Caldwell-Pope, Kentavious

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares99 Views

    NBA Finals 2023: Denver Nuggets Beat Miami Heat for First Championship

    by

    It took 56 years and 38 playoff appearances for the basketball team nestled in the high plains just east of the Rocky Mountains to finally reach the peak of its sport.It took an unheralded center from Serbia who turned into the most formidable player in the game and a Canadian point guard who found himself again after a long and arduous recovery from a career-threatening knee injury. It took patience, collaboration and a discipline born of trying, failing and learning how to keep climbing just a bit higher.The Denver Nuggets are finally champions.They clinched the first title in franchise history Monday night on their home court at Ball Arena, 5,280 feet above sea level — the highest altitude at which any N.B.A. championship has been won. They beat the Miami Heat, 94-89, in Game 5 to seal the victory. They were led by center Nikola Jokic, who stood quietly at the back of the stage holding his 1-year-old daughter as his team celebrated during the trophy presentation, and by point guard Jamal Murray, who cried as he looked up at the thousands of fans roaring for him. The rest of Denver’s indefatigable eight-man rotation bolstered the team’s two biggest stars until the end.“I got news for everybody out there,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone shouted, as the crowd erupted and confetti swirled in the air around him. “We’re not satisfied with one! We want more! We want more!”Bruce Brown celebrating.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesJokic was named the most valuable player of the finals, a nice complement to his two regular-season M.V.P. Awards. He finished Game 5 with 28 points, 16 rebounds and 4 assists, becoming the first player in N.B.A. history to lead the playoffs in points, rebounds and assists.“If you want to be a success, you need a couple years,” Jokic said. “You need to be bad, then you need to be good. Then when you’re good you need to fail, and then when you fail, you’re going to figure it out.“I think experience is something that is not what happened to you. It’s what you’re going to do with what happened to you.”The clinching game was neither pretty nor easy. Through the first three quarters, the Nuggets struggled to make 3-point shots and convert free throws. They turned the ball over carelessly. Had they lost, they would have had to play Game 6 in Miami on Thursday. The pressure on Monday may have frayed their nerves.“You want to end it on your home court with all the fans there, your family there,” Murray said. “You want to end it on the home court so bad.”The Heat had a 7-point lead at halftime, and led by just 1 point at the end of the third quarter.Jamal Murray heading to the locker room after winning.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesBut in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets found the resolve to take the title. With about 10 minutes 59 seconds remaining, Murray hit a 3-pointer — only the Nuggets’ third of the game — to give the Nuggets a 4-point lead. He pranced down the court as the Heat called a timeout. It was Denver’s largest lead since the first quarter.Later, Murray struck again. This time, Aaron Gordon blocked a jumper by Heat guard Kyle Lowry, leading to a transition basket for Murray to give the Nuggets a 5-point lead.And with less than 30 seconds remaining, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope stole a pass by Jimmy Butler and made both free throws after Lowry fouled him to give Denver a 3-point lead.“I’m grateful, man, that we made it here,” Butler said afterward. “Came up short, but I’m blessed. I’m fortunate.”With the win, the Nuggets departed a dubious club. There are now only 10 teams in the league that have never won an N.B.A. championship. Five have made it to the finals and lost, including the Phoenix Suns, who have come up short three times, most recently in 2021.But the Nuggets had never even gotten that far, at least not in the N.B.A. Not since 1976, when they lost to the New York Nets in the American Basketball Association finals, had they reached a championship series.Fans celebrating in downtown Denver.Max Paro/Getty ImagesThe long drought helps explain why the Nuggets were underestimated all season. Pundits and oddsmakers questioned their ability to win, even after they took hold of first place in the Western Conference in December and never let go.People wondered if Jokic, despite his superlative play, could lead a team this far — after all, he had never taken the Nuggets past the conference finals. Those questions may have cost him a third consecutive M.V.P. Award — an accomplishment that many said should be reserved for champions.Some wondered if Murray would ever return to the elite level he had been playing at in 2021, when a knee injury just before the playoffs set him and Denver on a two-year journey to fully reset.Along the way, some role players found their stride, even if they mostly went unnoticed.Caldwell-Pope, whom the Nuggets traded for last off-season, added defense, shooting and championship experience. For a few playoff games, he brought in the ring he had won in 2020 with the Lakers and let his teammates hold it. None of them have one.“They gave me an opportunity here, because of my championship, to be that leader — be vocal, let them know about my experience and how hard it is to get to this point we’re at now,” Caldwell-Pope said after Game 1. “I’m just trying to keep them motivated.”Jokic had never been past the conference finals until this season. Denver drafted him in the second round, 41st overall, in 2014.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesGordon, whom the Nuggets traded for in March 2021, happily became a defensive stopper after being the offensive star of the Orlando Magic.