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      Aces Coach Becky Hammon Suspended for Pregnancy Comments to Dearica Hamby

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      The All-Star forward Dearica Hamby had accused an unnamed person of making “disgusting comments” and questioning her commitment to the team after she became pregnant.The W.N.B.A. on Tuesday suspended Las Vegas Aces Coach Becky Hammon for two games for comments she made to the All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy. While the players’ union said the punishment did not go far enough, the Aces defended Hammon as a “caring human.”The Aces traded Hamby to the Los Angeles Sparks in January, just months after the Aces won a championship and Hamby signed a contract extension. At the time, Hamby wrote in a post on Instagram that an unnamed person had made “disgusting comments.” She said she had been falsely accused of signing a contract extension when she knew she was pregnant and that she was told she was being traded because “I wouldn’t be ready and we need bodies.”She said her commitment to the team was also called into question, even though she pushed herself to work out during her pregnancy when it was “uncomfortable to walk.” Hamby won the league’s Sixth Woman of the Year Award in 2019 and 2020 and was named to the All-Star team for the second time last season.“The unprofessional and unethical way that I have been treated has been traumatizing,” Hamby wrote in January, adding that it was especially disappointing that her poor treatment came from women who are mothers and who preached “family, chemistry and women’s empowerment.”Hamby, 29, announced the birth of her son, Legend, in March. She also has a 6-year-old daughter, Amaya.The W.N.B.A. did not respond to a request for details about what Hammon told Hamby, but said in the suspension announcement that Hammon’s comments violated its policy on respect in the workplace. The league also said the Aces would lose a first-round pick in the 2025 draft for promising Hamby unspecified impermissible benefits during contract negotiations.On Tuesday, the W.N.B.A. players’ union said the penalties were “far from appropriate.”“Where in this decision does this team or any other team across the league learn the lesson that respect in the workplace is the highest standard and a player’s dignity cannot be manipulated?” the union said.In May 2021, Curt Miller, then the coach of the Connecticut Sun, was fined $10,000 and suspended for one game for a body-shaming comment he made about the weight of center Liz Cambage. Miller now coaches the Sparks.Hammon’s two-game suspension is without pay, but the league did not announce a fine. The W.N.B.A. did not respond to a question about how it settled on two games.The union had called for an investigation after Hamby’s Instagram post on Jan. 21. On Feb. 8, the Aces said in a statement that the league had begun a formal investigation and that the team would cooperate.Hammon, 46, played in the W.N.B.A. for 16 seasons and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year, during her first season with the Aces. She had spent eight seasons as an assistant coach with the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs and was the first woman to be a full-time assistant in N.B.A. history. She was often rumored to be in consideration for head coaching jobs in the men’s league. The Aces owner Mark Davis trumpeted her hiring as an inspirational moment for girls because the team would be paying her over $1 million, more than any other coach in the league.Dearica Hamby was named an All-Star for the second time with the Aces last season. She was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks in January.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressIn a statement on Tuesday, the Aces said they were committed to supporting players and “deeply disappointed” by the outcome of the investigation.“The W.N.B.A.’s determinations about Becky Hammon are inconsistent with what we know and love about her,” the Aces said, adding that Hammon “forges close personal relationships with her players.”The team added that it would “stand behind” Hammon as its coach.In recent years, there has been a major push — by players, fans and league officials — for greater investment in the W.N.B.A., especially in benefits for parents. The league’s latest collective bargaining agreement, signed in 2020, included a wave of new or increased motherhood-related benefits, including full pay during maternity leave, more spacious housing, a $5,000 child care stipend and benefits for adoption and fertility treatments.The fight for professional athletes who are also parents is still in its infancy.In May 2022, Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir, an Icelandic soccer player, sued her former team of Lyon over its treatment during her pregnancy. The team did not pay her during her pregnancy, and it failed to uphold its “duty of care” while she was away from the club.