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    Trae Young and Jaylen Brown Feel the Heat of NBA Stardom

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    Atlanta’s Trae Young, Boston’s Jaylen Brown and the Nets’ Mikal Bridges are learning to handle the praise and the pressure of rising stardom.The crowd at TD Garden in Boston was serenading the star Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young with chants of “overrated!” It was late in Game 2 of Atlanta’s first-round playoff series against the Celtics, and the Hawks were down by double digits and well on their way to another loss in the series.It was a far cry from just two years ago, when Young was the up-and-coming N.B.A. darling who unexpectedly led the Hawks to the Eastern Conference finals after the team had missed the postseason three years in a row. This time, Young gave the Celtics fits — averaging 29.2 points and 10.2 assists over the series — but Boston dumped Young’s Hawks from the playoffs in six games.Now Young, who just finished his fifth season, is facing an existential challenge more daunting than any one playoff round: the Narrative. It once made him a star. It can also take that distinction away.“I understand there’s always the fiction in the narrative of, ‘That’s the superstar; that’s where he should be; and X, Y, Z,’” Hawks General Manager Landry Fields said in an interview before Game 4 against Boston. “And I understand that from the broader perspective. But for us internally, we see Trae, the human. Trae, the man. And how is he continuously taking his game 1 percent better, 2 percent better over time? So the expectation is really to grow.”In basketball, where individual players arguably have more impact on the game than in any other team sport, stars become lightning rods as they become more established, and playoff failures are magnified further. Every year, the Narrative adjusts its star player pecking order based on some amorphous combination of stats, team success and factors out of the player’s control, such as injuries. Narrative Setters — loosely defined as the news media, fans and league observers, like players, coaches and executives — shape the perception of a player’s evolution from rising star to star with expectations.Players like Young, 24, and Boston’s Jaylen Brown, 26 — top-five draft picks and two-time All-Stars — are undergoing this transition as so many other top-level players would expect. But others, like Nets forward Mikal Bridges, 26, have been thrust into the metamorphosis unexpectedly.Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young, center, scored at least 30 points in four of the six games against Boston in their first-round playoff series.Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images“Consistency, your work ethic and your confidence puts you in that category,” said Gilbert Arenas, a former N.B.A. All-Star turned podcast host. “Now, what ends up happening is it’s outside influence that puts: ‘Oh, he needs to win a championship. He needs to do this.’ But reality will speak different. If my team is not a championship team, then that goal is unrealistic. So as a player, you don’t really put those pressures on you.”If a player fails, criticism often loudly follows. On ESPN’s TV panels. On Reddit. On Twitter. In living rooms. At bars. Through arena jeers and chants of “overrated.” On podcasts like the one Arenas hosts.By his mid-20s, Arenas, a second-round draft pick in 2001, had come out of nowhere to make three All-N.B.A. and three All-Star teams and was one of the most exciting young players in the league. But injuries dogged him for the rest of his career, and his decision to jokingly bring a gun into the Wizards locker room marred his reputation. With minimal playoff success for Arenas, the Narrative switched to questions about his maturity and his commitment to the game.Jeff Van Gundy, the ESPN analyst and former coach, said criticism and greater expectations usually came when a player signed a big contract or regressed after playoff success. He added that stars were also judged on their attitudes with coaches, teammates and referees.Young’s name surfaced in trade rumors on the eve of the playoffs, even though he is in the first year of a maximum contract extension. Young said in an interview on TNT that he “can’t control all the outside noise.”“I can only control what I can control, and that’s what I do on this court and for my teammates,” he continued, adding, “let everything else take care of itself.”He is on his third permanent head coach in the last three seasons, and while his regular-season offensive stats are stellar (26.2 points and 10.2 assists per game), teams often exploit him on defense. He was not named to the All-Star team this year.Young, of course, isn’t the only star with perpetually shifting perceptions. Some players are seen as ascending — like the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who carried his young team to the play-in tournament. Others players are on the dreaded descending side, like Dallas’s Luka Doncic, who failed to make the playoffs a year after going to the Western Conference finals.Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic and Young are all the same age, but Doncic and Young receive far more criticism, despite their superior résumés. If that sounds illogical, welcome to sports fandom, said Paul Pierce, a Hall of Famer who hosts a podcast for Showtime.“This is what comes with this,” Pierce said. “Guys get paid millions of dollars, so we can voice our opinions.”In the 2000s, Pierce emerged as one of the best young players in the N.B.A. He was a 10-time All-Star, but short playoff runs prompted some to say he was overrated. He quieted most critics when he helped lead the Celtics to a championship in 2008 alongside Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.“Most players who reached the star status were players who come up in the league,” Pierce said. “They were McDonald’s All-Americans. They were the top player in their high school. So they expect to be in that position. So for me, I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m going to get there eventually.’”Bridges, the Nets guard, stepped into the spotlight after Phoenix traded him to the Nets in February as part of a deal for Kevin Durant. He was a reliable starter in Phoenix, but in Brooklyn, the fifth-year guard was thrust into the role of No. 1 option. He averaged a career-best 26.1 points per game in 27 games with the Nets while remaining one of the best defensive guards in the league.But the Nets quickly fell into a 2-0 series hole in their first-round playoff matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. In an interview before Game 3, Bridges said he couldn’t worry about outsiders’ opinions. “You can’t control what they feel and think about you all,” Bridges said. “All you control is how hard you work and what you do, and personally, I know I work hard.”Mikal Bridges, left, suddenly became the No. 1 scoring option for the Nets after the Phoenix Suns traded him to the team in February for Kevin Durant.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesBridges played well during the series, but the Nets as a whole struggled to generate offense, and defenders keyed in on Bridges. The Sixers swept the Nets, the last victory coming in Brooklyn. Afterward, Bridges told reporters that he needed to get better and promised his team that he would. “I love my guys to death, and I told them that’s just on me,” he said. “I told them I’m sorry I couldn’t come through.”For Brown, the Celtics star, the disappointment came last year, when his team lost to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals. This season, his career highs in points and rebounds have made him a strong contender to make his first All-N.B.A. team. He has always been viewed as a dynamic wing, and the Celtics have never missed the playoffs during his seven-year career. Now the Celtics are the odds-on favorite to make the N.B.A. finals from the East — especially with Milwaukee’s having lost in the first round — and Brown has, at times, been their best player.“When I was younger in my career, I was the guy looking to make a name in the playoffs, looking to gain some notoriety,” Brown said.He has done that. But that means it’s no longer enough for him to be simply dynamic. He has to carry the franchise, alongside the four-time All-Star guard Jayson Tatum.“Part of his ascension is he’s really talented,” the Celtics’ president, Brad Stevens, said. “Part of it is he has got a great hunger. And part of it is he works regardless of if he had success or hit a rough spot.” He continued: “Then I think part of it is he’s been on good teams all the way through. And so, then you have a responsibility of, like, doing all that.”Players often say they don’t feel external pressure to meet outsiders’ expectations. But then there’s the pressure from their co-workers.“All of us want to be the best N.B.A. player ever,” said Darius Miles, a former N.B.A. forward. “All of us want to be Hall of Famers. All of us want to be All-Stars. And once you get in the league, you want all the accolades. So that’s enough pressure alone on yourself that you have.”Boston’s Jaylen Brown averaged a career-best 26.6 points per game this season, helping the Celtics secure the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.Brynn Anderson/Associated PressThe Clippers drafted Miles No. 3 overall in 2000; 15 picks later, they also took Quentin Richardson. Together, they made the previously adrift franchise exciting and culturally relevant. But injuries derailed Miles’s career. Decades later, the two close friends, like Arenas and Pierce, are Narrative Setters themselves as co-hosts of a podcast.“I think going to the Clippers, being the worst team in the N.B.A., we wanted to be accepted by the rest of the N.B.A.,” said Miles, who hosts a Players’ Tribune podcast with Richardson. “We wanted to be accepted by our peers. We want to be accepted by the other players, to show that we were good enough players to play on that level.”Pierce said social media had added a different dimension to how stars are perceived.“I really feel like social media turned N.B.A. stardom and took a lot of competitive drive out of the game,” Pierce said. “Because people are more worried about how they look and their image and their brand and their business now. Before it was just about competing. It was about wanting to win a championship. Now everybody’s a business.”But social media can also provide a much-needed and visible boost to young stars in their best moments. In Game 5 against the Celtics, Young went off for 38 points and 13 assists, stretching the series for one more game. Sixers center Joel Embiid tweeted, “This is some good hoops!!!” and added the hashtag for Young’s nickname: #IceTrae. It was a glimpse of the kind of play that has made Young so popular: His jersey is a top seller, and he was invited to make a guest appearance at a W.W.E. event in 2021.Rising stars, Van Gundy said, are always going to have ups and downs as they develop.“If your expectations are never a dip in either individual or team success, yes, that’s a standard that is ripe to always be negative,” he said. But, he added, “if your expectations are that guys play when they’re healthy, they do it with a gratefulness, a genuine joy and a team-first attitude — no, I don’t think that’s too much to expect.” More

