over holding the game as scheduled.“Make no mistake, part of the decision here today is out of respect for the Wright family, but there’s a big part of this decision that’s also rooted in safety and consultation with law enforcement about unknowns, about what will, or could transpire within the broader community over the next several hours, based on the news that has come out of Brooklyn Center this morning,” St. Peter said.“Once you understand that information, for us the decision becomes a lot easier. The right thing to do is always to err on the side of safety for our players, for our staff, for our fans.”Outside of Minnesota, Aaron Hicks, who had previously played for the Twins, asked to sit out of Monday’s game between the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays. Another Yankees player, Giancarlo Stanton, was considering sitting out as well.“I would say that Aaron is hurting in a huge way,” Manager Aaron Boone told reporters. “I think in a way felt like it was probably the responsible thing to take himself out and knowing that it was going to be hard for him to be all in mentally in what’s a high stake, difficult job to go out there and perform for the New York Yankees.”In a statement, the N.B.A. said the decision to postpone Monday night’s game was made after consultation with the Timberwolves organization as well as local and state officials.Last spring, after the killing of Floyd, several N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players became active participants in the protests that broke out around the country.Last August, after the N.B.A. had resumed its season on the Walt Disney World campus near Orlando, Fla., some N.B.A. players took their demonstrations further after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. Blake, then 29, was partially paralyzed after being shot multiple times in the back by police while trying to enter his vehicle.With emotions high after the shooting of Jacob Blake, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for a playoff game on Aug. 26, 2020.Kevin C. Cox/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBefore a playoff game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic, George Hill, then a guard for the Bucks, persuaded the rest of his teammates to sit out the game. This created a cascade effect: The other games on tap that night were postponed as well, as well as those in other leagues, like women’s basketball, baseball and soccer. Naomi Osaka, a Black tennis star, threatened to leave the Western & Southern Open, which pushed officials to delay the tournament by a day.Two days later, the N.B.A. and its players’ union announced an agreement that would convert some team arenas into polling sites and lift the player-inspired work stoppage. Some of the league’s top players, including LeBron James and Chris Paul, consulted with former President Barack Obama on a path forward.In discussing the Twins’ postponement on Monday, Manager Rocco Baldelli said some players were shaken by the incident in Brooklyn Center.“We have some guys that I would put in the category of passionate,” Baldelli said, “and were really damaged and hurt by everything that was going on today.”The Twins and the Red Sox were scheduled to play four games through Thursday, and this is Boston’s only scheduled trip to Minnesota this season. The teams play a series in Boston in late August, but St. Peter said the Twins have not considered moving the series to Fenway Park.The N.B.A.’s announcement did not say when the Timberwolves and Nets would make up the lost game. The Wild’s game against the Blues has been rescheduled for May 12. More

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      Canadian Basketball Hopes a New Floor Will Raise Its Ceiling

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      Canada hasn’t made the Olympics in men’s basketball in two decades, but its sports officials hope a memento from the Toronto Raptors’ championship run will bring good luck.What worked for Wayne Gretzky and Canadian hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics never quite fit the karmic ambitions of Canadian basketball officials nearly two decades later.The sacred tradition of sneakily stashing a good-luck coin beneath the playing surface did not sound as good to those antsy officials as buying a complete basketball floor for its supposed mystical properties.Gold medal triumphs for the Canadian men’s and women’s ice hockey teams in Salt Lake City in 2002 were forever linked to their so-called “lucky loonie” — a one-dollar Canadian coin secretly hidden under the ice. In a next-level spinoff this summer, when the Canadian men’s national basketball team tries to qualify for its first Olympics since the Sydney Games in 2000, it will play on the court upon which the Toronto Raptors in 2019 became the first team based outside the United States to win an N.B.A. championship.“We want the entire court to be the lucky loonie,” said Scott Lake, a board member of Canada Basketball who was instrumental in the federation’s bid to obtain that court and host a six-team Olympic men’s qualifying tournament in Victoria, British Columbia, from June 29 to July 4.Lake’s premise may strike some as over the top devotion to superstition, but he and Nick Blasko, who worked with Lake to acquire the floor, will not relent. They dreamed of bringing the event to Western Canada and were encouraged in their court crusade by Glen Grunwald, the former N.B.A. executive who became president of Canada Basketball in September 2018. Rather than question the need to go to such lengths, Grunwald lauded Lake and Blasko for “their joyful enthusiasm.”It took 11 months, and nearly $270,000 from Lake, a co-founder of the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, to get all of the court’s puzzle pieces, but Canada Basketball conquered the logistical half of its quest. It plans to soon unveil the reassembled floor from Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals as a tribute to the Raptors’ title team, then refinish the court with FIBA logos and international basketball markings before installing it at the 7,400-seat Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria.The visiting Raptors clinched the championship with a win against the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals in Oakland, Calif. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThe Raptors were underdogs in the 2019 N.B.A. finals against Golden State and its starry lineup led by Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, but they won the title in six games, helped along by injuries to Durant and Thompson and clinching the series on the road at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. The qualifying tournament will be the biggest international basketball event held in Canada since the FIBA world championships in Toronto in 1994.