“No one was really checking on me, following up, seeing how I was doing mentally and physically, both as an employee, but also as a human being,” Gunnarsdottir wrote in a piece for The Players’ Tribune. “Basically, they had a responsibility to look after me, and they didn’t.”Lyon was forced to pay her everything she was owed.Pregnancy leave was only added to collective bargaining agreements for both the W.N.B.A. and the National Women’s Soccer League in the last few years. The N.W.S.L. agreement, signed in 2022, marked the introduction of eight weeks of paid leave for pregnancy or adoption. There were no previous guidelines for new parents.Star power offers no protection for individual athletes, either. Allyson Felix, an 11-time Olympic medalist in track and field, and Serena Williams, who has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles in tennis, also had to fight for income protection after having children.When Felix asked Nike not to dock her pay if she did not perform at her peak in the months surrounding childbirth, the company declined, she disclosed in May 2019. Three months later, Nike announced a new maternity policy for all sponsored athletes.When Williams returned to the professional tour in early 2018, eight months after giving birth, her world ranking had dropped to No. 451 from No. 1 despite her record. She fought for players to have protected rankings, and within the year, the Women’s Tennis Association changed its rules for players returning from pregnancy, allowing them to use a special ranking for up to three years following the birth of a child. More

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      He Saw ‘Greatness’ in the Lakers When They Were at Their Worst

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      You’d have to look closely or you’d miss the homemade sign nailed to a telephone pole outside the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo, Calif.It’s right outside the entrance to the players’ parking lot, but many of them miss its blue-and-yellow words as they drive in.“I SEE GREATNESS IN YOU,” it says.The sign gives no indication of who “I” might be, who “you” are or what kind of greatness you possess. But in a small yet meaningful way, the message has inspired Lakers Coach Darvin Ham as he leads the team in their Western Conference semifinal series against the Golden State Warriors.Ham has even forged an unlikely friendship with the man who posted the sign: Terrance Burney, a basketball-loving airline employee whose home is filled with inspirational signs. Burney’s unceasing positivity has charmed prominent athletes and entertainers.“It’s not just a slogan he’s trying to get picked up by some corporate sponsor or something,” Ham said. “It’s something he actually believes in. I love it.”Burney lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Crystal Lewis.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesNeither rich nor widely known, Burney, 40, works for Delta Air Lines and lives in Los Angeles with his German shepherd, Ziva, and his girlfriend, Crystal Lewis.He stands outside of Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles after most Lakers home games holding a handmade sign bearing his message, hoping that whoever sees it feels happier, lighter or maybe even newly confident.“When I tell people, ‘I see greatness in you,’ it means, ‘I see God in you,’” Burney said. “So this is something that God told me to do, you know?”Burney first held up a similar sign 15 years ago on a street corner in Highland Park, Mich., a small city surrounded by his hometown, Detroit. He said prayer led him to do it.In the years since, he has taken his sign all over the world, flying for free as an airline employee. He has shared his message on street corners and during protest marches, in small gyms and outside professional arenas. He has shouted it as a contestant on “The Price Is Right.”“He’s like the Forrest Gump 2.0,” said Morris Peterson, a former N.B.A. player who grew close with Burney after a charity event Peterson hosted with the rapper Snoop Dogg to support people affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich. “He’s just everywhere. He’s everywhere. You might see him in Paris with the sign.”Burney played basketball for one year at Prairie View A&M University, and in the years after he’d often get asked to participate in pickup games and workouts. In 2007, he was preparing for a workout with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, then the G League affiliate of the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, when he spotted Rasheed Wallace, then playing for the Pistons, sitting at the bar of a T.G.I. Friday’s.Burney said he hoped his signs gave people confidence.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“Excuse me, sir, your turnaround jump shot is the best in the history of a turnaround jump shot,” Burney recalled telling Wallace. “How do you get it over people who are taller than you?”Wallace got up from his seat and demonstrated his method. The two of them drank a few beers together and a friendship began.Wallace and Ham, the Lakers’ coach, had become close over the years through N.B.A. circles. Early this season, Wallace planned to visit Ham’s home. He asked if Burney could join.The Lakers had started the season 2-10. Ham was struggling to make the most of the team’s two best players, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Not many people would have used “greatness” to describe anything happening with the Lakers. But Burney did.