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      James Harden Is Headed Back to Houston. Too Bad He’s Not Staying.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballJames Harden Is Headed Back to Houston. Too Bad He’s Not Staying.Harden is in a groove with the Nets as they head to face his former Rockets team, which is struggling.James Harden returns to Houston reinvigorated and chatty about defense, while his former team is in the midst of a losing streak.Credit…Daniel Dunn/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMarch 3, 2021Updated 7:13 a.m. ETThe Nets haven’t achieved anything substantial yet. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the newcomer in their star trio, James Harden, haven’t even played 200 minutes together yet.As flammable as the new Nets have looked at their best, in such an inviting Eastern Conference, what we’ve seen so far does not assure the three alphas and their rookie coach, Steve Nash, of meaningful future success.One notable exception: Harden’s return to Houston on Wednesday, 50 days after his last game there, is certain to be triumphant.Entering his first visit to Toyota Center since the weekslong mutiny he staged to persuade the Rockets to trade him, with his former team in the throes of a relentless losing streak, Harden appears reinvigorated, almost reborn, in the wake of the divorce. That was evident on Monday night in San Antonio, where Harden racked up 30 points, 14 rebounds and 15 assists — without a turnover — in an overtime victory against the Spurs.“He can literally do almost everything there is to do out there,” Nash said.Harden has been on his best behavior as a Net, embracing a much more watchable share-the-ball approach with a vigor some skeptics thought he no longer had at age 31. The result: Harden’s reputation has rebounded dramatically, with a swiftness and flair few predicted when the Rockets shipped him to Brooklyn in mid-January.I say “few” because there were some, as confirmed when I went back and reread my post-trade analysis. I quoted a Western Conference executive who felt that Harden-bashers in the news media, including the guy who curates this newsletter, had gotten so lost in Harden’s various acts of sabotage that we had turned him into the league’s most underrated player.The executive’s point, if somewhat theatrical, resonates pretty strongly now. As natural, and fair, as it was to fixate on the desultory manner in which Harden essentially quit on the Rockets, it was too readily forgotten that he remains an offensive force almost without peer. With these Nets, everyone, including Irving, saw it immediately: Harden had to have the ball.Kyrie Irving and James Harden have blended their games in the way that quickly became the clear solution: by giving the ball to Harden.Credit…Al Bello/Getty ImagesThe notion that he was some sort of luxury addition greeted Harden when he joined the two incumbent scoring machines at Barclays Center. The Nets then assembled an eight-game winning streak last month, with Durant — his spectacular comeback from a torn right Achilles’ tendon suddenly interrupted by a pesky hamstring strain — playing in only one of those games. Irving is on pace to shoot above 50 percent from the floor (.514) for the first time, and he routinely dazzles with his shotmaking, but by mid-February he was openly referring to Harden, rather than himself, as the Nets’ point guard.It’s why Harden is now more commonly described as a durable, dependable necessity who, in the Nets’ dream scenario, just might make them so dynamic offensively that they don’t have to sweat their shortcomings in depth and on defense. He has seven triple-doubles in 22 games and, on the way to Houston on Tuesday, he was named Eastern Conference player of the month.Rockets fans, of course, won’t need the up-close reminder of Wednesday’s game against the Nets to slam home the reality that The Beard is no longer theirs. They feel it every night.Everything this franchise did revolved around Harden for eight seasons. Without him? While Harden was shredding the Spurs, Houston was absorbing its 12th consecutive defeat, squandering a chance to bring a halt to the skid against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are now 14-21.Still reeling from the news that the city’s beloved football star J.J. Watt had just signed with the Arizona Cardinals, Houston has too many problems these days to know where to look first. The injury-hit Rockets have gone winless since Feb. 4, when their best player this season, Christian Wood, was sidelined by a sprained right ankle. Five of those 12 defeats came by at least 20 points — including a 49-point humiliation at home against Memphis on Sunday.The Rockets are caught between a need to lose for optimum draft position, as they begin a period of heavy reliance on the draft, and the emotional toll of getting reacquainted with losing for the first time in years. This franchise last endured a sub-.500 season in 2005-06, only to get a head start on this season’s theme through a steady stream of high-profile departures that began last September. First it was Coach Mike D’Antoni, then General Manager Daryl Morey, then Russell Westbrook and ultimately Harden.There will probably be more, too, with the March 25 trade deadline looming. The Rockets are weighing whether to shop Victor Oladipo, the former All-Star guard who arrived from Indiana in the four-team Harden blockbuster. The bruising forward P.J. Tucker, one of the few remaining holdovers from a run with Harden that delivered two trips to the Western Conference finals, three scoring titles and one Most Valuable Player Award — but no championships — is eagerly awaiting his own exit in the coming days and a new start with a contender. John Wall replaced Westbrook but watched his close friend and fellow former All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins, negotiate his release last month, so Cousins, too, could search for a job with a playoff-bound team.The Nets’ three big stars haven’t spent much time all together on the court, but individually, and in pairs, they have turned the team into one of the league’s greatest offenses.Credit…Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesTeardowns are never pretty, but this one has even more layers than usual because it wasn’t the only option. The Rockets, remember, could have traded Harden to the 76ers for Ben Simmons, but rumblings persist that Tilman Fertitta, Houston’s owner, pushed for the Nets’ deal built heavily on draft compensation in part because he could not bear to send Harden to Philadelphia, where Morey landed after their frosty parting. Amid the Nets’ surge to No. 1 in the N.B.A. in offensive efficiency (117.9 points per 100 possessions) and the Knicks’ unforeseen rise to No. 4 in the cushier Eastern Conference, I hope you haven’t missed last month’s other major development in the East: Simmons has responded to the sting of bracing himself for a trade to Texas with the best two-way basketball of his life.Last week, Simmons smothered Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks in a way that pretty much nobody else has managed. Simmons hounded Doncic for five of the Dallas star’s seven turnovers in a nationally televised game on TNT. That followed impressive clampings of Portland’s Damian Lillard and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell.“I like taking those challenges,” Simmons said. “Just tell me who to guard.”Ever since I watched Simmons make his case for the Defensive Player of the Year Award so forcefully against Doncic, with his offense also picking up, I’ve been thinking about the Rockets a lot. I was part of the December and January chorus touting Simmons as the ideal return in a Harden deal for Houston’s new front office, led by General Manager Rafael Stone. Now Simmons looks even more like the young franchise cornerstone that Houston had convinced so many rival teams it was holding out for in a Harden deal.For all the inevitable curiosity about what sort of reaction Harden will get from an expected crowd of roughly 4,000 Houstonians, only one question really matters for the Rockets: Did they make the right trade? They can rightfully say it’s too early for final judgments, but the answer, thanks to both Harden and Simmons, is not trending in their direction.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeSome fans wanted Kyle Lowry to play for and coach the Toronto Raptors, but it wasn’t to be.Credit…Todd Kirkland/Associated PressYou 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.