“We wanted to get a floor with a story,” Blasko said. “We wanted a floor that has some significance and meaning to our country.”Raptors Coach Nick Nurse, who doubles as Canada’s national team coach, endorsed the creativity as heartily as Grunwald.“I couldn’t believe it when they told me what they were trying,” Nurse said. “It’s a great story. Hopefully we can deliver another big accomplishment on that floor and make our own history for Canadian basketball.”Six months of negotiations to purchase the floor, then five months of scrambling to acquire the correct center court panels, were rooted in the same philosophy as the Canadian federation’s determination to have Nurse coach the national team: Any connection to Toronto’s championship stirs warm, hopeful vibes.Lake and Blasko took great pride in persuading the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority to sell them the Game 6 floor for $250,000 — especially after hearing that it was earmarked to be sold to a company that planned to turn it into beer tap handles for local breweries. The serendipitous intervention of Golden State’s operations director, David Marsh, a fellow Canadian, was equally vital after it was discovered that the 16 panels for the Game 6 center circle, which reads “The Town,” were missing.Golden State had kept those panels after the 2018-19 season and shipped them to Idaho in 2020 to have them sanded down for potential use on a floor at their new arena in San Francisco. Marsh got the panels back and sold them on Golden State’s behalf to the Friends of Victoria Basketball, as the local organizing committee is known, in November 2020 for another $18,750 from Lake.No measure seemed too extreme when the Canadians considered the floor’s value to the country as a sporting keepsake, irrespective of the qualifying tournament or any perceived mystique.The floor was off-loaded from a truck last summer.Canada BasketballThe court was reassembled before heading to its final destination.Canada Basketball“There was a huge inflection point for basketball in this country in 2019,” Lake said. “That Raptors championship was a unifying force for all of Canada.”The winner from the qualifying tournament in Victoria will get one of four remaining berths in the men’s Olympic basketball tournament this summer in Tokyo. If you dare to buy into the mythology of the stacks of wood panels that were collecting dust in storage, resurrecting this floor will give Canada an even bigger home-court advantage than anticipated when it hosts China, Czech Republic, Turkey, Uruguay and Greece, which is coached by Rick Pitino.Canada last qualified for the Olympics in men’s basketball 21 years ago — led by Victoria’s favorite son. Nets Coach Steve Nash, who grew up in Victoria in what was regarded as a remote basketball outpost on Vancouver Island, steered an unremarkable squad with only one other N.B.A. player (Todd MacCulloch) to within one win of the medal round.The current Victoria organizers, determined to help the program end that drought, paid 3.1 million Canadian dollars, about $2.5 million, to host one of four six-team qualifiers alongside three perennial European basketball powers: Serbia, Lithuania and Croatia. Then they moved on to brainstorming for new concepts to generate optimum karma, real or imagined, and felt an unshakable impulse to stretch the traditional Gretzky script.Canada’s men’s ice hockey gold in 2002 was its first in 50 years. Gretzky, as the executive director of the team, was handed the loonie that had been strategically submerged before those Olympics by a Canadian crew in charge of managing the Salt Lake City ice. That coin became known back home as the ultimate lucky charm and wound up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.To make good on the good-luck plan Lake and Blasko hatched and qualify for Tokyo on that 2019 N.B.A. finals floor, Canada will have to overcome a reputation in recent years for squandering its rising talent. Expectations have never been higher given that Canada, with 17 players on opening night N.B.A. rosters, accounted for more international players in the league than any other country. Yet the scars from four successive failed qualifying campaigns run deep.Pieces of the floor waiting to be assembled last summer at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria.Canada BasketballThe Raptors’ title run and the gargantuan television audiences it attracted have led Grunwald to proclaim, as he did in a recent phone interview, that “this is a basketball nation now.” Other prominent members of the Canadian basketball community say the same. The surest way to hush lingering skeptics would be to send men’s and women’s national teams to Tokyo, but no one is quite sure what sort of team Nurse will get to coach. Canada’s women, led by the W.N.B.A.’s Kia Nurse (no relation to the men’s coach) and ranked No. 4 in the world, are regarded as medal contenders.Jamal Murray, Canada’s best men’s player, could make a deep run in the N.B.A. playoffs with the Denver Nuggets, potentially precluding a national team stint. Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins, another top talent, hasn’t played for Canada since 2015. And Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City’s blossoming guard, has been sidelined by plantar fasciitis in his right foot, which could complicate Canada’s efforts to sell him on the off-season rigors of international basketball.“We got an all-N.B.A. team,” the Knicks’ RJ Barrett, who is Canadian, said last month, insisting they will have enough to qualify no matter who plays.Lake and Blasko know this much: They can’t do any more to enhance the team’s chances.“For the people in Oakland, it was just the floor that was taking up space that they were probably never going to use again,” Lake said. “For us, it’s the most important floor in Canadian basketball history.”Hyperbole? Not to Grunwald. A slew of loonie placements and derivative concepts since 2002 have failed to deliver any Canadian sports magic — including when Masai Ujiri, Toronto’s president of basketball operations, placed a two-dollar Canadian toonie coin under the team’s practice court in Tampa, Fla., in December. It still has been, to put it mildly, an arduous pandemic season for the displaced Raptors, but Grunwald just chuckled as he recounted Lake and Blasko’s persistence.Nearly eight years removed from his last taste of the N.B.A., with the Knicks, Grunwald said he couldn’t help but get swept up in “the joy they have for basketball.”“It’s really refreshing,” Grunwald said. “It makes you feel good about our sport and about Canada.” More