“He said: ‘Don’t worry, coach. You’re going to be great. We’re going to be great. I see greatness in you,’” Ham said.Ham trusted his read on Burney, so they stayed in touch. Burney sent text messages to Ham to inspire him. The Lakers’ fortunes began to change, which likely had more to do with their dramatic makeover at the trade deadline than with Burney’s sign. But he believes something larger was happening.Before Game 4 of the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, Burney sent a text to Ham that read: “Your PEACE gives PEACE to others!! I SEE GREATNESS IN YOU!!”Burney outside the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo, Calif.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesThe Lakers were 6 points greater than the Grizzlies that day.“Everyone wants to be thought of in a positive light and have — not just in basketball, N.B.A. basketball, in life in general — you need good vibes, good energy, people that believe in you,” Ham said. “And he represents that.”The sign outside the Lakers’ practice facility has been there for weeks. Davis saw it for the first time on May 1, just before the Lakers left Los Angeles for their series against Golden State in San Francisco.He assumed a fan had left it there and gave it little thought.The next day, Davis scored 30 points with 23 rebounds, joining only four other big men in Lakers history with at least 30 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game. His performance helped the Lakers beat the Warriors in Game 1 of their series.“Sooooo he saw the Sign before he had a RECORD setting win??” Burney said in a text message.He could not be convinced that it was a coincidence.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times More

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      ‘Everybody Is Welcome Here.’

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      Kaig Lightner founded the Portland Community Football Club to give local youth an inexpensive chance to play. When he came out as transgender, they gave him a place to belong.PORTLAND, Ore. — The soccer coach looked out at two dozen or so of his players and felt nervousness course through him like a rip current. His heart pounded, and his voice felt unsteady.Kaig Lightner (pronounced “Cage,” a phonetic shortening of his initials — K and J) had been thinking of this moment since the summer of 2013 when he founded the Portland Community Football Club, a program for teaching soccer to mostly first- and second-generation immigrant youth who lived in his city’s most distressed neighborhoods.In the four years since, Coach Kaig had become a friend, an ally and even, to some of his players, a father figure.How would they react once he told them he had been raised as a girl?He had always asked his players to be open and honest about their lives. That he had not modeled such deep honesty filled him with remorse.The election of Donald Trump — who had promised to appoint conservative judges and whose vice president, Mike Pence, had opposed gay rights and was seen as supporting conversion therapy — had ignited a sense of foreboding and uncertainty within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Lightner certainly felt it. He worried that the players — tweens and teens on this afternoon — would leave his club. Or that their families would cut ties, no matter how good the program had been at mentoring and providing a safe space to grow up in.Lightner considered all of this, took a deep breath and knew he needed to speak up.“I haven’t totally shared with you something about myself.”“It’s an important thing for me to share with you because we all should be who we are.”“I am transgender.”One player chuckled nervously but walked to Lightner for a hug. Most looked straight at their coach in a kind of wonder and awe.No one left.At P.C.F.C., nobody gets cut. Families pay $50 to join, but less than that is OK. Not paying a dime is fine, too.Mason Trinca for The New York TimesBorn Katherine Jean Lightner and raised in a comfortable suburb east of Seattle, nothing about Lightner’s adolescence was easy. Lightner, who consented to the use of his former name and gender identity throughout this article, recalls a paralyzing fear that began around age 4 that he was a boy stuck in a girl’s body. When his family called him Katie, he protested. It sounded too feminine. Kate was better by a shade. He refused ballet lessons. His mother bought him a tailored dress. He wore it once, then vowed to never wear it again.As the years went on, Kate favored baggy pants, sweats, billowing T-shirts and baseball caps turned backward. A favorite birthday gift was a bright red Michael Jordan baseball jersey.“The way she presented, she did not look like a typical girl,” recalled Leslie Ridge, a friend who attended high school with Lightner in the 1990s. “And because of that, she was made fun of constantly, especially by boys. It was brutal to see how painful that was for her.”The bullying taunts and sense of unease ignited a terrible internal storm. “I began to think of myself as a freak,” recalls Lightner. “The feeling was that I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in any space.”Sports became a refuge.An excellent softball, basketball and soccer athlete, Lightner found that on fields and courts he could be judged solely based on performance.