(Responses may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Fun read on Luka Doncic and Larry Bird. But I do have one quibble. You wrote:Another key contrast: Doncic didn’t land with a franchise as close to title contention as Bird and, in Year 3, finds himself in his most challenging stretch since he reached the N.B.A.There is a problem with that statement. Bird joined the Celtics in 1979-80 and immediately led them to a 61-win season after the team went 29-53. They won 32 games the season before that. I’m a lifelong Knicks fan, but I have also long recognized that Bird made his team dramatically better right away and for the duration of his time there. — Bill Dailey (Rye, N.Y.)Stein: You are not the only one, Bill, voicing opposition to this sentence. I worded it without the requisite clarity and, as you suggested, definitely shortchanged Bird for the staggering improvement he inspired in his rookie season in Boston. But I’m going to push back on the idea that Bird alone put Boston back in the title mix, because the Celtics did have some things going for them in 1979-80 that you wouldn’t normally associate with a franchise coming off a 29-win season:Dave Cowens and Tiny Archibald were future Hall of Famers and still quality starters, albeit late in their careers, when Bird showed up. Cowens and Archibald clearly could no longer lead a good team at that point, but Bird accentuated (and benefited from) their veteran know-how.Cedric Maxwell, who inspired last week’s Doncic/Bird piece, was in his third N.B.A. season in 1979-80. The next year, Maxwell won the finals’ most valuable player honors. Dirk Nowitzki was in his 21st N.B.A. season when Doncic was a rookie; none of Doncic’s other teammates has looked like a future Hall of Famer or finals M.V.P.The Celtics had enough draft picks stashed, before Bird played a game, to swing the league-altering trade with Golden State in June 1980 that brought Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to Boston. Before that trade, remember, Red Auerbach also won a power struggle with the Celtics’ owner John Y. Brown that kept Auerbach — perhaps the most successful team-builder in the sport’s history — from leaving Boston to take over the Knicks. Brown sold his stake in the team to go into politics, and Auerbach stayed to make the moves that flanked Bird with McHale and Parish.When you take all that into account, I’d argue that the Celtics were indeed much closer to title contention than the two seasons pre-Bird would have suggested — and certainly closer than Doncic’s Mavericks. Don’t forget that only three of the East’s 11 teams in Bird’s first season had winning records. Philadelphia was a perennial power, but Milwaukee’s ascension, which made the East much more competitive, came later.Q: Tree Rollins was a player/coach for Orlando in 1995. — @theregoeshappy from TwitterStein: This tweet came in response to the history lesson we reviewed on Friday about player/coaches in the N.B.A.Despite the Rollins reference, players’ doubling as head coaches, even on an interim basis, was indeed deemed impermissible by the league office starting in the 1984-85 season after the N.B.A. implemented its first salary cap. The league wanted to ensure that teams could not circumvent the limits and provide extra compensation to players, since coaches’ salaries are not governed by the salary cap.Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, in other words, was not eligible to be the Raptors’ interim player/coach when Nick Nurse could not coach because of virus-related health concerns — no matter how badly N.B.A. Twitter was rooting for that to happen.Some of the game’s greatest players served as player-head coach before the salary cap era, including Bill Russell, Lenny Wilkens, Dave DeBusschere, Bob Pettit and Bob Cousy. The last player who doubled as player and head coach in the N.B.A. was Boston’s Dave Cowens in the 1978-79 season.Rollins functioned as a player-assistant coach for his last two seasons as an active player in Orlando, 1993-94 and 1994-95, but he appeared on the Magic’s payroll as a player in both cases and, again, would not have been allowed to serve as the head coach if asked.Q: The Bucks at roughly the same point last year were 27-4 and had 15 double-digit wins. And the discussion was whether Khris Middleton would make the All-Star team as the Bucks’ second-best player. There was not even a discussion about Eric Bledsoe, who had similar numbers to Utah’s Mike Conley. I don’t think that Milwaukee team warranted a third All-Star, and I don’t think Conley should make it, either. I just don’t understand the double standard. — @JoohnSn from TwitterStein: This reader is questioning why I publicly lobbied for Utah to have three All-Stars this season. I can’t speak for every All-Star voter. I can only share the principles I use when I make my (unofficial) All-Star picks, which are similar to the principles I and many other voters apply in M.V.P. voting. In short: Every season is a story unto itself. The circumstances are never the same, especially on the All-Star front, so what may have applied one year doesn’t automatically apply later.When choosing All-Star reserves, just like when trying rank five candidates on an M.V.P. ballot, many voters are trying to pinpoint who has assembled the strongest “best season” cases to that point of the schedule. I don’t think All-Star voters should be getting bogged down by the granular details about previous years when they make their selections. The number of worthy All-Star contenders in each conference fluctuates season to season, which is partly how Atlanta got four All-Star reserves in 2014-15.I said Utah should have three All-Stars this season because the Jazz have been a runaway force in numerous statistical categories. Whether Milwaukee had three worthy All-Star candidates last season, or if you found it fair or unfair that the Hawks landed their four All-Star reserves six years ago, those seasons are largely immaterial to this discussion.I made the case, in print and on Twitter, that Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Conley should claim three of the West’s seven All-Star reserve spots this season because of both Utah’s first-half excellence and the outstanding individual production all three have given the Jazz. I likewise did that lobbying, as stated from the outset, as one last pre-emptive hat tip, because I was expecting Conley to be snubbed and for Utah to get only two All-Stars.There was no double standard at play, just one man’s opinion and voting approach. Western Conference coaches, who picked the reserves, clearly joined you in disagreeing with me.Numbers GameLloyd Pierce was fired as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks on Monday. He was one of seven Black N.B.A. coaches.Credit…Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesStats entering Tuesday night’s games..402Tuesday marked one full year on the job for Leon Rose as the Knicks’ team president. The Knicks are 18-17, better than many pundits predicted, but the history stacked against Rose is foreboding: This is the 20th season of James L. Dolan’s ownership, during which the Knicks are 661-982 — resulting in the league’s lowest winning percentage in that span, at .402.3The three best regular-season winning percentages during Dolan’s reign belong to the three Texas teams: San Antonio’s .688 (1,131-512), Dallas’s .599 (988-662) and Houston’s .576 (949-698).19.8When the Knicks selected Obi Toppin with the No. 8 pick in November’s draft, Toppin was billed as Julius Randle’s potential successor in the frontcourt. Instead Randle, who has a very friendly team option for next season at $19.8 million, will play Sunday in his first All-Star Game. Without warning, Randle has emerged as the offensive fulcrum for Coach Tom Thibodeau, who is the closest thing to a marquee signing the Knicks made in the off-season.5The former Knicks team president Dave Checketts will join Burnley’s board of directors in June and make it the fifth club in the 20-team English Premier League club with an N.B.A. connection at ownership level. Arsenal is owned by Stan Kroenke, whose son, Josh, is the Denver Nuggets’ governor and team president and also serves on Arsenal’s board. Aston Villa is co-owned by Wes Edens, one of the primary owners of the Milwaukee Bucks. Crystal Palace is owned by the Philadelphia 76ers’ duo of Josh Harris and David Blitzer. And the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James has been a minority owner of Liverpool since 2011.16The diversity of the N.B.A.’s big-picture landscape remained largely unchanged after coaching moves in Minnesota and Atlanta over the past nine days. Of the league’s top 60 positions, only 16 are held by nonwhite coaches and heads of front offices.With a player pool estimated at more than 75 percent Black, the league has just seven Black head coaches. Nate McMillan has replaced the ousted Lloyd Pierce in Atlanta as the Hawks’ interim coach and joined Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit’s Dwane Casey, Houston’s Stephen Silas, Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers, Phoenix’s Monty Williams and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Tyronn Lue.Charlotte’s James Borrego, who is Mexican-American, and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, who is Filipino-American, are the league’s other two coaches of color.The six Black executives with lead decision-making authority in the front office are Cleveland’s Koby Altman, Detroit’s Troy Weaver, Houston’s Rafael Stone, Phoenix’s James Jones, San Antonio’s Brian Wright and Toronto’s Masai Ujiri. Minnesota’s Gersson Rosas was the first Latino in league history to run a team’s basketball operations.Rosas hired Chris Finch, who is white and had worked with him in Houston, to replace Ryan Saunders as head coach of the Timberwolves on Feb. 22. Rosas has faced considerable criticism for hiring Finch, an assistant coach from the Toronto Raptors, in the middle of the season rather than promoting David Vanterpool, who is Black, from within, or commissioning a wider search. In the front office, Rosas has hired two Indian-Americans, Sachin Gupta and Robby Sikka, and Joe Branch, a Black former player agent.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      C. Vivian Stringer Is the Thread Between the W.N.B.A.’s Emerging Stars