“I’m not here for the credit,” Gordon said. “I’m here for the wins.”Bruce Brown provided offensive sparks; Jeff Green added veteran calm; Christian Braun, a rookie, offered a youthful fearlessness that would pay off in the finals.The Nuggets blasted through the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round and then beat the Suns in six games. They swept the Lakers in the conference finals and then sat around for a week waiting to find out whom they would meet in the finals.Like the Nuggets, the Heat had taken a 3-0 lead in their conference finals series. But they faltered as the Boston Celtics fought back in the East and won the next three games, forcing a decisive Game 7.“When Boston won Game 6, we’d been sitting so long it almost felt like we wasn’t in the playoffs anymore,” Green said. “Because the only thing we was doing was watching them.”Miami, propelled by its relentless star Butler, won Game 7 for the franchise’s seventh trip to the finals, this time as the No. 8 seed. A victory would have given Miami its first championship in a decade, one far more unexpected than the three it had won.If people overlooked Denver this season, they ignored Miami outright. The Heat barely made the playoffs and then gave even ardent believers reason to doubt when they wavered against Boston. They had an us-against-the-world mentality heading into the finals when, for once, Denver seemed to have the world on its side.And who could blame the Nuggets if that surge of confidence flowed to their heads?Caleb Martin of the Miami Heat, center, battling with Jokic.Pool photo by Kyle TeradaDenver took Game 1, and Jokic notched a triple-double. Afterward, the Nuggets began to celebrate as if they could feel their championship parade rumbling already. They lost focus and allowed Miami to steal Game 2, even as Jokic scored 41 points. Malone, Denver’s coach, scolded the Nuggets and questioned their effort. He wouldn’t have to do that again.Jokic and Murray each had triple-doubles in Game 3 in front of a raucous crowd in Miami. In Game 4, Brown scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, stoking Miami’s desperation.The Nuggets had some unusual visitors in their locker room after Game 4. The Nuggets owner E. Stanley Kroenke and his son, Josh Kroenke, the team president, grinned brightly, each holding a can of Coors. The Nuggets had just taken a 3-1 lead in the finals, and they could feel that the franchise was closing in on its first championship. Only one finals team — the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers — had ever been able to dig itself out of that deep a hole.But the Nuggets players and coaches refused to acknowledge how close they were. They remembered what had happened after Game 1.“We need to win one more,” Jokic said after Game 4. “I like that we didn’t relax. We didn’t get comfortable. We were still desperate. We still want it.”Murray offered a bit more confidence. “We’re just ready to win a championship,” he said. “We have the tools to do it. It’s been on our minds for a while.”Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesA fan with face paint or makeup in the style of the comic book character the Joker — Jokic’s nickname — at Game 5 in Denver.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesWhen Murray stood on the stage after Game 5, having finally won, ESPN’s Lisa Salters asked him about his journey, about how he couldn’t even walk two years ago today because of his knee injury. As she spoke, the crowd’s cheers drowned out her voice. Murray paused and looked up at them. Tears filled his reddened eyes.“Everything was hitting at once,” Murray said later. “From the journey, to the celebration with the guys, to enjoying the moment, to looking back on the rehab, to looking back at myself as a kid.”Malone’s mind was already on the next championship.Pat Riley, the president of the Miami Heat, who has won nine N.B.A. championships as either a player, assistant coach, head coach or executive, once shared with Malone a message that Malone used to have displayed in his office.“It talked about the evolution in this game and how you go from a nobody to an upstart, and you go from an upstart to a winner and a winner to a contender and a contender to a champion,” Malone said. “And the last step is after a champion is to be a dynasty.”But his players weren’t ready to think about that yet. As he spoke, they were dousing the locker room and each other with champagne, drops of which sprinkled from the Nuggets logo on the ceiling. The players lit cigars, adding the heavy scent of cigar smoke to their celebration.Denver’s role players, such as Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr., played a key role in their playoff success.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesJokic popped in and out of the locker room, sometimes spraying champagne on his teammates, sometimes pouring it right on their heads. He said many times during the playoffs that he was most proud of the success they’d had together.He had been the first player off the court after the trophy presentation, and had walked to the locker room by himself holding his finals M.V.P. trophy. He had been their best player throughout the season, but he wasn’t swept up in the ecstasy that had engulfed his teammates.“It’s good,” Jokic said, when asked about his emotions after winning the championship. “We did a job.”Another reporter tried again a few minutes later, this time asking if he was excited for the parade the city would have to celebrate the championship.“When is parade?” Jokic said, turning to a Nuggets staff member in the room.He was told it was Thursday.“No,” Jokic lamented. “I need to go home.”Then he finally relented just a little bit, and acknowledged that winning a championship felt “amazing.”“It’s a good feeling when you know that you did something that nobody believes, and it’s just us, it’s just the organization, Denver Nuggets believing in us, every player believing in each other,” Jokic said. “And I think that’s the most important thing.”Daniel Brenner for The New York Times More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Basket