“Sports kept me alive.”Lightner helping with warm-up practices.After rowing crew at the University of Washington, Lightner moved to Portland after graduation in the early 2000s. There he coached soccer for kids between 8 and 14 on a team that initially looked much the same as the white, affluent ones on which Lightner had grown up playing.After changing his name to Kaig, Lightner approached a fellow soccer coach he regarded as a trustworthy friend and explained that this was a first step toward becoming a man.The reaction was laughter.“It didn’t take me long to realize that coaching as an out trans person at that time, in the years around 2005, ’06, ’07, was just not going to work,” Lightner said. “I was not going to be safe.”“It didn’t take me long to realize that coaching as an out trans person at that time, in the years around 2005, ’06, ’07, was just not going to work,” Lightner said. Mason Trinca for The New York TimesLightner left coaching for a while. He flew to Baltimore for breast removal surgery and began weekly sessions of hormone replacement therapy. His voice deepened. New layers of muscle wrapped around his shoulders. His jaw grew square, and his face sprouted the beginnings of a beard.Eventually, he took a job as an instructor for after-school programs in the working-class outskirts of Portland, home to the city’s population of immigrants from Africa, Mexico, Central and South America, and Asia.Lightner quickly saw that the abundant sports opportunities in the city’s wealthier communities barely existed for the kids he was now working with. He had always felt like an outsider and now saw that the players he coached — the children of working-class immigrants in one of America’s whitest cities — thought of themselves in much the same way. Considering how he could best help, Lightner focused on what had kept him going through all those years of adolescent anguish.“Soccer had been my main way of finding healing and connection, and I wanted that for these kids, too,” he said.Lightner offering Bella Martinez, 7, a tip on a defensive play.Lightner giving P.C.F.C. players a ride to a game.After a year of cobbling together seed money, Lightner formed the Portland Community Football Club in 2013 with grant funding and donated equipment from Nike. The club was a rarity because everybody had a place. Nobody got cut. Lightner emphasized developing skilled players more than turning out stars. Families paid $50 to join, but less than that was OK. Not paying a dime was fine, too.At his first practice, held in a worn corner of a public park, 50 kids showed up. Soon it was 75. Then 100. The club played during the winter, spring, summer and fall.“Coach Kaig became a constant in our lives,” says Shema Jacques, one of the program’s early stalwarts. Jacques, now a 22-year-old Marine, first picked up the basics of soccer in a Rwandan refugee camp but honed his game at P.C.F.C. “From the start, I could tell he believed in us. He would be there for us for anything we needed. I had never experienced someone being like that before.”Lightner was open about being a transgender man to everyone in his life except the players and families of P.C.F.C., and the dissonance ate at him. So on that rain-swept day in 2017, he gathered every player who had shown up for a chat before practice.“I want you guys to know about me, and I also want you guys to know that I’m still me,” he said. “I’m still the same person I was five minutes before you all knew this, right? I’m still the same guy who comes out here, gets you guys to be better soccer players, gets on you when you’re not playing hard, loves you no matter what.”He saw nothing but acceptance as he looked into his players’ eyes. One of them was Jacques.“Suddenly, hearing that, it all made sense,” Jacques said. “This is why he knows what it is like for so many of us — not being accepted, trying hard to fit in. I actually felt more connected to him as he spoke, and I am not alone. He was still the person I looked up to and wanted to be like.”“Suddenly, hearing that, it all made sense,” said Shema Jacques, one of P.C.F.C.’s early stalwarts. “This is why he knows what it is like for so many of us — not being accepted, trying hard to fit in.”Six years later, the only thing that has changed about P.C.F.C. is its growth. There are more coaches and a small administrative staff. The roster of registered players has swelled to 165. It is also about more than just soccer now. During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Lightner received a grant that allowed P.C.F.C. to provide its families with fresh groceries, rental assistance and help tapping into social services.“None of the families abandoned Kaig once he spoke his truth,” says Carolina Morales Hernandez, whose young son and daughter have grown up in the program.“Sometimes people join, and they will call me and say, ‘We heard this and that about Kaig,’” she adds. “I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s true, yep. The head of the P.C.F.C. is a transgender person, but that changes nothing. Everybody is welcome here.’” More

