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    This Is What Life After the N.B.A. Looks Like

    Johnny Davis knew the end was near.During the summer of 1985, Davis was gearing up for his 10th N.B.A. season when he noticed something about his familiar quickness — namely, that it was missing.Davis was just 29 at the time. But the hard mileage of a productive basketball career had worn him down.“I was getting by with experience more so than I was with athletic talent,” said Davis, a versatile guard in his prime. “It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t the same player.”Davis was fortunate in the sense that he had time to prepare for retirement — “I wasn’t caught off guard at all,” he said — but he still had to confront the big question: What now?As N.B.A. teams trim their rosters before the season begins this month, a new batch of players will find themselves asking that same question. There is always an end in professional sports: Athletes become former athletes; All-Stars become “Isn’t he that guy?” And while there are perks of reaching the highest level, no one avoids the fundamental challenge of ascension: coming down.“The day you leave the N.B.A., now they tell you to start over again,” said Quentin Richardson, a guard whose 13-year playing career ended in 2013 when he was just 33.While some players have the luxury of leaving the game on their own terms, most have that decision made for them by the effects of age and injury, their careers punctuated by the wait for another contract offer that never materializes.“The sport generally leaves you,” Davis, 66, said. “And now you’re in this place where you have to move on from something that you have done your whole life. And sometimes that means you have to re-identify who you are.”Pau Gasol: ‘Now it’s someone else’s turn’Pau Gasol had many highs and lows over an 18-year N.B.A. career. But he said retiring was a “celebratory moment.”Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesPau Gasol wanted to gather his thoughts.After playing basketball for Spain at the Tokyo Olympics, he returned to his Spanish mountain cottage last August to spend time with his wife, Cat McDonnell, and their young daughter, Ellie. Gasol went for quiet walks, and as he contemplated the past — his 18 seasons in the N.B.A., his title runs alongside Kobe Bryant — he found peace.A few weeks later, Gasol announced his retirement at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona’s famed opera house. He had just turned 41.“It was not a sad moment,” he said. “It was a celebratory moment.”Gasol had a long career, one that familiarized him with impermanence. He starred for the Memphis Grizzlies. He won two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers. He became more of a mentor with the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs, then spent his final months in the N.B.A. laboring with a foot injury. He adapted to the evolution of his role.“I’m not saying it’s easy,” he said. “There are times when you still feel like you should start or play significant minutes. But life moves on, and now it’s someone else’s turn.”Gasol won two championships on the Los Angeles Lakers with Kobe Bryant, front, in 2009 and 2010.Kevin Kolczynski/ReutersBefore the Tokyo Olympics, he won a Spanish league championship in his final season with F.C. Barcelona, the club that had given him his professional start. “It was kind of romantic,” he said.Gasol, now 42, has since kept busy with his foundation that focuses on childhood obesity and as a member of the International Olympic Committee, a consultant for the Golden State Warriors and a W.N.B.A. investor. He also squeezes in the occasional round of golf.Of course, there are days when he misses playing basketball. So he copes by reading books about personal fulfillment and retirement, some of them geared toward people in their 60s. He also keeps in touch with Dr. William D. Parham, the director of mental health and wellness for the N.B.A. players’ union.“I’ve talked to him several times to help me weather this,” Gasol said. “You have to understand that nothing will ever really compare to the thrill of playing.”Mario West: Knowing When to Move OnMario West spent several seasons in the N.B.A. Now, he helps players cope with the worries of moving on.NBPAMario West, 38, spends most of the N.B.A. season in locker rooms making connections with players by getting personal.He might mention how in 2009 Shannon Brown, then a Lakers guard, famously pinned one of his layup attempts to the backboard. (“I’ve been a meme,” West said.) Or how he played in the Philippines and the Dominican Republic after a few seasons in the N.B.A. Or how injuries changed his plans.Now, as the director of Off the Court, an N.B.A. players’ union program, West counsels players on life after basketball. Most of them are not stars. Most worry about surviving training camp, about extending their careers. West was like that. So he gives his cellphone number to each player he meets.“If guys call me at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., I’m going to pick up,” he said.Yes, even some professional athletes go into life-crisis mode in the middle of the night, when the house quiets and the internal voices of worry and insecurity get loud. Their financial concerns may not be relatable to the average person, but late-night stomach knots are a human experience.West, left, playing in the N.B.A. playoffs for the Atlanta Hawks in 2010. He spent three seasons with the Hawks.Grant Halverson/Getty Images“I answer every phone call,” West said. “We want to be the 411 and the 911.”West often works with Deborah Murman, the director of the union’s career development program, who helps players cultivate outside interests.