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      The Nets Could Have Had It All With Dr. J

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      As great as today’s Nets look with their starry threesome, they could have dominated the N.B.A. much, much sooner — in the 1970s, behind Julius Erving.Kevin Loughery and Julius Erving share a city, Atlanta, a golf club and an emotional connection to a basketball allegory told inharmoniously in three distinct parts — what was, what might have been and what now has become.In other words: the history of the Nets, from Long Island to New Jersey to Brooklyn.Inevitably, wistfully, Loughery’s conversation with Erving centers on Part 2, the potentially grand Nassau Coliseum stage that was dismantled just before the curtain was to rise on the N.B.A. debut of Erving and the Nets.“I always talk to him about what we might have done,” Loughery, who coached the developing legend of Dr. J. to two A.B.A. titles and stayed on to guide the remains of the Nets after the financially troubled franchise sold the rights to Erving, the world’s most electrifying player, to the Philadelphia 76ers on the eve of the 1976-77 season.Loughery added in a telephone interview: “What haunts you is that when we had him in the A.B.A. he was the best he ever was. The last A.B.A. series against Denver, when we won that second title, that was the best series I’ve ever seen anyone play.”That’s quite a mouthful, coming from an 81-year-old basketball lifer who once shared a backcourt in Baltimore with Earl Monroe and who coached seven pro teams, including one in Chicago that unveiled a rookie named Jordan.There is also an evolving symmetry to this ancient history. Forty-five years after their infamous selling of the rights to the Doctor, the Nets finally have become what they were poised to be in 1976: the sport’s sexiest team, with an opportunity to be its best.Kevin Loughery, who coached Erving in the A.B.A., said Dr. J “was the best he ever was” before he even got to the N.B.A.Associated PressAlas, Brooklyn’s assemblage of a superstar-laden lineup has occurred during a time of fan-less arenas only now welcoming crowds still enfeebled by the menace of Covid-19. Selling out America with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving for now remains the dream it was for Loughery and Erving.On the eve of that 1976-77 season, Erving was holding out for a contract upgrade and the league office was holding its breath after scheduling the Nets for a nationally televised opener against Golden State in Oakland. The arena sold out weeks in advance, but the sale of Erving’s rights to Philadelphia two days before the game by the owner Roy Boe — and after the Knicks absurdly let themselves be outbid for a homegrown player who would have altered their history — persuaded CBS to show a late-night movie instead.Erving was electrifying in the A.B.A., where he won two championships with the Nets.Associated PressHoping to make a splash, or at least save face, the Nets had acquired Nate Archibald, an explosive, New York-bred guard who was known as Tiny, one month earlier. Archibald had a bigger annual salary than Erving, which stiffened Erving’s resolve, despite his not wishing to leave Long Island, where he’d grown up.“It’s tough to play Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in the frontcourt,” Loughery memorably told reporters when the news reached California that Erving was gone. He and his players were gutted, even if they came to realize that Boe’s inability to pay millions both for league entry and to the Knicks for territorial rights limited his options to one.Still, Loughery has for decades wondered: what if? “I don’t know if we would have been a championship team, but we would have been very, very competitive,” he said.Rod Thorn, who returned to Loughery’s side that season as an assistant after a one-year absence to coach the Spirits of St. Louis, offered a more certain revisionist take.“History in New York basketball would have been changed,” he said. “We played and won exhibitions against N.B.A. teams. Every building was sold out for Doc. We also would have had a couple years’ window to add more pieces.”Instead, Archibald played 34 games for the Nets and blew out an Achilles’ tendon. The team moved to Piscataway, N.J., to play in a college gym. Loughery and Thorn shared long drives from their homes on Long Island, epitomizing the detour into a competitive ditch.The Nets and the 76ers had more peculiar chapters to co-author. Two years later, they played what may have been the weirdest game ever, when the N.B.A. upheld a Nets protest of technical fouls — the referee Richie Powers called three each on Loughery and Bernard King, one more than the limit for ejection.The game was replayed more than four months later from a point in the third quarter, but before then the teams made a four-player trade. In the final box score of the suspended game — won by the 76ers — three of the players appeared on both sides.Thorn later made what until further notice remains the most beneficial deal in the Nets’ N.B.A. history. As team president in 2001, he acquired Jason Kidd, who inspired successive runs to the finals. Thorn left New Jersey in 2010, joining the 76ers’ front office, essentially trading places with Billy King.Jason Kidd turned the Nets into an Eastern Conference powerhouse in the early 2000s.Ray Stubblebine/ReutersBilly King took over as Nets general manager in July 2010.Bill Kostroun/Associated PressThat put King at the Nets’ helm as they finished out their New Jersey run in April 2012 by hosting, of course, the 76ers.Now Thorn watches from afar as Sean Marks, who succeeded King with the Nets, plays personnel chess, building on his big three by reeling in the former All-Stars Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge with the ease of signing escapees of the G League.Skeptics worry about Durant’s health, Irving’s reliability and their sensitivity to criticism. Loughery has reservations about the perimeter defense of Harden and Irving. But Thorn has come to believe that the Nets will be fine as long as they remain in Harden’s soft hands.“I’ve changed my opinion of him,” he said. “He dominated the ball so much in Houston, but he’s been a fantastic playmaker for them.”As fate would have it, the Nets are challenging for Eastern Conference supremacy with the 76ers, along with Milwaukee. On Wednesday, they go to Philadelphia to confront a formidable group coached by a man nicknamed Doc (Rivers). On the Nets’ plus side, their owner, Joseph Tsai, is rich beyond belief. Lincoln and Washington didn’t make the cut. More

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      What’s Wrong With the Los Angeles Lakers

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      Repeating as N.B.A. champion is difficult — but the Lakers didn’t expect it to be this hard.The Los Angeles Lakers braced for a season of strain after the shortest off-season in league history.They did not anticipate this.The Lakers did not envision long stretches without both LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and a regular-season slog that is testing them in new ways after the rigors of being confined within the N.B.A.’s restricted-access campus at Walt Disney World for three months last summer. James, Davis and Co. began the 2020-21 season as overwhelming title favorites, having emerged from bubble life as N.B.A. champions, but factors that raise the degree of difficulty on the Lakers’ repeat bid are starting to stack up:Davis has missed the past 23 games because of persistent Achilles’ tendon discomfort and an adjacent calf strain. There is some hope within the organization that he will return to the lineup after the Lakers’ five-game Eastern Conference swing underway, but any injury that involves the Achilles’ tendon, no matter how purportedly mild, is going to spook people until Davis gets back on the floor. Achilles’ tendon injuries remain the most feared in the sport.James has missed the past nine games after sustaining a high-ankle sprain during a game against Atlanta on March 20. The reflex assumption, because this is James, is that he will return by month’s end and duly return to elite form. Given that James is 36, and in his 18th season, we should probably also acknowledge the possibility that his recovery won’t be seamless.Sunday’s 18-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, their Staples Center co-tenants, was the first in an 11-game stretch against teams in playoff or play-in positions. The Lakers were fifth in the Western Conference standings entering Tuesday, but there is mounting worry in Lakerland that a slip to sixth, seven or worse is getting more and more unavoidable. This is the first season that teams seeded seventh through 10th in each conference will be subjected to a new double-elimination playoff play-in round.The roster moves that looked so good in November, winning raves for the Lakers’ front office, haven’t panned out. Dennis Schröder and Montrezl Harrell have not proved capable of pinch-carrying the Lakers during the regular season when James and Davis are unavailable. I believed, as resolutely as the Lakers, that they would be, but Schröder and Harrell tend to be more concerned with their own scoring than anything else. When the Lakers explored the trade market for both last month, it seemed to confirm their own uncertainty about the fit.The Lakers’ recent signing of center Andre Drummond, right, has caused some friction with center Marc Gasol, who signed with the team as a free agent in November.Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesThe Lakers’ biggest triumph since Davis went down was signing the crown jewel of this season’s buyout market: Andre Drummond. Yet it must be noted that the Lakers were desperate to go all out for Drummond in part because of a sense that their frontline was lacking. Marc Gasol, signed as a free agent in November, hasn’t replaced Dwight Howard or JaVale McGee as convincingly as the front office had projected. Gasol has since publicly acknowledged his disappointment that the Lakers felt a need to bring in Drummond.Whether it’s the injuries, or the team’s middling 10-12 record since Davis last played on Feb. 14, or mounting pressure stemming from the Lakers’ woeful 3-point shooting (24th in the league), or other factors, this group does not appear to have the same chemistry as the Lakers did in the N.B.A. bubble. Maybe these Lakers can still get there, but there is clearly much to fix in the final 22 games of the regular season.Coach Frank Vogel insisted on Monday that the Lakers were “not looking at the standings at all,” but that is easier to say than uphold when the competition looks tougher than it did last season:— The Utah Jazz readily acknowledge that they can’t hush naysayers until the playoffs, but they have also won 22 consecutive home games and remain on pace to become the first team in league history to average 17 made 3-pointers per game.— The Denver Nuggets made a clear win-now upgrade at the trade deadline by adding Aaron Gordon to their core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. and, as of this Newsletter Tuesday, would have home-court advantage over the Lakers in a first-round series as the fourth seed.— Also: One of the most important players from the Lakers’ championship run — Rajon Rondo — is suddenly a member of the Clippers via trade. After his ineffectual stint as an Atlanta Hawk, skepticism persists that Rondo, at 35, will provide the offensive organization and playmaking that the Clippers badly need. Yet he has delivered often enough in the postseason that the Lakers are respectfully wary of his becoming Playoff Rondo one more time for the Los Angeles franchise still chasing its first championship.That assessment of the competition didn’t even mention the Phoenix Suns, who missed the playoffs for the past 10 seasons but have risen to No. 2 in the West by pairing Chris Paul in the backcourt with Devin Booker, or the three powerhouses in the East: Philadelphia, Milwaukee and a superstar-laden Nets squad coping with its own serious injury issues.James and Davis remain so feared as a duo that, for all the other legitimate concerns about these Lakers that we’ve listed, getting both back in coming weeks and keeping them upright throughout the playoffs would surely fix so much. I am likewise bullish on Drummond’s potential impact when he gets the chance to finally play with the two stars and, for the first time in his N.B.A. career, focus on a complementary role that emphasizes his rebounding and defense.My issue is assuming that James and Davis will heal in linear fashion that makes everything fine once they return. Ill-advised as it is to write off James in particular, after he led his teams to the N.B.A. finals in nine of the past 10 seasons, that’s a bold leap to make given the gravity of these injuries.When I published N.B.A. power rankings every Monday during the regular season for 15 years at ESPN, I occasionally sparred with angry readers who blamed The Committee of One, as I had dubbed myself, for jinxing their team with a ranking too lofty. Perhaps I should consider, along the same lines, some responsibility for the Lakers’ woes over the past two months, because Davis started missing games shortly after I devoted my Feb. 2 weekly dispatch to his partnership with James and how flawlessly they’ve meshed as teammates.Far more likely, though, than the Lakers getting derailed by a supposed newsletter jinx is the like-it-or-not reality that ill health threatens to be the Lakers’ undoing for the second time in James’s three seasons in Hollywood.Corner ThreeThe Charlotte Hornets of the 1990s were fun behind Larry Johnson, left, Muggsy Bogues, center, and Alonzo Mourning.Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty ImagesYou 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: I am a lifelong Nets fan. I’m 61 now and I clearly remember the team’s pre-N.B.A. years. Julius Erving was the greatest player to ever play for the Nets, and without him the franchise would not exist. But he sometimes seems to be forgotten in Brooklyn — and so is the A.B.A.The Nets recently posted a tweet indicating that James Harden was only the second Net in team history to record a triple-double that included 40 points, along with Vince Carter, but I was sure that had to be incorrect. I looked it up online and found that Erving did this twice in the A.B.A.My question: Does the N.B.A. count A.B.A. statistics? And if so, why don’t the Nets refer to them? Looking forward to your coverage soon of the first Nets championship in 45 years! — Dave Lederer (Sharon, Mass.)Stein: Love the enthusiasm for the A.B.A., Dave. But A.B.A. statistics were not (and most likely will never be) officially combined with N.B.A. statistics, so the Nets refer to their history only since 1976-77 when they make such announcements about milestones.This wonderful page maintained by Basketball Reference with multiple career scoring lists shows how Dr. J would be No. 8 and Dan Issel would be No. 11 if A.B.A. points were added to the damage they did in the N.B.A. Yet the list posted there is purely for discussion purposes, because the N.B.A. established its policy long ago, leaving Erving at No. 72 among N.B.A. scorers and Issel at No. 148. The four A.B.A. franchises that joined the league for the 1976-77 season (Denver, Indiana, San Antonio and the Nets) were treated more like expansion teams than merging teams.The A.B.A., of course, was way ahead of its time with the early adoption of the 3-pointer and the introduction of a slam dunk contest eight years before the N.B.A., and faster-paced play in general that I sadly didn’t get to see for myself. The merger season was the first that I could call myself a truly aware N.B.A. fan; 1977 Topps basketball cards with the electric green backs still weaken me when I come across them as does the Buffalo Braves set from that season that I keep on my desk.The recent death of Elgin Baylor had me venting anew about what a shame it is that Baylor’s offensive brilliance isn’t as appreciated as it should be because television footage from the 1960s and 1970s was not as widely distributed as it should have been, compared with, say, baseball footage from past eras. When I started covering the Los Angeles Clippers in February 1994, Baylor was the general manager and I told him that, to that point, I had scarcely seen five minutes of his playing career. This was years before the advent of NBA TV, of course, so the Clippers called N.B.A. Entertainment in Secaucus, N.J., to assemble a Baylor highlight reel on VHS tape for my edification.A.B.A. footage, as you can imagine, was even more scarce, though thankfully there’s a smattering on YouTube now. I can’t remember seeing any in my formative years as a basketball fan. The red, white and blue ball was all I knew.Q: ⁦‪More watchable than the Larry Johnson-Alonzo Mourning-Muggsy Bogues Hornets of the early 1990s? — @BBH821510 from TwitterStein: I got a few responses like this on Saturday when I tweeted about the Hornets losing Gordon Hayward for at least four weeks to a sprained right foot.Just for some fun, and perhaps in a bow to the hyperbolic nature of social media, I have been referring to Charlotte this season as the Most Watchable Hornets Ever. It’s my go-to hat tip to these Hornets given how entertaining they’ve been since drafting LaMelo Ball in November, signing Hayward in free agency and combining those two with Terry Rozier, whose player efficiency rating is at a career-best 17.7.The Hornets teams that featured Johnson, Mourning and Bogues are remembered with great fondness by Charlotte’s fans and duly respected here. Charlotte also had some strong teams in the back half of the 1990s, after trading away both Johnson and Mourning — but I think it actually helps my case if you have to rewind that far, to a time long before the N.B.A. League Pass era, to come up with a counter.Q: What happens when a team forfeits a draft pick as the Milwaukee Bucks did in the Bogdan Bogdanovic case? Will there still be 60 players selected in that draft? — Yul Bessori (Israel)Stein: No. The 2022 draft will have only 59 picks after the Bucks were docked their second-rounder for that year as punishment for what the league deemed impermissible contact with Bogdanovic before free agency began in