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyC. Vivian Stringer Is the Thread Between the W.N.B.A.’s Emerging StarsThe Liberty’s Betnijah Laney and Erica Wheeler of the Los Angeles Sparks are coming into their own after winding paths with a key intersection: Stringer’s coaching at Rutgers.Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer is known for her “55” defense, with all five players involved in full-court pressure.Credit…Gail Burton/Associated PressMarch 1, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ETErica Wheeler still remembers vividly what Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer, standing in the Wheelers’ home, told Wheeler’s mother would happen if her daughter came to play for her.“She told my mom, ‘She won’t just be a basketball player,’” Wheeler recalled of the conversation between Stringer and Wheeler’s mother, Melissa Cooper, who died in 2012. “‘She’s going to know how to speak in front of the camera, she’s going to know etiquette, she’s going to know how to carry herself, and she’s going to be a young woman when she graduates college.’”Wheeler, who turns 30 in May, has worked to become the woman Stringer promised Cooper she would be. She has shown a toughness that has carried her on her professional journey to 14 teams overseas after she wasn’t selected in the W.N.B.A. draft, to regular playing time with the Indiana Fever and now a multiyear deal with the Los Angeles Sparks.A parallel story unfolded in the life of Betnijah Laney, 27, in her case a second-generation Stringer player. Laney’s mother, Yolanda Laney, took Stringer’s Cheyney State program to a pair of Final Fours, playing at a level Stringer said would have made her the top pick in the W.N.B.A. draft had the league existed when she graduated.Instead, Yolanda became a lawyer and poured her basketball knowledge into Betnijah, who came to know Stringer like a second mother and chose to play for her as well, at Rutgers. Betnijah Laney, like Wheeler, struggled to find a foothold in the W.N.B.A., getting cut twice before blossoming with the Atlanta Dream in 2020 and winning the league’s Most Improved Player Award. This off-season, she signed a multiyear deal with the Liberty, and she is expected to take on a key role for a revamped team featuring guard Sabrina Ionescu and the newly acquired center Natasha Howard.That’s not to say that Laney’s familiarity with Stringer — from basketball camps where Yolanda coached and visits during family vacations — protected Laney from what she described as “moments she’s testing you mentally.”Betnijah Laney blossomed with the Atlanta Dream in 2020 after struggling to gain a foothold in the W.N.B.A.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“You’re either going to come along,” Laney added, “or get left back.”That’s part of the bargain, too, one that both Laney and Wheeler credit for giving them the strength to persevere through some early setbacks in their professional lives. It’s a common Rutgers story: An overlooked Stringer player sticks around and proves herself in the league. Such was the case for Chelsea Newton, picked 22nd over all in the 2005 draft before making an all-rookie team and, two years later, an all-defensive team, and for Tammy Sutton-Brown, who was picked 18th in the 2001 draft and became a two-time All-Star.But Stringer isn’t certain whether a Rutgers player is born or made. She didn’t even set out to recruit Wheeler, before getting a close look at the 5-foot-7 sparkplug in the huddle at an A.A.U. tournament. Wheeler’s teammates had their heads down after the opposing team made a run, but Wheeler was in their faces, reminding them of what they could do.When Wheeler took her official recruitment visit to Rutgers, Stringer wanted to make sure that A.A.U. version of Wheeler would be a part of the package.“I said, ‘Can you speak truth to power?’” Stringer said. “‘Because you’re going to be a freshman. Can you say the things you need to say, as a member of this team?’”Wheeler assured her that she could. Soon, Wheeler’s mother called Stringer while the coach was on vacation at Walt Disney World, and delivered the news for her daughter, asking Stringer to “make her tough, so that she can tackle the world.”It was different for Laney, who had all but decided to play for Sherri Coale at Oklahoma instead. But a phone call from Stringer, Laney said, reminded her: “I know this woman. I’m sure that she’ll take care of me, that she’s going to be everything that I need in a coach.”Laney and Wheeler played together under Stringer for two seasons. Laney knew what to expect because of her mother’s experience, but Wheeler had a rough adjustment period. Stringer asked Wheeler, a longtime shooting guard, to learn to play the point in her sophomore year. Playing time was scarce as she struggled with the new position. Wheeler said she considered transferring.Stringer is known for setting high standards for her players at Rutgers.Credit…Benjamin Solomon/Getty ImagesBut both Wheeler and Laney spoke highly of Stringer’s trademark intensity, and her approach to helping them overcome physical and mental barriers — “breaking them down to build them back up,” Stringer would say, meaning constantly questioning them to make them think and to act with purpose.Stringer recalled Wheeler vociferously objecting to a rare time that Stringer went easy during conditioning drills. Wheeler insisted that she and her teammates finish. And Laney offered to switch positions from the 3 to the 4, simply because, as she explained it to Stringer, “she was the one who could get those 10 rebounds a game we needed.” And she did, averaging 10.7 per game in her senior year.Wheeler and Laney have stayed in close contact since college, with the two texting each other encouragement throughout their free-agent processes, and connecting by FaceTime after each one signed a new contract. And they are there for current Rutgers players. Guard Arella Guirantes, who Stringer said should be the top pick in the 2021 draft, said she hears from Wheeler and Laney all the time.“We like to call it a secret society,” Guirantes said. “Because we understand: You come here, you hold yourself to a standard, really. And those who we have in the league now, we always have our sisters.”That standard led to the Sparks signing Wheeler this off-season to take over starting point guard duties, after she increased her assist percentage for three straight seasons. But Wheeler did not play in the 2020 season after learning she had Covid-19, with complications leading to fluid around her heart. She tested positive for the coronavirus in the spring but wasn’t cleared to resume playing basketball, she said, until October.Erica Wheeler was named the most valuable player in the 2019 W.N.B.A. All-Star Game.Credit…Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesIt was Stringer’s voice in her head reminding her that she could overcome this as she had so much else. Stringer’s voice, too, reverberates in Laney’s head every time she gets into a defensive stance, the fruit of years of drills and operating in Stringer’s famous “55” defense, where all five players are engaged in full-court pressure.The coach’s voice is clear in their minds off the court, too. Wheeler said she could hear Stringer when she achieved her goal last year of buying a house by the time she turned 30. And she channels Stringer whenever her foundation, the Wheeler Kid Foundation, holds another basketball clinic.Is she as demanding of the young players as Stringer is on Rutgers players?“No, I’m not that hard on them,” Wheeler began. But then she sounded an awful lot like her former coach. “I do demand a certain presence when you’re in my camp. When you’re not willing to work, or you want to joke around, you can get out of my gym.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Leon Rose Approach: Way Too Quiet, But Effective for Knicks (So Far)

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyon PRO BasketballThe Leon Rose Approach: Way Too Quiet, But Effective for Knicks (So Far)As the team president for the past year, Rose has let the Knicks’ on-court flickers of progress do most of his talking.Leon Rose, center, a former player agent, attended his first game as the Knicks’ team president, above, on March 2, 2020.Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated PressFeb. 28, 2021Updated 8:26 p.m. ETThe Knicks had just sullied their better than expected start with a loss at home to the Miami Heat, but the more pressing topic on Feb. 7 was a looming trade. A deal with the Detroit Pistons was about to position the Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau to coach Derrick Rose for the third time.The trade, though, was not yet official, so Thibodeau was not yet ready to discuss the player’s arrival with reporters — not even after their happy stints together in Chicago and Minnesota.“In terms of the roster, that’s a Leon question,” Thibodeau said, referring interest in the topic to Leon Rose, the Knicks’ team president.It was quite the deflection from the defense-loving coach.Leon Rose, you see, makes himself available to field media queries about as scarcely as any N.B.A. executive running a front office ever has. Tuesday will be one full year on the job for Rose, who didn’t even hold an introductory news conference. Apart from a brief interview with the team’s play-by-play man, Mike Breen, on the MSG Network in June 2020, Rose has only once spoken to reporters, during the team’s Zoom session in July 2020 to formally announce Thibodeau’s hiring.A public sense of Rose’s vision for how to build a team, how he plans to lead the Knicks back to sustained prominence for the first time since the 1990s, thus remains murky.Our request for Rose to break from that policy for this article was predictably declined by a team spokesman — even as the Rose regime, presiding over one of the league’s first-half surprise teams, has some good things to trumpet. Few predicted that these Knicks would contend for a postseason berth, but the present is going well enough that Rose has faced scant pressure to expound on the moves he has made or on his future plans.“I see orange-and-blue skies again,” the filmmaker Spike Lee, who is known as one of the Knicks’ biggest fans, said in a telephone interview. “I’m very, very encouraged.”Perhaps this is one time he should be. On March 2, 2020, Rose attended his first game in his new role, but the Knicks’ victory over Houston — in their 61st of 66 games in a coronavirus-interrupted season — was overshadowed by a messy dispute between the team’s owner, James L. Dolan, and Lee over the entrance that he used at Madison Square Garden. This March: Julius Randle’s breakout season earned him a spot in next Sunday’s All-Star Game; Thibodeau’s schemes and throaty exhortations have steered the Knicks to the league’s third-ranked defense; and tangible positivity is bubbling about the possibility of the team securing just its fifth playoff berth during Dolan’s 20 seasons in charge.It also helps that after seven consecutive nonplayoff seasons, Rose has presided over more hits than misses so far. That starts with the hiring of Thibodeau, whose demanding style has clicked more seamlessly than anticipated with an inexperienced roster. The Knicks entered Sunday’s game at Detroit at 17-17, which was good enough not only for a share of fourth place in the Eastern Conference, but also to shift focus away from Dolan, last season’s dreadful headlines about his clashing with Lee and the much-panned hiring of Steve Stoute as a branding consultant.