“I like to say that it’s much easier to walk away from something when you have something you’re walking toward,” Murman said.West’s professional career ended in 2015, when he was 31. He still plays pickup basketball in Atlanta, where he lives with his family. He has two young sons, and he wants to stay in shape for as long as possible.“I remember dunking on my dad when I was 14, and he never played me again,” West said.In his own way, West’s father knew when it was time to move on.Jamal Crawford: ‘I Had Emotional Days’Jamal Crawford won the Sixth Man of the Year Award three times over a two-decade career.Cassy Athena/Getty ImagesEven now, Jamal Crawford has trouble making sense of why his playing career ended.He thinks back to the 2017-18 season, when he came off the bench and helped the Minnesota Timberwolves reach the playoffs for the first time since 2004. Crawford’s N.B.A. peers named him the teammate of the year — then he went unsigned for months as a free agent.Sure, he had some mileage. He was 38 and coming off his 18th N.B.A. season, but he was healthy. When an offer finally did surface, it was with the Phoenix Suns the day before the 2018-19 season. He signed up for one year as a role player on one of the league’s worst and youngest teams.“You found beauty in the fact that you were helping guys learn to be professionals,” he said.Crawford thought he set himself up well for a new deal that summer by ending the season with high-scoring games. He thought wrong. The next season started without him.“I had emotional days where I’d wake up and be like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I’m not getting a call,’ ” he said.His agent was, in fact, fielding calls — several teams had reached out to gauge his interest in joining a front office or a coaching staff in 2019-20 — but Crawford still wanted to play. He was mystified: Had his late-season scoring binge worked against him? Were teams concerned that he would be unwilling to accept a limited role?Crawford scored 51 points in one of his final N.B.A. games.Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressHe was still unemployed when the coronavirus pandemic forced the N.B.A. to halt play for several months in March 2020. When the season resumed that July, he joined the Nets and injured his hamstring in his first game. His season was finished. And though he didn’t know it, so was his career.Over the next two years, as he made his desire to play again known on social media and TV, he stumbled into a new vocation and passion: coaching his son J.J.’s youth basketball team in Seattle.“It was the craziest thing,” Crawford said, “because I never knew that I would want to coach.”He shuttles his son to weekend tournaments. He diagrams plays on his iPad. He said he could see himself coaching for years to come. He announced his retirement from the N.B.A. in March but showed he still had it in an adult league in July.“Honestly, I have more fun coaching than I do playing — and I still love playing, by the way,” Crawford said. “If you’re an elite athlete and in that space for so long, you’re always going to be competitive. It doesn’t turn off. So, you need to find a way to channel it.”Cole Aldrich: Happy With Life After BasketballCole Aldrich, right, with his wife, Britt Aldrich, and their son, thought he would be away from basketball for just a year. Then the coronavirus pandemic changed his plans.Nikki JilekCole Aldrich would be the first to tell you that his circumstances are odd, that little about his life in Minnesota makes sense.He often hits the roads near his home on a fancy gravel bike. He’s “far too involved” in the construction of his new home. When he was golfing last fall, a member of his playing group asked him what he did for work. Aldrich, 33, told him he was retired.“You wouldn’t believe the looks people give you when you tell them that,” Aldrich said.In his former life, Aldrich was one of the top picks in the 2010 N.B.A. draft and spent his first two seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He bounced around the league as a backup center before signing a three-year deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves with $17 million guaranteed.Aldrich spent some time as a Knicks center in 2013.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“At that point, I felt like I could take a little bit of a deep breath,” he said.He was cut before the third year of the deal, then sprained his knee while playing in China. At home in Minnesota, his wife, Britt Aldrich, was pregnant with their first child. Cole thought he would take a year off before giving hoops another shot. But after his son was born and the coronavirus pandemic rocked the world, “an easy decision for me became even easier,” he said.It is a rare luxury, “retiring” in your early 30s with millions in the bank. But can this type of life — stay-at-home dad, part-time cyclist — last forever? Aldrich predicts that he will want another job at some point.“I want to go and have a career in some capacity,” he said. “But I don’t know what that looks like.”Many people are lucky if they can afford to stop working when they’re old enough to claim Social Security payments. But in the N.B.A. world, most careers are over before the player turns 30. Aldrich was done in the N.B.A. by 29 and had earned millions. His life is indeed odd in the big picture.Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles: ‘Is It Really Over?’Quentin Richardson, left, and Darius Miles, right, made the Los Angeles Clippers cool and exciting when they joined the team as rookies in 2000.Guillermo Hernandez Martinez/The Players’ TribuneDarius Miles had just finished high school. Quentin Richardson was 20 years old. They were Los Angeles Clippers rookies in the fall of 2000.Suddenly, the woeful Clippers were cool and exciting, if not yet particularly good.“We were like a college team playing against grown men,” Miles said.The players known as Q-Rich and D-Miles were fast and fun. Fans mirrored their signature celebration by tapping their fists on their foreheads. Then, after just two seasons, the Clippers traded Miles to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a more experienced player.All these years later, Miles and Richardson wonder what would have happened had the team kept them together. Miles, 40, hopscotched around the league before he played his final game in 2009. He became depressed and withdrew into a “cave” to cope.“Just losing your career, it’s one of the mental blocks that every player has,” Miles said. “Like, is it really over?”Richardson, 42, knew he was nearing the end when the Orlando Magic cut him before the start of the 2012-13 season. He sat by the phone for months, waiting for another offer. After a brief stint with the Knicks, he spent four years in the Pistons’ front office, but he did not feel as though his opinions were valued.“It was an experience that I would not like to experience again,” he said.Richardson and Miles reconnected in 2018. With Richardson acting as his editor, Miles spent months on an essay for The Players’ Tribune titled, “What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles?”Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles were drafted together by the Clippers in 2000.Chriss Pizzello/Associated PressHe wrote about growing up around drugs and violence in East St. Louis, Ill., and about “shady business deals” leaving him bankrupt. He wrote about the knee injuries that derailed his career and about being so depressed after his mother’s death that he holed up in her house for three years. And he wrote about the invitation from Richardson to move to his neighborhood in Florida.“Q kept hitting me up,” Miles said. “I had to let the storm pass until I could see sunshine.”Their chemistry birthed the podcast “Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles,” which offers a candid look at life in pro sports via interviews with current and former athletes and coaches.“Guys do want to talk, and they prefer it in this realm where they’re sitting across from us and they know they’re in a safe space,” Richardson said. “They know we’re going to look out for each other.”He said the N.B.A. and players’ union were helpful, too, as players transitioned into retirement.“They’re trying to make it as fail proof as possible,” Richardson said. “Obviously, things can still happen.”(In October 2021, Miles was one of 18 former players charged in an insurance fraud scheme. Miles, who has pleaded not guilty, declined to comment on the case through a publicist.)With their podcast, Miles and Richardson are figuring out their new lives, without straying too far from the game. For some players, that might be the best way to move forward.Miles said the podcast had helped give him purpose. “It’s the best doctor I got,” he said.Dave Bing and Johnny Davis: Charting a Path for OthersJohnny Davis is the chairman of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, which helps former players with health care and other post-basketball resources.Jacob Biba for The New York TimesGrowing up in Detroit in the 1960s, Davis had many Pistons stars to emulate whenever he hit the playground courts with friends.“One kid would want to be Jimmy Walker, and one would want to be Dave Bing,” Davis said. “I always wanted to be Dave Bing.”Today, Davis and Bing are connected in another way: Davis is the chairman of the National Basketball Retired Players Association. Bing, 78, co-founded the group in 1992 with four other former players — Oscar Robertson, Archie Clark, Dave Cowens and Dave DeBusschere.“We were at an All-Star Game where we talked about what we needed to try to do to help these players who were up in age,” Bing said. “Their health wasn’t all that good, and nobody seemed to care about them.”Dave Bing was introduced as part of the N.B.A.’s 75th anniversary team during the 2022 All-Star Game in February.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThe N.B.A. was not always the lucrative colossus that it is today. In Bing’s era, many players made ends meet with off-season jobs. Bing worked for a bank, first as a teller and later as a branch manager.“The guys today don’t have to work and might not have to really worry about a second career,” he said. “But in the era I played in, you didn’t have a choice. You’re done at 34, and you’ve got your whole life in front of you.”In 1980, he started Bing Steel with four employees. The company grew into a multimillion-dollar conglomerate, which he ran for 28 years before he was elected mayor of Detroit in 2009.The retired players’ association helps players with health care, education, career counseling and financial services. But Scott Rochelle, the organization’s president and chief executive, avoids using the word “retirement.”“I’ve got two or three guys who will see me and run away because they see me as the grim reaper,” Rochelle said. “We look at it as a change of direction. You don’t retire at 35. You just change your purpose and find something else that drives you from day to day.” More