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      Pat Riley, Once Front and Center, Reigns in the Background

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      Riley’s decades in the N.B.A. have given him plenty of stories to tell. But the formerly flashy coach of the Knicks, Heat and Lakers is keeping a low profile — “the boss he thinks you should be.”The network camera was drawn to Pat Riley after Jimmy Butler’s 22-foot jumper landed like a kick to the collective groin of the Milwaukee Bucks late in Game 4 of Miami’s first-round playoff series upset. While Butler, soon to complete a 56-point masterpiece, pranced in full-throated fashion, there sat Riley, a gray-haired Buddha, arms folded across his suit jacket and tie, smiling without celebrating, blinking but not moving.No surprise, really. By this point in a long basketball life, what has Riley not already seen that would make him compromise on his veneer of calculated, unflappable control?Circulating online, the clip was another striking visual to add to the Riley collection. From the 1966 national championship game in which a Texas Western squad dominated by Black players defeated his all-white Kentucky team to his tenured role as the Heat’s president, Riley has been tethered to basketball history of tectonic magnitude.True, the 1970s version of Riley is most memorably recalled as a role player practically riding piggyback on the great Jerry West while leaving the court upon the Los Angeles Lakers’ clinching of the only title West ever won as a player. From the 1980s on, Riley moved front and center, stylishly coifed.Riley coached the Heat to a championship in the 2005-6 season, with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal leading the team on the court. Miami beat the Dallas Mavericks in six games.Rhona Wise/European Pressphoto AgencyHe has played, coached or been chief executive for a team in a championship game or series for an extraordinary seven consecutive decades — the most recent being the Heat’s 2020 N.B.A. finals loss to the Lakers. Had there been an award for most venerable personality, the man who inspired Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko look for the 1987 film “Wall Street” would have to be its inaugural designee.Riley’s run as a coach and executive is arguably the most remarkable of all, given the generational shifts he has withstood. West is a front-office Lakers legend but was a reluctant three-season coach. Phil Jackson has more than double the head coaching titles (11-5), but he took on only star-laden rosters and was a bust as Knicks president. Red Auerbach deserves credit for coaching or assembling 16 of the Celtics’ 17 title teams, but most were achieved in a nascent league in which players had no freedom of movement.Riley coached the Lakers from 1981 to 1990, winning four championships with the future Hall of Famers Magic Johnson, right, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, left.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesRiley didn’t win a championship during his four seasons with the Knicks in the early 1990s, but they made it to the N.B.A. finals in 1994, when they lost to Houston in seven games.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesRiley did inherit a championship cast in Los Angeles, but he steered it to dynastic prominence and four titles. He made the Knicks matter again in the 1990s, however tortured — his word — he remains from not getting them across the finish line in the 1994 finals. He turned Miami’s nowhere expansion franchise into a contender and three-time champion.But we likely won’t hear much, if anything at all, from Riley on himself, the injury-plagued Heat or the Knicks during their Eastern Conference semifinal series. It’s not breaking news that he has ceded the organizational microphone to Erik Spoelstra, the coach he handpicked to succeed him in 2008 and who has remained in place well beyond the four-year Miami residency of LeBron James and the franchise’s last title in 2013.As far back as 2012, I sampled the Heat locker room for a column on how Riley had stepped away from the spotlight that once couldn’t resist him. Dwyane Wade, who joined the Heat in 2003, said, “For the most part, he stays back, stays out of the way when it comes to the players, and he’s been doing that for a couple of years.”Riley rarely speaks publicly anymore, but he has come out to support Wade, right, who spent more than a decade with the Heat.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesRiley declined a request to talk about why his once-commanding voice is now seldom heard with rare exceptions — typically to acknowledge revered service, as in the recent cases of Wade’s election to the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Heat veteran Udonis Haslem’s upcoming retirement. Feelers to others affiliated with the Heat were met with a familiar refrain: Riley does not want anyone but Spoelstra and his players speaking publicly during the playoffs.Better then to consult someone whose employment doesn’t depend on him. Jeff Van Gundy, a Riley protégé who became his coaching antagonist after Riley’s stormy departure from New York in 1995, said: “He morphed into the boss that he always wanted, the boss he thinks you should be. Stay behind the