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      Their Reputations Precede Them. And That’s the Problem.

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      When an athlete breaks the rules of the game, he or she may be judged on much more than that single act. Call it the Draymond Green Effect.Most times in basketball, a foul is just a foul. But sometimes, it can feel like so much more: a Rorschach test unearthing a person’s biases about the game, a window into a player’s thinking, a referendum on his entire career.Was that a malicious kick or an involuntary swing? When does an outstretched arm morph into a punch? Can an on-court act be judged on its own or must the actor be considered, too?A sequence of hard fouls across three different first-round N.B.A. playoff series — and the subsequent responses to them — has reinforced the extent to which the reputations of players, and the swirling narratives associated with them, seem to color the way the athletes, referees, league officials and fans process the action unfolding on the court.After each instance, the players’ reputations were called into action in some way — as corroborating evidence, as a shield, as a liability.It started on Monday of last week, when Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors stomped his size 15 sneaker into the sternum of the Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis after Sabonis had grabbed Green while lying on the court. Afterward, the league suspended Green for one game, invoking not only the on-court incident but his entire body of work.“The suspension was based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the N.B.A.’s statement read, evoking the veritable highlight reel of pugnacious gamesmanship in his career, but not referencing any specific previous infraction.After he was called for fouling Royce O’Neale of the Nets in a first-round playoff game, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers gave the universal signal for “Who, me?”Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressA few nights later, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers was ejected for hitting Nets forward Royce O’Neale below the waist on a drive to the basket. In the locker room after the game, Harden pointed toward his own reputation as part of his defense, mentioning that he had never before been thrown out of a game.“I’m not labeled as a dirty player,” Harden said, alluding to the public’s perception of him. He should not be judged harshly, he implied, because he is, so to speak, not that guy. (Harden, of course, has often been labeled by critics as something else: a player willing to flop to draw a whistle and earn free throws.)Then, two nights after that, Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies was ejected for hitting LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers around the groin area while trying to defend him. The next day, Brooks, too, nodded toward his reputation, speculating that it must have preceded him on the play and informed the referees’ quick-fire decision to toss him.“The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain and then that just creates a whole different persona on me,” Brooks said. “So now you think I intended to hit LeBron James in the nuts.”In sports, reputations are quickly formed and particularly hard to shed. Athletes conduct their professional lives in high definition. Their every move is broken down ad nauseam, scrutinized in slow motion, refracted through the eyes of analysts and commentators.Heightening this dynamic is the fact that history looms large in the sports world, seeming to always be front of mind. Record books and bygone statistics are invoked every day. Fans keep big wins and heartbreaking losses etched onto their hearts.“The past,” William Faulkner wrote, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”On top of everything else, the impulse to create two-dimensional characterizations about a person’s behavior, to reduce their action to moral terms, is widespread in the sports world, where fans and news media members often apply a storybook framework to the action, experts say.“We create these schema, these cognitive shortcuts, to read the world, and we’re quick to label individuals as friend or foe,” said Arthur Raney, a professor of communication at Florida State who has researched how emotions shape the sports viewing experience. “We do that with folks on the street, and we do that with entertainment and sports and politics and everything else.”Raney added, “And once those frames, those schema, are set, they then serve as a lens for our expectations of the future.”There will always be tension, then, around questions of whether an athlete’s reputation is fully justified.Ndamukong Suh, a defensive tackle in the N.F.L. with a long history of major penalties, cautioned people not to pass judgment too quickly. Here, he attended the league’s boot camp for aspiring broadcasters.Kyusung Gong/Associated PressNdamukong Suh, a longtime defensive tackle in the N.F.L., developed a reputation as a dirty player after a seemingly countless log of bad hits, fines and suspensions. Suh has pushed back against this characterization at various points in his career — though it is questionable whether anyone might be convinced otherwise.“Before you pass judgment on somebody, always take the time to get to know them, meet them, have coffee with them, whatever it may be and then be able to go from there,” Suh said in 2019.Many might similarly scoff at the claims of innocence of Brooks, who led the N.B.A. with 18 technical fouls in the regular season and made headlines earlier in the playoffs for taunting James (“I don’t care. He’s old.”) — essentially casting himself as a villain without anyone’s help.Still, when humans are involved in adjudicating behavior in sports, there will always be unanswerable questions about how those decisions are made. Did a player’s bad reputation lead officials to call more penalties or fouls on borderline plays? How many more fines and suspensions does a player earn after developing a reputation as someone who deserves them?“Generally, officials at the highest level do not hold grudges, but in a preconscious, mythic way are influenced by narratives,” said Stephen Mosher, a retired professor of sports management at Ithaca College.Reputations can be suffocating. Dennis Rodman’s reputation as an erratic and unsportsmanlike competitor — developed with the Detroit Pistons and honed with the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls — overshadows his status as one of the greatest defensive players in N.B.A. history. Metta Sandiford-Artest, years after his involvement in the fan-player brawl known as the Malice at the Palace in 2004, when he was still known as Ron Artest, developed a reputation as a mellow veteran, but only after changing his name and publicly reckoning with his mental health.And reputations can feel problematic when they seem in any part derived from race. Raney said the potential for this was higher in sports that were “racialized” — that is, closely associated with one race. He mentioned the tennis star Serena Williams, who is Black, as an example of an athlete who may have developed an undue reputation at times because of the color of her skin in the context of her sport. A recent study in European soccer revealed the dramatic differences in the way television commentators spoke about white players (praising their smarts and work ethic) versus nonwhite players (highlighting physical traits like strength and speed) and how far-reaching the impact of these perceptions could be.“I’d look directly at the story tellers, announcers, color people, for why these perceptions carry such weight,” Mosher said.Sports leagues invite speculation about the role reputations play in competition because of the apparently subjective nature of officiating.Joel Embiid of the 76ers was neither ejected nor suspended for this very personal foul against the Nets’ Nic Claxton.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConEarlier in the game from which Harden was ejected, 76ers center Joel Embiid blatantly tried to kick the Nets’ Nic Claxton between the legs. Embiid, who has largely maintained a reputation as a clean player, was not ejected or suspended. Harden and Brooks were not suspended after their ejections, either. (The N.B.A., like other sports leagues, takes into account a player’s disciplinary history when doling out punishments.)In explaining the disparity of outcomes between Embiid and Harden, the N.B.A. has asserted that the motive mattered far less than the outcome, and that each incident, even if it felt similar to another, needed to be evaluated on its own terms. No two shots to the groin are alike, essentially.“You have to be responsible for your actions outside the realm of intent,” Monty McCutchen, the N.B.A.’s head of referee development, said in an interview on ESPN.But many people’s minds went to a similar place. What would have happened if someone else — say, Draymond Green? — had kicked out the same way Embiid had. More