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    Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving Talk About Nets’ Rocky Off-Season

    Durant had asked to be traded but stayed put. Irving said he had come close to joining another team but decided that staying in Brooklyn was his best choice.Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were expected to make the Nets instant title contenders when they joined the team in 2019, bringing two of the best offensive talents in the N.B.A. to a team that had just finished sixth in the Eastern Conference.But three years later, without any championships or finals appearances with the Nets, Durant and Irving spoke Monday about a rocky off-season that at times seemed like it might end with both of them playing for other teams.In June, Durant, 33, requested a trade, which he said Monday was because of uncertainty and accountability issues in the organization.“I want to be in a place that’s stable and trying to build a championship culture,” Durant said. “So, I had some doubts about that.”Despite his trade request coming just days after Irving and the Nets couldn’t agree to a long-term extension, Durant said that wasn’t a factor.Instead, he pointed to the Nets’ 11-game losing streak while he was injured last season as a worrisome signal about the team’s direction. At the time, he didn’t want his concerns to affect the team’s play on the floor, he said, so he waited until the off-season to make his trade request.“That’s what was putting doubt in my mind, is that when adversity hit can we keep pushing through it?” Durant said. “I’ve been on championship teams. I’ve been on teams that have been right on the brink of winning a championship, and they did those things. So, I want to be a part of a group that did that.”He added: “Winning and losing — I can take all that. I’ve been in the league for a long time. So, it’s not more so about just a result. It’s like how we get to that point. And I wasn’t feeling how we was getting to that point.”In August, The Athletic reported that Durant had told the Nets to choose between keeping him or keeping General Manager Sean Marks and Coach Steve Nash. The report drew the Nets’ owner, Joe Tsai, to release a statement of confidence in the Nets’ leadership. “Our front office and coaching staff have my support,” Tsai wrote. “We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”On Monday, Marks said, “That’s pro sports, right?” He added: “Everybody’s entitled to their opinions. And I think from us, it’s not to hold a grudge against what Kevin said, but it’s almost like: All right, that’s the way he feels. What’s going on here? Like, what do we need to change?”Nash said that he didn’t take it personally. “This is not new in the N.B.A.,” he said.“Kevin and I go way back,” said Nash, who worked with Durant in Golden State as a team consultant. “So, you know, families go through things like this.”The Nets shopped Durant to other teams, but on Aug. 23, Durant and the Nets announced that they had “agreed to move forward with our partnership.”Durant said he wasn’t disappointed or surprised to return to the Nets: “I know I’m that good that you just not going to give me away.”Before Durant’s trade saga began, there was the issue of Irving, whose contract negotiations and unwillingness to be vaccinated against the coronavirus dominated headlines for much of the past year. Irving said he felt as though the Nets had given him an “ultimatum.”“I gave up four years, 100 and something million deciding to be unvaccinated,” Irving said. “And that was the decision: It was contract, get vaccinated or be unvaccinated, and there’s a level of uncertainty of your future — whether you’re going to be in this league, whether you’re going to be on this team. So, I had to deal with that real-life circumstance of losing my job for this decision.”Irving, 30, was eligible for max contract extensions worth up to about $245 million, but he and the Nets did not reach an agreement on one. Instead, Irving opted into the final year of his contract, which will pay him $36.5 million this season. He said he had other options — but not many — and decided that staying in Brooklyn was the best choice for him. Irving played in just 29 regular-season games in 2021-22, mostly because he was ineligible to play at home because of local vaccine mandates.Marks said that not reaching a contract agreement with Irving was because of reliability, not Irving’s stance against the vaccine.“There’s no ultimatum being given here,” Marks said as Nash sat next to him and nodded his head in agreement. “It goes back to wanting people who are reliable people, who are here, accountable — all of us. Staff, players, coaches, you name it. I’m not giving somebody an ultimatum to get the vaccine. That’s a completely personal choice. And I stand by Kyrie, and if he wants, he’s made that choice. That’s his prerogative completely, and I totally understand that.”While the Nets were navigating Durant’s injury and Irving’s absences last season, they were also affected by the unclear status of guard Ben Simmons. Amid tensions in Philadelphia early last season, Simmons, 26, was traded to the Nets for James Harden in February. Simmons, who said he was dealing a lingering back injury and mental health concerns, has never played in a game for the Nets.He appeared to be close to suiting up in the first round of the playoffs, when the Nets were facing elimination against the Celtics. “That day I was was supposed to play Game 4, I woke up on the floor,” Simmons said Monday. “I couldn’t move, could barely walk.”Simmons had back surgery in May. He said he was cleared to participate in training camp, which begins Tuesday.“I’m excited to play with these guys,” said Simmons, who hasn’t played in an N.B.A. game since Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals with the Sixers. “I think it’s a good opportunity for us, and we have a lot to prove.” More

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    Novak Djokovic Says He Will Miss U.S. Open

    Djokovic said he would not be able to travel to New York for the tournament that begins next week. The United States has travel restrictions that require foreign visitors to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.The stalemate between Novak Djokovic and the U.S. government reached its inevitable conclusion Thursday as the unvaccinated Wimbledon champion pulled out of the U.S. Open.The U.S. has lifted many of the restrictions related to the coronavirus and travel. However, unvaccinated foreigners are still not allowed to enter the country. Djokovic, who has had Covid-19 at least twice, has been steadfast in his refusal to get vaccinated, arguing that it should be a personal decision rather than a requirement.“Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, hours before the draw for the tournament that is scheduled to start on Monday. “Thank you #NoleFam for your messages of love and support. Good luck to my fellow players! I’ll keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again. See you soon tennis world!”Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated set off a political firestorm in January when he announced he had received a special exemption to enter Australia to play in the Australian Open, the first tennis major of the year.Djokovic ultimately left the country without defending his singles title there.Djokovic was able to play in the French Open and Wimbledon after France and England relaxed their requirements that visitors be vaccinated. But as he sat next to his Wimbledon trophy in July after winning his 21st Grand Slam title, Djokovic said it appeared unlikely that he would play in the U.S. Open because he had no plans to get vaccinated and did not anticipate the U.S. government changing its rules.The U.S. government has retained the restriction because people who are not vaccinated are far more likely to contract and pass on the virus and to end up in the hospital than people who are not.The U.S. Tennis Association said earlier this summer it would not seek an exemption on Djokovic’s behalf.By not playing, Djokovic is giving up a chance to draw even with Rafael Nadal for the most men’s singles Grand Slam titles (Nadal has 22 and Djokovic has 21). More