“Knick fans, we’re optimistic,” Lee said. “We see hope. We haven’t seen that in a while.”Within the N.B.A., most observers say it would be unfair to grade Rose on one year of work even if the Knicks (with 13 of their 17 wins against sub-.500 teams) weren’t capitalizing on the East’s famously forgiving nature. Rose’s detractors, or skeptics of his ability to succeed in the transition from player agent at Creative Artists Agency to team builder with no front-office experience, surely see he deserves more time to shape the roster.An urge to say that the Knicks erred in November by drafting Obi Toppin at No. 8 over all rather than taking the electric guard Tyrese Haliburton, who went at No. 12 to Sacramento, is tempered by the possibility that Rose may also have unearthed a true sleeper by acquiring the rights to the No. 25 overall pick, Immanuel Quickley, who (sorry, can’t resist) quickly established himself as a fan favorite. The Knicks made a hard push in free agency to sign Gordon Hayward — at Thibodeau’s urging — but won plaudits when they did not overreact after Hayward chose Charlotte. Rose maintained the financial flexibility to be a player in free agency this summer instead.Although that free-agent class will not be as inviting as once thought, after several stars signed contract extensions before this season, hopeful vibes are unexpectedly circulating ahead of schedule. Thibodeau’s New York team is bunched record-wise with established teams like Toronto, Miami and Boston, despite up-and-down play from RJ Barrett, the Knicks’ top draft choice in 2019, and a broken hand sustained by the athletic center Mitchell Robinson.The newly acquired guard Derrick Rose, driving against the Kings’ De’Aaron Fox, top left, has bolstered a roster that lacks playmaking and perimeter shooting.Credit…John Minchillo/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe trade for Derrick Rose initially inspired fears that Quickley’s development could suffer, on top of Toppin’s slow start and the apparent gaffes of previous regimes, which burned top-10 picks on Kevin Knox (two spots ahead of Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) and Frank Ntilikina (five spots ahead of Utah’s Donovan Mitchell and six ahead of Miami’s Bam Adebayo). Yet Derrick Rose, in his second stint as a Knick, has settled well to strengthen a roster that lacks playmaking and perimeter shooting. Some of the snickering that would typically greet Thibodeau’s reunion with Rose, his former first option in Chicago, has been drowned out by what Thibodeau is coaxing out of a group that finished 23rd in defensive efficiency last season.“Like all the great Knick teams, they’re playing defense,” Lee said.Yet one suspects that the sunny outlook, even among the Knicks’ long-term loyalists, is fleeting — especially with the Nets seemingly collecting superstars for sport across New York’s East River.Rose, who The New York Times reported in November earns an estimated $8 million annually, and his top aide, William Wesley, who is known as Worldwide Wes, will ultimately be judged on how swiftly they can deliver at least one player in the talent ZIP code of the Nets’ Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving. If the Nets play to their potential and emerge as true title contenders, sticking to Rose’s current methodical approach, sensible as it sounds, will take discipline the Knicks aren’t exactly known for.The media strategy, in the interim, appears to be letting the on-court flickers of progress (and Thibodeau) do the talking. Rose and Wesley are accustomed to operating this way after maintaining very low profiles during their C.A.A. days, but it actually takes the franchise back in some ways to pre-Dolan times. Pat Riley and then Jeff Van Gundy were the frontmen as coaches, largely because of the star center Patrick Ewing’s aversion to the spotlight.When Toppin became the first draft pick of this new era, Rose limited the sharing of his thought process behind the selection to a written statement that said little more than “Obi was someone we really coveted.” When the Knicks were criticized for their apparent infatuation with players represented by C.A.A. or Kentucky alumni who had played for John Calipari, who is close to both Rose and Wesley, it was left to Thibodeau to insist that it’s “more coincidental” than the news media suggests.In a letter to season-ticket holders a year ago, Rose wrote: “Nothing about this is easy, or quick, so I ask for your continued patience. What I promise you in return is that I will be honest and forthright.” The reality, of course, is that forthrightness has never been a hallmark of Dolan’s ownership, but who is going to complain apart from sportswriters when the Knicks are playing like plucky overachievers?If this is really the start of something — if Rose has staying power after all the false dawns that have felled supposed saviors on the court (Amare Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis) and off (Donnie Walsh, Mike D’Antoni and Phil Jackson) — only the scribes are bound to remember Rose’s letter from when he got to Gotham.Lee insisted, furthermore, that the fans understand why they are so rarely briefed.“You know where that’s coming from,” Lee said. “That’s an edict from up top. I’m not happy about it, but there’s someone else calling those shots. We’re used to it by now. And he’s not selling the team, so what are we going to do?”“Orange-and-blue skies,” Lee added with a laugh.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jewell Loyd Is in the Gym, Building Her Game and a Community

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      WNBA Champion Jewell Loyd at The Warehouse outside of Chicago.Credit…Nolis Anderson for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexJewell Loyd Is in the Gym, Building Her Game and a CommunityA trying year, on and off the court, helped Loyd finally embrace herself as an elite Black female athlete.WNBA Champion Jewell Loyd at The Warehouse outside of Chicago.Credit…Nolis Anderson for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 27, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThe Warehouse gym is a little off the beaten track, plopped south of an interstate highway, behind a hidden road.“You have to be kind of a real O.G. baller to know where it is,” Jewell Loyd said.Loyd, fresh off a second W.N.B.A. championship with the Seattle Storm, is that type of baller.The gym, in Northbrook, Ill., hosts one of the many courts where Loyd honed the game that earned her the nickname “Gold Mamba” from Kobe Bryant. It’s home to the courts where, years earlier, she and her brother, Jarryd Loyd, witnessed future pros like Dee Brown and Iman Shumpert nurturing their skills during lively pickup games and lengthy training sessions.Over the years, as the siblings journeyed and established themselves professionally, the Warehouse loosened its grip as a community beacon. “The gym lost its importance, in our opinion, to the community, I would say probably a decade ago,” said Jarryd, who played in college at Valparaiso before embarking on an overseas professional career.The siblings had been looking into buying a gym when Jarryd received an alert on his cellphone that the Warehouse had hit the market. The pair, along with a couple of private investors, are negotiating to buy it, envisioning the space as a renewed incubator for future generations of ballers in the know.The commitment goes beyond money.“It’s a safe space,” Jewell Loyd said. “It’s really for the community. I want to make sure that people have a chance to do what I’m doing, and it starts with a dream. And if you can build that dream in a place that you get constantly reminded that you can achieve it, I think that’s the beautiful thing about the building.”Loyd is at a pivotal time in her life, after a trying year on and off the court in 2020. A few seasons back, she pinpointed this winter as an opportunity for a break from her overseas career, predicting that she would need time off after the Tokyo Olympics.The Olympics, delayed by the pandemic, haven’t happened yet. Still, the planned breather came at an ideal time: Loyd’s mentor, Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash in January 2020. Then the W.N.B.A. played out its season in the isolation of a bubble environment in Florida, dedicating the year to Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed by the police in Louisville, Ky.“In the end, it wasn’t easy being in there,” Breanna Stewart, Loyd’s Seattle teammate, said of the bubble at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. “Basketball 24/7 — and we both love basketball — but when it’s all you see, and you see the same people over and over and over again, it can get very redundant.”She added: “Jewell and I are ones that love to be in the gym. And so to constantly see each other in the gym was what helped motivate us individually and then us as a team.”Seattle Storm players Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd and Mercedes Russell raised their team flag on the roof of the Space Needle in Seattle after winning the championship in October.Credit…Ted S. Warren/Associated PressThe finals presented Loyd with a redo. The last time Seattle had been there, when they beat the Washington Mystics in 2018, she hadn’t played poorly, but she was inconsistent. “I actually was very disappointed, even though we won a championship, in how I played,” Loyd said. “You might think that’s selfish, but knowing that I felt like I could do more than what I did.”