scenes. Do your job.”Dave Checketts, who in 1991 hired Riley to coach the Knicks, recalled a phone conversation in which West, with whom Riley occasionally clashed during the Lakers’ Showtime era, warned him, “You’re going to have to figure out how to handle the press because Pat will lose his mind when someone says something he doesn’t want out there.”Said Checketts: “And Pat did say when he came, during hours and hours of conversation, that we needed to speak in one voice. That’s why I give him tremendous credit for what he’s done in Miami — he’s lived by what he’s espoused. And Spoelstra has been a great spokesman, too.”Six years ago, during my last extended conversation with Riley, he did veer off the agreed-upon interview topic — Magic Johnson’s brief ascension to the Lakers’ presidency. When I complimented him for refusing to tank, for remaining competitive despite losing James to Cleveland and Chris Bosh to a medical issue, Riley said:LeBron James, Wade and Chris Bosh spent four seasons together on the Heat, winning two championships. Riley was team president, after handing the coaching reins to Erik Spoelstra in 2008.Hans Deryk/Reuters“Players come and go, great players. When LeBron left, that was the most shocking thing to me — not to say he was right or wrong — and the most shocking thing to the franchise. But our culture is the same. You have your up years and your down years, but what can’t change is the way you do things.”That wasn’t necessarily the whole truth. After the Heat lost to San Antonio in the 2014 N.B.A. finals, Riley, undoubtedly referring to James’s looming free agency, told reporters: “You’ve got to stay together if you’ve got the guts. And you don’t find the first door to run out of.”James still exited, stage left. An old Riley tactic — challenging players’ manhood — fell on deaf, new-age ears. Most spiels grow old. And Riley, 69 at the time, is now a more muted 78, a stealth operator, Godfather Riley more than Gordon Gekko Riley. Yet he remains indisputably relevant, still resplendent, while watching and waiting for the auspicious occasion that will merit his last hurrah. More

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      Knicks Absorb First Blow in Throwback Battle With Miami Heat

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      Losing Game 1 at home was a setback for the Knicks, but it’s not a reason to count them out. They still have their depth and defense.The Knicks walked off the court at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon with their shoulders slumped. The energy that gripped the arena at the start of the game against Miami had dissolved into a mélange of people shuffling out, Heat fans boasting and a few Knicks fans shouting insults, mostly at the game officials and the Heat fans.Perspective is difficult to have in a moment like this.“I was horrific,” said Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson, who scored 25 points but missed all seven of his 3-point attempts.On Sunday, the Knicks lost to the Heat, 108-101, in Game 1 of the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals. They lost even though the Heat star Jimmy Butler didn’t have the kind of scoring explosion he used to knock off the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs.But despite the dour mood that engulfed the Garden after the game, it would be unwise to bury the Knicks for their performance. In some ways, everything the Knicks are doing in the playoffs is a bonus. Perhaps more important, there is still time for them to survive this series.“I don’t think anyone thought this game was going to be, or the series was going to be, won or lost in the first game,” Knicks guard Josh Hart said. He added later: “I don’t think there’s an opportunity that we let slip away. It’s going to be a tough, physical series and every game’s different.”Neither the Heat nor the Knicks were expected to last very long in the playoffs.RJ Barrett, center, led the Knicks with 26 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists.John Minchillo/Associated PressThe Knicks finished the regular season as the fifth seed in the East, facing a Cleveland Cavaliers team that had traded for the star the Knicks wouldn’t — Donovan Mitchell.The Heat faced even longer odds as the eighth seed against a Bucks team expected to compete for the championship and led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is a finalist for this year’s Most Valuable Player Award.Instead, the Heat and the Knicks easily dispatched their first-round opponents, each needing just five games to do it. Miami benefited from an injury to Antetokounmpo and the dynamism of Butler. Butler scored 56 points in Miami’s Game 4 win against the Bucks and 42 in the series-clinching win two days later.That meant containing Butler would be critical for the Knicks, a team driven by its defense and depth.The Knicks had home-court advantage and a tactical advantage in that Coach Tom Thibodeau knows Butler well. He coached Butler with the Chicago Bulls for Butler’s first four seasons in the N.B.A., and again when Butler played for the Minnesota Timberwolves.On Sunday, Butler had 25 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. More critically, the attention he commanded on the court made things easier for his teammates, many of whom have thrived under playoff pressure before.The Knicks’ shooting was also particularly damaging for them. Brunson wasn’t the only one who struggled from 3. Overall, the Knicks made only 20.6 percent of their 3-pointers, including just 3 of 16 in the first half.With 5 minutes 5 seconds remaining, Butler struggled to rise from the court after turning his ankle while tangling with Hart. He refused to leave the game. With Butler hobbled, the Heat relied on guard Kyle Lowry and extended their lead to 11 points from 3.