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    Hello, World. It’s Been a While.

    On the pleasures and pains of joining up with other people after a long, quiet time in the Covid doldrums.I am traveling on a train, reading a book, glad to be alive.Reading a book while traveling on a train is my favorite thing to do in the world; the well-being derives from staring out the window as the scenery rushes past, knowing that if I drop my eyes a book will be there to catch them. This is as good as it gets. Or better.Today, the book is Rupert Everett’s “To the End of the World,” the actor’s characteristically waspish diary of the making of his directorial debut, “The Happy Prince,” a film in which he also cast himself in the lead role of Oscar Wilde. It is not yet 9 a.m., and I find myself alone in the rear carriage with “something sensational to read in the train.” I am not merely glad to be alive; I am jubilant.For obvious reasons, over the last couple of years there hasn’t been much opportunity to do my favorite thing in the world. Today I am doing it en route to London, where I am going to do my second favorite thing in the world: sit in a darkened room all day with strangers — and a few friends — watching old films and television programs.To mark the centenary of the birth of the pioneering British writer Nigel Kneale, the Picturehouse cinema in Crouch End is hosting a daylong celebration of his work. There will be screenings of shows like “The Quatermass Experiment: Contact Has Been Established” (1953) and “Murrain,” a rare episode of the little-seen television series “Against the Crowd” (1975). There will be panel discussions with experts from the British Film Institute and a reading of a “lost” radio script by Kneale. In something of a coup for the organizers, the actress Jane Asher has agreed be quizzed about her part in the folk-horror classic “The Stone Tape” (1972).I fully anticipate the sort of event where audience members shout “WOW!” when shown a comparative presentation of digitally upgraded 35-millimeter film stock. Not only am I jubilant, therefore; I am actively jubilating.The first fans of Arsenal Football Club to join the train do so at Sittingbourne. Six ruddy-faced men in red and white replica shirts settle themselves nearby, noisily opening cans of strong lager they pronounce to be palatable — no, not palatable, delightful! — though not in those exact terms. It is 9:08 a.m.As I get up to move seats, trying not to draw attention to myself, I recall that, as a writer, Nigel Kneale was fascinated by the tension between the individual and the crowd, a tension I feel squarely between my shoulder blades as I exit the carriage.The same thing happens at Rainham, the next stop down the line, and again I get up to see if I can find a quieter seat. Ever more Arsenal supporters join the train, bantering and shouting and proposing a morning toast to their team’s fortunes with Special Brew. (In a few hours’ time, Arsenal will play a football match against a rival team called Manchester United, hence the influx of “Gooners” this early in the day.)With all this commotion, I am finding it increasingly hard to focus on “To the End of the World” by Rupert Everett. “I love trains,” he writes on page 282. “Oscar is all about trains and absinthe.” I try adopting a Wildean attitude toward my fellow passengers. After all, what is Special Brew if not the absinthe of the masses?But when, at Chatham, I have to relocate for a fourth time, I do so petulantly. The little metal tray table in front of me bleats tinnily as I jab it back into place. I hasten from the scene muttering failed epigrams. When I plonk myself down again, two carriages along, I realize I have misplaced my glasses, without which I cannot read a word, and I feel too embarrassed to go back and look for them. This is a fugue of my favorite thing.Most discussions of whether it is better to travel or to arrive fail to take into account a third option, which is that perhaps it would have been better to stay at home. In common with many people, I have found it more difficult to return to the world than I had thought I would in the doldrums of 2021. Was everything always this tiring? Another epigram bubbles up: “What’s the point of going out? We’re just going to wind up back here anyway.” Thank you, Homer Simpson.I may not be able to read my book, but I can still gaze out of the window. Rochester Castle, with its 12th-century keep, glides past, and already there are children playing on the grounds. We cross Rainham Marshes and I spot scattered groups of bird-watchers who have been at it since dawn. Coronavirus remains rife; the economy is lurching out of control; the planet is on fire; there is war in Europe. As more travelers join the London service, some bound for the football, others to go shopping at Westfield Stratford, it occurs to me that no one on this train is ever going to return to normal, because normality isn’t where we left it. But who would blame us for trying?As if to confirm this unexpected epiphany of fellow feeling, a tap comes on my shoulder. I look up. Holding out my glasses to me is a man in an Arsenal shirt.Later, safe in the dark of the Crouch End Picturehouse, there will be a screening of “Quatermass and the Pit” (1967), the film adaptation of Kneale’s 1958 teleplay. The original version concludes with words from Professor Bernard Quatermass delivered amid the smoking ruins of the capital city: “Every war crisis, witch hunt, race riot and purge is a reminder and a warning. We are the Martians. If we cannot control the inheritance within us, this will be their second dead planet.”I’ve seen this film before. I go to the pub instead.Andy Miller More