“There were certain spots I didn’t feel like myself,” she added.In past seasons, Storm Coach Dan Hughes counseled Loyd to not be so hard on herself, that the chips wouldn’t always fall her way.Loyd started working with a life coach and a sports psychologist. She learned to visualize herself in familiar situations, to focus and breathe, to know that a jumper taken in the finals was no different from the one she had taken a million times in the solitude of a gym like the Warehouse.“The physical stuff is easy,” Loyd said. “You can always just push through, but mentally, sometimes, it’s hard to get out of your own way.”At around the same time Loyd retreated to the her league’s bubble, Phil Handy, an assistant coach with the N.B.A.’s Los Angeles Lakers, went to his. Handy had trained with Loyd and would send her video clips, while encouraging her to stay present throughout each game.“The mental part is all about understanding the work that you’ve done and then having confidence in that work,” Handy said, adding, “Mentally, you’re already locked in because you already studied for the test.”Loyd said dedicating the season to Taylor helped her to fully embrace herself as an elite Black, female athlete.“Sometimes you get distracted from it,” Loyd said. “You know it’s there. You know what it’s about. You know that other kids have been mistreated, but you don’t always necessarily speak out on it, just because you’re a kid, you don’t know any better, whatever. But it seems now where you have to speak out about it to educate our next generation.”Loyd averaged 17.8 points, 5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game as Seattle swept its six playoff games against Minnesota and Las Vegas.Loyd had 8 points during Game 2 of the W.N.B.A. finals.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“She knew who she was, she knew what she stood for and she did that,” said Stewart, the M.V.P. of the finals. “She didn’t have to think about anything else, except, ‘This is what I do, and I’m Jewell Loyd.’ And that’s how she should be, because she’s one of the best players in the country and in the world.”The W.N.B.A. finals culminated with a 92-59 coronating victory over the Las Vegas Aces. Loyd dedicated her second title to Kobe and Gianna Bryant.“That’s the one time during the season where you can actually take a breath, is knowing that it’s done,” Loyd said. “It’s over. We did it. It’s such a great feeling.”Loyd returned home to Illinois. She is enrolled at DePaul University, honoring the vow she made to her family when she left Notre Dame following her junior season to declare for the 2015 draft. She comes from a family of educators. “If in fact she were to get hurt and can’t play anymore, what are you going to do?” said her mother, Gwendolyn Davis-Loyd, a retired elementary schoolteacher. “That’s always been the philosophy.”But Loyd said: “I think college isn’t for everyone, especially when you’re a creative, when you’re an artist and there’s other ways to learn. Sometimes college is very traditional, right to the book, and that doesn’t work for everybody.“So, half of me is understanding that sometimes you’ve got to do things that you don’t want to do.”Davis-Loyd chuckled that her daughter now sits on corporate boards, while still attending classes for biology and public speaking. As a child, Loyd learned that she had dyslexia; her deliberate march toward a degree reflects dogged perseverance.“There’s also part of me that it’s frustrating to go back to school and kind of do the same thing that happened, and kind of go through the college experience of working with my learning disability and doing all that stuff again,” Loyd said. “Just kind of gives me anxiety at times, too, but we’ll get through it.”In the last few months, Loyd has deepened her friendship with Nets guard Kyrie Irving, also a Bryant disciple, as they focus on philanthropic and community endeavors.“We believe that Kobe brought us together to do good work and to live out his legacy and pass it down,” Loyd said. “We want to do our best to do that as much as we can, as often as we can to help the next generation.”Loyd and Bryant embraced at the 2019 W.N.B.A. All-Star game.Credit…Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThose efforts include acquiring the Warehouse. Jarryd Loyd said the siblings hope to infuse technology into the gym by using data to guide shot selection and adding interactive gaming to make learning basketball’s intricacies more fun.All the while, Loyd is already spending hours training at the Warehouse, a place full of memories.“The women coming into the league have gotten better,” Loyd said. “People are actually training. People are actually building on their games. And it’s not just all technically, fundamentally sound basketball. The draft picks that come in, they’re ready to go. And even in college, you see players are getting better, handles are getting better, their shot, everything.”She added, “Everyone has to step up their game.”Jarryd critiques his sister’s game as perhaps only a big brother can, saying that she can still improve her playmaking, shooting percentage and getting to the rim.On a scale of 10? “I think really she’s still at a five to be honest,” Jarryd said. “I think she has another five gears to go in her growth as a player.”Considering Jewell Loyd has made two All-Star games, that is a scary thought for the rest of the league.“That’s really what is about,” she said. “How much can you push yourself?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      N.B.A. Investigating After Jeremy Lin Said He Was Called ‘Coronavirus’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. Investigating After Jeremy Lin Said He Was Called ‘Coronavirus’Lin, who is Taiwanese-American, said on social media that he had been called “coronavirus” on the court. He has been playing in the N.B.A.’s developmental league.“Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called ‘coronavirus’ on the court,” Lin wrote in a post on social media.Credit…Chiang Ying-Ying/Associated PressFeb. 27, 2021, 12:05 a.m. ETThe N.B.A. G League said on Friday that it was investigating a report by Jeremy Lin, one of the best-known Asian-American players in basketball, that he had been called “coronavirus” on the court.Lin disclosed the slur in a Facebook post on Thursday in which he denounced the racism and discrimination faced by Asian-Americans. It was a prominent example of the rising tide of bigotry that many Asian-Americans say they have endured since last year, when former President Donald J. Trump began describing the coronavirus as the “China virus.”“Being an Asian American doesn’t mean we don’t experience poverty and racism,” wrote Lin, who plays for the Golden State Warriors’ affiliate in the G League, the N.B.A.’s developmental league. “Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called ‘coronavirus’ on the court. Being a man of faith doesn’t mean I don’t fight for justice, for myself and for others.”A league spokesman confirmed that an investigation had been opened, but declined to comment further. The investigation was first reported by The Athletic.The investigation came amid a rise in attacks against Asian-Americans, according to government tallies. The number of hate crimes with Asian-American victims reported to the New York Police Department surged to 28 in 2020, from just three in 2019. Activists and police officials said many other incidents had not been classified as hate crimes or had not been formally reported.In August, a United Nations report found that racially motivated violence and other incidents against Asian-Americans had reached “an alarming level” across the United States since the outbreak of the virus. The report said that more than 1,800 racist incidents against Asian-Americans in the United States had been reported over an eight-week period from March 2020 to May 2020.The incidents involved people who said they had been spat on, blocked from public transportation, discriminated against in workplaces, shunned, beaten, stabbed and insulted by being called transmitters of the coronavirus, the report said.Lin, who is Taiwanese-American, has spoken openly about the discrimination and questioning he has faced in professional basketball. He has also proudly embraced his status as a role model and an inspiration for many Asian-Americans.A former Harvard basketball player, Lin became a breakout sensation in the 2011-12 N.B.A. season when, as a relative unknown on the bench, he took over as a guard for the Knicks and tore through the league, prompting a wave of excitement that became known as “Linsanity.” He scored more points in his first five starts than any other player in nearly 40 years, peaking with 38 against the Los Angeles Lakers.In his Facebook post on Thursday, Lin, 32, pointed to a generational shift among Asian-Americans.“We are tired of being told that we don’t experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble,” he wrote. “We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they’re REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we’re inherently unattractive.”“I want better for my elders who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to make a life for themselves here,” he added. “I want better for my niece and nephew and future kids.”Shauntel Lowe More

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      Atlanta Dream, WNBA Team Co-owned by Kelly Loeffler, Is Sold

