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    NBA ‘Bad Boy’ Wants Players to Do as He Says, Not as His Teams Did

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    Joe Dumars was on the 1980s Detroit Pistons teams known for their hard fouls. But players and coaches who step out of line today can expect fines and suspensions — from him.Joe Dumars chuckled at his desk in Midtown Manhattan as framed portraits of links to the N.B.A.’s past — Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Gus Williams — loomed behind him.His Detroit Pistons of the 1980s were notorious for the bruising physicality of Rick Mahorn, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman and earned their Bad Boys nickname with a knock-you-down-and-answer-questions-later bully brand of basketball.No way could Dumars pick just one particularly egregious play to characterize the teams.“I’ve had Rick and Bill say to me, ‘Next time he gets it, let him beat you.’ They would drop people,” Dumars said. “They wanted to send a message. They didn’t take a night off of being physical.”They are also like the portraits in Dumars’s office — pieces of a bygone N.B.A. era. Dumars, 59, oddly enough, is the one making sure of it. He develops new rules and imposes discipline in his first year as the N.B.A.’s executive vice president, head of basketball operations.Yes, a principal member of the Bad Boys is charged with punishing those who would dare throw elbows and punches just like his Pistons teammates did.“It’s really good to have somebody that knows what it looks like,” Dumars said. “There is no utopian view here. I know the ugly side of it. I know the physical side of it. I know the nasty side of it.”A fight between the Detroit Pistons’ Bill Laimbeer and the Chicago Bulls’ Will Perdue during the 1991 N.B.A. playoffs.Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesThis season, players and coaches have been fined or suspended for many infractions: hitting, kicking and throwing balls into the stands; grabbing one player by the neck; striking another in the groin; making obscene gestures and using inappropriate language. So many players were suspended after a melee between the Magic and the Pistons that the punishments were staggered to ensure that Orlando had enough players to continue competing.Discipline in the N.B.A. is more consuming and complex than ever, as it’s easier for wayward behavior to be captured, broadcast, debated and overblown. Players are fined for offensive social media posts, and fans can share videos and screenshots of bad interactions with players. Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was recently suspended for eight games after livestreaming a video on Instagram while holding a gun in a nightclub. It’s not the same league Dumars played in for 14 years.“I’m not a traditionalist in the way that the game can’t ever change,” he said.‘Got away with it’In late January, a general manager sent Dumars a video of an opponent stripping the ball from one of his team’s players. The defender jumped and swung where he thought the ball would be, but he hit the player’s head instead and was called for a foul. The G.M. wanted the call to be upgraded to a flagrant foul.Dumars, who was Detroit’s president of basketball operations for 14 seasons, knows from experience that teams will try to extract an advantage by almost any means. That often includes tattling to the league.Dumars and four or five people review foul calls by cycling through clips from several angles. Monty McCutchen, a former longtime official, and Byron Spruell, the president of league operations, are usually part of the process.The former referee Monty McCutchen spoke to a referee during the 2019 summer league.David Dow/NBAE, via Getty Images“You’re trying to drive consistency, so people know that you’re fair about this,” Dumars said. “Everything that we do, there’s precedent.”The review group concluded that the head-hitting play did not meet the criteria for a flagrant foul. “He was going for the ball and he happened to catch the guy,” Dumars said.The play probably would not have received a second thought during Dumars’s N.B.A. career from 1985-99.“Outright brawls where guys are flinging punches, throwing guys over the scoring table,” Sam Smith, a longtime basketball writer, said of the league’s rivalries of the 1980s. “Fights going into the stands. Stuff that nobody in this generation has witnessed.”Smith wrote “The Jordan Rules,” the 1991 book that detailed the Bad Boys’ ruthless strategies to try to stop Michael Jordan with hard contact when he played for the rival Chicago Bulls.Although the Jordan rules are nostalgic hyperbole to an extent — “just trying to make that guy most of the time go left,” Dumars said — those Pistons teams ensured opponents’ aching bodies wouldn’t let them forget who they had played the night before.Smith said, “There hasn’t really been a rivalry since the Bulls and the Pistons, a rivalry in the sense of absolute bitterness where the teams hated each other and wanted each other not just to fail, but for careers to be over.”Michael Jordan battles for position against Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pistons circa 1990 at the Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit.Allen Einstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesDumars drew just four technical fouls over his 14 seasons. “I was out of control,” he joked. “But one of those was rescinded.”The N.B.A.’s sportsmanship award is named after him now, but he wasn’t always the court choir boy. He’d speed up to try to initiate contact when he saw a big man approach to set a screen.“The referees never looked at me in a negative way because they assumed I wasn’t trying to do that,” Dumars said. “I probably got away with it a little bit more than I should have, just on reputation.”The N.B.A. didn’t call flagrant fouls until the 1990-91 season. The year before, on-court altercations led to 67 fines (of 101 total fines) and eight suspensions. Typical seasons in the Bad Boys era had about 40 fines and a half-dozen suspensions for on-court altercations. Last season, there were 48 fines — 15 for on-court altercations — and 180 flagrant fouls. The N.B.A.’s data on individual and total flagrant fouls goes back to only the 2004-5 season, a league official said.“It’s a different game and if you tried to play the style that we played, in today’s game, you’d be in foul trouble,” Dumars said.And if you complain about it, you might get in trouble, too.‘Junking the game up’Toronto’s Fred VanVleet knew the consequences. “I’ll take a fine,” he said before profanely criticizing the referee Ben Taylor by name after a recent game against the Los Angeles Clippers. “I don’t really care.”Dumars fined him $30,000 the next day for “public criticism of the officiating.”Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, left, was fined $30,000 for criticizing officials in a news conference this month. He singled out Ben Taylor, right, who had called him for a technical foul against the Clippers.Cole Burston/Getty ImagesPlayers and coaches often complain about officiating, even if it costs them. In December, for example, Dallas Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd was ejected and fined $25,000 for confronting a referee during a game. The week before, Sacramento Kings Coach Mike Brown was ejected and fined $25,000 for “aggressively pursuing” an official during a game.Some players, like Golden State’s Draymond Green, have argued that they were unfairly called for technical fouls, or that they were punished more harshly than others for similar violations. The N.B.A. rescinded a technical foul that had been called on Green’s teammate Jordan Poole this month after he bounced the ball to a referee.The punishments and the pushback aren’t unique to basketball, and Dumars said he’s open to hearing the grievances. His phone number is plastered around league locker rooms. Players, agents and coaches sometimes call. Mostly, it’s general managers, his former peers, politicking, complaining and gossiping.One of Dumars’s former colleagues recently called him, bemoaning that his team had allowed 68 points by halftime.“You know what the shame of it was?” he told Dumars. “We were up by 5.”Many rules changes over the years have made it easier for players to score, such as one of Dumars’s initiatives for this season: stiffer penalties for defenders who commit blatant fouls to stop breakaway plays.Teams are averaging 114.5 points per game this season, the most since the 1969-70 season. Fast break points are up. A new player tops 50 points, it seems, nearly every night.“The game is so clean now, it’s just about who’s the best player,” Dumars said. “There’s nothing that’s junking the game up.”‘Protect the game’A car arrived at the N.B.A.’s Midtown headquarters in January to transport Dumars to that night’s game between the Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.“Joe D,” a Madison Square Garden security guard said with a fist bump. “It was better in the ’80s and ’90s.”Dumars smiled, taking an elevator up to the court level. Knicks General Manager Scott Perry pulled him aside for a short conversation. A fan offered to buy him a drink. “I don’t drink,” Dumars said, “but I’m addicted to popcorn.”Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka exchanged pleasantries with Dumars on the way to his seat.“You’re just a steward of the game,” Dumars said. “You have to be there to protect the game and make sure that it’s clean.”Bedel Saget/The New York TimesDays earlier, referees had missed a clear foul by Boston’s Jayson Tatum on the Lakers’ LeBron James that would have allowed James to shoot free throws to try to win the game in regulation. Instead, Boston won in overtime. Dumars was happy that the referees immediately owned up to the blown call after the game, which rekindled a debate about how instant replay and coaches’ challenges should be used in the future.“Usually, something happens in the game that sparks a conversation, so that’s on the table now,” Dumars said.The Knicks-Lakers matchup featured few disputed plays and no technical fouls. Dumars watched, marveling at the longevity of James, who ended the night with a triple-double and would soon break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record.The Lakers beat the Knicks in overtime. Dumars walked inside the underbelly of the Garden to an elevator, then to a car to take him back to his apartment.The job doesn’t keep Dumars up at night, the way, say, trading a player once did.It does keep him busy. Over the next few days, Memphis’ Dillon Brooks hit Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell in the groin and Orlando’s Mo Bamba and Minnesota’s Austin Rivers fought. Brooks, Bamba and Rivers were all suspended. Mitchell was fined for retaliating by throwing a ball at Brooks and pushing him.“You’re just a steward of the game,” Dumars said. “You have to be there to protect the game and make sure that it’s clean. There’s always something. There will be something.” More

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      Yes, They Are Tall. No, They Do Not Play Basketball.