“That certainly is inspiring that he would not come out of the game,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And to be able to finish the game just infused a bunch of confidence to the rest of the guys that we have to finish this off.”Historically, when the Heat and Knicks have played each other in the playoffs, the battles have more closely resembled boxing matches than basketball games. Their physicality was legendary in the 1990s, with the Knicks’ Patrick Ewing and Miami’s Alonzo Mourning, both of whom were at Sunday’s game, going at each other in the paint.Sunday’s game was higher scoring than those contests from a quarter-century ago, but was similarly physical.“I wouldn’t just assume that each game is going to look like this,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve played these guys four times during the regular season. Two of the games were in the mud like this, the throwback Heat and Knicks that you would expect. And then we had two shootouts.”But he also said he expected the series to be a “cagefight.”What the Knicks have done already this postseason is cause for optimism for their future.They were not supposed to make a deep playoff run this year even with Brunson, who was a finalist for the league’s Most Improved Player Award. The Knicks are widely considered to be one superstar away from being championship contenders. If they win this series and get to the conference finals, they will have surpassed most expectations.They have avoided the kind of ridiculous drama that characterized the decade-long desert they wandered through until creating a stable environment with Thibodeau at the helm.The Knicks beat the Cavaliers soundly, justifying their unwillingness to gut their roster in order to trade for Mitchell.Their depth propelled them against Cleveland. It is why they have often succeeded even when playing short-handed.On Sunday, they were playing without Julius Randle, who is out with a sprained ankle. Thibodeau refused to use that as an excuse for why they lost the game.“We have more than enough,” he said after the game.The Heat were also missing a key player — guard Tyler Herro, who broke his hand during the first round and is expected to be out for several weeks.Butler did not address reporters after the game, and Spoelstra said he didn’t know the status of Butler’s injury. But if it is serious, it could change the complexion of the series. Still, the Knicks saw what the Heat did in the first round against the Bucks and know how difficult they can be.“They’re never going to give up,” Knicks forward RJ Barrett said. “That’s one thing I personally enjoy about this series. It’s going to be hard-fought. It’s going to be tough. You’ve got to go out there and kind of take it.” More

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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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      Houston Rockets Introduce Coach Ime Udoka

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      The Celtics fired Udoka in February after he violated team policies. Udoka said at a news conference for his hiring as Houston’s coach that he had worked on himself and become a better person.The Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta asked fans to be forgiving on Wednesday as he introduced the team’s new head coach, Ime Udoka, who had been suspended and then fired by the Boston Celtics within the past year for violating unspecified team policies.Fertitta said any critic unwilling to give Udoka a second chance was “not a good Christian person.”The Celtics suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in September, then fired him in February, after he had a relationship with a female subordinate, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.At the introductory news conference in Houston, Udoka made his first public comments since leaving the Celtics, who have declined to specify which policies he violated. Udoka was flanked by Fertitta and Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone, who also declined to provide details on what they know, including whether they had seen the report from the Celtics’ investigation.“What I would say is that we got comfortable that it was an appropriate hire and that we were comfortable in the process,” Stone said. “But just the same way, I wouldn’t talk about exactly what we did with anybody else, I’m not going to talk about it with Ime. It’s just, in my view, it’s not appropriate.”Udoka said that he had been “working on myself in a lot of different ways,” including by undergoing counseling and sensitivity training, and that he would be a better person, leader, father and coach as a result.