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAtlanta Dream Are Sold After Players’ Revolt Against Kelly LoefflerRenee Montgomery, a former Dream guard, is part of a group buying the W.N.B.A. team from Loeffler, the former Georgia senator who upset players by attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.Over the summer, the Atlanta Dream’s players criticized former Senator Kelly Loeffler, who co-owned the team, over comments she made about the Black Lives Matter movement.Credit…Octavio Jones for The New York TimesSopan Deb and Feb. 26, 2021Updated 5:50 p.m. ETThe Atlanta Dream, the W.N.B.A. team whose players revolted against a co-owner, Kelly Loeffler, and campaigned against her in a Georgia Senate race she lost, are being sold to an ownership group led by two real estate executives and a former star player for the team.Larry Gottesdiener, the chairman of the real estate equity firm Northland; Suzanne Abair, the firm’s chief operating officer; and the former W.N.B.A. star Renee Montgomery are the leading figures in the new ownership group.The team had long been on the market, but talks to sell ramped up in recent months. The Dream had been in the spotlight over the past year after its players, most of whom are Black, publicly denounced Loeffler, a Republican, for attacking the Black Lives Matter movement. The players’ union called for Loeffler’s ouster, and players across the league campaigned for the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who was running for her Senate seat.Their efforts — including wearing “Vote Warnock” shirts before games — were seen as helping Warnock become the leading Democrat in the multicandidate race. When Warnock beat Loeffler in a runoff election last month, he became the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South, and his victory helped Democrats secure control of the Senate.Gottesdiener, who will be the majority owner of the Dream, hailed the players’ activism.“I think the Dream has always been an Atlanta asset, but they really solidified their place in the city, in the community and in history last year,” Gottesdiener told reporters on a conference call Friday afternoon. “That’s why I said this team, in this city, in this time. The women of the Dream showed incredible character last year. They were brave in speaking out for what they believed in and we want to solidify that connection.”The clash between Loeffler and her team’s players came after she criticized the W.N.B.A. for dedicating last year’s season to social justice. Despite the blowback, Loeffler repeatedly said that she would not sell her stake in the team. She attributed the criticism of her to “cancel culture,” though her efforts to sell the franchise were essentially an open secret.Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said over the summer that the league would not force Loeffler to sell her stake, but also said that her comments did not align with the league’s progressive values.On Friday, Engelbert said that the sale marked “a new beginning for the Atlanta Dream organization.” She also said that in her conversations with Gottesdiener and Abair, they discussed “what this league represents, the importance of having an ownership group who carries the values of the W and what we stand for.”“I was pleased with what I heard from them,” Engelbert said.The group declined to release terms of the sale or the ownership breakdown, other than Gottesdiener’s majority stake.Terri Jackson, the executive director of the players’ union, also released a statement lauding the sale. “May it send a strong reminder that the players of the W are bigger than basketball, and that together they stand for equity, justice, diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect,” she said.Gottesdiener, who had previously been linked to trying to bring an N.H.L. team to Hartford, Conn., more than a decade ago, cited the team’s activism as a draw for him to invest. He said that he first looked at purchasing a W.N.B.A. team in 2002. He has also frequently written checks to Democratic politicians.“The players of the Dream refused to just shut up and dribble,” he said. “They found their collective voice and the world listened. We are inspired by these brave women.”Mary Brock, who had owned a majority of the team since 2011, stayed silent about Loeffler’s Black Lives Matter comments and the backlash from players over the summer. In January, LeBron James, the N.B.A. star, suggested that he might put together an ownership group for the team. Other athletes, like the former N.B.A. star Baron Davis and Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, had also been linked to sale talks.For Montgomery, a former Dream star who opted out of the 2019-20 season to focus on social justice efforts and recently announced her retirement, this is a homecoming. She said she still felt as if she had the ability to take the court in the W.N.B.A., but had opted instead to become the first former W.N.B.A. player to take an ownership stake in a W.N.B.A. team.“Larry and Suzanne have just been incredible already making it known how they feel,” Montgomery said. “He’s already mentioned women empowerment, social justice. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, that’s my life!’”Loeffler wrote a letter to the W.N.B.A. commissioner last year saying, “I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police.”Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesMontgomery, who is also a studio analyst for Atlanta Hawks games on behalf of Fox Sports, described her role as one of a community ambassador and as someone who would be involved in the marketing of the Dream, both in promoting the team in Atlanta and in luring prospective free agents.“It’s hard to turn down coming to the Dream,” Montgomery said. “That’s my goal.”Loeffler’s relationship with the team she owned was not always so contentious. A high school basketball player, she would sit courtside at games and invite players to her home. She may have had different politics than many of the players — though she had donated to Democrats in the past — but the team still did things like celebrate L.G.B.T.Q. Pride nights and honor Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor.“I thought the Dream was so cool,” one of the team’s former players, Layshia Clarendon, told ESPN. “That’s the first team I played for that was that liberal.”But the relationship changed in 2019, when Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate seat vacated by Johnny Isakson, who retired. She called herself the most conservative member of the Senate and sought to tie herself to former President Donald J. Trump, adopting and mimicking much of his incendiary language.In response, the Dream’s players refused to say her name and helped raise money for Warnock, who was polling only in the high single digits when Dream players began campaigning for him.Loeffler, who lost to Warnock by two percentage points in the runoff, said this week that she was considering running for the seat again in 2022, when Isakson’s original term expires.While the sale price of the Dream was not disclosed, financial advisers in the sports industry say that W.N.B.A. teams typically sell for single-digit or low double-digit millions, a far cry from the $1.66 billion that the Utah Jazz of the N.B.A. were valued at in a recent sale. Most W.N.B.A. teams also lose money, a shortfall that must be covered annually by their owners.In addition, because of the pandemic, the W.N.B.A., like many other sports leagues, lost a significant chunk of revenue as a result of shortened seasons and not having fans at games.“I think if you’re buying a sports team this year, it can be a little bit of a challenge, but you really have to look through the pandemic and beyond the pandemic,” Gottesdiener said. “Our business philosophy is long term. We’re thinking out decades and generations instead of this year. We know that this is going to be a tough year financially.”But there is some reason to believe the W.N.B.A.’s fortunes are trending upward. The Dream are the third W.N.B.A. team to be sold in the last two years, joining the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces, bringing the hope that more committed and deep-pocketed investors will push the league forward.Television ratings for the W.N.B.A. finals in 2020 were up 15 percent, while ratings for the regular season were down just 16 percent, in a year when most other leagues saw much bigger drops.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)Near the halfway point, this season’s race for the Most Valuable Player Award has top-tier candidates from the usuals (LeBron James) to the newcomers (Joel Embiid).Damian Lillard is keeping the Portland Trail Blazers competitive despite injuries to key players, as he has done for years. He’s a top-tier candidate for M.V.P.Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated PressFeb. 26, 2021, 5:27 p.m. ETOne of the fiercest debates among fans and observers each N.B.A. season is over who should win the Most Valuable Player Award.This season — already strange because of the coronavirus pandemic — has created the most wide-open race for the coveted award in several years.Being named M.V.P. is official recognition that a player is not just a star, but a superstar. Every winner of the award who is eligible has made the Hall of Fame. But the qualifications for the award vary by voter, which is partly what makes the debate so contentious.Is it for the best player? If so, why hasn’t LeBron James — a four-time recipient — won every year? Is it for who has the best stats? Is it for who does the most with the least talent around him? Is it for the best player on the best team? Should past playoff performances factor in? (The winner is chosen by members of the news media, but The New York Times does not vote on awards.)Sometimes, the answers are easy. Last year, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks was a runaway winner. His stats were top notch (fifth in scoring, second in rebounding), and the Bucks had the best record.The 2016-17 season had one of the most hotly disputed M.V.P. races ever, among James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard. Westbrook, who finished that season with his first triple-double average and led the league in scoring, ended up winning, even though his team at the time, the Oklahoma City Thunder, was only the sixth seed in the Western Conference.Almost halfway through this season, several players have made a compelling case to be a top-tier candidate.Statistics were updated entering Friday night’s games.LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers25.6 points/8.1 rebounds/8 assists per game; 50.2 field goal percentageLeBron James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league, and he has already won four M.V.P. Awards.