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      For the vertically gifted, every day of the year means standing out. But March can be particularly maddening.Dave Rasmussen has learned to deal with the small inconveniences that life lobs at him.He can tell you how much space — down to the inch — an exit row seat affords him on different commercial airplanes. Once, he needed a ceiling tile removed so that he could run on a treadmill. He scouts the roominess of potential rental cars by going to the Milwaukee Auto Show.And by now Rasmussen, 61, is ready for the strangers who gawk and take photographs and ask versions of the same question that he has fielded his entire life: Did you play basketball?For exceptionally tall people like Rasmussen, who is 7 feet 2 inches, March may be the worst month. The N.C.A.A. men’s and women’s basketball tournaments have captured the attention of office pool bracketologists. The N.B.A. playoff chase is heating up. And tall people everywhere, including those who have never attempted a jump shot, are swept up in the madness through no fault of their own. Rasmussen is a retired information technology specialist.“I always feel so bad for those people,” said Cole Aldrich, a 6-11 center who played eight seasons in the N.B.A. before he retired in 2019. “If you’re tall, there’s this belief that you should automatically be good at basketball. And if you aren’t, then what the hell is wrong with you?”Many tall people gravitate to basketball, which favors the vertically advantaged since they are closer to the hoop and their length helps them defend, block shots and score against shorter opponents. But there are also millions of people who spend their days ducking under doorways and cursing ceiling fans — and have nothing to do with the game.In any case, it gets old. Ask Tiffany Tweed (or maybe don’t ask her), a 6-4 hospital pharmacist from Hickory, N.C., who gets interrogated all the time. There are basketball questions, of course. But also: How tall is your father? How tall is your mother? And: Can you grab that book off the top shelf for me?Rasmussen, center, sat in on a string ensemble rehearsal in a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee classroom.Sara Stathas for The New York TimesTweed played basketball when she was younger, but she now tells people that she was a ballerina and does a twirl on her tiptoes to prove it. (She was not a ballerina.)“I decided that I was going to have some fun with it, because I’m sick of answering the same questions the same way,” said Tweed, 37, who has a popular TikTok account where she shares the joys and pains of, say, shopping for jeans with a 37-inch inseam. “I love being a positive role model for girls who are tall. But when I get home, I’m like, please leave me alone.”The average W.N.B.A. player, at a shade taller than 6 feet, towers over the average American woman (5 feet 3.5 inches). American men who are between 6 feet and 6-2 — significantly taller than the 5-9 average — have about a five in a million chance of making the N.B.A., according to “The Sports Gene,” a 2013 book by David Epstein about the science of athletic performance. But if you hit the genetic lottery and happen to be 7 feet tall, your chances of landing in the N.B.A. are roughly one in six. (There are 38 players on active rosters who are 7 feet or taller, according to N.B.A. Advanced Stats; the average height of an N.B.A. player is 6 feet 6.5 inches.)Still, most 7-footers are not pro basketball players, and instead are often unfairly burdened with being compelled to explain their life choices to strangers.Daniel Gilchrist, 40, played basketball briefly at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., before injuries forced him to call it quits. His father, Jim, had steered him toward the game for obvious reasons: Daniel was 7-7.“At the time, I kind of resented him for that,” Daniel Gilchrist said. “But now that I’m older, I kind of understand why he wanted me to play. And I’m glad I did it, but it was never something I was passionate about.”Gilchrist now follows his passion as an actor, appearing onstage at the Topeka Civic Theater. Last year, he played the role of Lennie in a production of “Of Mice and Men,” which he described as a lifelong dream. He has also been cast in an upcoming film — as a sasquatch. He acknowledged the long process of self-acceptance.“It did take me a while,” he said, “especially as a teenager. And there are still days when I wish I could blend in. But a long time ago, I figured that I could either accept it or become a hermit.”Rasmussen ducked into a parking garage stairwell. He is the tallest member of Tall Clubs International.Sara Stathas for The New York TimesSome tall people refer to other tall people as “talls.” But true talls tend to be wary of phony talls — women in stilettos, for example. Kimberly Schmal, a 6-foot utility biller from Oak Harbor, Wash., gets the urge to investigate whenever she spots a fellow tall.“So you go over and take a closer look: Is she wearing heels? No! She’s just tall!” said Schmal, 38. “And you strike up a conversation.”Growing up, Schmal was a cheerleader. She did not want to play basketball — or volleyball, a basketball-adjacent pursuit. The problem for Schmal was that the girls’ volleyball coach at her high school managed the local Burger King, and he desperately wanted her to come out for the team.“He would sit next to us at the booth and just be like, ‘Volleyball, volleyball, volleyball,’” Schmal recalled.John Stewart, 64, who is 6-6 and played basketball in high school and for two years at a trade school, never harbored any illusions about a future in the game.“I didn’t have any scouts following me around!” he said. “I just didn’t have the talent.”Stewart has since spent 46 years working at a rock quarry near his home in Burlington, N.C., where he has gotten used to people remarking on his height and asking the usual questions. And for a few fleeting seconds, he is happy to let them imagine that he played big-time college ball, or even in the N.B.A., until he tells them the truth.“It doesn’t bother me at all,” he said. “It’s kind of like my 15 minutes of fame.”This summer, Stewart plans to attend the annual convention for Tall Clubs International aboard an Alaskan cruise. The organization includes 38 chapters in the United States and Canada. There are height requirements: 6-2 for men and 5-10 for women. But membership is otherwise open to all, said Bob Huggett, the organization’s 6-7 president.“The only thing we have in common,” Huggett said, “is that we’re tall.”Huggett has a pat response whenever someone asks whether he played basketball.“No,” he says, “did you play miniature golf?”In recent years, membership at many chapters has decreased — a symptom of a larger trend among social organizations. Nancy Kaplan, 55, a retired kindergarten teacher from Albany, N.Y., recalled how much fun she had as a member of the Tall Club of New York City in the 1990s. No one stared. No one pointed. And no one peppered her with questions about being 6-3.Nancy Kaplan, who is 6-3, tried basketball when she was younger but did not like it. She became a teacher.Cindy Schultz for The New York Times“It was just so lovely to walk into a huge dance hall and everybody was your height,” she said. “I could even wear heels. I mean, heels! I was the short one in a lot of those groups.”Kaplan has otherwise struggled with her height “every day of my entire life,” she said. As a young girl, she was teased and called names like Big Bird. The girls’ basketball coach at her high school hounded her about joining the team until she caved, though it was a short-lived experiment.“I hate running, and I hate sweating,” she said. “I would run up and down the court fixing my hair.”As a teacher, Kaplan said, she was scrutinized by colleagues.“It was never the kids who said, ‘Wow, you’re so tall,’” she said. “It was the other teachers and staff who would make comments: ‘You’re too big to teach kindergarten. How do you get down in their chairs?’ It’s very painful and hurtful that someone can come up to you and just comment on your height.”If nothing else, she can commiserate with her younger sister, Anita Kaplan, 49, who is 6-5 and described certain triggers in her own life, such as when she enters a public restroom.“The women, in their peripheral vision, will see you and give you that look for a fraction of a second,” Anita Kaplan said. “And you know exactly what they’re thinking: Why is this man in here?”Nancy Kaplan said the only time she felt fully seen as a woman was when she was pregnant.Anita Kaplan, unlike her older sister, was drawn into the vortex of basketball by her father, Allen, a 6-7 optometrist who sensed her potential. She worked at her game in the family driveway, where she sought to compensate for her lack of dexterity — “I am not athletic, not even a little,” she said — through sheer willpower. Her feel for the game grew along with her reputation.“They called me the Truck,” Kaplan said. “And I got to be around tall men. I had an ulterior motive.”Kaplan, right, took a customer’s order at Pearl’s Bagels and Bakery in Albany, N.Y.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesAnita Kaplan went up for a layup for Stanford against Southern Methodist in 1995.Otto Greule Jr./Allsport, via Getty ImagesShe landed at Stanford, where she was a decorated center, then played professionally for a few seasons. Now, as the mother of three teenage sons (two of whom are taller than 6 feet), she has nuanced feelings about her stature. She loved playing basketball, she said, but she also has the lived experience of always standing out, of never being able to hide. People, she said, approach her all the time to ask if she played hoops. She tells them no.Steve Dexter, 67, has gotten so tired of questions about basketball that he now tells inquisitive strangers that he once graced the hardwood for the University of Oklahoma. The twist is that Dexter, who is 6-7, never played basketball.“Athletes were not my crowd,” said Dexter, who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif. “I was kind of a nerd.”These days, as a real estate investor and author, Dexter considers his physical stature to be an asset, citing research that tall people are deemed “more trustworthy and authoritative.”Rasmussen, who at 7-2 is the tallest member of Tall Clubs International, recalled joining friends at a political rally in Milwaukee many years ago. Afterward, he was approached by Secret Service agents who gauged his interest in doing surveillance. It was a change of pace from the usual questions.“I think they figured that if I could dress like a schlep, nobody would suspect me,” Rasmussen said. “But I never followed up.”In retirement, Rasmussen has remained active. He swims, bikes and plays the violin and the viola in quartets and an orchestra.At rehearsals, he sits on a high stool in the back row, where he can enjoy being a part of something larger than himself. More