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      NHL and NBA Playoffs Give New York Fans a Lot to Celebrate

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      All five professional winter season teams in the New York metropolitan area made the playoffs for the first time since 1994.For four consecutive days, people in sports jerseys of various colors moved in, out and around Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. For some, it was their destination. For others, it was a changing point. But for fans of five teams in two sports in one metropolitan area, it was a hub for that incomparable and captivating springtime buzz: the playoffs.Across the United States and Canada, many cities are hosting playoff games in professional basketball and hockey. But nowhere was the action more abundant than in the New York metropolitan area, where all five professional winter season teams were in the postseason.It was the first time the five local teams had been in the playoffs at the same time since 1994, the year Madison Square Garden was the pulsating star at the core of the sports universe. The Rangers and the Knicks traded nights at the Garden from April to June that spring, right through to the finals of the N.H.L. and N.B.A. playoffs, and the Rangers won the Stanley Cup. Along the way, all five teams played dates in that one arena during the playoffs.This year, by Sunday, three of the teams had played at the Garden, but all five — the Islanders in Nassau County, N.Y.; the Nets in Brooklyn; the Knicks and the Rangers in Manhattan; and the Devils in Newark, N.J. — competed somewhere in the relatively condensed metro area in first-round playoff games.“There’s a buzz in the area, for sure,” Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock said after his team pounded the visiting Carolina Hurricanes, 5-1, on Friday.It was the first playoff game held at two-year-old UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., about a 35-minute ride from Penn Station on the Long Island Rail Road. The same night, basketball fans could ride that rail line (or the subway) to Penn Station, walk upstairs, and see the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 99-79, at the Garden in Game 3 of that series.The crowd and the building were ready for the moment, and Knicks guard Jalen Brunson called the atmosphere “unreal.”“Being in this environment, there is no other replica,” he said. “There is nothing that comes close to it.”Rangers fans flocked to New Jersey for the first two playoff games against the Devils.Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesThese playoff runs for the New York area’s teams, which have been germinating for a couple of years, began on Thursday, when the Devils and the Rangers played in Newark for Game 2 of that series. Some fans from New York hopped on a New Jersey Transit train from Penn Station, including many Rangers fans who infiltrated the Prudential Center, home of the Devils. At the same time, barely 14 miles away, the Nets, who once shared an arena with the Devils in East Rutherford, N.J., hosted the Philadelphia 76ers at Barclays Center, and lost Game 3.The basketball playoffs continued in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon, but they came to an end for the Nets, who were eliminated in a first-round sweep by the 76ers.But anyone looking for more playoff action could have taken the No. 2 train back to Penn Station to see the Rangers welcome the Devils in Game 3 on Saturday night at the Garden, where the Devils won in overtime, 2-1, cutting the Rangers’ lead in that series to 2-1. On Sunday, the Knicks beat the Cavaliers, 102-93, at the Garden to take a 3-1 lead in that series. At UBS Arena on Sunday, the Islanders lost to the Hurricanes, 5-2, and now trail in that series, 3-1.Eight playoff games in four arenas in four days involving five local teams: It’s a New York-New Jersey playoff bonanza.“It’s awesome for local fans,” Islanders winger Kyle Palmieri said. “I grew up as a local fan, and I watched all these teams.”He also played for two of them. Palmieri was born on Long Island, in Smithtown, N.Y., and moved with his family to Montvale, N.J., as a boy. He played for the Devils from 2015 until he was traded to the Islanders in 2021, just in time to participate in the Isles’ last game at the old Nassau Coliseum — a 3-2 overtime win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 23, 2021.Now, even with his focus on his own club’s series against Carolina, he can marvel at all the local teams playing at once.“It’s a special thing to have everyone involved,” he said. “It doesn’t happen too often.”More than 140,000 attendees were expected through Sunday’s playoff games. One of them was Lucas Whitehead, 27, a Canadian who was in the area to attend a conference at the United Nations. He bought an Islanders jersey and marveled at the atmosphere for the UBS Arena’s first playoff game.“The energy in here was like nothing I’ve seen before,” he said after Friday’s game. “I’ve been to a lot of arenas. We went to M.S.G. and the Prudential Center, and I’ve been to a lot in Canada. This was the craziest.”But the Garden came to life again on Saturday, for the Rangers-Devils game. The Rangers fans made their presence felt in Newark, but at home, when their team scores and the crowd sings their goal song and the walls vibrate, it can create a swell of momentum for the team.“It’s amazing — it’s one of the cooler experiences you’ll have,” Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said after practice on Friday, about two hours after the Knicks practiced at the same building in Westchester County, N.Y. “It’s hard to explain it to someone who’s not on the ice and doesn’t get to be part of it in that moment.”As the playoffs move into May, the number of local teams will dwindle. But there could be more excitement ahead. If the Rangers and the Islanders win their series, the two rivals, whose fan bases generally loathe each other, would meet in the second round, their first postseason encounter since the Rangers swept the Islanders in that fateful spring of ’94.That would suit Filip Chytil, the Rangers center who is originally from the Czech Republic. Before joining the Rangers in 2017, Chytil played one year professionally for the Czech team PSG Zlin and said its rivalry with H.C. Kometa Brno was fiery. But playing the Islanders in New York would be even more intense.“That would be great,” Chytil said Friday. “It’s a big ‘if’ at this moment. But we wouldn’t have to travel very much. Just take a bus.”Or, if the team prefers, there are plenty of trains in and out of Penn Station. More