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressThe Case For:James, 36, has played every game so far. His true shooting percentage — a measure of scoring efficiency that factors in free throws and gives more weight to 3-pointers — is at a solid 59.2 percent, despite a recent slump from the perimeter. The league average is around 55 percent. James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league. And he’s LeBron James. His numbers rival those of his previous M.V.P. seasons. If you believe that he should have won the award then, there is no reason he shouldn’t win now.The Case Against:James has another elite player, Anthony Davis, as a teammate. If you believe in the literal definition of valuable, then you must consider that when James sits, Davis, if healthy, fills some of the void in a way the vast majority of players can’t. Put another way: No other candidate has a teammate as good as Davis. Also, James is 13th in the league in scoring. He’s ninth in assists and 22nd in rebounding. The last M.V.P. to not be top 10 in points, rebounds or assists was Dirk Nowitzki in the 2006-07 season.Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers29.6 points/11.2 rebounds/3.1 assists per game; 51.6 field goal percentageThe Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid is performing well across the board. He ranks fourth in the league in scoring.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressThe Case For:Embiid is anchoring the best team in the Eastern Conference on both ends of the floor and does not have another bona fide top-10 player supporting him. He’s fourth in the league in scoring, while being absurdly efficient (64.4 percent true shooting).The Case Against:Embiid’s counting stats are fantastic, but he’s not as good a passer as other contenders. And even with his gaudy numbers, there is an argument that Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is having a better season.Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets26.9 points/10.9 rebounds/8.4 assists per game; 56 percent field goal percentageNikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is in the midst of having one of the five best offensive seasons in the history of the league.Credit…Harry How/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Jokic’s traditional stats are eye-popping, but when you look under the hood, you see he is putting together one of the greatest seasons ever. That is no exaggeration: His O.B.P.M. (a measure of how much a player contributes offensively compared with an average player) puts his performance at not just No. 1 in the league this season but among the five best offensive seasons in league history. It’s a higher O.B.P.M. than Larry Bird ever had. Michael Jordan had only one season better. Jokic’s win shares per 48 minutes — an estimate of how many wins an individual player is responsible for — lead the league, and also rank as one of the highest in history. He’s doing all of this while not having a teammate who will make the All-Star Game this season.The Case Against:The Nuggets are only 17-15. There is a chance they won’t even make the playoffs this season. It’s hard to give an M.V.P. to someone, no matter how great, if his play isn’t leading to wins.Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors30 points/5.5 rebounds/6.3 assists per game; 47.9 field goal percentageStephen Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-2016 season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history.Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Curry has played every game this season except one and has kept the Warriors afloat, despite Klay Thompson’s missing the whole season, and Draymond Green’s missing time because of injuries. From a statistical perspective, Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-16 M.V.P. season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history. This run might be even more impressive, given the lack of consistent playmakers around him. Curry is second in the league in scoring.The Case Against:As with Jokic, the team success isn’t there. The Warriors are 18-15 and are closer to missing the playoffs than to getting home-court advantage.Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers29.6 points/4.4 rebounds/8 assists per game; 44.7 percent field goal percentageThe Case For:Lillard’s numbers are consistently exceptional from year to year. This season, however, he’s doing this without the second- and third-best players on his team, CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, who have been sidelined with injuries. Despite not having another elite playmaker next to him, Lillard has carried Portland to 18-13 and fifth place in the Western Conference. From a “doing the most with the least” perspective, combined with elite statistics, Lillard and Curry have the best cases.The Case Against:There’s no obvious hole in Lillard’s M.V.P. case other than simple competition. It’s a deep field, and Lillard’s numbers are on par with those of multiple candidates, including Curry and Luka Doncic.The Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, left, and the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic are both contenders for this season’s M.V.P. Award.Credit…Michael Ainsworth/Associated PressLuka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks28.5 points/8.4 rebounds/9 assists per game; 47.4 field goal percentageThe Case For:Doncic is, once again, having one of the best all-around seasons in the league. He does it all. He’s an elite scorer and passer, while also being one of the best rebounding guards in the league. The Mavericks have been in flux for much of the season, as multiple players have missed games because of health concerns related to the coronavirus, so Doncic, as the only All-Star on the team, has to shoulder much of the offensive load.The Case Against:As things stand right now, Dallas, at 15-16, would not make the playoffs. The last time a player from a below-.500 team was named the M.V.P. was 1976, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award in his first year with the Lakers. Doncic is also a streaky shooter, so his percentages might not hold up as the season goes on.Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks28.9 points/11.7 rebounds/5.9 assists per game; 55.5 field goal percentageGiannis Antetokounmpo has positioned himself for a third straight M.V.P. Award.Credit…Rick Bowmer/Associated PressThe Case For:Antetokounmpo’s numbers are in line with his previous two seasons, both of which won him M.V.P. Awards. He’s top 10 in rebounding and scoring, something only Embiid can also say.The Case Against:Fairly or not, Antetokounmpo’s falling unexpectedly short in multiple playoff runs will be on the minds of voters. Additionally, if he wins the award, it would be his third straight — and there may be voter fatigue when there is such a deep field. The Bucks are only 20-13, slightly below preseason expectations. In almost any other season with that stat line, Antetokounmpo would be the runaway winner.Honorable Mentions:Kyrie Irving/James Harden/Kevin DurantThe players in the Nets’ trio are individually having exceptional seasons, rivaling all the other candidates. But they play on the same team, making it difficult to pick one most valuable player, and each has missed a significant chunk of time.Paul George/Kawhi LeonardBoth players are having essentially the same great seasons on the Los Angeles Clippers. Leonard is averaging 26.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, around the same as George. And the Clippers have the second-best record in the league. As with the Nets, it’s hard to pick one player to give the award to, especially with others putting up better stat lines.Donovan MitchellHe is the best player on the best team in the league. But his all-around stats don’t match those of other candidates.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      If Luka Looks Familiar, You Must Have Watched Larry Bird