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      Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown Talks Free Agency, Activism and Kanye West

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      HOUSTON — Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown was around 7 years old when he asked his grandmother Dianne Varnado for a new Xbox. Varnado, a longtime public-school teacher and social worker, made him write a paper about it.“‘If you want something, you’ve got to be able to explain why,’” Brown, 26, recalled her telling him.His wants are different now: to win an N.B.A. championship; for players to share in more of the league’s profits; to see an end to anti-Black racism in policing and school funding.Brown has used his celebrity platform to explain why he is passionate about issues like income inequality. Derek Van Rheenen, one of Brown’s former professors at the University of California, Berkeley, described him as “intellectually curious” and “politically invested, socially conscious.”But Brown’s growing profile has meant more pressure to explain himself: for working with the rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, after he made antisemitic comments, and for a misstep while supporting Kyrie Irving, who faced backlash after promoting an antisemitic film when he played for the Nets.While basketball has been Brown’s primary focus, it has never been the only one. Brown said his family is full of educators, who laid the foundation for his activist focus on education inequality. Varnado, whom he said recently died “peacefully,” also helped him develop his voice by teaching him to argue for what matters to him. (He got the Xbox.)Brown is averaging career highs in points per game (26.8), rebounds per game (6.9) and shooting percentage (49 percent). This is his seventh season.Mitchell Leff/Getty ImagesBrown sat down with The New York Times at a Four Seasons hotel in Houston on Sunday to talk about his career and his life, including the controversies. He had just come off a flight from Atlanta, where the Celtics had won the night before. Brown has firmly established himself as one of the elite guards in the N.B.A. on one of the top teams, averaging career highs in scoring and rebounding in his best season yet.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.Work and Life in BostonHow important is making an All-N.B.A. team to you?You want me to answer honestly?I don’t want you to lie to me.I think it would be deserving. We’ve been pretty dominant all season long.Whether I’m in an All-Star Game, All-N.B.A., or whoever comes up with those decisions, is out of my control. I think I’m one of the best basketball players in the world. And I continue to go out and prove it, especially when it matters the most in the playoffs.You and Jayson Tatum have pretty much played your entire careers together at this point. How would you describe your relationship today?I would say the same as it’s always been. You know, two guys who work really hard, who care about winning. We come out and we are extremely competitive. People still probably don’t think it’ll work out.But, for the most part, it’s been rarefied air.The Celtics drafted Jayson Tatum, left, one year after they drafted Brown. Together, they led Boston to the N.B.A. finals last season but lost to Golden State.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesCeltics center Al Horford recalled that the speed of the N.B.A. game was “really, really fast” for Brown during his rookie season in 2016-17. But now, “he just completely understands the things that he needs to do on the floor,” Horford said.Brown made his second All-Star team this season, and his career-best 26.8 points a game places him among the top guards in scoring. He could be a free agent after next season, but he said he isn’t thinking about that yet. “I’ve been able to make a lot of connections in the city, meet a lot of amazing families who have dedicated their lives to issues about change,” he said.Brown, who is Black, has spoken publicly about racism in Boston, where about half the population is white and about a quarter is Black. In 2015, a jolting study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that the Black households in the Boston area had a median wealth of close to zero, while the figure for white households was $247,500. “The wealth disparity in Boston is ridiculous,” Brown said.What has your experience been like as a Black professional athlete in Boston?There’s multiple experiences: as an athlete, as a basketball player, as a regular civilian, as somebody who’s trying to start a business, as someone who’s trying to do things in the community.There’s not a lot of room for people of color, Black entrepreneurs, to come in and start a business.I think that my experience there has been not as fluid as I thought it would be.What do you mean by that?Even being an athlete, you would think that you’ve got a certain amount of influence to be able to have experiences, to be able to have some things that doors open a little bit easier. But even with me being who I am, trying to start a business, trying to buy a house, trying to do certain things, you run into some adversity.Other athletes have spoken about the negative way that fans have treated Black athletes while playing in Boston. Have you experienced any of that?I have, but I pretty much block it all out. It’s not the whole Celtic fan base, but it is a part of the fan base that exists within the Celtic nation that is problematic. If you have a bad game, they tie it to your personal character.I definitely think there’s a group or an amount within the Celtic nation that is extremely toxic and does not want to see athletes use their platform, or they just want you to play basketball and entertain and go home. And that’s a problem to me.ActivismErik Moore, the founder of the venture capital firm Base Ventures, mentored Brown in college after Brown interned at his company. He said Brown was always focused on social justice. “It’s not new or shocking or weird,” Moore said. “It’s just who he is.”In April 2020, Brown wrote an op-ed for The Guardian decrying societal inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The next month, he donated $1,000 to the political action committee Grassroots Law, which, according to its website, fights “to end oppressive policing, incarceration, and injustice.” Weeks later, Brown drove 15 hours to Atlanta from Boston to protest the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis.Brown spoke about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before a game against the New Orleans Pelicans in January 2022.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesDo you think things are better for Black Americans when it comes to dealing with police than they were three years ago when you went down to protest?I have not seen it, to be honest. I think the issue is more systemic. I think what I learned about policing is that it’s not like the N.B.A., where everybody has these kind of rules that they kind of follow. How a police station in Memphis runs their police station is different from how they might run it in the New York Police Department. I don’t want to say it’s like the Wild West, but it’s different, you know?I read an interview where you said “Educational inequality is probably the most potent form of racism on our planet.” What do you mean by that?There’s different forms of bigotry or racism or inequalities. Directly confrontational still happens to this day, where people come up to you and just tell you their distaste for the way you walk, the way you talk, your skin color. And those are all extremely emotionally detrimental.There’s other forms of hegemonic racism that are subliminal, such as the inequalities in the education system: the lack of resources and opportunities through local elections and people voting on how much money or resources should go in this area versus this area.What about those kids who are extremely talented? What about those kids who are gifted who have contributions to make to society? But they’re stumped because of lack of opportunity.I’ll forever fight for those kids because I’m one of them.Ye and IrvingBrown first received widespread attention for his political views in 2018 when he told The Guardian that President Donald J. Trump was “unfit to lead” and that he had “made it a lot more acceptable for racists to speak their minds.” He also said sports were a “mechanism of control.” It was an unusual degree of outspokenness for a young, unestablished player.So Brown raised eyebrows in May 2022 when he became one of the first athletes to join Donda Sports, the new marketing agency of a well-known Trump supporter: Ye.“I think people still are loath to believe that Kanye really is a Trump fan,” said Moore, Brown’s mentor, adding, “So it might be easy to compartmentalize those things for Kanye specifically and say he’s a marketing phenom and he’s an amazing artist and he’s got that side of the world first and be OK with that.”Brown was one of the first athletes to sign with the marketing agency of the rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, left. Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via Getty ImagesAs Ye spiraled with a series of antisemitic comments and social media posts in the fall, Brown initially defended his association with Donda Sports before apologizing in October and cutting ties.Months after your interview in The Guardian in 2018, Kanye goes to the White House and very publicly aligns himself with President Trump. When you decided to sign with Donda, how did you reconcile those two things?You know, just because you think differently from somebody, it doesn’t mean you can’t work with them. I don’t think the same as [the Celtics owners] Steve Pagliuca or Wyc Grousbeck on a lot of different issues. But that doesn’t mean we can’t come together and win a championship.What are the things you aligned with Donda on specifically?One, education. Donda was his mother’s name and she was an educator, similar to my mom. And she was an activist and they had a different approach to how they looked at agency, how they looked at representation through marketing and media.Everybody kind of follows the same script, especially in sports. They hire an agent. And that approach never really absolutely worked for me.Look, I’m a part of the union. I see the statistics every day. Over 40 to 60 percent of our athletes, 10 years after they retire, go broke or lose majority of their wealth. Our athletes silently suffer. Nobody’s helping them manage their money, and [the agents] just get a new client once the oil has run dry. Nobody looks at that model and that approach as an issue.Trying to be an example for the next generation of athletes.You described Kanye as a role model in the past. How do you feel about him now?Go to the next question. I’m not going to answer that.You got in a little bit of hot water in November for sharing a video of the Black Hebrew Israelites [an antisemitic group] outside of Barclays Center in support of Kyrie Irving. You said that you thought it was a fraternity. Did that incident make you rethink how you want to use your platform?At that time, being the vice president of the players association, Kyrie Irving was being exiled, so I thought it was important to use my platform to to show him some love when he was being welcomed back. And people took it with their own perspective and ran with it. That’s out of my control. I’ve always used my platform to talk about certain things, and I will continue to. But the more you make people uncomfortable, the more criticism you’re going to get. And that’s just life.Brown, right, was one of several players who expressed support for Kyrie Irving, left, as he faced strong public backlash for promoting an antisemitic movie. Irving denied that he was antisemitic.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesBrown is one of seven vice presidents in the N.B.A. players’ union. Chrysa Chin, a union executive, recalled meeting Brown before his rookie year. She said he told her he wanted to be president of the union one day. “I thought it was very unusual,” Chin said.The N.B.A. and the union are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, with the players seeking a “true partnership” that lets them tap into more of the league’s revenue streams that would not exist without their labor, Brown said.“We’d like to see our ethics, morals and values being upheld internationally and globally,” Brown said, “and we would like to have a say-so with the partners and the people that are being involved with the league, because our face, our value, our work ethic, our work, our labor is attached to this league as well.” More

