Doncic, Luka (1999- )

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      The Phoenix Suns Weren’t Supposed to Get Pushed to Game 7

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      The Suns have been off their game against Dallas. (So. Many. Turnovers.) But the Mavericks are flawed, too. They have one last game to get it together.If one believes in trends, it seems likely that the Phoenix Suns will win Sunday’s do-or-die Game 7 against the Dallas Mavericks in their Western Conference semifinal series.After all, the home team has won every game of this playoff series.But it wasn’t supposed to come to this for Phoenix. Not for the team that had the best regular-season record in the N.B.A. by far, and especially not after the Suns dominated their first two games against a Dallas team with limited playmaking outside of its star, Luka Doncic.On Thursday night, the Suns had a chance to send the Mavericks home for the summer, only to lay an egg. Dallas got hot from 3-point range, shooting 16 for 39 (41 percent), while Doncic bullied his way to the rim for easy dunks. Doncic also repeatedly backed down and overpowered the smaller Suns point guard Chris Paul in a matchup Dallas had been eager to exploit the entire series. Doncic ended the game with 33 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 4 steals.“I don’t have enough time to talk about everything that’s eating at me,” Suns Coach Monty Williams told reporters after the game. “I didn’t think we understood the desperation they were going to play with.”This has not been a typical seven-game series. It hasn’t been a slugfest with stars from both teams exchanging clutch baskets. None of the contests have been particularly competitive or come down to the final minutes. The only constants have been chippiness and trash talk.But there are precedents for a playoff series like this. In 2008, the No. 1-seeded Boston Celtics faced the No. 8-seeded Atlanta Hawks in the first round. Boston won the first two games at home in blowouts, but Atlanta repeatedly and unexpectedly held serve at home. The Celtics won Game 7 by 34 points. A similar trajectory shaped Boston’s next series, against the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers, but those games were more competitive. Boston would go on to win the N.B.A. championship.But precedent is no guarantee, and the Suns could certainly be on their way to an embarrassing second-round exit after last year’s run to the N.B.A. finals. Last year, the Bucks and Nets traded home wins for six games in the second round, then the Bucks won the finale on the road. One more off game from Paul, or a hot game from a Mavericks role player, and the Suns could be shown the door.If the Mavericks win, they will have dethroned a Suns team that won a franchise-record 64 games, including an 18-game win streak. That kind of success is rare and difficult to repeat. For one thing, Paul, a 12-time All-Star, is 37 years old. He is still elite as a point guard and led the league in assists per game. But the list of players who excelled at age 38 is small, populated by generational players like Karl Malone, John Stockton, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.Paul is a generational player, too, but this has not been a particularly strong postseason series for him, particularly after Games 1 and 2. Since then, he’s been dogged by foul trouble, had difficulty defending Doncic, and has only dished out six assists a game for the series after averaging 10.8 per game during the regular season.Not having a championship is a prominent hole in Paul’s illustrious résumé. He is 3-4 in Game 7s, not including the 2018 Western Conference finals against the Golden State Warriors, when he missed the final game because of injury as a member of the Houston Rockets.The Suns would also be at a crossroad with the 23-year-old Deandre Ayton, who is one of the best centers in the league and set to enter restricted free agency. Phoenix did not offer him a maximum contract offer before the season, and an early playoff exit could hurt his chances of getting one now.But the Suns have the edge entering Sunday’s game in Phoenix. They had the N.B.A.’s best home record at 32-9. They’re tested, having made the finals last year and with the experienced Paul at the reins. They’ve shown that they can withstand Doncic, who in his third playoff run and has torched the Suns, averaging 32.2 points, 9.8 rebounds and 7.5 assists through six games. Doncic has faced elimination three times in his short playoff career — including on Thursday — and he’s come up big each time, though in defeat. In a first-round Game 7 came against the Los Angeles Clippers last year, he scored 46 points in the loss. In 2020, he had 38 points in a Game 6 loss to the Clippers.The Suns have won three games despite not being able to guard Doncic.But what they may not be able to withstand are their own turnovers, which have bedeviled the Suns on the road. In Game 3, Paul and Devin Booker combined for 12 of them, more than the Mavericks. In Game 4, Booker had five. Paul had two, but played only 23 minutes because of foul trouble. During Thursday’s Game 6, Booker had eight, Paul had five and the Mavericks combined for just six.The Mavericks’ strategy to beat Phoenix has been relatively simple: Match up Doncic against Paul, or spread the floor and have Doncic or his backcourt partner, Jalen Brunson, drive and find shooters. It has mostly worked. Role players like Maxi Kleber have often come through by hitting 3s.One adjustment the Suns can counter with is stacking the paint with defenders to encourage Doncic to shoot 3s. He’s a below-average 3-point shooter, at just 29.6 percent for the series. And if he gets to the paint, the Suns need to close out on shooters to disrupt their rhythms. In Game 5, Phoenix’s best defensive performance of the series, Dallas shot 8 for 32 from 3-point range, a dismal 25 percent.Outside of Game 5, the Suns have been consistently bad on defense and only occasionally have they been able to overcome that with strong offense. It has often looked as if the Suns were rushing their offense — unusual for a Paul-led machine.“Best thing about all these playoff games is you don’t carry a 20-point lead into the next game,” Paul said Thursday. “You know what I mean? Each game has a personality of its own and now it’s down to one game.” More