      Denver Nuggets Role Players Get to Be Stars, Too

      by

      The Nuggets can sweep the Lakers in the Western Conference finals, and it’s not just because of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. The role players have been just as important.LOS ANGELES — To win a championship in the N.B.A., a team almost always needs at least one transcendent player.But the championship journey will also depend on how well a team’s role players do their jobs.The Lakers, with 17 titles, know this well. Would they have won in 2010 without Metta Sandiford-Artest, or in 2002 without Robert Horry? Shaquille O’Neal, who won three championships for the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, often talks about the importance of the “others” — the players who aren’t stars.The Lakers franchise has found itself on the unpleasant side of the calculus this year. In the Western Conference finals against Denver, Los Angeles has the weaker supporting cast. The Nuggets, who lead the best-of-seven series, 3-0, are not just beating the Lakers with the talents of Nikola Jokic, a two-time N.B.A. most valuable player, or Jamal Murray, their dynamic guard. Aaron Gordon’s toughness, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s poise, Bruce Brown’s versatility and Michael Porter Jr.’s persistence are helping them get it done.On Monday, the Nuggets will try to complete a sweep of the Lakers to go to the franchise’s first N.B.A. finals. There have certainly been moments when Jokic and Murray have carried Denver, but a critical part of the Nuggets’ success is that they haven’t always had to do that. When Murray and Jokic ebb, the team’s role-players flow, and together they beat back any tide the Lakers have sent at them.Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said forward Aaron Gordon had “checked his ego” to fulfill his role for the team.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“There’s a lot of guys that can go get it,” Gordon said. “So we just go with the hot guy.”Jokic is the engine that powers the Nuggets, but Gordon also called him “one of the most unselfish basketball players.” Jokic is averaging a triple-double in the playoffs, with 29.9 points, 13.2 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game. But even when he isn’t at his best, his mere presence changes the game. That happened on Saturday, in the Nuggets’ 119-108 win in Game 3 with the Lakers. Jokic had just 5 points and 2 rebounds at halftime, then got into foul trouble by committing his fourth less than halfway through the third quarter.“There wasn’t a panic,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “It was: ‘OK, he’s out. That means somebody else has to step up.’ I think that’s something our team has done time and time again.”The Nuggets’ players have not just accepted roles that require them to defer to others, but embraced them in service of winning a championship. Jokic was the team’s only All-Star this year and no Nugget made an All-Defensive team; Jokic has never played with someone who made those teams while playing with him.On Saturday, Caldwell-Pope scored 12 points in a critical third quarter when Jokic was in foul trouble and Murray had cooled off after scoring 30 points in the first half.The last time Caldwell-Pope played in the Western Conference finals, it was 2020 and he was a Laker tasked with defending Murray. The Lakers beat Denver to win the West, then bested Miami to win the title. Caldwell-Pope knows what it will take for Denver to win this year.“We’re No. 1 in the West for a reason,” Caldwell-Pope said. “I believed it from the jump that we could win a championship. That was everybody’s mind-set. We knew how we could jell together and play together.”Bruce Brown had 15 points for Denver off the bench in Game 3.Ashley Landis/Associated PressDenver’s Jeff Green, who played 23 minutes on Saturday, has been on nine teams in the past eight seasons. Porter, whom the Nuggets drafted in the first round in 2018, missed most of last season with a back injury. He scored 14 points and led the Nuggets with 10 rebounds on Saturday. Brown, who had 15 points off the bench, signed with Denver last summer.Gordon, drafted fourth overall by Orlando in 2014, was once best known for his impressive showing in the league’s dunk contests. His stats on Saturday didn’t look all that impressive — 7 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists — but his defensive contributions were key. He blocked a shot late in the third quarter that helped the Nuggets maintain the lead.“He has checked his ego at the door,” Malone said. “He knew coming into this year with Jamal and Michael back that his role would be different, and he never fought that.”That isn’t always the case on ambitious teams, and this N.B.A. season provided examples of the friction that can emerge. Golden State’s younger players, for example, clamored for more playing time. But Denver, which led the West for much of the season, is an example of how good it can be when the system works.“Everybody realizes when we need something, we need a spark,” Murray said. “Could be Joker, could be me, could be Bruce, Jeff off the bench — whether it’s a chase-down block or a charge or something. Everybody has something they can come in and impact the game with.”The Lakers were another example of a team that struggled to satisfy everyone in their roles this season. In February, they traded away Russell Westbrook, who had been unhappy in a bench role. He had joined the team less than two years ago in a multi-team deal that also sent Caldwell-Pope to the Washington Wizards from Los Angeles. Moving on from Westbrook was part of a larger effort to add several new role players, who have had many electrifying games. But against the Nuggets their shortcomings have been clear.The Lakers’ role players struggled in Game 3. D’Angelo Russell, left, was just 1 of 8 from the field.Ashley Landis/Associated PressThe starkest example was D’Angelo Russell, who scored just 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting in Game 3 and committed three turnovers.Lakers Coach Darvin Ham could offer only this about the performances of the Lakers’ role players: “I thought they did the best they could, all of them.”But sometimes it takes more, like what Sandiford-Artest gave the Lakers in the 2010 N.B.A. finals against Boston.In Game 7, Bryant, the team’s leading scorer during the regular season and the playoffs, made only 6 of 24 shots. The Lakers had mostly relied on Sandiford-Artest for his defense as a past defensive player of the year, but in that game he scored 20 points and hit a crucial 3-pointer with less than a minute left.On Saturday, Sandiford-Artest sat across from the Lakers’ bench, a powerful reminder of how important role players can be to win a championship. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      This Isn’t Who the Lakers Are Supposed to Be. Right?