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      in Tennis

      The Carlos Alcaraz Show Returns to Raves

      by

      The 2022 U.S. Open champion, Alcaraz battled injuries in fall and winter. At Indian Wells, he is nearly at full power, dominating opponents and dazzling fans.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — It’s a pretty easygoing crowd at the BNP Paribas Open in the heart of the Coachella Valley.Spectators soak up the sun. They wander the grounds while gazing at the mountains. They drink cheap beer priced expensively. Sometimes they watch tennis. Often they don’t.And then Saturday night rolled around, and just about every seat in Stadium 1 was occupied on a breezy night in the desert that was chilly enough for puffer jackets.Carlos Alcaraz was in the house, tender hamstring and all, trying to deliver this tournament — and really the sport itself — the kind of juice that only he seems able to deliver these days, especially with Rafael Nadal sidelined with an injury and Novak Djokovic prohibited from entering the United States because of his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19.To do that, though, Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish star, needs to be on the court, and that has not happened much since he blasted his way to his first Grand Slam title and the No. 1 ranking at the U.S. Open in New York last September.That effort required a series of marathon matches, including one that lasted until nearly 3 in the morning. He has been mostly hobbling ever since. He battled an abdominal injury through the fall. Then, in his final practice before his scheduled journey to the Australian Open, he pulled a hamstring as he sprinted and stretched to reach a short ball.Alcaraz, whose foot-on-the-gas style may make him more prone to injuries, like his compatriot Nadal, returned to play two small tournaments last month in South America. He won the title in Buenos Aires. Then, in Rio de Janeiro, he made the final but aggravated his hamstring midway through his three-set loss to Cameron Norrie of Britain. He pulled out of his next tournament, in Acapulco, to rest for Indian Wells, where tournament organizers fretting over the loss of Nadal and Djokovic were praying that Alcaraz could recover in time.“The tennis insiders knew that there was this new kid, maybe the next Rafa,” Tommy Haas, the German former pro who is the tournament director here, said of Alcaraz in the tense days before the start of the tournament. “And all of a sudden he just has a blowout year and becomes the youngest No. 1 of all time and you go, ‘How is this possible, and how amazing is he to watch?’”There are a handful of players that can make an early-round match feel like a big event, and Alcaraz did so on Saturday night as he ambushed Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia and won in straight sets.Iga Swiatek of Poland, the women’s No. 1, had played in the afternoon in a mostly empty stadium. Taylor Fritz, the defending champion and top American, and Ben Shelton, also an American and the young season’s brightest surprise, then dueled in a tight, three-set battle that filled a good majority of the Stadium 1 seats. But it was nothing compared with the packed crowd that Alcaraz drew for the night’s final match.Even Jimmy Connors, who knows something about putting on a show, stuck around, sitting high in the stadium in the media seats. Alcaraz was at it again on Monday night, playing in the headliner’s spot — albeit in front of a thinner, school night crowd — against Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands. The basketball great and tennis obsessive Dirk Nowitzki was courtside.Alcaraz made a nearly unreachable shot against Tallon Griekspoor on Monday.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThere is that crackling forehand that sounds different from everyone else’s, more like an ax splitting a log than polyester strings thumping a fuzzy ball. There are all the desperate sprints after nearly out-of-reach balls that so many players ignore. He has the most delicate and deceptive drop shot and stinging volleys.When a willowy drop shot clipped the tape and trickled just over the sideline, he twisted in anguish. How dare the gravity and subtle currents of the desert air conspire to interfere with his attempts at perfection.“I try to make the people enjoy watching tennis,” Alcaraz said after his first win. “And I think the way that I play, they love it.”He will play Jack Draper of Britain in the round of 16 Tuesday evening.The game wears on many younger players. The pressure of expectations, the constant attention and the relentless schedule have toppled top talents, either temporarily, in the case of Nick Kyrgios, or permanently. A year ago, Ashleigh Barty retired as the world No. 1 at 25.There are also players a few years older than Alcaraz who have flirted with his level, or achieved it, only to fall back before fans could get on the bandwagon.Daniil Medvedev won the U.S. Open in 2021 and rose to the top spot in the rankings early last year but won just two minor titles. At the moment, he is on a 16-match winning streak. Stefanos Tsitsipas has made two Grand Slam finals, but nerves and Djokovic got the better of him both times.As for the players who are of Alcaraz’s vintage, they know his early success has set a standard that will be hard to match.“I will try,” Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, who is 21 and grew up playing in junior tournaments with Alcaraz, said unconvincingly with a shake of his head after his second-round loss here over the weekend.So far, Alcaraz has seemed immune to the usual anxieties. His approach?“Live the moment, play the match, and go for it,” he said.Alcaraz has had some help this week in producing the kind of buzz the sport is always seeking. Emma Raducanu of England, who won the 2021 U.S. Open as a qualifier, has gone on a roll, winning three consecutive matches for just the second time since her breakout Grand Slam win.The success has come largely out of nowhere. Raducanu, who last month deleted Instagram from her phone to better focus on herself, has been battling injuries and illnesses, most recently a wrist problem. She hardly prepared for this tournament and didn’t practice for four days ahead of her first match.But on Monday afternoon against Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, the 13th seed, Raducanu was once more whipping her lethal forehands into the corners and rolling her windmill backhand with a freedom that had been largely absent for the past year. And she was doing it in front of a raucous field-court crowd, just like in the not-so-old days of the 2021 U.S. Open. She was scheduled to play Swiatek on Tuesday in a matchup between the two most recent U.S. Open champions.“I did a really good job mentally of just staying, you know, keep hitting through the shots and trying to be committing to everything, even when it’s tight,” she said after her three-set win.In other words, what the player everyone now calls Carlito plans to do on Tuesday night against Draper, who at 21 may be a rival for long time.“I’m going to enjoy it,” Alcaraz said.More than likely, so will pretty much everyone watching. More