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketball‘This Is Larry Bird Reincarnated’Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks is often compared to Bird, the Boston Celtics great. When he’s hitting game-winners, as he did on Tuesday, this can seem about right.Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks can pass, shoot and rebound — a varied skill-set that many liken to that of Larry Bird, the Celtics great.Credit…Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressFeb. 24, 2021, 12:41 p.m. ETCedric Maxwell played for six seasons and won two championships alongside Larry Bird in Boston. He was named the most valuable player of the N.B.A. finals in 1981. So you listen intently when someone like Maxwell refers to Bird in assessing the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.“You can quote me: This is Larry Bird reincarnated,” Maxwell said.Maxwell told me this last August, after watching Doncic beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the playoffs with an icy 3-pointer at the overtime buzzer that has been replayed over and over. He said it again this week as he prepared for a radio broadcast of the Celtics’ game on Tuesday at Dallas — before Doncic beat Boston with two 3-point daggers in the final minute of the Mavericks’ 110-107 victory.“This would be Larry Bird of the 2020s,” Maxwell said, “exactly how he would play now.”Maxwell’s latter statement has been my primary interest in the relationship between these two whenever the subject comes up. As a child of the 1970s and ’80s, who romanticizes those days above all others in N.B.A. history, I like to imagine Bird dropping into today’s game somehow and playing Doncic-style — with the ball in his hands so much more to probe and create and the freedom to shoot 10 3-pointers per game.In his 13 seasons with the Celtics, Bird averaged at least three 3-point attempts per game just three times. He was a true forward in a more bruising era, flanked in the Boston frontcourt by the larger Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. While Doncic, at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, is built similarly to Bird (6-9, 220 pounds), he has been a triple-double-minded point guard almost from the minute he set foot in the Mavericks’ practice facility in September 2018.Beyond positional differences, comparisons that measure on-the-rise prospects or even emerging greats like Doncic against one of the game’s giants are invariably tricky — no matter how seemingly common it has become to link white players to Bird. Making such comparisons is one of the most instinctual aspects of basketball fandom and, at the same time, that reflex can put too much focus on the immeasurable. For all the similarities you can see in their ability to pass, rebound, shoot from distance and control the game, Doncic and Bird are limited edition, one-of-one originals.White N.B.A. players are often compared to Larry Bird, but Luka Doncic does share some of Bird’s do-it-all talent.Credit…Dave Tenenbaum/Associated PressYet Maxwell has a gift for making convincing cases. I am stubbornly measured and tend to resist the comparison game. He’s no holds barred and inevitably made me curious. Denver’s Nikola Jokic is another rising franchise player who is often likened to Bird, but Maxwell leaned into the notion that Doncic “is a carbon copy of Larry.” After an association with the N.B.A. that has spanned more than 40 years, he maintains that “comparison is good” — daunting (and downright damaging) as it has been for too many failed Next Jordans to list.“Luka is better than Larry was at that age,” Maxwell said of Doncic, who turns 22 on Sunday. “The biggest thing is that there’s an arrogance, a cockiness, that Luka has that is directly out of the bloodstream of Larry Bird.”Doncic turned pro at 16 with the Spanish power Real Madrid, where he developed that maturity beyond his years. Bird was 22 when he scored 14 points in his N.B.A. debut.Another key contrast: Doncic didn’t land with a franchise as close to title contention as Bird and, in Year 3, finds himself in his most challenging stretch since he reached the N.B.A.After the buzzer-beater that toppled the Clippers and so much more from Doncic in last summer’s bubble at Walt Disney World, he began the season among the favorites for Most Valuable Player Award honors, with Dallas similarly expected to push for a top-four seed in the West. At just 15-15 after Tuesday’s victory, Doncic’s Mavericks would probably be branded the league’s most disappointing team if not for the Celtics, who are 15-16 after blowing a 24-point lead on Sunday in New Orleans and then losing to Dallas.Doncic remains as brilliant as ever, averaging 28.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 9.2 assists per game, but numerous issues recently dragged the Mavericks into a 3-10 funk. They made improvement on defense an off-season priority and promptly tumbled to 25th in the league in defensive efficiency. They have slumped to 24th in 3-point shooting. There have been numerous coronavirus-related lineup disruptions: Four key rotation players not named Doncic (Kristaps Porzingis, Josh Richardson, Dorian Finney-Smith and Maxi Kleber) have missed at least nine games each. Porzingis’s mobility after off-season knee surgery has been slow to reload, especially defensively, and the team misses the chemistry influence of the veteran J.J. Barea, who now plays in Spain.At the Mavericks’ low point, they had lost 12 consecutive one-possession games before Doncic and Golden State’s Stephen Curry staged an irresistible duel on Feb. 6 from which Dallas escaped with a 134-132 victory. Doncic said afterward that it was the first time in a long time that he played with sufficient joy and said he needed “to have more fun playing the game to be who I was before.” The win launched a promising 4-1 surge before the Mavericks were forced into a week off by a horrendous winter storm that ravaged Texas for days.Doncic’s body language and complaints to referees have been talking points all season. He acknowledged in a recent interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith that he has to improve his deportment with officials, saying that losing “makes you do things you don’t want to do.” Doncic said last week that Portland’s Damian Lillard, whose team has exceeded expectations despite key injuries, deserved a starting spot in the All-Star Game “more than me.”The onus is on Dallas management to put the right pieces around Doncic. McHale and Parish arrived in Bird’s second season, giving the Celtics a Hall of Fame threesome that provided the backbone for teams that won three championships and made five trips to the N.B.A. finals in seven seasons. The Mavericks’ quest is moving slower.Yet even if they get it right, that will demand more from their centerpiece.“Larry had another gear that I’m waiting to see Luka come up with, and that’s the leadership role,” Maxwell said.Doncic still has room to grow as an on-court leader for a Dallas team still finding its way. He has been criticized at times for his body language.Credit…Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDoncic, of course, is not even the first Maverick from Europe to be relentlessly compared to Bird. Dirk Nowitzki, who changed the power forward position forever with his ability to face the basket, shoot the 3-pointer with ease and draw big men out of the paint, was described for two decades as a 7-foot Bird.“I was always super humbled and honored to be compared to Larry Legend, but I never tried to think about it that much,” Nowitzki said Monday. “I never tried to live up to his career and put pressure on myself that way. I tried to focus more on paving my own way and finding what works for me.”Doncic is equally modest when reporters bring up Bird or other well-known players he has passed on his way to tie for No. 12 in career triple-doubles (32). He naturally wants to be his own man and leave his own legacy. But this is basketball. Resistance is futile because comparisons are what we do — constantly.The season was one game old when Maxwell got swept up in Luka mania. After a cheeky Doncic assist in the paint to Finney-Smith that flummoxed Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton and the rest of the Suns’ defense, Maxwell tweeted: “Hello Larry Joe Bird. Wow. I received one or two of those passes in my day.”Because of travel restrictions for N.B.A. broadcasters during the coronavirus pandemic, Maxwell was forced to call Tuesday’s game from afar alongside Sean Grande. They were in a studio in Boston when Doncic delivered those two very Bird-like clutch shots that made Maxwell look smart.“When you go by one name, that tells you who you are in this league,” Maxwell said. “All you’ve got to say is Luka.”The Scoop @TheSteinLineNumbers GameJordan Clarkson is one of only seven players to score 40 off the bench multiple times since the 1983-84 season.Credit…Michael Conroy/Associated Press3In three days, Golden State’s Stephen Curry will commemorate two notable anniversaries. Saturday marks eight years since Curry’s unforgettable 54-point game at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 27, 2013 — and it also marks five years since his audacious shot from steps past midcourt to beat Oklahoma City in overtime on Feb. 27, 2016.135On Friday, Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday becomes eligible for a maximum contract extension worth $135 million over four years. The Bucks acquired Holiday from New Orleans in November in a trade that helped persuade Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year, $228 million extension in December, but Holiday’s importance has been no less apparent this month. Milwaukee recently lost five consecutive games while Holiday was sidelined by the league’s health and safety protocols to fall to No. 3 in the East.5Since joining the Nets, James Harden has clearly been trying to play the more well-rounded game many skeptics said he could no longer stomach. Harden leads the league at 11.1 assists per game and has taken 20 or more shots in just five of his first 18 games as a Net. He averaged at least 20 shots per game in each of his last three full seasons in Houston.12Jimmy Butler has missed 12 of Miami’s 31 games, which undoubtedly factored into Eastern Conference coaches deciding not to select him as an All-Star reserve. It was harsh to see the coaches go that route, given that Butler is averaging a robust 19.1 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game when he does play. It was doubly so because Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who were selected as starters through voting that includes fans, players and media members, have missed 14 (Durant) and 10 (Irving) of the Nets’ 33 games.40Utah’s Jordan Clarkson recently became just the seventh player since 1983-84 to record multiple 40-point games off the bench, according to Stathead. The Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams tops the list with five, followed by J.R. Smith with three. Clarkson is the only active player besides Williams with at least two such games; Ben Gordon, Al Harrington, Nate Robinson and Nick Young are the others with two.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More