November.Not long after Milwaukee reached an agreement with New Orleans on a trade for Jrue Holiday in November, ESPN reported that the Bucks would also acquire Bogdanovic, who was a restricted free agent, from Sacramento via sign-and-trade, with the Kings poised to land Donte DiVincenzo as part of the exchange. But free agency was still more than three days away at that point, prompting the N.B.A. to investigate how the Bucks had agreed on terms. Milwaukee was essentially forced to abandon its pursuit of Bogdanovic or risk more severe penalties.Bogdanovic ultimately signed a four-year, $72 million offer sheet from Atlanta, which Sacramento declined to match, causing the Kings to lose the restricted free agent without compensation. The Bucks, though, have rebounded from their missteps about as well as they could have hoped, persuading Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year contract extension worth $228 million in December even without landing Bogdanovic. Then on Sunday they announced that they had signed Holiday to an extension, reported to be for four years and worth up to $160 million.They also made a useful addition last month by acquiring P.J. Tucker in a trade with Houston, but questions persist about the dependability of the Bucks’ bench. Milwaukee’s other problem is the competition — at least at the top of the East. The Bucks have to be wondering, even after all of their moves, if they really have enough to beat out the Nets and Philadelphia for a spot in the N.B.A. finals.Numbers GameGolden State’s Stephen Curry is close to passing Wilt Chamberlain as the franchise’s career-scoring leader.Mary Holt/USA Today Sports, via ReutersUpdated entering Tuesday’s games.44League officials can only hope that the basketball public was too focused on the Final Four in men’s and women’s college basketball to pay close attention to the N.B.A. on Saturday, when a league-record three teams lost by at least 44 points on the same day: Oklahoma City (48 points to Portland), Orlando (46 points to Utah) and Detroit (44 points to the Knicks). This was just one day after Golden State trailed by as many as 61 points in a 53-point loss to Toronto.14The Raptors had won just one of their previous 14 games before blasting the Stephen Curry-less Warriors. Curry has missed six of Golden State’s past nine games with a tailbone contusion.130Curry needs 130 points to surpass Wilt Chamberlain (17,783) as the Warriors’ career-scoring leader. Getting there will make Curry the 10th player in league history to rank as a franchise leader in points and assists, joining Mike Conley (Grizzlies), Alex English (Nuggets), Kevin Garnett (Timberwolves), Michael Jordan (Bulls), LeBron James (Cavaliers), Oscar Robertson (Kings), Reggie Miller (Pacers), Isiah Thomas (Pistons), Dwyane Wade (Heat).20The Houston Rockets’ recent 20-game losing streak was twice as long as its worst stretch during the 14-68 season in 1982-83 that led to the drafting of Ralph Sampson. Those Rockets started 0-10 and never had a longer winless run after that. Houston’s 20 consecutive defeats this season marked the N.B.A.’s fifth such streak since 2000, according to Stathead. Philadelphia lost 28 consecutive games from the end of the 2014-15 season through the start of the 2015-16 season and 26 games in a row during the 2013-14 season; Cleveland lost 26 consecutive games in 2010-11 in its first season after LeBron James’s free-agent departure to Miami; and Charlotte lost 23 consecutive games in 2011-12.22Utah is a spotless 22-0 at home in 2021 after losing its first two home games of the season in December.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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      Irving Scores 40 as Short-Handed Nets Beat the Knicks

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      With Kevin Durant out and James Harden departing early with a sore hamstring, Kyrie Irving took over in a win against the Knicks.The injured Nets star Kevin Durant has been missing since mid-February, but his team got some good news on Monday with the return of James Harden, who had missed Brooklyn’s last two games with a hamstring injury.Harden’s return lasted four minutes.When the injury flared up again, he asked to come out. That left the Nets in a serious bind against the Knicks at Barclays Center, their Big Three reduced to a lonely one.James Harden, Nets say, is out for the rest of tonight’s game against the Knicks with right hamstring tightness.— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 5, 2021
      Step forward, Kyrie Irving. The third member of the Nets’ star triumvirate poured in 40 points with a blend of speed, strength and deep 3-pointers, as the Nets — short-handed as they have been for much of the season — beat the Knicks, 114-112.Irving shot 15 of 28 from the field, made five 3-pointers and also led his team with seven assists. Jeff Green added 23 points, tying his season high, but was merely a supporting player in Irving’s impressive performance.Irving’s final basket was a long 3-pointer that extended the Nets’ lead to 5 points with a minute left.After the Knicks rallied to tie the score at 112-112, Green drew a foul with three seconds left and hit both free throws. Julius Randle, who had a triple-double for the Knicks, missed a driving jumper to tie it as time expired.“This is the Brooklyn way, also mixed with a little Jersey swag,” Irving said in an on-court interview after the game, to the cheers of the pandemic-limited crowd of 1,700. He went to high school in Elizabeth, N.J., before spending his only college season at Duke.Harden had started the game but asked out early after pulling up in front of the scorer’s table and reaching for his hamstring. Coach Steve Nash quickly removed him.His cameo ended without a point, bringing to an end his 450-game streak of scoring in double digits. (LeBron James continues to lead that category with more than 1,000.)“Very similar to last time,” Nash said of Harden’s injury. “He has an awareness of something’s not right in his hammy. His scan was clean. His strength tests when he came back to the locker room were normal. It’s something where we have to protect him, we have to trust him. Very frustrating for James, but we can’t risk it, if we can afford not to.”Nash held out hope that Monday was merely a brief delay in Harden’s recovery, and not something that could imperil the championship dreams of the first-place Nets (35-16).“Who knows?” Nash said. This may linger or it may be all be behind us, like we thought it was before the game.”Even the injured Kevin Durant seemed impressed with some of Irving’s shots.Vincent Carchietta/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHarden remains a most valuable player candidate, scoring 25 points a game and leading the league in assists (10.9 per game) and minutes (37.1).With a third straight win over the Knicks, the Nets completed a season sweep of their rivals for the first time since 2014-15.Durant, who has his own hamstring injury, shot around before the game, and the Nets said they were hopeful he would return soon. Durant, Harden and Irving have played together only seven times since joining the Nets, making it all the more remarkable that the team leads the Eastern Conference.Randle’s triple-double — 19 points, 15 rebounds, 12 assists — was his fourth of the season. The Knicks are hanging on to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, on track for their first playoff appearance since 2012-13. More

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      In the Philippines, Everyone Knows Jordan Clarkson’s Name

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      Clarkson, who is Filipino-American, is having a career season with the Utah Jazz and drawing a new international fan base to the team.For the longest time, Paolo del Rosario felt alone. In the Philippines, he was that rare type of basketball fan: He rooted for the Utah Jazz.He had adopted the team as a young boy in the late 1990s because he loved the two-man game of John Stockton and Karl Malone — and because the rest of his family, like many Filipino families, loved the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Lakers irritated him.“I guess I just found them too loud,” he said.Now a Manila-based sports broadcaster, del Rosario, 30, remained on his own in his Jazz fandom for years until suddenly, about halfway through last season, he discovered that he was no longer on his own. The Cleveland Cavaliers had traded Jordan Clarkson to the Jazz, and del Rosario started receiving text messages from friends: “Hey, are you ready? You’re not going to be the only Jazz fan in the Philippines anymore.”Even as the Jazz have gone about their business of building the best record in the N.B.A. this season, they have struggled to escape the long shadows cast by glitzier rivals. Beloved in Utah, the Jazz do not exactly have a global following.The one clear exception, though, is their growing presence in the Philippines, a basketball-crazed country where the 28-year-old Clarkson, who identifies as Filipino-American, is a household name. His highlights flood social media.Clarkson has been a lift coming off the bench for the Jazz this season.David Zalubowski/Associated Press“I’ll say this: If he doesn’t win sixth man of the year, I’m not sure the N.B.A. is ready for the online reaction from this part of the world,” said Nikko Ramos, the editor in chief of the Philippines edition of Slam magazine.In the Philippines, where, because of the time difference, many people wake up with breakfast and basketball, fans are getting a heaping serving of Clarkson to go with their tapsilog and pandesal.