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      in Soccer

      Brett Goldstein Faces Life After ‘Ted Lasso’

      by

      LONDON — A few minutes into coffee last spring, Brett Goldstein wanted to show me something on his phone.I leaned over and saw puppeteers sitting on skateboards while they hid behind a table, rolling into one another in apparent bliss as their hands animated a clowder of felt cats above their heads. For Goldstein this represented a kind of creative ideal, as pure an expression of fun, craft and unbridled glee as any human is likely to encounter.“Imagine this is your actual job,” he said, his breathtaking eyebrows raised in wonder.Goldstein shot this behind-the-scenes video during his time as a guest star on “Sesame Street,” an experience this Emmy-winning, Marvel-starring comic actor and writer still describes as the single best day of his life.The clip is inarguably delightful, but Goldstein hardly has to imagine such a job. As the breakout star of “Ted Lasso,” the hit comedy about a tormented but terminally sunny American coach winning hearts, minds and the occasional football match in England, he is part of an ensemble that brought as much bonhomie, optimism and warmth to the set as Ted himself, played by the show’s mastermind, Jason Sudeikis, brought to the screen.“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Goldstein said last year. “I think we all will.”And now it has ended. Or maybe it hasn’t. What is certain is that the new season of “Ted Lasso,” which starts on Wednesday, will conclude the three-act story the creators conceived in the beginning and there are no plans for more. Whether and how more tales from the Lassoverse arrive is up to Sudeikis, who told me he hadn’t even begun to ponder such things. “It’s been a wonderful labor of love, but a labor nonetheless,” he said.So even if the new season isn’t the end, it represents an end, one that hit Goldstein hard. In a video call last month, he confirmed that while shooting the finale in November, he kept sneaking off to “have a cry.”But even if “Lasso” is over for good, it is also inarguable that Goldstein has made the most of it. Chances are you had never heard of him three years ago, when he was a journeyman performer working on a TV show based on an NBC Sports promo for a service, Apple TV+, that few people had. (Humanity had plenty else to think about in March 2020.)Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis in the third and final season of “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+But things have moved fast for him since “Ted Lasso” became the pre-eminent feel-good story of the streaming era, both in form — as an underdog sports tale about the importance of kindness — and function, as a surprise hit and career boost for a bunch of lovable, previously unheralded actors who have now amassed 14 Emmy nominations for their performances.None of them have turned “Ted Lasso” into quite the launchpad that Goldstein has. His Roy Kent, a gruff, floridly profane retired player turned coach, was an immediate fan favorite, and Goldstein won Emmys for best supporting actor in a comedy both seasons. He was also one of the show’s writers and parlayed that into a new series: “Shrinking,” a comedy about grief and friendship. Goldstein developed it with Bill Lawrence, another “Lasso” creator, and Jason Segel, who stars along with Harrison Ford. (It is Ford’s first regular TV comedy role.)Thanks to “Shrinking,” which came out in January and was just renewed for another season, you might have encountered Goldstein on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” “The Today Show,” “CBS Saturday Morning” or some podcast or another.Thanks to his surprise debut as Hercules — Hercules! — in a post-credits scene in Marvel’s 2022 blockbuster “Thor: Love and Thunder,” you will soon see him everywhere.Brett Goldstein in a scene from “Thor: Love and Thunder.”MarvelNone of this had come out when we met last year. Back then, he was still struggling to make sense of the ways “Ted Lasso” had changed his life after two decades of working in comparative obscurity in London’s theater and comedy trenches. Whatever the hassles of losing his anonymity, he said, they were more than offset by the benefits — the visit to “Sesame Street,” the opportunity to work with a childhood hero like Ford, the chance to work on “Lasso” itself.“I would happily do it for 25 more years,” he said, but that’s out of his hands.What Goldstein can control is what he does with his new Hollywood juice, which currently includes a second season of “Shrinking,” other TV concepts in development and whatever emerges from the whole Hercules thing. (He’s already mastered Marvel’s signature superpower: the non-comment.)No matter how long this window of opportunity stays open, he’s still chasing the same simple thing: a slightly coarser version of what he captured in that “Sesame Street” video.“It’s a bunch of grown people having the time of their [expletive] lives being very, very silly but also creating something that’s meaningful,” Goldstein said. “And it’s [expletive] joyous.”OK, a significantly coarser version. But to understand why, it helps to know a little about how he got here.‘I very much relate to the anger.’Goldstein, 42, grew up in Sutton, England, as a soccer nut by birthright — his father is a Tottenham Hotspur fanatic — who became just as obsessed with performing and movies, spending hours as a boy recreating Indiana Jones stunts in his front yard.Improbably, all of the above contributed to his current circumstances: It was his performing and soccer fandom that led to “Ted Lasso,” and he is now writing lines for Indiana Jones himself in “Shrinking” — lines Ford says while playing a character inspired by Goldstein’s father.But it took Goldstein a few decades to arrive at such an exalted position. After a childhood spent acting in little plays and his own crude horror shorts, he studied film and literature at the University of Warwick. He continued writing and performing through college and beyond, in shorts and “loads of plays at Edinburgh Fringe and off, off, off, off West End,” he said. A short film called “SuperBob,” about a melancholy lo-fi superhero played by a beardless Goldstein, eventually led to a cult feature of the same name.More important, it caught the eye of the casting director for “Derek” (2012-14), Ricky Gervais’s mawkish comedy about a kindly simpleton (played by Gervais) working at a senior care facility. Goldstein played a nice boyfriend. “That was my first proper TV job, and then it was slightly easier,” he said.Along the way he tried standup and it became an abiding obsession — even now he tries to perform several nights a week. “He’s always been the sexy, hunky dude in, like, really tiny comedic circles,” said Phil Dunster, who plays the reformed prima donna Jamie Tartt in “Lasso” and first met Goldstein roughly a decade ago, when he performed in one of Goldstein’s plays. (Dunster remembers being dazzled and intimidated by his eyebrows.)At some point a fan of Goldstein’s standup mentioned him to Lawrence, a creator of network hits like “Spin City” and “Scrubs,” who checked out Goldstein in a failed pilot and was impressed enough to cast him in his own new sitcom in 2017.That one also never made it to air. By then Goldstein was in his late 30s. “I had a sort of epiphany of, ‘I’ve missed my window,’” he said.Then came “Ted Lasso.”“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Brett Goldstein said of “Ted Lasso.” “I think we all will.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe show’s creators, who also included Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, wanted some English soccer fans on staff, and Lawrence thought of Goldstein. He was hired as a writer but soon became convinced that he was the person to play the surly, fading pro Roy Kent. As scripting on the first season wrapped up, he made a video of himself performing several Roy scenes and sent it to the creators, stipulating that if he was terrible, all involved would never speak of it again. He was not terrible.It’s a story he has told many times. But it hits different in person, as the gentle fellow in a fitted black T-shirt recounts how he felt a bone-deep connection to the irascible Roy. The face is essentially the same, but the eyes are too friendly and the voice is smooth and mellifluous where Roy’s is a clipped growl.“I get that you would be confused by this,” Goldstein said, setting his coffee cup neatly into its saucer. “But I very much relate to the anger. I used to be very, very miserable and had a quite dark brain, and I’ve worked very hard at changing that. But it’s there.”Lawrence said that “of all the shows I’ve ever done, Brett is one of the top two people in terms of how different he is from his character.” (The other: Ken Jenkins, the friendly actor who played the caustic Dr. Kelso in “Scrubs.”)In some ways the connection between actor and character is clear. Both are prolific swearers, for one thing, and Goldstein lives by the chant that defines his famous alter-ego: He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.Colleagues and friends are stupefied by how much he does. While shooting the first season of “Lasso,” he was also flying to Madrid to shoot “Soulmates,” the sci-fi anthology series he created with Will Bridges. During filming for Season 3, he acted in “Lasso” by day and joined the “Shrinking” writers’ room on video calls by night. He found time to interview comics, actors, filmmakers and friends for his long-running movie podcast, “Films to be Buried With.” He regularly squeezed in standup sets.“I’m not sure when he sleeps,” Dunster said. “But I know he gets it in, because he looks so young.”Goldstein said his workaholism predates his newfound Hollywood clout. “Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” he said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”He acknowledged that both could be true. But then if “Ted Lasso” has taught us anything, it’s that nobody is just one thing.‘We joke our way through this.’“Ted Lasso” is a sprawling comic tapestry woven from characters — a wounded team owner (played by Hannah Waddingham), an insecure publicist (Juno Temple), a spiteful former protégé (Nick Mohammed) — threading their way toward better selves. The new season finds the AFC Richmond squad at its underdoggiest yet, back in England’s mighty Premier League and destined for an uncertain but sure to be uplifting fate.“Shrinking” is more intimate, a show about hard emotions and hanging out that happens to star a screen legend whose presence still astounds everyone. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Harrison Ford is one of the stars of “Shrinking,” an Apple TV+ series Goldstein helped create. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Apple TV+Ford’s character is an esteemed psychologist who has received a Parkinson’s diagnosis. He was inspired by several real-life figures, including Lawrence’s grandfather, who also had Parkinson’s disease; his father, who has Lewy body dementia; and his old friend from “Spin City,” Michael J. Fox. The character was also based on Goldstein’s father, another Parkinson’s survivor.“Brett and I share this thing with our families that we joke our way through this,” Lawrence said.Goldstein is exceedingly private about his personal life, but his father gave him permission to discuss the link — his reasoning was that he wasn’t ashamed of the condition and couldn’t hide it anyway. “And also,” he told his son, “the fact that I can tell people Harrison Ford is based on me is a pretty cool thing.”Goldstein joked that this gift he has given his father has expanded their conversational canvas by roughly 100 percent: “Football is still all me and my dad talk about,” he said. “That and the fact that he’s Harrison Ford.”The former, at least, is the way it’s always been. “I think that’s why sport exists,” he said. “It’s a way of saying ‘I love you’ while never saying ‘I love you.’”Such Trojan-horsing of human emotion has become Goldstein’s default mode, whether it’s using his podcast guests’ favorite films to get at their real fears and desires, portraying the discomfort of vulnerability via a clenched soccer star, or writing Parkinson’s jokes to work through the painful fact of his parents’ mortality.“Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” Goldstein said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesSegel said that Goldstein is always the one on “Shrinking” insisting that no matter how punchy the punch lines, the feelings must be pure and true. This wasn’t surprising, he added, because Goldstein is a Muppets fan.“It sounds like a joke,” said Segel, who as a writer and star of “The Muppets” (2011) does not joke about such things. “But it speaks to a lack of fear around earnest expression of emotion.”Which brings us back to the cat video and Goldstein’s other Muppet-related fascinations. (“The Muppet Christmas Carol” might be his favorite move ever, he said, and he’s been known to perform an abridged version on standup stages.)Those looking for a felt skeleton key to unlock his various idiosyncrasies aren’t likely to find one. But his Muppet affection does offer a glimpse at what motivates him as a performer, creator and workaholic, which is less about opportunities, franchises or scale than the vulnerability and risks of trying to reach someone and the openness required to take it in. The thing he’s always looking for, he told me over and over — to the point that he started apologizing for it — is a bit of human connection in a world that can seem designed to thwart it.“They put up this Muppet and I’m gone,” he said. “But that requires from both of us a leap of faith, like, ‘We’re doing this, and I’m all in and you’re all in.’ And if one of us did not commit to this thing then it’s [expletive] stupid — it’s just a [expletive] felt thing on your hand, and I’m an idiot for talking to it and you’re an idiot for holding it.“Do you know what I mean?” More