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      How a Trade Changed Everything for Two N.B.A. Players and Their Dogs

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      Professional sports can be a tough business. When Mikal Bridges was dealt from the Suns to the Nets, his friend Cam Payne had to give the news to Sonny and Uno.When Mikal Bridges was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Nets in early February, he had to join his new team without stopping at home in Arizona first.So it fell to Cameron Payne, one of Bridges’s close friends on the Suns, to break the news to their dogs, who are best pals, or so their owners say. The moment called for compassion and candor, and Payne brought both.Bridges’s dog, Sonny, is a yellow Labrador retriever. Payne’s dog, Uno, is a 25-pound French bulldog. They were lazing around Bridges’s house in Phoenix when Payne approached them. He addressed his comments mainly to Sonny, whose routine would be most disrupted.“Man,” Payne recalled telling the dog, “Uno’s staying, and, Sonny, I think you’re leaving.”Sonny and Uno seemed to consider this, or perhaps had no idea what was going on.Payne told Sonny, “Mikal said he wanted you out there. Mikal’s leaving. He got traded.”He tried to reassure the dog: “You and Uno are still going to be best friends forever.”“He looked at me crazy,” Payne recalled. “It just made me laugh. I was like, they really humans for real. They know exactly what we’re saying.”The trade brought Kevin Durant to the Suns, transforming them into championship contenders, and offered a professional upside for Bridges, who will have a bigger role on the Nets.But trades can be hard on N.B.A. players, who often develop close friendships during long hours together on the court and on the road. Bridges and Payne lived in the same neighborhood in Phoenix. They hung out at one another’s homes. They talked about their schedules and the best shoe insoles and what they saw on Instagram.So when Bridges was traded away on Feb. 9 while the Suns were in Atlanta, Payne went straight to his friend’s hotel room and said an emotional goodbye.Mikal Bridges, left, and Cameron Payne played together in Phoenix from 2020 until early February, when Bridges was traded to the Nets as part of the deal that brought Kevin Durant to the Suns.Lauren Bacho/NBAE, via Getty Images“I’m just going to miss just the funniness, the icebreaker making everything cool, always having a good time,” Payne said of Bridges. “Always smiling and stuff. Those type of things I’m going to miss. He always made every day at work happy.”The two friends were bound together, too, by a love of dogs — Sonny and Uno, whose relationship involved car rides and tussles over toys and was itself chronicled on Instagram.If the disruption of these friendships is not exactly a tragedy — Bridges and Payne are young millionaires who admit to spoiling their dogs — it gives a glimpse into how personal and poignant the business of sports can be.‘Why are you jealous, man?’Bridges, 26, who is from Philadelphia, was a first-round draft pick after helping Villanova to two N.C.A.A. championships. Known as a strong defender, he will earn $21 million this year. A self-described “people person,” he had a lot of friends on the Suns — “I’m going to miss them so much,” he said. But he is making friends quickly on the Nets.Sonny, who is 7 and barks when he wants to play with someone, has been in Bridges’s family since his sophomore year of college, mostly staying with Bridges’s mother. During the 2020-21 season, Sonny came to live with Bridges for what was supposed to be two weeks. But he never really left.In Phoenix, Bridges lived with a friend who sometimes walked Sonny before Bridges got out of bed. One of Sonny’s favorite tricks was to wait until Bridges got up, pretend he’d been neglected and beg to go out again.“He thinks he can outsmart humans,” Bridges said. “I watch him from a distance and I’m like, ‘Look at him trying to be so sneaky.’”Payne, 28, was also a first-round draft pick, but he bounced around lesser leagues until finding a home with the Suns in 2020. Known as a high-energy guard, he is now an important role player in Phoenix.Payne has had Uno, who is 4 and loves to run around, since he was a puppy and takes him most everywhere. He took Uno to a game a few years ago when he played for the Texas Legends, a G-League team. Uno sat near the bench, and Payne notched his first ever triple double and was delighted that his “son” was there.When Payne gets ready to leave for road trips, Uno sits by his suitcase. He has, in the past, sat inside Payne’s girlfriend’s travel bag, presumably to prevent her from leaving without him.Uno attended a game of the Texas Legends of the G-League when Payne played for them and inspired him to a triple double.Texas LegendsBridges and Payne started playing together on the Suns in 2020. They became friends faster than their dogs did. Sonny and Uno were wary of each other at first, and neither liked it when his owner paid attention to the other dog.Sonny even got jealous if Payne paid attention to his own dog, neglecting Sonny. This befuddled Bridges: “It’s like, ‘Bro, that’s not even — why are you jealous, man?’”Tensions eased with time and more exposure to each other. Suns players and their dogs hung out at the team practice facility and the home of the Suns star Devin Booker, whose Italian mastiff, Haven, is perhaps the most famous dog on the team, given that he is featured on Booker’s Instagram account, which has 5.4 million followers.When the Suns lost to the Dallas Mavericks in seven games during the Western Conference semifinals last year, the dogs provided a kind of comfort. When Bridges got home after the series ended, Sonny immediately started whining for Bridges to pet him.“Just told him, ‘Well, I’m going to be home with you every day now,’” Bridges said glumly, as he remembered the day. “It kind of gets your mind off basketball. You come home; someone’s just excited to see you.”A month later, Bridges dog-sat Uno while Payne was away and posted the highlights on Instagram. One video showed Uno wandering around the back seat of Bridges’s car while Sonny sat in the front with Bridges. In another, Bridges took the pair to the store to look at toys.“Two toys each,” Bridges told them in the video. He let Uno know he’d be spoiled with him just like he was at home.Later that day, Bridges dribbled a tennis ball in front of the two dogs. Uno tried, without success, to play defense and snatch the ball from Bridges. He chased the ball as Bridges crossed him over. Sonny knew better. He waited until Bridges let the ball go and then ran to get it.“Sonny been gettin fried from birth so he chillin,” Bridges wrote in a caption for the video.Matching personalitiesIt is said that dogs and their owners often develop similar traits. Asked if he ever noticed similarities between Payne and Bridges and their dogs, Booker paused for a moment to think.“Definitely Uno and Cam,” he said. He raised his eyebrows as he thought more about it.“Sonny and Mikal, too.”Sonny, now of New York.Courtesy of Mikal Bridges“Uno walks in, he’s the energy of the room no matter what. He’s a little bit smaller than other dogs, but he’s still the energy when he walks in,” Booker continued, perhaps making a sly reference to Payne’s relatively small 6-foot-1 stature.“Sonny’s all over the place,” Booker said, suggesting that Bridges is, too.Bridges and Payne will miss each other, but they said they — and their dogs — will remain close.“C. Payne’s my best friend,” Bridges said, adding: “And Uno, he’s little.”Bridges pantomimed carrying a little dog the way a running back might carry a football.“So when C. Payne flies, he can just tuck him with him. It’s a little easier for travel. But Sonny’s definitely going to miss his guy.”Payne said he knew that Sonny’s move to Brooklyn would leave a hole in Uno’s life.“That’s really been one of the few dogs that he’s been hanging around,” he said, adding: “I’ve got to get him a new friend from on the team.” More