“N.B.A. League Pass is your best friend here,” Ramos said.Fans have spent 45 percent more time on the streaming service watching Jazz games this season than they did last season, according to the league. And on the N.B.A. Philippines Facebook page, Clarkson-related posts outperform all other content by an average of three to four times. A video of his highlight from a win over the Los Angeles Clippers in December has been viewed more than 1.2 million times.Clarkson clips have become a part of the morning ritual for Gabe Norwood’s three young sons, who have more of a direct connection to the shooting guard than most do: Their father has played with him on the Philippine national team, known as Gilas Pilipinas.“My kids get ready for school by watching N.B.A. games rather than cartoons,” said Norwood, a longtime small forward for the Rain or Shine Elastopainters, one of 12 teams in the Philippine Basketball Association.Clarkson, who is having the best season of his seven-year career, averaging more than 17 points per game, said he was acutely aware of his Filipino roots growing up in San Antonio. His maternal grandmother, Marcelina Tullao, made sure of it. She told stories about Pampanga, the province northwest of Manila where she was born, and made traditional dishes like chicken adobo and lumpia.Those meals helped him feel a connection to the place, one that grew stronger as he got older — and one that eventually led him to develop a friendship with Norwood, who also grew up in the United States but has become a bit of a pied piper for Philippine basketball.Children play during a Junior N.B.A. program at Don Bosco Technical Institute of Makati City.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“If there’s a Filipino somewhere playing hoop, Gabe finds them and acts as a big brother to them almost by default,” Ramos said.Norwood, whose mother’s side of his family is Filipino, played at George Mason, where, as a junior, he came off the bench for the team that reached the Final Four in 2006. The Final Four typically doubles as a coaching convention, and a couple of coaches from the Philippines approached Norwood’s mother one afternoon. Did she have a son playing in the tournament? “Sure enough, she did: No. 5 for George Mason,” Norwood said.The following summer, Norwood traveled to the Philippines with a sports ministry group called Athletes in Action, and he used the trip to network. After his senior season, he was named to the Philippine national team and signed a contract with Rain or Shine of the P.B.A. “I’ve been here ever since,” said Norwood, who met his wife, Lei, in the Philippines.In the process, Norwood has become one of the country’s leading basketball evangelists, a staple of the national team since 2007 and an advocate for the sport. As such, he played a role in helping carve Clarkson’s path to Gilas Pilipinas.Clarkson was still in college when Norwood heard about him from a friend. When Clarkson declared for the N.B.A. draft in 2014 following his junior season at Missouri, Norwood gave him a call and sent him a pair of Nike sneakers that had been a special release in the Philippines, part of the Kobe Bryant signature line. Clarkson said he wound up wearing them in his predraft workouts.Clarkson, playing for Mizzou in 2014, became very famous very fast.Jamie Squire/Getty Images“I just wanted to give him a heads up in terms of the support he has out here,” Norwood said.At the time, Clarkson was still fairly unknown in the Philippines. Ramos, for example, said he had never even heard of him until Norwood mentioned that there was a prospect of Filipino descent preparing for the draft.“And I work in basketball,” Ramos said, “so for me not to have heard his name when he was at Mizzou, that sort of tells how much of a new name he was in the country’s consciousness.”Clarkson became very famous very fast. A lot of that had to do with his joining the Lakers after he was a second-round draft pick in 2014. The Lakers are popular in the Philippines, where many fans still idolize Bryant — a superstar who made at least a half-dozen appearances in the country in his prime.“So if the intention was to get Jordan as much instant popularity with the Filipinos as possible, that was the dream scenario,” Ramos said.Clarkson also soon proved that he was a bona fide N.B.A. player, averaging 11.9 points per game as a rookie. The following summer, he made a trip to Manila — and drew crowds wherever he went. He had traveled to the country as part of an N.B.A. Cares initiative with several other players, including Trey Burke and Horace Grant. But it became apparent that Clarkson was the main attraction.Ramos helped show Clarkson and Burke around. On one of their first nights there, Ramos took them to dine at one of the city’s trendiest clubs, though he had his concerns.Clarkson played for the Philippines in the Asian Games in 2018.Dita Alangkara/Associated Press“I remember telling him, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to do this?’” Ramos recalled. “And Jordan was like: ‘I play for the Lakers, and I live in L.A. I’m used to getting some attention. It’ll be fine.’”It was not fine. As the scene spiraled into something that resembled chaos, Ramos grabbed a towel to throw over Clarkson’s head — an ineffective disguise — and ushered him out of the building through a back door.“We couldn’t walk 10 steps,” Ramos said. “Everyone knew he was in the country.”They eventually made it to a late-night pizza spot, where the people waiting to order also recognized Clarkson. When they insisted that he jump to the front of the line, he bought slices for everyone.“I just remember how much love everybody was showing me,” Clarkson said. “I didn’t know that people even knew I was Filipino.”The country’s adoration for Clarkson, who has a Philippine passport, went to another level when he competed for Gilas Pilipinas at the 2018 Asian Games, and nearly led the team to an upset over China in group play. His grandmother would watch the games and cry.“For Filipino fans to actually see him play for our national team, it was almost surreal,” said del Rosario, the broadcaster and longtime Jazz fan.Clarkson plans to return to Gilas Pilipinas in 2023, he said, when the team takes part in Olympic qualifying competitions, including the World Cup, which the Philippines is co-hosting. FIBA, the sport’s international organizing body, allows one naturalized player per team, though Clarkson said he was hopeful that FIBA would consider him a local player ahead of the next Olympic cycle. “I think that’s the big thing that’s being figured out right now,” he said.For its part, FIBA has maintained that Clarkson is only eligible to compete for the Philippines as a naturalized player.The Clarkson jersey with “Kapayapaan” on the back, center, with other Utah Jazz jerseys.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesIn any case, Clarkson has learned just how much Filipinos care. In the N.B.A. last season, players had the option of putting league-approved messages on their jerseys, and international players could display them in their native languages. Clarkson chose the word “Peace,” which caused a small uproar in the Philippines because he had not used the Filipino word for peace, “Kapayapaan.” It became such a hot topic that his father, Mike, went on Instagram to assure everyone that his son “continues to represent his Filipino roots with pride,” adding a string of hearts for good measure. Clarkson said it had not even occurred to him that using the Filipino word was an option.“I guess it was a little controversial,” he said.Some industrious entrepreneurs around Manila took matters into their own hands by manufacturing bootleg Clarkson jerseys with “Kapayapaan” on the back. It proved to be a popular item. Del Rosario managed to get ahold of one. He was not alone. More

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      N.B.A. Fines Kevin Durant for ‘Derogatory’ Social Media Spat