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      in Basket

      J.R. Smith Was Lost After the NBA. Golf Became His Guide.

      by

      LOS ANGELES — As J.R. Smith eased his golf cart around the fifth hole at El Caballero Country Club, he relayed a story about elementary school.He thought he would grow up to be a writer. His teachers gave him notebooks and, for inspiration, picture cards — say, a boy, a mountain and a scary house — and he’d write stories for hours. He loved it, at least initially.“Then school just wasn’t my thing, and writing and dyslexia — barely could read at times,” Smith said. “It was just like, ‘Yeah, this ain’t for me.’”For a long time, it wasn’t. By his senior year at St. Benedict’s in Newark, he was a basketball star committed to play at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But about a month before the N.B.A. draft in June 2004, he decided to skip college and go straight to the pros. The New Orleans Hornets took him with the 18th overall pick. Making it to the league was a dream.“I just wish I was more mature at the time, opposed to being so young-minded,” Smith said, adding: “I was 18, but I was more — at a mature sense — I was 13.”He spent 16 N.B.A. seasons launching feathery jumpers in New Orleans, Denver, New York, Cleveland and Los Angeles. He had shirtless championship celebrations, and the Cavaliers suspended him for throwing soup at an assistant coach. He won the Sixth Man of the Year Award, and the N.B.A. fined him for “posting inappropriate pictures” on Twitter. His teammate LeBron James once looked at him in disbelief during the N.B.A. finals, and the moment became a meme. Then one day, it was all over.Smith with the Larry O’Brien Trophy after winning 2020 N.B.A. finals with the Lakers.Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt can be disorienting for players when the N.B.A. carousel stops. Smith was bored and puzzled when no team called to sign him after he won a championship with the Lakers in 2020. He spent hours in his game room, smoking and ruminating. I’m not playing. I should be playing. I want to play.Basketball was all he’d known in his adult life. But soon he had a new thought: Maybe it was time to go back to school.“I always wanted to learn about my heritage, learn where I came from, learn more about Black people,” Smith said. “It really turned into self-love, learning more about myself. That’s really what catapulted me back into therapy, to try to understand, and try to really master myself, and master my mind.”‘Get Away From the Chaos’Smith teed off, his golf ball hissing as it cut through the air. The ball hooked left. He grimaced.“On the court, I know what to rely on,” he said quietly. “Out here, I don’t know what to rely on.”It was a cloudless, brisk day, and he was with a longtime friend, C.J. Paul, the brother of Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, and a few other people. Smith got into golf after Moses Malone, the Hall of Fame center, encouraged him to pick up a club at a pro-am event in Houston. On his first try, Smith drove the ball around 300 yards, but he could not do it again. The contradiction fascinated him.“It gives me something else to focus on other than my life,” Smith said. “It gives you lessons at the same time. For me, any time I get away from the chaos a little bit, that’s what it’s all about.”“Respect. That’s what I like about it the most,” Smith said of golf. “You’ve got to put the time in. You ain’t just come out here and think you’re Tiger Woods.”Michael Owens for The New York TimesDuring a round of golf a few years ago, Smith confided to C.J. Paul that he was considering attending college. Paul suggested that Smith also play golf at school. He put Smith in touch with Richard Watkins, the men’s and women’s varsity golf coach at North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university in Greensboro. At the time, Smith’s knowledge of H.B.C.U.s consisted of their famed drum lines and a vague recollection of some episodes of “A Different World,” a spinoff of “The Cosby Show” based at a fictional H.B.C.U.In the fall of 2021, at 36 years old, Smith was in North Carolina A&T’s freshman class, becoming one of several Black athletes — including Chris Paul, Deion Sanders, Eddie George and Mo Williams — who turned to H.B.C.U.s later in life for schooling or jobs.“There is something about a space in which you don’t have to grapple with race as the predominant variable of your experience,” said Derrick White, a professor of history and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. “Black colleges, even though they’re multiracial, the history and culture of those institutions provide a space for Black folk to live and learn and experience higher education without having consistent battles about whether you deserve to be here or people saying that you’re undeserving of your spot.”Smith walked onto the men’s golf team, took classes about African American history and hired a tutor, whom he credited with being patient. Beverly C. Grier, who teaches a class about race and social justice that Smith is taking, said it was “very admirable” for him to pursue a degree at his age. Students who return to learning after a hiatus are often more focused and determined, Dr. Grier said, adding that Smith had gone above and beyond on a recent assignment.Smith earned a 4.0 grade-point average and the Aggies’ Academic Athlete of the Year in his first year. He proudly shared his accomplishment on social media.Smith walked onto the golf team at N.C. A&T in 2021.Grant Halverson/Getty Images“Every day, locking in, sitting at the computer, trying to come up with a regimen of how to learn how to think,” Smith said. “Breaking down barriers of anxiety and feeling not able to do certain things, because I’ve always felt like that toward school.”He has also been going to therapy again.Smith said the N.B.A. required him to go to therapy when he played for the Knicks, but he hated it. “It felt like my story, my journey, was so much different than everybody else’s,” he said. “I didn’t feel like it would help at the time.”He said he went on and off for two years.“He was so much of a man-child coming out of high school,” said Jim Cleamons, a New Orleans assistant coach when Smith was a rookie. Cleamons added: “I’ve always thought J.R. could do what he wanted to do. He just needed to find out what he wanted to do and dedicate himself to that purpose.”The N.B.A.’s lifestyle provided a mostly inflexible calendar: shoot-arounds, practices and games packaged around flights and hotel stays. But it had holes, countless empty hours sandwiched into the middle of days and late at night.“I’ve got to continuously move around,” Smith said. “Because once I sit still, that’s when stuff starts spinning for me. I’ve got to stay busy, stay active, continuously creative, continuously doing something. It’s like that old saying, a wandering mind, an idle mind is the devil’s playground, and for me, a lot of the times where I got in my troubles, and stuff like that, it was because I was bored.”In 2009, Smith was sentenced to serve 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to reckless driving in a crash that killed his friend, Andre Bell. In court, he said it was “unbearable to deal with.” By then, he had been traded to the Denver Nuggets. He was solidifying his reputation as a scorer, though one with a curious shot selection that caused conflict with some of his coaches.Smith, shown in the 2005 dunk contest, won two N.B.A. championships and the 2012-13 Sixth Man of the Year Award.Pool photo by Mark J. Terrill“I felt like I was an artist,” Smith said. “And I was sensitive about how I worked at my game and the different shots I took because if anything, I would feel like I was getting something out of it. And if I can’t get what I want out of it, then how can I give you what you want? This is something I love.”An Uncertain FutureIn the N.B.A., Smith searched for an empty gym when he faced turmoil. There he found movement and expression. Golf, Smith discovered, enveloped him the same way.“You’re out there literally by yourself,” he said. “Even if you’re with somebody, it’s still such an individual sport. You can really zone out and, for me anyway, find that same peace and that same energy.”Though Smith plays golf at an H.B.C.U., the sport at large is still overwhelmingly white. Smith said he is conscious of the lingering stares he receives on golf courses that seem to go beyond people recognizing him from his days in the N.B.A.“Certain people’s aura and demeanor like they don’t want you here,” Smith said. “It’s that old money that just ain’t going to change.”He wants to make golf more accessible, especially for women and minorities. “I’ve got four girls who play sports and I’m around a lot of country clubs where it’s not as welcome for women as it is for men in the game of golf,” he said.Smith is spending more time away from the campus this year, taking classes online and podcasting.Michael Owens for The New York TimesSmith played 12 rounds in four tournaments as a freshman with an average score of 85.58. Smith is not on North Carolina A&T’s campus as much this year. He had arrived in Los Angeles that week to shoot episodes with the celebrity jewelry maker Ben Baller and the fashion designer Stephen Malbon for their podcast, “Par 3,” about their love for golf. Smith takes most of his classes online and prefers training with professional golfers in Florida.Nearly 20 years ago, Smith thought his school days were over, but his path seemed to be clear. Now, his plans are open-ended after college.He wants to be involved in golf. He’s interested in becoming an athletic director at an H.B.C.U. He may even coach children, he said, “teach them the game of basketball, as opposed to running and chucking, this new-age game.”From the eighth hole at El Caballero, Smith stood in the tee box, slightly bent forward at his waist and knees. He flushed the ball solidly down the fairway.“Respect,” Smith said, returning to his cart. “That’s what I like about it the most. You’ve got to put the time in. You ain’t just come out here and think you’re Tiger Woods.”Smith said it was his first good shot of the day and returned to his golf cart, his destination uncertain beyond the next hole.Michael Owens for The New York Times