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      How the Nets Fell Apart From the Top

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      Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant have become the faces of their superteam’s failure, but the Nets leadership could have averted disaster several times, and didn’t.Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant didn’t trade themselves from the Nets.They didn’t hire Steve Nash to coach the team, even though he had no experience.They didn’t trade for — and then trade away — James Harden.They didn’t sign off on Irving playing only part-time because he would not get the coronavirus vaccine.As players, they couldn’t have done any of those things. But the team owner Joe Tsai and General Manager Sean Marks could. And they did.Over the past three and a half years, the Nets’ ambitious plans to form a championship-winning superteam have fallen apart in fits and starts, finally imploding over the past week with the trades of Irving and Durant. Those two superstars have become the faces of the collapse, but the rubble of the franchise may reveal that the problem extends to the foundation — to the people who had the power to avert disaster many times and never did.During a news conference on Thursday, Marks was asked whether he deemed the Durant and Irving era in Brooklyn a failure.“I think it would be easy to look in from the outside,” Marks said. “And, you know, honestly, I look at it internally and say, ‘Wow, it didn’t work.’ Like, let’s be honest there. We did not reach the full potential of where we thought we could get to.”‘We do have the pieces’In the summer of 2019, Durant and Irving spurned the Knicks and joined the Nets in free agency. Tsai, a billionaire co-founder of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba, assumed full control of the Nets and Barclays Center at a record-setting $2.35 billion team valuation. The Nets were primed to be not just the dominant basketball power in New York, but also in the N.B.A.“I think the fans expect that we win a championship,” Tsai said in a YES Network interview months later. “And the good thing is, I believe that we do have the pieces in place.”Few teams ever do, and the Nets, it’s now clear, didn’t either. But it wasn’t for one of the most common reasons — a cheap owner — since Tsai has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury tax penalties for his starry teams over the past three seasons.But he waffled on key decisions, signed aging veterans who were little help and tolerated behavior that eroded the team’s culture. He was more visible than most team owners, often sitting courtside at games and posting on Twitter in response to rumors about team drama. The N.B.A. has fined him for criticizing officiating on Twitter.Tsai also has been willing to use his financial muscle to help his players, even if it invited public criticism. He arranged for all of the Nets to be tested for the coronavirus early in the pandemic when tests were scarce for the general public, earning a rebuke from then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. Tsai also owns the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty, and in 2021 the women’s league fined the team $500,000 for secretly chartering flights to games for the players. Tsai has been critical of the W.N.B.A. requirement that players fly on commercial airlines.But catering to players can backfire, as Tsai found out.Steve Nash won two Most Valuable Player Awards as an N.B.A. player, but he had no coaching experience when he was hired to coach the Nets in September 2020.Vincent Carchietta/USA Today Sports, via ReutersA coach with no experienceCoaching is typically considered a crucial piece for superstar-laden teams. Coaches must manage egos, maximize talent and manage workloads, all while winning basketball games. Only Golden State’s Steve Kerr has won a championship as a rookie head coach without having been an assistant coach first.But for the Nets superteam, Tsai and Marks decided their head coach would be Nash, who won two Most Valuable Player Awards as an N.B.A. player but had no coaching experience. They drew criticism for overlooking Jacque Vaughn, an experienced Black assistant coach, for Nash, who is white. The hiring, in September 2020, came at a time when only seven of the N.B.A.’s 30 team head coaches weren’t white. Most N.B.A. players are Black.But Nash and Marks were teammates on the Phoenix Suns, and Nash knew Durant because he consulted for Golden State when Durant played there.Irving almost immediately undermined Nash during an appearance on Durant’s podcast, saying: “I don’t really see us having a head coach. You know what I mean? K.D. could be a head coach. I could be a head coach.”While both expressed their respect for Nash, Irving’s comments indicated that the Nets would need structure and accountability, since Durant and Irving were already resisting the traditional hierarchy. For his part, Durant responded to Irving and called the partnership with Nash “a collaborative effort.” It was a glaring instance in which leadership experience might have made a difference. After Durant requested a trade over the summer, he described a culture on the Nets that seemed adrift.“I went to them and was like: ‘Yo, I don’t like how we are preparing. I don’t like shootarounds. I like practices. I need more,’” Durant told Bleacher Report in November.He added, “Hold me accountable.”The Nets fired Nash in November and hired Vaughn.Irving vs. TsaiNowhere were the cautionary signs for the Nets more clear than in the rift between Tsai and Irving. Irving declined to take the coronavirus vaccine as the 2021-22 season got underway, but Tsai was a vocal proponent of vaccines, telling ESPN that it wasn’t “a matter of belief” but rather a scientific “matter of fact.”Irving became a liability. He was not allowed to play in home games because of a local vaccine mandate, and he showed no signs of changing his mind. Tsai and Marks allowed him to become a distraction. First, they said he would not be allowed to play in road games either, citing the harm to the organizational culture of having him play only part-time. But just two months later, they changed their minds, even though Irving hadn’t changed his and the team was in first place in the Eastern Conference.It sent the message that Irving could play by his own rules.About a year earlier, the Nets acquired Harden from Houston by trading away promising young players. But soon after Irving was allowed to return, Harden stunned the Nets by asking for a trade. Harden later told reporters that Irving’s decision to not get vaccinated had a “very minimal” effect on his trade request, but he acknowledged that “it definitely did impact the team.”The Nets quickly acquiesced to Harden in February 2022 by trading him to the Philadelphia 76ers, the competitor of his choice, instead of riding out the season, since they were playing well, or giving themselves time to explore all of their options to be sure they were getting the best deal.In December, Harden told Fox Sports why he wanted out of Brooklyn.“It was just, there was no structure and even superstars, they need structure,” Harden said. “That’s what allows us to be the best players and leaders.”Four days after the Nets sent Harden to Philadelphia, one of the popular players they had traded away to get him from Houston — center Jarrett Allen — was named an All-Star with his new team in Cleveland.Days after trading Kyrie Irving, the Nets reached a deal to send Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast chanceEven after the Boston Celtics embarrassed the Nets last year by sweeping them in the first round of the playoffs, the Nets still had a shot to fulfill the promise of Durant and Irving this season. The Nets leadership attempted a culture reset — a public display that they would not be pushed around by stars anymore. When asked about Irving receiving a long-term extension, Marks demurred.“I think we know what we’re looking for,” Marks told reporters in May. “We’re looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves.”After Durant requested a trade in the off-season, Tsai tweeted support for the front office and coaching staff. A few weeks later in August, Durant backed off his request and Marks said the sides had “agreed to move forward with our partnership.”Then in October, when Irving refused to disavow antisemitism or apologize after posting a link to an antisemitic film on Twitter, Tsai publicly rebuked him and suspended him.Irving missed eight games. But when he returned, the Nets showed their tantalizing potential once again, going 18-2 in one stretch, only to unravel again as Durant got injured and Irving’s contract-extension talks fell apart and he asked to be traded.“I want to be in a place where I’m celebrated and not just tolerated or just kind of dealt with in a way that doesn’t make me feel respected,” Irving said Tuesday, a day after the Nets traded him to the Dallas Mavericks.Two days later, the Nets traded Durant, too, to Phoenix. “We believe making this trade now positions the franchise for long-term success,” Marks said Thursday in a statement.Marks, at a news conference Thursday, was asked what his message would be to Nets fans who expected to see a championship contender this year.“That’s honestly tough,” Marks said. “But my goal here and our goal is, from ownership all the way down, is to put something out on the floor that everybody can be proud of.” More