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    Tennis Is Done With Covid-19, but the Virus Isn’t Done With Tennis

    With testing, quarantine and isolation requirements all but gone, tennis finally seems to have entered a stage of pandemic apathy, much like a lot of society.WIMBLEDON, England — With the final match looming, this year’s edition of Wimbledon has already proven many points.Rafael Nadal can play top-level tennis with a zombie foot and a tear in an abdominal muscle, but only for so long. Iga Swiatek is beatable, at least on grass. With the Moscow-born, Kazakhstan-representing Elena Rybakina making the women’s singles final, barring Russian players does not necessarily make a competition free of Russian players.But perhaps most surprisingly, after 27 months of tournament cancellations, spectator-free events, constant testing and bubblelike environments, tennis may have finally moved past Covid-19.For nearly two years, longer than just about every other major sport, tennis struggled to coexist with the pandemic.Last November, when the N.F.L. the N.B.A., the Premier League and most other sports organizations had resumed a life that largely resembled 2019, tennis players were still living with restrictions on their movements, conducting online video news conferences, and having cotton swabs stuck up their noses at tournaments.A month later Novak Djokovic, then the No. 1 men’s singles player, contracted a second case of Covid just in time to secure, he thought, special entry into Australia to play the Australian Open, even though he was unvaccinated against Covid-19 and the country was still largely restricted to people who had been vaccinated. Australian officials ended up deporting him because they said he might encourage other people not to get vaccinated, a drama that dominated the run-up to the tournament and its first days.The episode crystallized how tennis, with its kinetic international schedule, had been subjected to the will and whims of local governments, with rules and restrictions shifting sometimes weekly. The frequent travel and communal locker rooms made the players something like sitting ducks, always one nasal swab away from being locked in a hotel room for 10 days, sometimes far from home, regardless of how careful they might have been.Tennis, unlike other sports that surged ahead of health and medical guidelines to keep their coffers filled, has had to reflect where society at large has been at every stage of the pandemic. Its major organizers canceled or postponed everything in the spring and early summer of 2020, though Djokovic held an exhibition tournament that ended up being something of a superspreader event.The 2020 U.S. Open took place on schedule in late summer without spectators. To be at the usually bustling Billie Jean King National Tennis Center those weeks in New York was something like being on the surface of the moon. A rescheduled French Open followed in the chill of a Paris fall with just a few hundred fans allowed. Australia largely subjected players to a 14-day quarantine before they could take part in the 2021 Australian Open.As vaccinations proliferated later in the year, crowds returned but players usually had to live in bubbles, unable to move about the cities they inhabited until the summer events in the U.S. But as the delta variant spread, the bubbles returned. Then came Australia and Djokovic’s vaccine confrontation, just as disputes over mandates were heating up elsewhere.In recent months though, as public attitudes toward the pandemic shifted, mask mandates were lifted and travel restrictions were eased, even tennis has seemingly moved on, even if the virus has not done the same.Matteo Berrettini wearing a mask after his quarterfinals match at Wimbledon in 2021.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressThere was no mandatory testing for Wimbledon or the French Open. People are confused about what they must do if they get the sniffles or a sore throat, and tennis players are no different. Many players said they were not sure exactly what the rules were from tournament to tournament for those who started not to feel well. While two widely known players, Matteo Berrettini and Marin Cilic, withdrew after testing positive, without a requirement to take a test, they, and any other player, could have opted not to take a test and played through whatever symptoms they were experiencing.“So many rules,” Rafael Nadal said. “For some people some rules are fine; for the others rules are not fine. If there are some rules, we need to follow the rules. If not, the world is a mess.”After nearly two years of bubble life though, hard-edge complaints about a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach and safety mandates were virtually nonexistent.Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia, whose country had some of the strictest pandemic-related policies, said she remained cautious, especially at the bigger events, but she had reached the point where she needed to find a balance between safety and sanity.“I just try to take care of myself as much as I can where I’m still not completely isolating myself, where it’s not fun to live,” said Tomljanovic, who lost to Rybakina in the quarterfinals.Paula Badosa, the Spanish star, said she has stopped worrying about the virus.“I had all type of Covids possible,” said Badosa, who first tested positive in Australia in January 2021 and has had it twice more. “I had vaccination, as well. So in my case, if I have it again, it will be very bad luck.”Officials with the men’s and women’s tours said regardless of infection levels, their organizations had no intention of resuming regular testing or restricting player movements. They said they will follow the lead of local officials.With testing, quarantine and isolation requirements having all but disappeared, or merely existing as recommendations, tennis finally seems to have entered stage of pandemic apathy, much like a lot of society, Omicron and its subvariants be damned.There is, of course, one major exception to all of this, and that is Djokovic, whose refusal to be vaccinated — unique among the top 100 players on the men’s tour — will seemingly prevent him from playing in the U.S. Open.U.S. rules require all foreigners entering the country to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Djokovic has said he believes that individuals should be allowed to choose whether to do so without pressure from governments.Also, because he was deported from Australia, Djokovic would need a special exemption to return to the country to compete in the Australian Open in January. He has won the men’s singles title there a record nine times.Unless the rules change, he may not play in another Grand Slam tournament until the French Open next May, something he said he was well aware of but would not shift his thinking about whether to take the vaccine.In other words, Covid really isn’t done playing games with tennis. More