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

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

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      Diana Shnaider Is Mixing College Tennis With the Pro Tour, for Now

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      A freshman at North Carolina State, Shnaider, a Russian, is the first woman ranked in the top 100 of the pro game to play college tennis since 1993.Last August, Diana Shnaider, a teenage tennis player from Russia, was traveling solo in Europe with a world-class forehand but no working bank card because of financial sanctions against her country. She had to pay for hotels, flights and food with cash.Last week, she led the North Carolina State women’s tennis team, which is ranked ninth in Division I, to a victory over second-ranked Ohio State.“Things were bad, but they’re better now,” Shnaider said on Wednesday on a video call from Columbus, Ohio.Shnaider, a left-hander with a flashy and powerful style of play, has found stability in the game, even though many observers never believed she would choose college tennis over playing on the professional tour full time. The skeptics included her college coach, Simon Earnshaw.“I didn’t think she was going to come,” Earnshaw said in a telephone interview. “But she’s kind of unique. As an 18-year-old, she’s still a kid, but she’s very clear on how she sees the game and what’s important to her and what’s not important to her. And, really, the only thing that’s important to her is, ‘How do I get better?’”When she arrived in Raleigh, N.C., last summer, she ranked 249th on the WTA Tour in singles. She is up to 90th after a surge in Australia, where she qualified for her first Grand Slam singles tournament, the Australian Open, and lost in the second round to sixth-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.Shnaider has big weapons in her slashing forehand and serve. She has quick feet and an attacking mentality that has been there since she learned the game in Tolyatti, across the Volga River from Zhigulevsk, her hometown. She moved to Moscow at age 9 with her family to find better training opportunities.“I never wanted to be a pusher,” she said. “I was always like: ‘OK, here’s the shot. I’m killing it.’”At the Australian Open, her fist pumps and celebratory shouts rattled Sakkari, who thought they were directed at her. Shnaider said that was a misunderstanding and that she was shouting toward her team in the player’s box on Sakkari’s side of the court.Shnaider said her run in Australia — and the more than $140,000 in prize money that came with it — did not make her rethink her decision to play in college, even if it has been tough for her to read harsh criticism of it on social media.“I understand with my mind that I’m doing everything right, but of course when people say mean things it goes to my heart and soul,” she said. “But I’m trying to just go my own way.”Shnaider, shown at the Australian Open in January, is undefeated in women’s singles at North Carolina State.Joel Carrett/EPA, via ShutterstockShnaider is the first woman ranked in the top 100 in singles to play college tennis since 1993, when the American Lisa Raymond played at Florida. Shnaider has gone undefeated in singles matches this season for N.C. State, which is not a traditional college tennis power. But the Wolfpack are 7-1 and undefeated with Shnaider in the lineup.“She’s the best player to play college tennis in a while, for sure,” said Geoff Macdonald, the former women’s coach at Vanderbilt.The American college game has resumed being a pathway to professional success in recent years with college standouts like Cameron Norrie, Jennifer Brady and Danielle Collins making successful transitions. But what separates Shnaider from them is that she made inroads in the pro game before college. (N.C.A.A. rules allow players to use prize money to cover their documented tennis expenses at any time during that same calendar year, but they must donate any excess to remain eligible.)Shnaider’s decision was partly because of geopolitics: It allowed her to establish a base in the United States while her country is viewed as a pariah in much of the West.“I think 100 percent her being Russian made the difference,” David Secker, an N.C. State assistant coach, said.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought sanctions against Russians. For tennis players, the sanctions complicated travel and training, and raised the possibility of Russian players being excluded from tournaments (to date, Wimbledon has been the only major individual event to do so).Shnaider, who split with her coach in June, wanted to ensure she could keep playing competitively and improve on hardcourts. Her best results had come on clay.“I was really afraid and thinking what will I do sitting in Russia without coach and without matches?” she said.Before committing to N.C. State, she had to overcome her doubts. “I thought it would mean like I’m quitting the tennis, the professional career,” she said.Her father, Maksim, who helped shape her game, was against it. But her mother, Julia, a trained pianist more focused on education, pushed for it and helped make the initial contact with Secker last April through a Russian family in the United States.Secker, like Earnshaw, was skeptical that Shnaider was serious about attending college, but he organized a video call and then met with Shnaider and her mother at the French Open in June. The family remained divided on the issue, however, and Shnaider, when she was back on the road, kept having emotional phone calls with her parents.“I was in the middle of nowhere, and I was like, this is not helping me,” Shnaider said. “And my dad was like, this is your decision, so make your first whole decision by yourself.”It would be N.C. State. Bureaucratic issues made her wait five days in Warsaw for her student visa, and she sprinted down a hall at the U.S. Embassy to collect it before closing time on a Friday. But she made it to the United States a few days before the U.S. Open junior tournament and reached the semifinals of the girls’ event in singles and won in doubles with Lucie Havlickova.But Shnaider remained athletically ineligible. She had signed a contract with Wesport, a management agency in Sweden, and, Earnshaw said, the N.C.A.A. needed to examine the agreement to ensure that any payments she had received were in exchange for the use of her name, image and likeness, which is now permitted by the N.C.A.A.The process took nearly five months to resolve. “It was extremely protracted frustration,” Earnshaw said.Shnaider got clearance on Feb. 3, the day before a home match with Oklahoma. Though she has gone undefeated in singles with the team, she has been pleasantly surprised by the level of play. For example, she had to save a match point before defeating Sydni Ratliff of Ohio State.“I was worried I was going to lose time and lose my motivation,” Shnaider said of playing college tennis. But she noted that has not happened. “I’m getting out of my apartment at 8 a.m., coming back at 8 p.m., and I’m passed out.”She is about to start juggling college tennis and tour tennis, competing at the WTA event in Monterrey, Mexico, where the main draw starts Monday. Then comes the qualifying event at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. Going deep at either tournament will mean she is likely to miss some college matches.“I would say logistics is the biggest challenge for Diana,” Secker said. “And I also think doubt is a huge part because I think there’s always this doubt that if I’m playing a college match, am I missing out on an opportunity in the pro game? If I’m playing pro, am I letting down my team in some way?”For at least a few more months, Shnaider will try to do justice to both worlds, but the challenge pales in comparison to taking on the satellite circuit last year with no chaperone or modern means of payment. When she won a title in Istanbul, the organizers had to give her the nearly $9,000 in prize money in cash.“I was like, what am I supposed to do with that?” she said holding her right thumb and index finger far apart to show the size of the stack of bank notes. “I was so careful.”At other times, she said, she barely had enough cash to pay for a night’s hotel.“My parents were feeling really insecure for me,” she said. “My mom was like, ‘Don’t carry your passport, don’t go outside, don’t speak Russian, just stay in the hotel.’ Because she just didn’t know what people can do.” More

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      Luka Doncic Makes Basketball Look Easy. It’s Not.