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      Nets Agree to Trade Kevin Durant to Phoenix Suns

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      Days after trading Kyrie Irving, the Nets reached a deal to send Durant to the Phoenix Suns for a package of players and first-round draft picks.LOS ANGELES — The Nets’ era of superstars appears to be over.The Nets have agreed to trade Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns for a package of players and first-round picks, according to a person familiar with the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The agreement was reached only days after the Nets traded their star guard Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.The trades will effectively draw the curtain on a brief, hopeful but ultimately unsatisfying era in Brooklyn in which the Nets gathered elite players like Durant, Irving and James Harden and cultivated hopes of multiple N.B.A. championships. Instead, the franchise endured a series of bitter standoffs, ugly headlines and playoff disappointments with its stars, and one by one let them go.On Wednesday night, three and a half years after he and Durant signed as free agents, and almost a year to the day since they offloaded Harden to Philadelphia, Irving fired a final shot over his shoulder at his former team upon learning that the Nets planned to trade Durant too.“I just am glad he got out of there,” Irving said.In exchange for Durant, the Nets will receive the forwards Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson and Jae Crowder, along with four first-round draft picks and the right to swap another future first-round pick. The Suns also will receive forward T.J. Warren from the Nets.The agreement was first reported by The Athletic early Thursday morning.The news broke as Irving was preparing to meet with reporters after his first game with the Mavericks, a 110-104 victory against the Clippers in Los Angeles.“We had a lot of conversations throughout the year of what our futures were going to look like,” Irving said of Durant. “There was still a level of uncertainty, but we just cared about seeing each other be places where we can thrive. And whether that be together or that be apart, there’s never been one moment where I felt like he’s been angry at me for decisions I made or I’ve been angry at him.”The Nets introduced Durant and Irving as the marquee members of a franchise-altering free agency class in the summer of 2019. The team later acquired Harden from the Houston Rockets in January 2021, creating the kind of superteam most agree is required to win titles in the modern N.B.A. While their talent was never questioned, their teams never lived up to those big expectations.“We played very limited time together,” Irving said. “There were a lot of injuries and things that took place. I would have liked to see that work for the long term.”Irving’s own decisions played a role in those separations; he appeared in only 29 games during the 2021-22 season, mostly because he declined to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, which was required in a New York City mandate for many private sector employees at the time.Then this season, the Nets suspended him, for eight games, after he posted a link to an antisemitic film on his social media accounts and then refused to disavow antisemitism or apologize for posting the link. While he was in and out of the team, Durant also missed many games because of injuries.Instead of winning championships together, all three stars eventually requested trades. Harden’s request came first, and he left for Philadelphia last year.Durant asked to be traded over the summer — he and the Nets eventually made an uneasy, and ultimately temporary, peace — and Irving asked to be moved within the past few weeks.On Tuesday, in his first comments since the trade, Irving said that he had felt disrespected by the Nets’ front office, which in his view had not been honest with him.“I know I want to be in a place where I’m celebrated and not just tolerated or just kind of dealt with in a way that doesn’t make me feel respected,” Irving said on Tuesday.Kyrie Irving scored 24 points in his Mavericks debut on Wednesday.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets never advanced past the Eastern Conference semifinals during Irving and Durant’s three full seasons on the team. The Boston Celtics swept them in the first round of the playoffs last season.Phoenix reached the deal to acquire Durant a day after the N.B.A. board of governors approved the sale of the Suns and the W.N.B.A.’s Mercury to Mat Ishbia, a billionaire mortgage lender who purchased a majority stake in the team from Robert Sarver. Sarver sold the team after an N.B.A. investigation found that he had engaged in workplace misconduct, including using racial slurs for Black people and demeaning women during his tenure as team owner.Ishbia, during his introductory news conference on Wednesday morning, said he wanted to “think big” about the Phoenix teams.“How do we make these the elite franchises in the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A.?” he asked. “I want to make it so that everyone looks at the Mercury and the Suns as the best.”On the Suns, Durant will play alongside a talented young scorer in Devin Booker and an experienced point guard in Chris Paul. He and Irving should collide regularly now that both are in the Western Conference.“This business changes so quickly,” Irving said. “He’s getting a little bit older, I’m getting a little bit older. I just love the competition now.” More

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      Nets Face Uncertainty Again After Agreeing to Trade Kyrie Irving