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      Michael Rapaport, an actor and podcast host, shared screenshots of a conversation in which Durant used homophobic and misogynistic language.The N.B.A. fined Kevin Durant, the Nets star, $50,000 for using “offensive and derogatory” language on social media, an apparent reference to screenshots of a private social media conversation between Durant and Michael Rapaport, an actor and podcast host.On Tuesday, Rapaport posted screenshots of an Instagram conversation with Durant in which Durant used homophobic and misogynistic language to refer to Rapaport, who was critical of an interview Durant did on TNT in December.The images shared by Rapaport did not appear to show the full exchange of messages between the two, but in one, Durant seemed to threaten Rapaport by naming a time and place for them to meet. Rapaport, who is white and has publicly made racist comments, responded multiple times by telling Durant, who is Black, to, “Go help the kids in BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN.” Brownsville is a mostly Black neighborhood where Rapaport has said he has gone to play basketball.After Rapaport posted the screenshots on Twitter, Durant replied to the post, saying, “Me and mike talk CRAZIER than this on the regular and today he’s pissed….My bad mike, damn!!” Rapaport then replied with misogynistic language. Rapaport’s initial post has been shared more than 15,000 times.The Nets declined to comment. Durant, 32, apologized on Thursday.“I’m sorry that people have seen the language I used,” Durant told reporters. “That’s not what I want people to see or hear from me, but hopefully I can move past it and get back out there on the floor.”Durant is prolific on social media, often using Twitter and Instagram to defend himself from fan criticism, no matter how small or large the fan’s followings. In 2017, it was revealed that Durant had created so-called burner accounts — alternate identities — to defend himself. Last year, he said on a podcast that he still has them.Rapaport, 51, is best known for roles on television shows such as “Boston Public” and “Prison Break” but has become more known in recent years for his basketball fandom and for his public social media feuds, including with his former employer Barstool.Durant has not played since Feb. 13 because of a hamstring strain. The Nets have not lost a step without him, having gone 18-3 since then. It is unknown when Durant will play again, but on Thursday he said, “I feel like it’ll be soon that I can be out there with my teammates.” More

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      N.B.A. Trade Deadline Fallout for the Lakers

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      After more than a dozen trades at the deadline, there are still many moves to be made, with lingering free agents, buyouts and executive contracts in the balance.All the trades have been made. This season’s roster shuffling, barring a free-agent signing or three coming soon, is complete.It’s time, then, to take a tour around the league for some post-trade deadline fallout, rumbles, analysis and storytelling:Don’t be surprised that the Los Angeles Lakers were prepared to trade Dennis Schröder.One of the Lakers’ prime off-season acquisitions, Schröder featured in trade talks with the Toronto Raptors for Kyle Lowry. The discussions broke down over the Lakers’ unwillingness to include the blossoming Talen Horton-Tucker in a deal for Lowry, 35, who will become a free agent at season’s end.Schröder, 27, was available because of the gulf between player and team in contract extension talks. He has rebuffed extension offers from the Lakers in the range of $80 million over four years, according to two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Schröder’s efficiency has slumped since his productive 2019-20 season in Oklahoma City, but he is said to be seeking more robust compensation in free agency this off-season. His previous biggest deal was a four-year, $70 million contract extension signed with Atlanta in October 2016.More surprising than Schröder’s availability was the Lakers’ willingness to package him with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after Caldwell-Pope was such a key contributor to last season’s championship — and when Caldwell-Pope, like Anthony Davis and LeBron James, is represented by the influential agent Rich Paul.Lowry’s future isn’t the only free-agent drama looming for the Raptors.Masai Ujiri, Toronto’s president of basketball operations, is also in the final year of his contract. There were strong rumbles last summer that Ujiri, General Manager Bobby Webster and Coach Nick Nurse were all poised to receive new five-year deals from the Raptors. Nurse and Webster have since signed long-term contracts, but Ujiri has repeatedly deflected questions about his future.Like Lowry, Ujiri has been regarded by fans and the organization as Raptors royalty since the team’s championship run in 2018-19. It is widely presumed in league circles that only an overwhelming offer in a highly desirable market could lure him away from the influence and affection he has amassed in Toronto. Yet these many months without a deal and Webster’s rising profile as a natural successor have raised the question: How much longer will Ujiri be running the Raptors?Raptors General Manager Bobby Webster appears poised to take over should Masai Ujiri move on from his role as Toronto’s team president.Chris Young/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressFor a Canadian public edgy about the prospect of Lowry and Ujiri potentially hitting free agency at the same time, this counter question should provide some measure of comfort: Where would Ujiri go?He was known to have interest in the Knicks’ job before James L. Dolan, the Knicks’ owner, abruptly decided last spring to abandon the pursuit of Ujiri to instead hire Leon Rose, a prominent former player agent. A worthy post-Toronto landing spot is difficult to pinpoint unless the Washington Wizards, who vehemently denied being interested after the Raptors’ championship, amend that stance.Some around the league, though, have wondered about a potential down-the-road option that does not yet exist. The group heading expansion efforts in Seattle features the longtime sports executive Tim Leiweke, who brought Ujiri to Toronto for the 2013-14 season.It only seems like the Nets make every roster upgrade they want.The recent bargain signings of Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge, after the January acquisition of James Harden, have further entrenched the Nets as villains. Coach Steve Nash leaned in to the criticism with some humor when he spoke to reporters on Monday, letting out an Uncle Scar-like roar.“It’s kind of funny to me, because for the last couple years, all I’ve heard is how bad I am,” Griffin said. “You sign with this team and everybody’s like, ‘That’s not fair.’”The volume on complaints surely would have been higher had the Nets been successful in their attempts to trade the injured Spencer Dinwiddie for a wing player. Among the options they explored, I’m told, was sending Dinwiddie to Golden State for Kelly Oubre. Golden State rejected those overtures because it is still desperate to make the playoffs. While numerous Oubre trade scenarios came up, Golden State was not going to trade him for someone who couldn’t help the team in the short term.“I think a lot of people thought he might be available, but we value him, too, as evidenced by not trading him,” Bob Myers, Golden State’s president of basketball operations, said of Oubre on Friday.I liked seeing these three franchises take the biggest swings: Chicago, Denver and Orlando.The Bulls, Nuggets and Magic are known (and sometimes criticized) for not pursuing trades as aggressively as fans would like. So you applaud Denver for making the most ambitious move in the West by trading for the Magic’s Aaron Gordon, which not only enhances the Nuggets’ ability to win the conference but also shouldn’t hinder them in the Bradley Beal sweepstakes if (when?) Washington reaches the point of making Beal available.Nikola Vucevic, right, became the second All-Star on the Bulls after Orlando traded him to Chicago last week.Jed Jacobsohn/Associated PressThe Nikola Vucevic trade, furthermore, was bold for both Orlando and Chicago. The Bulls, who had no All-Stars when Chicago hosted last season’s All-Star Game, packaged two future first-round picks and Wendell Carter Jr. to get Vucevic, who played in his second All-Star Game this season — as did a first-timer: Chicago’s Zach LaVine.The Magic turned heads, too, by initiating a total tear down and trading Vucevic, Gordon and Evan Fournier after they had been pretty convincing in the weeks leading up to the deadline that Vucevic was staying put. With Vucevic, at age 30, in the midst of his most productive season and seemingly getting better offensively, I thought he was the one Magic pillar they were bound to keep to lead younger players like Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz when they return from injury. Several teams were convinced Orlando wouldn’t part with Vucevic unless it received a substantial offer; Chicago duly put more on the table than anticipated.You never know who you’ll meet in Miami.Trevor Ariza and Andre Drummond, two of the league’s most prized veterans as title contenders fortify their rosters for the playoffs, worked out in the same Miami gym in recent months.Ariza and Drummond are among the prominent players who have been practicing at The Miami Perimeter with Stanley Remy, who trains Miami’s Jimmy Butler. Ariza made it his base while on leave awaiting a trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder, who dealt him to the Heat on March 17. Drummond trained in the same gym after he and the Cleveland Cavaliers agreed in February to seek a trade. When the Cavaliers couldn’t find a desirable deal, they negotiated a buyout with Drummond, who signed on Sunday with the Lakers.Other veterans who have been spotted in Remy’s gym include the veteran center Greg Monroe and, in a surprise, Amar’e Stoudemire. As a player development assistant for the Nets this season, Stoudemire, 38, works with the team at home. Yet he does not travel with the Nets and has made occasional trips to Miami to see family when the team is on the road. Stoudemire has also been pursuing an M.B.A. through online classes at the University of Miami.