      by

      The Lakers have long been seen as a glamour franchise of big names and big wins. LeBron James is dominating. But the wins have been much harder to come by, for a while.LOS ANGELES — LeBron James fidgeted as he answered questions after a second consecutive frustrating Lakers loss in which he thought the referees had missed a potential game-altering foul call.He was terse and dismissed a question about scoring his 38,000th career point in the N.B.A., something only he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have done. He was asked if he thought much about what the Lakers’ many losses in recent seasons meant to the franchise.“No,” James said. Then he turned and sped out of the locker room, into a rainy Los Angeles night.The gloom outside reflected the mood in the building.For decades, the Lakers defined themselves as one of the N.B.A.’s glamour franchises — a place the biggest stars went to play, win championships and achieve basketball immortality. Making the playoffs was an expectation, not an accomplishment.Then 10 years ago, two seismic events shook the franchise. On Feb. 18, 2013, Jerry Buss, who bought and revitalized the Lakers in 1979, died at age 80, leaving the franchise to a trust controlled by his six children, some of whom would wrestle for control of the team. Less than two months later, as he tried to drag the Lakers into the playoffs, Kobe Bryant tore an Achilles’ tendon, the first in a string of injuries that would spell the end of his 20-year career.Since then, the Lakers have gone through several discordant phases, from Bryant’s return and retirement to chaos in the executive ranks to a championship in 2020 that seemed proof of purple-and-gold exceptionalism, no matter the obstacles.But new obstacles have the Lakers once again facing the question of whether the excellence they spent decades building can return. For the second year in a row, James, 38, is having to produce herculean efforts to try to pull his injury-plagued team out of the bottom of the Western Conference standings.LeBron James is averaging nearly 30 points a game at the age of 38 as he tries to power the injured and struggling Lakers to the playoffs.Jae C. Hong/Associated Press“We’re going to figure this thing out,” said Lakers Coach Darvin Ham, the team’s fifth in the past 10 years. “We’ll definitely figure this thing out.”‘Kobe realized that he could not win’If success is measured by championships, the Lakers have still been one of the top teams in the N.B.A. during the past decade. They are one of the six teams to have won championships since the 2012-13 season.Broadening the measure to playoff or regular-season success, the Lakers become less impressive. With only two playoff appearances since the 2012-13 season, the Lakers are in the bottom third of the league. Only two teams have been to the playoffs fewer times in that span — the Knicks (once) and the Sacramento Kings (none).By contrast, between 1960-61, the team’s first season in Los Angeles after moving from Minnesota, and 2012-13, the Lakers had missed the playoffs just four times.Frank Vogel coached the Lakers to their only two recent playoff appearances, guiding them to the championship in 2020 then a first-round loss in 2021. The Lakers fired him in April after they missed the playoffs.Even though injuries and roster construction played major roles in the Lakers’ struggles in the 2021-22 season, Vogel became a casualty of heightened expectations with James on board. James’s arrival as a free agent in July 2018 marked the first time since Bryant retired two years earlier that the Lakers had a transcendent star.Bryant had spent his whole career with the Lakers and won five championships. So even after his Achilles’ tendon injury, the Lakers rewarded him with a two-year contract extension worth $48.5 million, giving him the highest salary in the league at the time. They were confident that he deserved it no matter what happened next.To announce Bryant’s return from injury in late 2013, the Lakers created a video with dramatic music and an image of his jersey being battered by weather until a lightning bolt finally tore it. The video closes with the jersey having been mended by unseen means and with the words: “The Legend Continues.”Bryant returned for six games in December, then fractured his knee and missed the rest of the 2013-14 season as the Lakers won just 27 games. He missed most of the next season as the team won only 21 games.“At some point, I think it’s obvious to everyone that Kobe realized that he could not win,” said Gary Vitti, who was the Lakers’ head athletic trainer for decades until Bryant retired. “And once he realized he couldn’t win, then a lot of the stress and the pressure sort of came off him and he really started having fun and being a lot happier around the game and his teammates.”Kobe Bryant, who died in 2020, spent his entire 20-year career with the Lakers, though the final few seasons were rough. He scored 60 points in his final game in April 2016.Harry How/Getty ImagesOpposing fans feted him everywhere he went. They cheered the first shot he made, even if it took him a while to get there. Coach Byron Scott, a former Lakers guard, led the team during Bryant’s loss-filled farewell tour, a franchise-low 17-win season.“Losing — it’s horrible,” Vitti said. “But if you put it all in the context, if you’re Kobe, you know, basically Kobe could do whatever he wanted out there. Byron took over and kind of fell on his sword for the team. He said, let’s send Kobe out the way he wants to go.”Said Metta Sandiford-Artest, who played for the Lakers on their 2010 championship team and again from 2015-17: “At that point, you just wanted to make it comfortable for Kobe. That’s it. Nothing else really matters at that point.” He added: “He deserved it.”