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      Adding Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant hasn’t led to a conference finals berth, much less a championship. After meeting Irving’s trade request, the Nets are once again in a state of uncertainty.Having superstar talent is the only surefire way to win a championship in the N.B.A. It has been nearly 20 years since a team won a championship without at least one superstar player, and usually it takes two.So when Kyrie Irving, a virtuoso at point guard, and Kevin Durant, one of the smoothest scorers in the game, chose the Nets in free agency during the summer of 2019, they seemed to be sprinkling onto the Nets the sort of pixie dust necessary to turn a team into a real title contender. And so, for the past three and a half years, the Nets firmly set their sights on a championship that, they believed, the arrivals of Irving and Durant had put within reach.But instead of taking incremental steps toward that goal, the Nets found that their path featured endless detours. They spent this era dealing with one distraction after another. They tried desperately to make the most of having two players as gifted as Durant and Irving, giving up draft picks and promising young players to acquire a third superstar and create one of the greatest collections of talent ever seen in the league. They changed coaches and even disciplinary philosophies in an attempt to make this work.For the past few months, the Nets seemed to have found some semblance of stability. They were winning games, Irving seemed to be in a good place, and even Durant’s knee injury, while detrimental, wasn’t catastrophic.But then their fragile peace fell apart again.Irving requested a trade last week, and on Sunday the Nets agreed to a deal that will send him to the Dallas Mavericks. Through the deal, announced Monday night, the Nets will receive two players, a distant first-round draft pick and multiple second-round picks. They never really got to enjoy the fruits of such a big free-agency score, and now their future is uncertain. In many ways, though, the team lived a murky in-between life, even with the two superstars who came to them four years ago.Only three weeks ago, Irving was lauding the Nets’ cohesion. Reporters had asked him what would keep the Nets from struggling after Durant’s injury the way they did last year when Durant was out.“I’m consistently in the lineup, that helps,” Irving said. He said the team didn’t have anyone who was “halfway in” and added: “And there’s just a primary focus on the big picture here.”Irving seemed to be taking a shot at James Harden, who spent about a year with the Nets before asking for a trade.The Nets acquired Harden from Houston through a four-team trade in January 2021 as part of their efforts to make the Durant and Irving experiment work. They gave up a king’s ransom to do it: The package included three first-round picks, four pick swaps and Jarrett Allen, a talented young center who has found success, including an All-Star selection, in Cleveland.James Harden arrived in a four-team trade in 2021, but he ended up playing only 80 regular-season games with the Nets.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAt first, the trade seemed like a no-brainer. They were all perennial All-Stars. Durant and Harden had won the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. Durant and Irving had won championships. Who could beat this team? At least one article declared that they might be the greatest basketball team ever assembled.They took the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks to seven games in the conference semifinals in 2021 and seemed poised for domination in the 2021-22 season.But Irving barely played in the 2021-22 season because of his decision not to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Harden seemed irritated with Irving’s inconsistent availability, and once joked that he would inoculate Irving himself.But in an interview with FoxSports.com in December, Harden mentioned two other reasons that made his time in Brooklyn difficult: He was never fully healthy, and he struggled with the organization.“It was just, there was no structure,” Harden said. “And even superstars, they need structure. That’s what allows us to be the best players and leaders for our respective organizations.”The Nets traded Harden in February 2022, and got back Ben Simmons, who, in his 37 games for the Nets, has struggled to contribute.The Harden experiment had failed, and Irving was available only some of the time for most of the season. New York City’s private-sector vaccine mandate made him ineligible for home games until it was lifted, and the Nets did not let Irving play part time until they relented at midseason. The Boston Celtics swept the Nets out of the first round of the 2022 playoffs.There was some irony to the Nets’ being eliminated by the Celtics. In 2013, the Nets gave up five players, three first-round picks and the option to swap another first-round pick for four players, including Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Their Nets teams didn’t make it past the conference semifinals, either.The Nets had made a big bet on stars soon after moving to Brooklyn, making a trade with Boston for Kevin Garnett, right, and Paul Pierce. Those teams didn’t make it past the second round, either.Jason Szenes/European Pressphoto AgencyAfter losing to the Celtics in 2022, Irving overestimated his power within the organization.“When I say I’m here with Kev, I think that really entails us managing this franchise together alongside Joe and Sean,” Irving said, referring to the team owner Joe Tsai and General Manager Sean Marks.Marks was asked later if the Nets were committed to Irving.“We’re looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves, play selfless, play team basketball, and be available,” Marks said. “That goes not only for Kyrie but for everybody here.”The chaos was all too much for Durant, who asked for a trade in June and was given permission to seek one, but couldn’t find one to which the Nets would agree. He returned to the Nets, ready to move on.Where Durant stands now is uncertain. He expected to be competing for championships. It’s possible that once he’s healthy he will lead the Nets to a strong finish this season. But it’s also fair to wonder, as teams around the league surely are, if Durant will try again to be traded.If the Nets let it happen this time, it will fully end another star-laden era that never really got off the ground. More

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      Nets Trading Kyrie Irving to Dallas Mavericks After His Request to Leave