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeDion Waiters is just one of several recognizable free agents vying for another chance in the N.B.A.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesYou 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 condensed or lightly edited for clarity.)Q: Remember when people were complaining that the Nets traded away all their depth for James Harden? They’ve filled that depth out with LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin, rising young studs in Bruce Brown and Nicolas Claxton and an emerging Landry Shamet — plus Jeff Green has been excellent. — @MoneyDre123 from TwitterEvery time someone says that they expect the trade deadline to be super active, it never is. The one deadline that all of you said there wouldn’t be much movement, we get trades for guys like Victor Oladipo, Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic. — @MoneyDre123 from TwitterStein: You sent me multiple tweets in the past few days that hit on two newsy topics, so let’s address both.The Nets were always expected to be active in the buyout market to address their depth issues.Surprising as it was to see Aldridge choose to join the Nets over Miami, it is no surprise that the Nets have made multiple signings. A free-spending title contender will always hold appeal to former All-Stars like Aldridge and Griffin, who not only covet the chance to compete for a championship but are also trying to rebuild their value as they head to free agency in the off-season.The surprise here is the development of Brown and Claxton. I don’t remember many touting them to both become dependable rotation players so quickly — whether that’s because of faster-than-anticipated development or the natural benefit of the extra space created by offensive threats like Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Or both.I am pretty sure you were promised a frantic deadline day in last Tuesday’s newsletter. I never bought suggestions to the contrary.This was the fourth consecutive season in which deadline day delivered a double-digit number of trades, and I expect the trend to continue. I can still vividly remember deadline day in 2000, when Atlanta’s dealing Anthony Johnson to Orlando was the only sad little trade to go down, but this is a different N.B.A.You have to go back to 2009 for the last deadline day that featured fewer than eight trades. Although that certainly doesn’t mean we’re going to see landscape-changers every year, I will concede that last week’s activity exceeded even optimistic expectations like mine — even with Toronto’s Kyle Lowry staying put.Q: As a lifelong Dion Waiters stan, I spend every waking moment wondering when our lord and savior of Philly Cheese will eventually make his return to the N.B.A. — Johnny Tse (Hong Kong)Stein: Last seen in the league playing a minor role off the Lakers’ bench during their championship run last summer, Waiters is another one of the free agents who has been working out at the Miami Perimeter gym discussed in this week’s lead item.Though that doesn’t mean that Waiters, 29, will get another N.B.A. shot, Brandon Knight has also been working out there and, according to a report from my longtime colleague Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, recently earned an audition with the Milwaukee Bucks.Among the factors working against Waiters: There are a lot of proven N.B.A. players competing for roster spots. I asked a noted salary-cap guru and transaction tracker, @KeithSmithNBA, to help me compile a list of well-known free agents without regard to position. A partial list from what he came up with: DeMarcus Cousins, Jamal Crawford, Yogi Ferrell, John Henson, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Damian Jones, Mfiondu Kabengele, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jeremy Lin, Kyle O’Quinn, James Nunnally, Jabari Parker, Andre Roberson, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith and Isaiah Thomas.Q: I love your newsletter and always read every word. But isn’t it possible to say that the baseball-style series you wrote about have contributed to the diminished state of home-court advantage in the league this season? — Bruce Klutchko (New York)Stein: I love hearing how much you enjoy it, and we are very much on the same page on this, but perhaps that didn’t come through as clearly as I hoped in last week’s Numbers Game.Various coaches and players have said that the advent of baseball-style series this season, in which teams play host to the same opponent in consecutive games to reduce travel, has been a factor in lessening home-court advantage in today’s N.B.A. Pinpointing exactly how much is not possible, but there are presumed sleep and rest benefits for players on visiting teams when they get to stay in one city longer. Put it on the list as a factor in the road teams’ favor along with the more inviting arena atmospheres for visiting teams given the reduced crowds (or empty buildings).We will keep tracking the numbers all season, but I don’t see how anyone can dispute that playing the same opponent twice in a row, especially with a night off in between, results in more favorable conditions for the visiting team.Numbers GameKnicks forward Julius RandleNell Redmond/Associated PressHornets guard Terry RozierNell Redmond/Associated Press31The worst might be behind the N.B.A. in terms of dealing with the coronavirus — at least during the regular season. If the league can get through two more days, it will have made it through the entire month of March without postponing a single game in accordance with the league’s health and safety protocols. The league postponed 31 games in December, January and February because at least one team could not field the minimum required eight players in uniform because of either positive coronavirus tests or contact tracing.3The Nets and the two Los Angeles teams (Lakers and Clippers) are the only teams to avoid a game postponement according to the league’s health and safety protocols.27Twenty-seven of the league’s 30 teams made at least one trade during the season, including 23 last Thursday on deadline day. The only teams that did not make an in-season deal: Memphis, Minnesota and the Los Angeles Lakers.21.5The Knicks were the first team to surpass their projected over/under win total, according to the preseason odds compiled by Basketball Reference. The Knicks’ over/under was a league-low 21.5 victories; they entered Tuesday’s play tied with the Charlotte Hornets for fourth in the Eastern Conference at 24-23.19.1Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge, both represented by Excel Sports, surrendered an estimated $19.1 million in combined salary to become unrestricted free agents and sign veteran minimum contracts to join the Nets. Griffin (who gave back $13.3 million to Detroit) and Aldridge ($5.8 million to San Antonio) have joined DeAndre Jordan, Jeff Green and Nicolas Claxton in a suddenly crowded Nets frontcourt. With Joe Harris no less a fixture in the Nets’ closing lineup than their big-name stars, five big men are vying for limited minutes.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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      These N.B.A. Contenders Just Got Better

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      A look at the league’s top-tier contenders after a busy period of player movement.The N.B.A.’s trade deadline on Thursday featured more than a dozen trades — some surprising, some not so much. Several players named Gary were traded (Trent Jr., Clark, Harris). Miami was the biggest winner, acquiring Victor Oladipo and, separately, Nemanja Bjelica.Many of the top teams in the league stood pat. The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t trade for Kyle Lowry. Their rivals, the Los Angeles Clippers, traded backup point guards: Lou Williams to the Atlanta Hawks for Rajon Rondo. The Philadelphia 76ers added a solid veteran guard in George Hill from the Oklahoma City Thunder.But did any teams make any moves to vault themselves to title contender status? With roughly a third of the season left, a wide-open N.B.A. season is now showing more signs of a traditional hierarchy.In the Eastern Conference, entering Sunday’s games, the fourth and 11th seeds were separated by five and a half games. But the third-seeded Milwaukee Bucks were ahead of the No. 4-seeded Charlotte Hornets by five and a half games, establishing a clear top tier. In the West, there was less separation between the top seeds, with the No. 6-seeded Portland Trail Blazers seven games behind the No. 1-seeded Utah Jazz, leaving room for a lot of movement.Here’s a look at the top-tier contenders from each conference and where they stand after the trade deadline.The EastPhiladelphia 76ers (32-14)Simmons, center, and Tobias Harris, right, are keeping the Sixers at the top of the East, even without the injured Joel Embiid.