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    Matteo Berrettini Withdraws From Wimbledon With Coronavirus

    WIMBLEDON, England — Matteo Berrettini, a finalist at Wimbledon last year, withdrew from the tournament on Tuesday after testing positive for the coronavirus.Berrettini’s announcement of his withdrawal came only about two hours before he was to take the court for his first-round match against Cristian Garín and was the latest blow to a Grand Slam tournament that was already shorter than usual on stars and that had been stripped of ranking points for this edition by the men’s and women’s tennis tours.Berrettini, who is undefeated on grass courts this season and was seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon, was one of the leading contenders for the men’s singles title. His withdrawal came one day after another player, Marin Cilic, the No. 14 seed from Croatia and a 2017 Wimbledon finalist, also withdrew after testing positive.“I am heartbroken,” Berrettini wrote on his Instagram account, echoing Cilic’s announcement on Instagram on Monday.The dual withdrawal raised the prospect of an outbreak among the player group at Wimbledon, which is missing several stars because of injury and the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.Berrettini and Cilic have been in contact in recent weeks with many players. Both played at the grass-court tournament in Queen’s Club in London that ended on June 19, with Berrettini winning the singles title and Cilic reaching the semifinals.Both practiced at Wimbledon last week and used the locker room reserved for seeded players. Berrettini trained on Centre Court on Thursday with Rafael Nadal, the No. 2 seed. Cilic trained on Centre Court with Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 seed.Djokovic, who has said that he remains unvaccinated for the coronavirus, won his first-round match on Monday, defeating Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in four sets. Djokovic served particularly well but was far from his sharpest in other areas, looking wan and low on energy at one stage and dousing himself with water on a changeover. On Tuesday, Nadal played at Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, beating Francisco Cerundolo in four sets in the first round on Centre Court.Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic and imposed strict restrictions last year, following British government guidelines. Coronavirus testing was required for players, support team members and tournament officials and employees. But with the loosening of government mandates this year, no testing is currently required at Wimbledon.In a statement, the All England Club said that its policy is “in keeping with agreed practice across all of the U.K.”The club said some health and safety measures were still in place. “We have maintained enhanced cleaning and hand sanitizing operations and offer full medical support for anyone feeling unwell,” the statement said.No masks are required at the tournament, and they are a rare sight on the grounds. But the player medical team is continuing to wear them for any consultations. The team of racket stringers on site is also wearing them. The club emphasized that Wimbledon’s health and safety policies were regularly under review and could be updated.Emma Raducanu signing autographs for fans. Masks are not required at the tournament this year.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the tournament clearly has a problem, which could get bigger.In all, five of the top 20 men were unable to play at Wimbledon because of bans, injuries or illness. No. 1 Daniil Medvedev of Russia was blocked from competing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Wimbledon’s decision to bar Russians and their allies from Belarus led to the tours retaliating by removing ranking points from the tournament.No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev is out for an extended period after tearing ligaments in his right ankle at the French Open.There have also been early upsets. Hubert Hurkacz, the No. 7 seed and a strong contender, was beaten Monday in five sets in the first round by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 6 seed, was beaten Tuesday in four sets by Maxime Cressy.Berrettini, a strapping 6-foot-6 Italian, missed several months of action this season because of surgery on his right, primary playing hand. But he returned for the grass-court season this month and won consecutive titles in Stuttgart and at Queen’s Club.“I have had flu symptoms and been isolating the last few days,” Berrettini wrote on social media. “Despite symptoms not being severe, I decided it was important to take another test this morning to protect the health and safety of my fellow competitors and everyone else involved in the tournament.”Berrettini and Cilic, like many of the leading players, were staying in private accommodations in Wimbledon rather than in one of the player hotels in central London. That could reduce the risk of contamination, but there is also a new sense of resignation among the player community about the virus. Many have had the coronavirus, including Djokovic, Nadal and Coco Gauff.“I’m pretty sure I had Covid, so I’m less afraid than I used to be,” Maria Sakkari, who is seeded fifth in women’s singles, said after her first-round victory on Tuesday. “We have to get back to a normal life again.”Sakkari equated getting the coronavirus to getting food poisoning, which could also force withdrawal from a tournament. Alizé Cornet, a French player, said the virus had become a “part of the landscape.”“There always have been injuries and illnesses,” she told French reporters on Tuesday, claiming that there had been numerous undeclared coronavirus cases among players at the recent French Open. “In the locker room, everyone had it, and we didn’t say anything,” she said, suggesting that some players had symptoms but did not test themselves.“We’re not going to test ourselves and put ourselves in trouble,” she said. “I saw some women wearing masks because they did not want to spread it.”Gauff said she was comfortable with testing not being mandatory for players and said she was happy that the testing was no longer “every day or every other day.”“I don’t want to go back to that,” she said. “Not being scared to be tested, but it’s also, like, a hassle. I think with the vaccines and everything, we kind of know that the viral load is low and it’s very hard to transfer if you’re a vaccinated individual.”But she said she would test if she had symptoms and encouraged her peers to do the same.Berrettini had not been on site at the All England Club since Saturday and now, despite his thunderous serve and forehand, will have to wait until next year.“I have no words to describe the extreme disappointment I feel,” he said. “The dream is over for this year, but I will be back stronger.”Cilic, 33, has also been in resurgent form, overwhelming Medvedev in the fourth round of the French Open on his way to the semifinals. With his long reach, huge serve and flat baseline power, he is dangerous on grass and was, like Berrettini, one of the players to watch closely in the bottom half of the men’s draw.Cilic could have faced Nadal in the fourth round; Berrettini could have faced him in the semifinals. But now Nadal’s path looks quite a bit less daunting, if he remains healthy. More