“I released a statement months ago when everything happened and, you know, apologized to a lot of people for the tough position I put them in,” Udoka said. “And I stand by that and I feel much more remorse even now towards that.”He added, “But the situation — the matter — has been resolved and I can’t really speak much about it.”Fertitta said that he was particularly comfortable with hiring Udoka after conversations with the N.B.A. “We’re a forgiving society and everybody makes mistakes and you know, some things, maybe we shouldn’t forgive people for,” he said. “But I think what happened and his personal situation is definitely something to be forgiven for.”In a meeting with sports editors on Tuesday, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said that he was OK with teams hiring Udoka, though he said he did not know if Houston officials had seen the investigation report.Asked if the Celtics made the right decision to discipline him, Udoka said, “My part in it was to take ownership and accountability.”“I served a suspension and I had to own it, honestly,” Udoka said. “So, same thing I’ll preach to the guys. I can’t sit here and not take accountability to myself. So it was their right to go about it however they wanted to. And that’s the choice they took.”Udoka played seven seasons in the N.B.A., mostly as a reserve, before becoming a respected assistant coach for nearly a decade. The Celtics hired him to be their head coach before the 2021-22 season. His first — and only — season with Boston was a success: He helped lead the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals, where they lost to Golden State. Now, he’ll be taking over a Rockets team that has been one of the league’s worst over the last three years. But Houston has significant salary cap space at its disposal, talented young players and high-value draft picks. More

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      Houston Rockets to Hire Ime Udoka After Suspension by Boston Celtics

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      Udoka took the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season, but he was abruptly suspended in September for violating team policies.The Houston Rockets plan to hire Ime Udoka, the former Boston Celtics coach who was suspended for workplace misconduct, according to a person who was familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them publicly.The news was first reported by ESPN.The Celtics abruptly suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in late September after an investigation into his conduct by an independent law firm. According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate. The Celtics have declined to release details about Udoka’s conduct, other than to say that he had violated “multiple” team policies. In February, the Celtics fired Udoka, one of the people said.Udoka had taken the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season in his first year as a head coach, after spending nine years as an assistant.Since his suspension, Udoka has been linked with several teams for potential head coach openings. In particular, reports that Udoka was a front-runner for the Nets job surfaced within hours of Steve Nash’s dismissal in November. Udoka had been a Nets assistant in the 2020-21 season. Instead, the Nets hired Jacque Vaughn, one of Nash’s assistants, as their coach.Udoka would succeed Stephen Silas, who went 59-177 in Houston.Darren Abate/Associated PressWith the Celtics, Udoka developed a reputation for being willing to hold players accountable. His approach gained him the respect of the team, and some of the top players continued to publicly support him after his suspension. Forward Jayson Tatum told reporters in February that Udoka was “probably like my most favorite coach I’ve had and that’s not a knock on anybody.” Guard Jaylen Brown told The Ringer in an interview published in March that he was “a little bit shocked” by Udoka’s suspension.“So, whether you stood on this side or this side, they was going to find wrong from a coach that I advocated to bring here to Boston,” Brown said. “I wanted to see him back on his feet here, no matter what it was. I don’t think that’s the wrong thing to feel.”The Celtics replaced Udoka with one of his assistants, Joe Mazzulla, and finished the regular season with the second-best record in the league. The team leads the Atlanta Hawks, 3-1, in their first-round playoff series.The Rockets were one of the worst teams in the N.B.A. this season at 22-60. They ranked near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense. In three seasons as Houston’s head coach, Stephen Silas went 59-177. On April 10, the Rockets declined his option for next season.The Rockets have several talented young players, including Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green. In addition, the Rockets are projected to have enough salary cap space to sign at least one star to a maximum contract this summer, and they have a bevy of future draft picks. Houston, Detroit and San Antonio each have a 14 percent chance to land the No. 1 pick in June’s N.B.A. draft. Victor Wembanyama, the highly rated French prospect, is widely expected to be picked first overall. More