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhy They’ll Win the Finals:The Sixers are deep and well balanced to surround Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. They’ve gone 6-2 without Embiid, who hasn’t played since March 12 because of a knee injury. In that stretch, they beat the Spurs — a likely playoff team — by 35 points and the Kings by 24. In the playoffs, they’ll have Embiid, a matchup nightmare and a candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award. They have also had an elite defense all season, and been boosted by a career year for Tobias Harris.Adding George Hill, who led the league in 3-point shooting last season, was a good move by the Sixers’ front office. He plays solid defense, has a lot of playoff experience and gives Embiid and Simmons more room to work.Why They Won’t: Health. Embiid has missed roughly a third of the season and has had conditioning issues. Also, Embiid and Simmons have struggled in past playoffs to produce at a high level as defenses focused more on them. And as good as Embiid and Simmons are, if the Nets and the Bucks are healthy, Philadelphia won’t have the best top-end players on the floor if they meet.Milwaukee Bucks (29-16)P.J. Tucker, right, gives the Bucks perimeter defense and toughness.Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhy They’ll Win the Finals: The Bucks made a significant acquisition with P.J. Tucker, the gritty, defensive-minded forward who gives Milwaukee another perimeter threat. The team is finally showing itself to be the juggernaut it was predicted to be in the preseason, going 13-3 in its last 16 games. The Bucks are deep, and Giannis Antetokounmpo may very well win his third straight M.V.P. Award this season. They have one of the league’s best offenses and a top-10 defense.The Tucker trade freed up roster spots, giving the Bucks room to add a free agent. (Austin Rivers and Kelly Olynyk, who were recently traded, could be great fits here if they are bought out of their contracts or released.)Why They Won’t: Once again, the Bucks are having a great regular season. Ultimately, the Bucks will only advance if Antetokounmpo isn’t flummoxed by playoff defenses, as he has been. He is shooting only 30 percent from deep, so expect opposing teams to continue to pack the paint when he has the ball.Brooklyn Nets (31-15)James Harden has been the lone member of the Nets’ starry trio on the floor many times, as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving miss games for injury and personal reasons. He has handled it just fine.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressWhy They’ll Win the Finals: The Nets are a cheat code. Since Feb. 14, they have had the league’s fifth best offense. Why is that date relevant? Because Kevin Durant has not played at all in that time because of an injured left hamstring. The Nets have an elite offense and they’re not even playing one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the game. James Harden has been exceptional. He leads the league in assists, despite not having Durant to pass to for most of his time with the Nets. The team is 17-3 in its last 20 games — almost entirely without Durant.And the Nets just added LaMarcus Aldridge in addition to their recent signing of Blake Griffin.Why They Won’t: It’s one thing to navigate the regular season without Durant. But in the playoffs, that creates different challenges. Is he definitely going to be healthy for the playoffs? And even if he is, given how ball dominant he is, will there be enough time to mesh with Harden and Kyrie Irving properly?Miami Heat (22-24)The Heat have struggled with and without Jimmy Butler, but a few trade deadline moves could help them make a run down the stretch.Joel Auerbach/Associated PressWhy They’ll Win the Finals: Yes, the Heat are under .500. But they did make the N.B.A. finals last year despite being a lower seed, and they have most of the same players this year. Their record is mostly a result of health. Jimmy Butler, their best player, missed a bunch of time this season and now is actually having the best campaign of his career, averaging career highs in field-goal percentage, rebounds and assists. The team also added Victor Oladipo, another playmaker, to help share responsibility with Butler.Why They Won’t It’s tough to capture lightning in a bottle twice, and the rest of the contenders have better top-level talent. In 20 games with Houston, Oladipo played poorly — averaging 21.2 points on only 40.7 percent shooting from the field. The Heat have lost six in a row, and in general have been inconsistent. It’s hard to believe that a sub-.500 team this late in the season can win a title.The WestUtah Jazz (34-11)Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are in sync, and that has meant success for the Jazz this season.Alex Goodlett/Getty ImagesWhy They’ll Win the Finals: In the early stages of the pandemic, dysfunction swirled around the Jazz. Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell had a relationship that was on the rocks. But they began to reassemble their chemistry in the bubble, and now Utah has the best record in the N.B.A. Mitchell has emerged as a star — one who is fully capable of lifting his team into title contention. The difference this season is that he and Gobert have more help, and the Jazz are overwhelming teams from the 3-point line.Why They Won’t: Aside from their pockmarked playoff history, the Jazz play in a conference packed with championship-tested players, luminaries who are identifiable by their first names (LeBron, Kawhi) and know what it takes to make deep trips through the postseason. The Jazz, on the other hand, have not reached the conference finals since 2007.Los Angeles Clippers (31-16)Paul George has rebounded from postseason struggles last summer to keep the Clippers in the mix in the West.Darren Abate/Associated PressWhy They’ll Win the Finals: The Clippers faced questions after their meltdown in the bubble. (You’ll recall that they blew a 3-1 series lead over the Nuggets in the conference semifinals.) Paul George absorbed much of the criticism for his poor play. He has had his ups and downs this season — who hasn’t? — but appears to be in better form. The Clippers are contenders because of Kawhi Leonard, but George’s postseason play will determine if they are actually capable of winning it all.Why They Won’t: The Clippers hope that Rajon Rondo, whom they acquired at the trade deadline, can provide the sort of leadership they were missing last season. But they still lack depth at the point, and the team has been terrible in clutch situations, dating to last season’s bubble implosion. Championship teams are adept at closing out games. The Clippers are not.Los Angeles Lakers (29-17 entering Sunday)Why They’ll Win the Finals: LeBron James and Anthony Davis showed the damage they could do together last season when they rolled through the playoffs in leading the Lakers to their first championship since 2010. It was a resurgent season for James, in particular, and it proved (if anyone needed proof) that a team with two of the top players on the planet is a pretty safe bet to make a championship run, no matter the complementary pieces. James and Davis, of course, are back this season — and if they are healthy for the playoffs, look out.Why They Won’t: James (ankle) and Davis (calf) are not healthy, and that is an enormous problem — for now, if not forever. Davis has not played since Feb. 14, and Coach Frank Vogel said recently that Davis was “still a ways away.” The Lakers were already struggling without him when James sprained his ankle on March 20. He could be sidelined for at least another month. At the same time, a host of lesser Lakers have labored with their shooting strokes: Markieff Morris, Alex Caruso, Wesley Matthews, Dennis Schroder, Marc Gasol. Take your pick. Is it windy?Phoenix Suns (31-14)Why They’ll Win the Finals: In hindsight, the Suns’ nifty footwork in acquiring Chris Paul in the off-season was one of the best moves an up-and-coming team could have made. He brought experience, toughness and defense to a team that was making big leaps — the Suns closed out the 2019-20 regular season by going undefeated in the bubble — and he has allowed Devin Booker to play off the ball. The window is closing for Paul, an 11-time All-Star who, at 35, has never played in an N.B.A. finals. In this topsy-turvy, anything-goes season, perhaps this is the moment when he finally makes it happen.Why They Won’t: Inexperience. Booker, the team’s best player, has yet to get a taste of the postseason. The reality is that it’s asking a lot of a young group of players to make a very deep push in its first run through the playoffs, even if Paul is guiding the group.Denver Nuggets (27-18, entering Sunday)Why They’ll Win the Finals: Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray continue to evolve and improve, and the time is now for the team to capitalize. The Nuggets’ front office signaled as much at the trade deadline when it acquired Aaron Gordon and JaVale McGee, veterans who should help improve the team’s middling defense. Gordon also gives the Nuggets another scoring option.Why They Won’t: The Nuggets have been wildly inconsistent this season, and it didn’t help that they lost Jerami Grant and Mason Plumlee — two valuable role players — in free agency. Michael Porter Jr., who has surfaced as the team’s third scorer, has huge potential but has missed a lot of time and is still developing. More