      by

      SALT LAKE CITY — Luka Doncic couldn’t sleep after playing the game of his life. None of the N.B.A.’s one-name greats — Wilt, Kobe, Jordan, LeBron — had ever managed a night quite like his. He was exhausted, but tossed and turned in his bed for hours, then got up to channel his energy into playing the video game Overwatch until the sun rose.Everything had gone right that December night: 60 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, an overtime win for his Dallas Mavericks against the Knicks at home. He wows crowds without appearing to break a sweat.“It’s hard every game,” Doncic said recently in an interview at his hotel on the road. “People say that it looks easy, but it’s not easy, trust me.”He smiled. “Maybe it looks easy because I’m slow,” he said.Doncic, who is from Slovenia, came to the N.B.A. five years ago as both a known commodity and a mysterious figure, already a superstar in the EuroLeague but still a media-shy teenager trying to find his way.At 23 years old — “I’m 22, no, 23, about to be 24,” Doncic said — he embodies the N.B.A.’s decades-long effort to have global reach.“Luka plays at the highest level with joy, passion and creativity,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said. “He’s an exemplar of this new wave of international stars who are influencing the game in their own unique way.”Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said Doncic, above, has a “cheat code” for the game with his court vision.Tim Heitman/Getty ImagesDoncic received more than 5.5 million fan votes for the All-Star Game on Sunday night in Salt Lake City and will make his fourth consecutive appearance. His jersey ranks among the league’s top sellers. College teams and even some N.B.A. players play in his signature sneaker from Nike’s Jordan Brand line. And now, after Dallas traded with the Nets for Kyrie Irving this month, he may have the dynamic partner he has been missing as he has tried to lift the Mavericks to their first championship since 2011. He’s slowly stepping into the spotlight, opening up about how he got to this point — and where he wants to go.“I’d rather have the championship than M.V.P.,” he said, “but if you win an M.V.P., it’s amazing, too.”‘He didn’t have any fear’Doncic said he was nearly trembling when he became the youngest professional player to debut for Real Madrid in the Spanish basketball league at 16.He shot a 3-pointer in the closing moments of a game against Unicaja in 2015. “I don’t know how it went in,” Doncic said. “It was the 30th of April, my girlfriend’s birthday. So that’s a good day.”Doncic is now known for wanting the ball with the game on the line.“Some people are just put on the planet and they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do,” said Bill Duffy, Doncic’s agent, who has known him since he was 14.Those who recall Doncic’s early days in Slovenia describe his play as the merging of genetic gifts and tunnel-vision devotion. His father, Sasa Doncic, played professionally for years. He had “the greatest court vision,” said Damir Radenovic, who practiced with Sasa Doncic and is the marketing director for the Basketball Federation of Slovenia.Luka Doncic could always be found in his father’s shadow, begging to take shots during downtime or talking in the locker room. “He learned, maybe unconsciously, some of those veteran things,” said Marko Milic, a Mavericks assistant coach who was the first Slovene player drafted into the N.B.A., in 1997.Playing against children his own age was too easy for Doncic. Grega Brezovec coached an 8-year-old Doncic for about 13 minutes. “OK, Luka, this is not for you,” he recalled telling him before moving him up to a group of 12- to 14-year-olds.Doncic wanted to play so often that Jernej Smolnikar, another of his youth coaches, worried about how his prepubescent body would absorb some of the drills. He occasionally tried sending Doncic home, only for Doncic to plead with his parents to call Smolnikar to let him back on the court.At 13, Doncic left Slovenia, signing a five-year contract with Real Madrid.Doncic was a star for Real Madrid as a teenager. He was named the most valuable player of the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in 2015.Luca Sgamellotti/Euroleague Basketball, via Getty ImagesAlberto Angulo, a former Real Madrid player and director of the Real Madrid Academy, said in an interview in Spanish that Sasa Doncic saw it as a good development opportunity. Mirjam Poterbin, Luka’s mother, was more reluctant, he said.Doncic was wary of leaving the familiarity of his home and mulled the decision for months. “Then the last week came, I made a decision,” he said. “I just decided to.”Real Madrid had rules designed to build character in its young players — no hats in the dining room, finish your dinner, be on time. Doncic once overslept for a morning meeting. Coaches sat him the next game.“To punish a player, you take away what they love the most,” Angulo said.Doncic never overslept again. He wanted the chance to sharpen his game, Angulo said.“He didn’t have any fear — in fact the opposite — of bringing in a player that could be better than him or take minutes away from him,” Angulo said. “He thought, ‘No, no no, if he’s good, he’ll make me better.’”Doncic was named the most valuable player of the under-16 Spain championship. But Doncic said he missed his friends and being home.“So that’s one part I’m never going to get back, but I think it’s worked,” he said.He added: “If I had it to do again, I would do it.”‘That’s the cheat code’In every N.B.A. generation, a player or two can see the future. In the 1980s, it was Magic Johnson. In the 1990s, there were Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. Then LeBron James and Chris Paul came along. Now it’s Doncic who can see a play or two ahead.“It’s not all about speeding,” Doncic said. “Obviously, speeding would be even better. But it’s just the angles, the timings.”He isn’t fast like other top guards, but he said his legs give him an edge for getting into advantageous positions. “I was just born like this,” he said. “My father is like this. His legs are really strong. The trainers call them tree-trunk legs.”Dorian Finney-Smith, who signed with the Mavericks two years before Doncic was drafted, laughed as he recalled the origins of Doncic’s now trademark step-back shot. Doncic tried one in a game. Rick Carlisle, then Dallas’s coach, said it a was bad shot and told Doncic to put it where the sun doesn’t shine, Finney-Smith said.“Against the Sixers, he came out, made three in a row,” Finney-Smith said. “Nobody else said nothing else about that step-back.”Kidd, who took over as Mavericks coach last season, said he could tell Doncic viewed the game the way he did from their first game together.Doncic has one of the top-selling jerseys in the N.B.A.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesDoncic leads the N.B.A. in scoring, with 33.3 points per game.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesA defender had ducked under a screen. Kidd called a timeout, but before he spoke, Doncic told him that he had seen it and would take advantage of it.“That’s the cheat code, and some are born with it, some are not and some can take it to a different level,” Kidd said.Doncic plays dominoes with Kidd on team plane rides, and he loves chess. He plays on his phone so often that Chess.com recently partnered with him. “I always say basketball, you try to play like chess,” Doncic said. “We’re trying to anticipate opponents’ moves and read the game.”Kidd likes to push Doncic. He has jokingly asked him if he can pull a Klay Thompson and score 60 points on just 11 dribbles.“When you have a Picasso-like player, you got to challenge him in other ways to be successful because there could be boredom,” Kidd said. “Because he’s seen everything.”‘He markets himself’The Phoenix Suns trailed badly in Game 7 of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals. By halftime, Doncic had as many points as all of the Suns. As he leaned over in one moment, he looked up at Suns guard Devin Booker and grinned, creating a cutting and defining meme for the Dallas victory. He has racked up dozens of technical fouls in his career, but not this time. “I was like just: ‘Don’t blow this, please. Let’s not do this,’” Doncic said.Dallas lost to the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champions, in the conference finals.“It was really hard to win against them,” Doncic said. “We won only one game. But you can learn from them. You can learn from losses.”He also had a brief chance to learn from a Dallas legend: Dirk Nowitzki, 44, who retired from the Mavericks after Doncic’s rookie season. Nowitzki, who is from Germany, said he initially wondered if he belonged in the N.B.A. But he was a trendsetter for international players thriving in the league.“If you look at some of the M.V.P. candidates now with Jokic, Giannis and Luka in the mix now every year, that already tells you where European basketball is at the moment,” Nowitzki said, referring to Nikola Jokic of Serbia and Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece. He added of Doncic: “He’s tons of fun to be around. He’s cheeky, he’s funny and he’s got a good heart.”Dirk Nowitzki, right, played for Dallas for 21 seasons. He set the stage for international players like Doncic, left, to thrive in the N.B.A.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesDoncic is steering the N.B.A.’s future.“His play supersedes everything,” Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, wrote in an email. “We don’t really have to market him. He markets himself.”The rapper Bad Bunny frequently mentions Doncic in his music. “When you hear your name in a song from Bad Bunny, it’s amazing,” Doncic said.Doncic recently went viral after he came to a game in a doomsday-looking Apocalypse HellFire truck. He’d been wanting a six-wheeler like it for a long time. He used to stand in the street, marveling at the cars here; they’re much nicer than in Slovenia, he said.But he said his life is low-key.Doncic and his girlfriend, Anamaria Goltes, have known each other since they were children. They share three dogs, Hugo, Gia and Viki, who help Doncic escape from the game he has chased all his life.“They don’t know if you had good or bad game,” Doncic said. “They’re just happy to see you. So they bring a real joy to my life.”He already has his retirement planned out.Doncic wants to farm.“It’s slow,” he said.James Wagner More