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    N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver misses Game 6 of the finals after testing positive.

    If Golden State wins the N.B.A. championship on Thursday, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, will not be there to hand over the trophy. Silver is missing his second straight game because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols.Silver tested positive for the coronavirus before Game 5 and has mild symptoms, according to a person familiar with the test result who was not authorized to publicly disclose the details.Golden State is facing the Boston Celtics in the N.B.A. finals, and just needs to win Game 6 in Boston on Thursday for the title. Silver, who has been the commissioner since 2014, normally would be expected to lead the championship trophy presentation. Instead, the ceremonial task will fall to the league’s deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum, if Golden State wins.If Boston wins, Game 7 will be Sunday in San Francisco.The league has loosened its virus protocols in recent months, limiting testing and shortening isolation periods for players who have tested positive, in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Players are not required to be vaccinated.Boston’s Al Horford missed the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinals because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols. More

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    ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Breen Will Miss First NBA Finals Game

    Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy, two longtime staples of ESPN’s broadcast team for the N.B.A. finals, will miss the opening game of the championship series between Golden State and the Boston Celtics. An ESPN spokesman said that both broadcasters had tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, but Van Gundy said in an interview that he had not.The N.B.A. finals begin Thursday in San Francisco and would be the 14th championship series featuring Breen on play-by-play alongside Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, two former N.B.A. head coaches. Instead, Game 1 will be called by Jackson and Mark Jones, with Lisa Salters as the sideline reporter.Breen missed Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals series between Miami and Boston on Sunday after testing positive for the virus. Van Gundy and Jackson, who had called games with Breen over the prior week, continued on with the game, with Jones filling in for Breen.Van Gundy said in an interview Thursday that he had not been tested for the virus before Sunday’s game because he was asymptomatic, although his voice was noticeably hoarse during the Game 7 broadcast. The N.B.A. did not institute a testing mandate for members of the television and news media for this year’s playoffs, as it did last postseason.Van Gundy said that on Monday, upon flying home to Houston, he started to feel slight symptoms. The next day, he took a home test, which he said was inconclusive. ESPN then sent Van Gundy two other rapid tests, which he said came out negative. Van Gundy also said he wasn’t sure why he had been pulled from broadcasting Game 1, and that he hoped to be back for Game 2 Sunday in San Francisco.Van Gundy added that he was no longer experiencing symptoms.Adrian Wojnarowski and Kendra Andrews, reporters who frequently appear on air for ESPN, have also tested positive for the coronavirus, and will miss the series opener. Andrews is a beat writer covering Golden State, and Wojnarowski is the network’s top N.B.A. reporter. More