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      The N.B.A. Trades That Did, and Did Not, Happen

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      Kyle Lowry and Lonzo Ball are staying put (for now), but Victor Oladipo, Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and others are on the move. Here’s what you need to know.Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry was heavily pursued by three of the N.B.A.’s presumed title contenders — Philadelphia, Miami and the Los Angeles Lakers — before Thursday’s trade deadline. Yet Lowry, on his 35th birthday, did not get traded.The Raptors’ decision to hold firm and keep Lowry, even though he will become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, was perhaps the biggest surprise of a frantic trade deadline day in which 16 reported deals were struck.After Toronto ultimately decided that none of the three primary bidders had met its demands for a trade package for Lowry, the league’s two Florida teams — Miami and Orlando — and the Denver Nuggets emerged from the deadline having made the most significant moves.A breakdown of Thursday’s most notable business:Why Kyle Lowry Is Still a RaptorLowry, widely regarded as the only player who both was likely to be traded this week and had the ability to affect the championship chase, acknowledged after the Raptors’ win Wednesday over the Nuggets that he might have played his last game with the franchise he helped win a title in 2018-19.Amid all of Thursday’s activity, Lowry’s fate remained the greatest source of intrigue. The Raptors appeared to be clearing roster space to take the Lowry offer they found most palatable by agreeing to three trades to send Matt Thomas to Utah, Terence Davis to Sacramento and the much-coveted Norman Powell to Portland for Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood.Then the deadline passed with no trade. The Heat were unwilling to include the highly rated guard Tyler Herro in their offers for Lowry, while the Lakers refused to include the blossoming scorer Talen Horton-Tucker, according to a person with knowledge of the talks who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. Other factors contributed to the nontrade: Any team trading for Lowry naturally wanted to be sure it could re-sign him this summer, and Raptors officials went into the deadline pledging to send Lowry only to a destination he approved.“We owe him that respect as a person,” Masai Ujiri, Toronto’s president of basketball operations, said Thursday night.The Toronto Raptors did trade a guard on Thursday, but it was Norman Powell, right, not Kyle Lowry, left.Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersToronto ultimately decided to take its chances with letting Lowry finish the season as a Raptor, with the hope that it can either sign him to a new deal in the summer or construct a sign-and-trade deal that prevents the Raptors from losing perhaps the most popular player in team history without compensation.Miami Pivots to Victor OladipoAfter its best Lowry offer was rebuffed by the Raptors, Miami turned instead to Houston to make a deal for Victor Oladipo, a two-time All-Star guard and another soon-to-be free agent, according to a person with knowledge of the trade who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The Heat also agreed to a trade with Sacramento for the versatile forward Nemanja Bjelica after acquiring the veteran swingman Trevor Ariza last week.As the deadline neared, Miami signaled it was out of the Lowry hunt by packaging the veterans Kelly Olynyk and Avery Bradley for Oladipo, as well as granting Houston the right to swap a 2022 first-round pick with Miami.After just two months as a Rocket, and still recovering from the serious leg injury that sidelined him for more than a year in Indiana, Oladipo did not generate nearly as much trade interest as Houston had hoped when it acquired him from the Pacers in January as part of the four-team blockbuster trade that sent James Harden to the Nets.Orlando Blows It All UpRavaged by injuries this season after a promising 4-0 start, Orlando broke from its reputation for operating in a measured fashion by aggressively embracing a rebuilding posture and trading away three players it has relied on heavily for years: center Nikola Vucevic, forward Aaron Gordon and guard Evan Fournier. Vucevic, the only 2021 All-Star dealt on Thursday, was traded to the Chicago Bulls. Gordon is bound for Denver, and Fournier is on his way to Boston.Nikola Vucevic to ChicagoAfter weeks of pessimism in rival front offices that Vucevic would be made available, Orlando gave deadline day an early jolt by packaging Vucevic and Al-Farouq Aminu to the Bulls for Wendell Carter Jr., Otto Porter Jr. and two future first-round picks. Chicago is eager to team Vucevic with Zach LaVine, another 2021 All-Star.Nikola Vucevic is headed to the Chicago Bulls.John Raoux/Associated PressAaron Gordon is headed to the Denver Nuggets.Julio Aguilar/Getty ImagesAaron Gordon to DenverDenver, coming off a trip to the Western Conference finals, fortified its roster for another playoff run by outbidding the Boston Celtics to strike a deal with the Magic for Gordon. The Nuggets, who also agreed to acquire the veteran center JaVale McGee from Cleveland in a separate deal, are sending the veteran swingman Gary Harris, the rookie guard R.J. Hampton and a future first-round pick to the Magic for Gordon and Gary Clark, according to a person with knowledge of the trades who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.Evan Fournier to BostonDespite missing out on Gordon, Boston made good on its vows to shake up its roster in the midst of a disappointing 21-23 season by sending two future second-round picks and the veteran guard Jeff Teague to Orlando for Fournier, according to a person with knowledge of the trade. The Celtics were better positioned than the Knicks and other interested teams to absorb Fournier’s $17 million salary because of a $28.5 million trade exception they created in a sign-and-trade deal to send Gordon Hayward to Charlotte in November. Such trade exceptions allow teams to take in extra salary in trades rather than adhere to the league’s usual salary-matching rules.The Hawks and Clippers Swap GuardsThe Los Angeles Clippers, who had interest in higher-profile point guards like Lowry and Lonzo Ball of the New Orleans Pelicans, addressed their need for more playmaking by striking a deal with the Atlanta Hawks to acquire the four-time All-Star Rajon Rondo.The Clippers had coveted Rondo in free agency last fall but lost out when Rondo signed a two-year, $15 million deal with the Hawks. The trade calls for the Clippers to send the high-scoring veteran guard Lou Williams and two future second-round picks to Atlanta for Rondo, who has missed games because of injury and made minimal impact as a Hawk.Lou Williams will bring some much-needed scoring to the Atlanta Hawks.Brandon Dill/Associated PressDeals, and No DealUnwilling to go overboard in its Lowry pursuit, Philadelphia found a different path to fortifying its backcourt by assembling a three-team trade with Oklahoma City and the Knicks to acquire George Hill of the Thunder. The trade cost the 76ers two future second-round picks to each team and will also route the Knicks’ Austin Rivers to the Thunder.Cleveland and San Antonio, as expected, were unable to find palatable trades for two former All-Stars with large contracts, Andre Drummond ($28.75 million) and LaMarcus Aldridge ($24 million). San Antonio immediately agreed to a contract buyout with Aldridge that will make him an unrestricted free agent if he clears waivers, with Drummond widely expected to follow the same path.The Nets did not find a trade for the injured Spencer Dinwiddie. Despite a likely season-ending knee injury, Dinwiddie is expected to decline his $12.3 million player option for next season and become a free agent, which had the Nets looking for a potential deal to add to their depth and to avoid losing Dinwiddie for nothing.It was the N.B.A.’s fourth consecutive deadline day to generate a double-digit number of trades. The frenzy hushed fears that the deadline would be quieter than usual in part because of the league’s new playoff format, which gives 10 teams a shot at the postseason instead of the longstanding norm of eight.Entering Thursday’s play, only four of the league’s 30 teams were more than four games out of contention for the No. 10 spot in each conference: Orlando, Detroit, Houston and Minnesota. Numerous league executives have said that, in past years, teams more naturally fell into place as buyers or sellers with fewer clubs in playoff contention. More