‘Pieces for the future’All the losing gave the Lakers enviable draft positioning.With picks earned by their records in the final few years of Bryant’s career, the Lakers drafted or acquired several promising young players, like Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell, Larry Nance Jr., Brandon Ingram and Ivica Zubac.Randle, Clarkson, Russell and Nance have said they learned from Bryant’s example. But his star power was such that they had to wait until he retired in April 2016 for the franchise to focus on their development.“It felt like a career-beginning training camp because it definitely was not the pieces at the time you needed to win,” Sandiford-Artest said. “There was more, you know, pieces for the future.”Those players would not be part of their future, except as trade chips to build the championship roster.In the gap between Bryant and James, Jeanie Buss, the controlling owner, overhauled the front office and thwarted a coup attempt by her older brothers as the team’s losses — and external criticism — mounted.In the summer of 2017, the Lakers signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who is represented by James’s agent and close friend, Rich Paul. That gave Paul an inside look at the organization a year before James became a free agent.Paul knew the situation wasn’t perfect, but few teams are. He advised James that signing with the Lakers could work, in part out of trust in Buss. James chose the Lakers and suddenly the drama of the past few seasons didn’t seem to matter.After missing the playoffs in James’s first season, when he dealt with a groin injury, the Lakers tried again. Magic Johnson, whom Buss had hired to run basketball operations and who had helped to recruit James, abruptly stepped down before the last game of the 2018-19 season. They traded several young players and draft picks to the New Orleans Pelicans for another Paul client: Anthony Davis. Rob Pelinka, the team’s vice president of basketball operations, said he consulted with James and Davis as he built the rest of the roster.The two stars were electrifying together. The rest of the team fit perfectly and charged through the coronavirus pandemic-interrupted season. When Bryant died suddenly in a helicopter crash in January 2020, James became the public face of the organization’s grief.Months later, James led the Lakers to the franchise’s 17th championship. Buss felt vindicated against those who had questioned her leadership.Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ controlling owner, has faced criticism as the team has struggled. She oversaw the franchise’s 17th championship run, in 2020.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesOnstage as the team celebrated the victory, James enveloped Buss in a long embrace. He told her they had accomplished what they set out to do.“I think the hug for that long a time was to really let it soak in,” Buss told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “He’s won several championships now, and he knows that those moments are to be cherished and to be recognized.”But it was only one championship. They would soon tumble from their pedestal.‘Things are going to get right’This season is Ham’s first season with the Lakers, and it began disastrously.The team lost its first five games, and 10 of its first 12. Ham benched Russell Westbrook in October after three starts. Westbrook had struggled in his first season in Los Angeles last year.James has been a bright spot. In his 20th season, he has been playing like he is still in his 20s. He’s had trouble enjoying the chase for Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record as losses and injuries have piled up this season.Ham has remained optimistic.“I get disappointed, but I don’t get discouraged or down on myself or the team,” he said in an interview. “Yeah, there’s moments in games we should have won, or different moments we should have played better, but at the end of the day working in the N.B.A. for one of the most, if not the most storied franchise, having a lot of great people I get to work with, great people I’m working for. It’s been fun.”The Lakers lack depth, but there is evidence lately that, with the right additions, they can contend for a championship if they have Davis, who had been playing like a candidate for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award before his foot injury in mid-December. The Lakers went on a five-game winning streak starting Dec. 30 and recently they nearly beat two contenders — the Mavericks and the 76ers.Lakers guard Russell Westbrook, left, has had a rocky tenure in Los Angeles, but has found success coming off the bench this year. Coach Darvin Ham, right, pulled Westbrook from the starting lineup after three games.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe trading deadline is Feb. 9, giving the Lakers until then to make a major move to get back on the championship track. But all of the trades of the last few years, particularly those for Davis and Westbrook, have left them with little flexibility and salary-cap space. They can’t trade any of their first-round picks until the 2027 selection, and have been reluctant to lose more draft assets.Ham said he has felt support from Pelinka and Buss, who signed Pelinka to a multiyear extension last year despite the team’s struggles. After a five-game road trip from Christmas to Jan. 2, Ham and Pelinka went to Buss’s office.“She gave me a big hug and told me: ‘Hang in there, you’re doing a phenomenal job and things are going to get right. We’re going to start winning consistently, but Darvin, we’re totally happy with what you’re doing and you and your staff are doing an excellent job,’” Ham said. “It was cool. It was really thoughtful.”Ham said the mood when he sees both Buss and Pelinka is light and full of smiles.“It’s not like a lack of an awareness, but just a gratefulness, a thankfulness to be in this together,” Ham said.He is being afforded patience, at least for now. More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Basket