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      Irving’s tenure with the Nets was marred by his refusal to be vaccinated for the coronavirus and his posting of a link to an antisemitic film. In Dallas, he will join the superstar Luka Doncic.Kyrie Irving is on his way out of Brooklyn after three and a half scandal-filled years in which the Nets fell way short of realizing their aspirations of seriously contending for an N.B.A. championship.The Nets reached an agreement on Sunday to trade Irving to the Dallas Mavericks, according to three people familiar with the situation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the trade had not yet been announced and they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.The Nets were expected to receive Spencer Dinwiddie, 29, a guard who played five seasons with the Nets from 2016-21; forward Dorian-Finney Smith, 29; a first-round pick in 2029; and multiple second-round picks, two of the people said. The Mavericks will also receive the veteran forward Markieff Morris from the Nets, one of the people said.The deal could help the Mavericks (28-26) rise enough in the tightly contested Western Conference to contend for a championship this season.Irving, a dynamic point guard with a history of social activism, has also embraced controversy and conspiracy. He is in the final year of his contract with the Nets and had been hoping to work out a contract extension. With little progress on a deal, he asked the Nets to trade him last week, according to a person familiar with Irving’s request who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.On Jan. 26, Shetellia Riley Irving, his agent and stepmother, made public that his contract negotiations were not progressing.“I have reached out to the Nets regarding this,” she told Bleacher Report in January. “We have had no significant conversations to date. The desire is to make Brooklyn home, with the right type of extension, which means the ball is in the Nets’ court to communicate now if their desire is the same.”Irving and the star forward Kevin Durant signed with the Nets as free agents in 2019, hoping their talent could help lead the Nets to an N.B.A. championship. But Irving’s time with the Nets was tumultuous. He played in only 143 of the Nets’ 278 regular-season games while on their roster.When the two players signed with the Nets, Durant was still recovering from rupturing an Achilles’ tendon in the 2019 N.B.A. finals with Golden State. Durant then missed the entire 2019-20 season. After having an operation on his right shoulder, Irving missed the end of that season, which the N.B.A. ended in a so-called bubble on the Walt Disney World campus in Florida because of the coronavirus pandemic.The Nets lost a first-round series in the 2020 playoffs. In 2021, they lost an Eastern Conference semifinal series to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in seven games.Last season, Irving played in only 29 of the Nets’ 82 games because he would not get vaccinated against the coronavirus despite New York City’s vaccine requirement for private sector employees. The Nets initially said they would not allow Irving to play for them at all while he was ineligible for home games. But in January 2021, they changed course and allowed him to join the team on the road..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Irving’s stance irritated a teammate, the star guard James Harden, who joked that he would vaccinate Irving himself, but then asked for a trade. Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in February 2022 for Ben Simmons, who did not play for the rest of that season because of his mental and physical health.The Nets were swept by the Boston Celtics, the eventual conference champions, in the first round of the 2022 playoffs.After that series, Irving and Durant flirted with leaving the organization. Irving was given the opportunity to find a trade partner, but ultimately he opted into the final year of his contract. Last June, Durant asked for a trade, but the Nets did not find a trade they thought suited them.Despite having Simmons, Durant and Irving all available for the start of this season, the Nets lost six of their first eight games.During that time, Irving posted a link to an antisemitic film on his social media accounts. A reporter from Rolling Stone wrote that the film’s message centered on antisemitic tropes, and Irving was in trouble again. Irving faced backlash from Jewish leaders and the Nets owner Joe Tsai, who said on Twitter that he was disappointed Irving had linked to the movie and wanted to sit down with him so that he understood the hurt he had caused.In a news conference in late October, Irving defended posting the film. The Nets kept Irving away from reporters for the next two games, and on Nov. 2 he released a statement with the Anti-Defamation League saying he would donate $500,000 to anti-hate causes.But the next day, Irving addressed reporters after a practice and refused to apologize for posting the film or to disavow antisemitism.The Nets suspended Irving later that day and said the suspension would last at least five games. He missed eight games and was allowed to return to the team after he apologized. Around that time, on Nov. 1, the Nets fired Steve Nash, who had been their head coach since September 2020, and hired Jacque Vaughn, who had been Nash’s assistant.When Irving has played, he has shown his value on the court. He has averaged 27.2 points per game since his return, and the Nets have gone 22-10 with him in the lineup since then. The Nets (32-20) are fourth in the Eastern Conference. Durant has missed the Nets’ past 12 games with a knee injury. The Nets have gone 5-7 without him.On Saturday, a day after Irving requested the trade, the Nets sat Irving with what they said was a calf injury. Still, the Nets notched a thrilling 125-123 victory over the Washington Wizards with 44 points from a reserve player, Cam Thomas.The Athletic was first to report Irving’s agreement with Dallas on Sunday. He is leaving one superstar in Durant to join another in the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic. A 6-foot-7 guard, Doncic, 23, has been named an N.B.A. All-Star four times and was the league’s rookie of the year in 2019.Doncic played better at the beginning of this season than he had at the start of any of his previous seasons. His 33.4 points per game average ranked second in the league behind Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid entering Sunday. Doncic has not yet averaged more than 30 points per game in a complete season.In December against the Knicks, Doncic became the first player in N.B.A. history to score 60 points with 20 rebounds and 10 assists in one game. Earlier this season, he averaged 40.2 points per game during a 10-game stretch.Despite Doncic’s play, the Mavericks have struggled. They lacked enough depth to contend with injuries to key players. Maxi Kleber, a forward and center, had surgery on his hamstring in December. Christian Wood, who is also a frontcourt player, has missed the Mavericks’ last eight games with a fractured thumb.Dallas has won four of its last 11 games. The Mavericks are in sixth place in the Western Conference, but had only one fewer win than the third-place Sacramento Kings entering Sunday. More

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      Kyrie Irving Asks the Nets to Trade Him

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      The Nets guard, who will be a free agent this summer, wants out of Brooklyn just months after he caused an uproar by linking to an antisemitic film on social media.Kyrie Irving has asked the Nets to trade him before the N.B.A.’s trading deadline on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the request who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.Irving is in the final year of a four-year contract and will be a free agent this summer. The Athletic was first to report his trade request.Irving’s request comes three months after the Nets suspended him for refusing to disavow antisemitism after posting a link on Twitter to a film featuring antisemitic tropes. Irving missed eight games because of the suspension and returned after apologizing.He has averaged 27.2 points per game since his return, and the Nets have gone 22-10 with him in the lineup since then. The Nets are fourth in the Eastern Conference.It appeared as though the Nets, after months of drama and endless speculation about the direction of the team, had finally found some semblance of stability. But Irving has been a magnet for controversy for much of his career, and his trade request has most likely endangered the team’s fragile chemistry.A contender willing to trade for Irving would be well aware of the risks — as well as the potential rewards. He helped lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to an N.B.A. championship in 2016 alongside LeBron James, and Irving remains one of the league’s most exceptional talents. But there is baggage, too.After a 2-5 start this season, the Nets fired Steve Nash as their coach. He was replaced by Jacque Vaughn, one of his assistants, who managed to steady the team after a distraction-filled first few weeks of the season.Irving was criticized in October after he posted a link on Twitter to an antisemitic film, which espoused several false tropes, including questioning whether the Holocaust was real. Irving distanced himself from the Holocaust questioning, but he declined to apologize for the post in multiple combative news conferences even as he took down the post. During one of those news conferences, Irving expressed support for an antigovernment conspiracy theory pushed by the Infowars fabulist Alex Jones. The Nets suspended him on Nov. 3, and he returned to play on Nov. 20, despite some backlash from fans and the news media.Since then, the backlash has receded and Irving has shown flashes, at least on the court, of why the Nets signed him nearly four years ago.Irving and Kevin Durant joined the Nets as free agents before the 2019-20 season to form one of the more dynamic tandems in the league. Durant is one of the league’s smoothest scorers, and Irving is perhaps its best ballhandler. They each had championship experience and seemed poised, talent-wise, to bring the Nets a title.But there were questions and concerns from the start. Durant tore his Achilles’ tendon in the 2019 N.B.A. finals while playing for the Golden State Warriors, and he sat out his first season in Brooklyn. Irving, meanwhile, appeared in just 20 games before having season-ending shoulder surgery.The following season, the Nets made another splash by acquiring James Harden from the Houston Rockets in a three-team trade. But Irving missed several games for unspecified personal reasons, and during one of the stints when he was away from the team, video surfaced of him attending his sister’s birthday party without a mask, in violation of the N.B.A.’s coronavirus protocols. In the Eastern Conference semifinals, Irving sprained his right ankle against the Milwaukee Bucks and the Nets lost the series in seven games.The drama, though, was just beginning. Before the start of the 2021-22 season, the Nets issued Irving an ultimatum after he declined to be vaccinated for Covid-19: Get the shot, or stay home. Irving missed 35 games before the Nets reversed their policy, which cleared Irving to play in road games. He was able to play in home games nearly three months later when Mayor Eric Adams repealed a vaccine mandate for professional athletes and performers working in New York City.But Harden was gone by then, having joined the Philadelphia 76ers in a midseason trade. The Nets went on to get swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. In the wake of that disaster, Durant requested a trade but rescinded it before the start of this season.Irving had a player option for this season, and it was unclear almost until the deadline in June whether he would opt in. After weeks of speculation that he might be trying to force a trade, Irving announced that he was in for this season after all.“Normal people keep the world going, but those who dare to be different lead us into tomorrow,” Irving said in a statement at the time. “I’ve made my decision to opt in. See you in the fall.” More