      How Is Nikola Jokic This Good Again?

      by

      With his seamless passing and box-score-busting offense, Jokic, the superstar Denver Nuggets center, is showing why his coach calls him a “generational talent.”DENVER — Nikola Jokic didn’t look like himself in some ways. He was missing layups and had been called for a technical foul. He made silly turnovers, was late on several defensive rotations and tallied just two assists in the first half.But by the time that game against the Charlotte Hornets was over, Jokic had amassed an eye-popping stat line: 40 points, 27 rebounds and 10 assists. It was the first time a player had compiled at least 35 points, 25 rebounds and 10 assists since Wilt Chamberlain did so in 1968. Jokic set a Denver Nuggets record by grabbing 20 rebounds in the first half alone, amid all of his miscues.That’s the level Jokic is at nowadays: Even his off games are record-breaking.“I didn’t know it was a 40, 27 and 10 night,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said after the game Sunday. “But I knew that he was having just another Nikola Jokic stellar performance.”The next game was Tuesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, the only team standing between the Nuggets and the best record in the Western Conference. Jokic meticulously dismantled Memphis by tossing out 13 assists, feeding his teammates as if he were Mary Poppins among birds, as part of a triple-double in a 14-point win.The almost routine dominance of Jokic — Malone called him “a generational talent” — is bolstering his case to become the first N.B.A. player to win three straight Most Valuable Player Awards since Larry Bird, who won from 1984 to 1986 with the Boston Celtics. The only other players to do so were Wilt Chamberlain (1966 to 1968 with the 76ers) and Bill Russell (1961 to 1963 with Boston).But it’s not just awards that set Jokic apart from other stars.Some players seem to defy the laws of physics with their athleticism. Jokic is not fast. His vertical is more of a horizontal. He isn’t particularly muscular and often looks winded, with his shoulders sagging. When he shoots 3-pointers, he slowly winds up and casually flicks his wrist, as if basketball is interrupting his day.Yet Jokic, 27, makes flashy passes look effortless and punishes opponents with brute force at the basket. Alex English, a Hall of Famer who won a scoring title for the Nuggets in 1983, said Jokic makes it seem like he “doesn’t have to work so hard.”“His footwork is just unbelievable,” English said. “Guys, they don’t know what he’s going to do because he’s got such great footwork. He is just the total package.”Early in the third quarter against Memphis on Tuesday, Jokic caught the ball near the perimeter, instantly tossed the ball between his legs without looking and found a cutting Bruce Brown for a dunk, drawing oohs and aahs from the crowd. That was the amuse-bouche for minutes later, when he coolly tossed a blind over-the-head pass from the low post to Aaron Gordon for another dunk.“You just have to be ready for the ball, no matter where you are or where he is on the court because he can find you,” Zeke Nnaji, a third-year reserve forward for the Nuggets, said in the locker room on Sunday.When Jokic is on the court, the Nuggets’ offense is on par with the league’s best teams. When he sits, it is the worst, a remarkable swing. This year, teammates like Gordon, Brown and guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are having great years, in part because of the open shots Jokic has created. In the case of Brown, roughly half his shots have been “open” or “wide open,” according to the league’s tracking numbers. Last year, when Brown was with the Nets, that number was only 38.3 percent.One of the most effective plays the Nuggets run involves Jokic catching the ball around the free-throw line, leaving the entire court at his disposal. If a double team comes, Jokic casually finds shooters or cutters. If he is single-covered, Jokic simply backs down the defender or shoots over him. He doesn’t move quickly. He gets to where he needs to go, or makes sure the ball does.Jokic, for the third straight season, is leading the league in multiple advanced statistical categories, in large part because of his ruthless efficiency. He’s averaging 24.7 points a game, and his true shooting percentage (a measure of scoring efficiency that factors in free throws) — is 68.8 percent. No one has ever averaged 20 points per game with at least 69 percent true shooting for a season. (During the 1981-82 season, Artis Gilmore averaged 18.5 points a game on 70.2 percent true shooting.)And Jokic does have shortcomings: He’s not a strong defender, even though he’s the only center in the league’s top 20 in steals. Opposing teams with quick guards often look to attack him when he’s on defense. In the two games this week, Hornets and Grizzlies guards sought Jokic out in transition and stepped right around him for easy layups.Quick guards, like Charlotte’s Terry Rozier, center, often can zip past Jokic.Isaiah J. Downing/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHis matchup against Memphis guard Ja Morant on Tuesday was a battle in contrasts. Morant is a high-flying speedster who seems to have an internal joystick set to turbo at all times. Jokic, listed at 6-foot-11, has nine dunks on the year. Morant, at 6-foot-2, has 19. Though the Grizzlies lost, Morant’s output was certainly that of a superstar — 35 points and 10 assists — and he, like Jokic, could be in the conversation for the M.V.P. Award.Several players have won twice in a row, including Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo immediately before Jokic. But few have won the following year, even if, like Jokic, they continued to play well. Michael Wilbon, the ESPN broadcaster and longtime M.V.P. voter, said that voter fatigue is “probably” a real factor in voting, though “not consciously.”“You just start to examine your own judgment and you’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, is this person so dominant that he should be installed in this position in a league that has great stars every year?’” Wilbon said.Whether Jokic wins again or not is almost besides the point. He is one of the best shows to watch — not just in the N.B.A., but in all of professional sports. Even though he’s won individual honors, he does not seem to get the attention that other top stars get. Maybe it’s because he plays in a smaller market like Denver. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t do many commercials and isn’t active on social media. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t won a championship.But this month will mark only the third time in Jokic’s eight-year career that the N.B.A. will showcase the Nuggets on Christmas, a day the league typically reserves for the league’s marquee players. Last year, despite Jokic being the reigning M.V.P., the league snubbed the Nuggets when deciding the holiday’s schedule.That’s on the league for depriving viewers of a unicorn: a slow-footed, lumbering big man who manages to awe on a nightly basis in a way no one of his size and physique has before dribbling a basketball. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      New Friends and Secret Keepers: They Make N.B.A. Families Feel Welcome

      by

      A network of N.B.A. staffers helps players and their families find homes, hairstylists and everything else when they move to new cities.Desireé LeSassier’s phone wouldn’t stop chiming. She had landed in Minneapolis about an hour before, on the Los Angeles Lakers’ plane, and people needed things.She apologized as she returned text messages and emails. A player called to ask if she could reserve him some time on the court so he could shoot the night before the game.“This is literally …” LeSassier said, before trailing off to answer another message. “It’s definitely nonstop.”LeSassier, the Lakers’ manager of player services, helps players with anything they need, off-court and nonmedical. Except when she reserves court time for them. And when she reminds them of appointment times for coronavirus testing.She arranges tickets for players’ guests at home and on the road. She helps them get acclimated to Los Angeles. Also, she —Her phone rang again and she answered it without waiting for a greeting.“Hey, you’re confirmed,” LeSassier said. “I told them 7:30, but they’re ready for you. I’ll see what time I’m finished here.”She paused.“Why, you want me to rebound for you or something?” she laughed. “All right, I’ll think about it.”Desireé LeSassier juggles a bevy of requests from Lakers players and their families.Los Angeles LakersLeSassier and her colleagues around the N.B.A. don’t have uniform titles or backgrounds, but they have a knack for making players and their loved ones feel cared for and special. As players and their families bounce around different cities where they might not know anyone, people like LeSassier become crucial to their comfort and mental health. They help players focus on basketball without worrying too much about handling everything else. They can become part of a team’s competitive edge.“If you talk to guys on different teams, they can always tell you that person,” said Ayana Lawson, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s vice president of community and lifestyle services. “There’s a genuine sense of: ‘Man, this person looked after me. This person took care of me.’ ‘Hey, can I call them when I’m in trouble?’ And trouble can just mean: ‘Hey, I’m having a bad day. Can I talk to you?’ Or, ‘Hey, I’m having Thanksgiving by myself.’”Before teams began hiring people to do this job, there were those who filled the unspoken need.One was Kathy Jordan, who worked for the Indiana Pacers for 25 years starting in 1983. Jordan, whom Lawson called the “godmother of player development,” had married a man who eventually played in the N.B.A. She knew how hard it could be for families to adjust to life in the league. When a player and his wife moved to Indianapolis from New York, she offered help navigating the new city, even though it wasn’t part of her work as a promotions assistant. She didn’t tell her bosses what she was doing.“The front office staff, we weren’t supposed to be commingling with the team — especially females,” Jordan said.She helped players and their families find homes, schools for their children, doctors and hair stylists.“Being African American in Indianapolis, we weren’t the most diverse city at that time,” Jordan said. “There were just a few places that did African American hair.”The Pacers eventually made her work with players more official. Then, in the late 1980s, then-N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern called on her for more information about her efforts. Now most teams have someone like Jordan, and many have departments with multiple employees dedicated to helping players and their families acclimate.In Philadelphia, there is Allen Lumpkin, the 76ers’ senior director of logistics and team relations. He began working for the 76ers in 1977 as a teenage ball boy, a position now referred to as team attendant.One day while Lumpkin was working the opposing bench, a Washington Bullets player named Rick Mahorn sat down next to him and said he planned to foul Julius Erving as hard as he could. Years later, when Mahorn was traded to the 76ers, he asked Lumpkin, a familiar face, where to live.In the old days, Lumpkin would go out on the town with Mahorn, Charles Barkley and Manute Bol. “We did everything together,” he said. He is still close with current and former Sixers and their families. Markelle Fultz FaceTimed him recently. Allen Iverson calls him regularly. Mahorn and his wife are godparents to one of Lumpkin’s children.“You’re entrusting your loved ones to a team,” Lumpkin, 60, said. “They want to make sure, as any parent would, that their child is taken care of. If the players have families with kids, they want to make sure they’re taken care of.”Lumpkin began officially leading player development for the 76ers in 2000, around the time the N.B.A. began prioritizing it.Allen Lumpkin began working for the 76ers as a ball boy in 1977.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesNow the league office has a staff of 13 people dedicated to helping players with off-court interests. Leah Wilcox, the league’s player family liaison, is well known for her work with families. That group provides resources for players’ financial literacy, education and social justice initiatives.Together with team employees, they form a network that shares information when players change teams. When Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed with the Lakers, his wife, Mackenzie Caldwell-Pope, and LeSassier became close.“She had a friend that knew L.A. and worked for the team,” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “It was helpful.”In Dallas, Kristy Laue became such a part of the fabric of the Mavericks in her development role that when she became pregnant with twins, Rick Carlisle, then the coach, announced it during practice.That season the Mavericks won the N.B.A. championship. During the playoffs, as players ran out onto the court before the game, some would stop to mime high fives toward her belly.“I feel like a lot of them are family,” Laue said.Sashia Jones, the vice president of player development and social engagement at Monumental Sports Group, which owns the Washington Wizards, just began officially working with families this year. She’s been offering that support to players for 18 years.“She’s just an amazing person, amazing human being,” said Otto Porter Jr., who spent five and a half seasons with the Wizards.Jones helped Porter organize a Thanksgiving breakfast for people without homes. When his uncle wanted to bring a high school basketball team from Australia to a game, Jones arranged their visit.Her relationship with players doesn’t mean always saying yes. It can mean telling players things they don’t want to hear — like that she can’t get involved in certain personal matters.“Sometimes you’ve just got to stay out of it,” she said.Lawson, with the Thunder, has grown more comfortable with delivering unwelcome news over the years, and players, like Serge Ibaka, respect her for it.Ibaka was 19 when he joined the Thunder and had never lived in the United States.“She was taking me like I was her little brother,” said Ibaka, who is from the Republic of Congo and a naturalized citizen of Spain. “She was making sure I was right, even learning my English. I remember we used to argue because she used to force me to do English classes early on a game day. I used to be like, ‘We have game!’ She said, ‘No, you have to do it.’”Thirteen years later, he still calls her his big sister.Players trust that she won’t tell their secrets, and Thunder General Manager Sam Presti trusts that she’s helping even when she can’t say with what exactly.“It’s hard to go to your G.M. and be like, ‘Hey, I kind of need this unlimited budget for this project that I can’t really tell you about,’” Lawson said.One of her proudest moments was when she helped Deonte Burton buy a house. A two-way player for the Thunder who didn’t have much money growing up, he was the first of his siblings to be able to own a home, she said.The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way teams approach player services. It’s meant less in-person interaction. The Toronto Raptors had the additional challenge of international travel restrictions, so they spent the 2020-21 season in Tampa, Fla.“We basically started from scratch and built a network in Tampa,” said Teresa Resch, the Raptors’ vice president of basketball operations, who oversees the Raptors’ player services staff.The Raptors had also spent the end of the 2019-20 season in Florida, when the N.B.A. finished its season at a restricted-access site at Walt Disney World near Orlando because of the pandemic.Danny Green and Blair Bashen Green invited LeSassier to their wedding in 2021.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesFor the Lakers’ large family contingent in Florida that year, LeSassier organized an outdoor movie night, a karaoke night and a pizza party. The adults did wine tastings. They made tie-dye shirts with the children. Blair Bashen Green, then the fiancée of guard Danny Green, was part of the group.“Obviously, we were stuck there and couldn’t go anywhere,” said Bashen Green, who married Green in 2021 and invited LeSassier to the wedding. “She just made the whole bubble experience — it was almost like a vacation for us.”Poolside yoga classes gave LeSassier a mental break, too.“As you can see, my phone goes off constantly,” LeSassier said. “So that moment of yoga — I was there with the families, but it was also time for me to just have an hour to myself.”Bashen Green remembered attending her first Laker game after Green signed with the team in 2019. She felt like a student at a new school, unsure whether anyone in the room for players’ families would talk to her.“You always have a little bit of anxiety,” Bashen Green said. “Will people be nice? Do they introduce themselves? Do you introduce yourself?”LeSassier, as usual, was there to help. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Basket

      Lakers’ Russell Westbrook Deal Shifts Power Back to Los Angeles

      by

      Westbrook, 32, averaged a triple-double last season and should help the Lakers rebound from their first-round exit from the playoffs.As the N.B.A. braces for the start of free agency negotiations on Monday, a pending blockbuster trade that would send Russell Westbrook to the Los Angeles Lakers is already in the running to be this summer’s most impactful transaction. More