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      An N.B.A. Star Who Can’t Watch N.B.A. Games? It’s About Bad Habits.

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      “I have principles when it comes to this game,” Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton said. So when others don’t seem to, he said, “I don’t watch it at all.”Do not ask Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton to watch the N.B.A. away from work. He doesn’t want to see other teams play.“I just can’t watch it because I have principles when it comes to this game,” Ayton said in a recent interview after practice. “And, you know, I’ve just seen too many principles and bad habits that it messes with me. So I don’t watch it at all.”This is a far cry from early in Ayton’s career. He was selected with the first pick in the 2018 N.B.A. draft and was, at first, receiving attention for not matching the production of two players drafted soon after him: Luka Doncic at No. 3 and Trae Young at No. 5. It didn’t help that in his second season, Ayton was suspended for 25 games for testing positive for a diuretic, a violation of the league’s antidrug program.Since then, Ayton has blossomed into one of the best centers in the N.B.A. and a key part of Phoenix’s quest to win a championship. Ayton is one of the few throwback big men who have thrived in the contemporary N.B.A. by focusing on post-ups and rebounding, one who could’ve fit in just as well in the 1990s as he does now.The Suns raised eyebrows by not offering Ayton a maximum contract before the season, making him a restricted free agent this summer, one year after he helped them make the N.B.A. finals. Outwardly, Ayton shrugged it off and went on to have the best regular season of his four-year career, averaging 17.2 points and 10.2 rebounds on a career-high 63.4 percent shooting. He has expanded his offensive game beyond just dunks and has been a key partner for Chris Paul, the team’s All-Star point guard.Ayton, right, sets a screen for Chris Paul against the Pelicans during the first round of the playoffs.Gerald Herbert/Associated PressAyton, who grew up in the Bahamas, has been a fixture in the Phoenix area since he was a teenager at Hillcrest Prep Academy for part of high school. He then went to the University of Arizona, in Tucson, for one year. Now the Suns are facing the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the N.B.A. playoffs.In an interview, Ayton discussed his impending free agency, one particular challenge of chasing a championship with Paul and how fatherhood has changed him.This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.Are there watch parties going on in the Bahamas right now? How is your playoff run being viewed at home?Some of my friends that are still back home down there, they have their watch parties. Everybody gets together and watches some of the games during work. They send you pictures of newspapers, so they’re definitely tuned in, for sure, because I represent the Bahamas everywhere I go.How does this playoff run mentally compare to last year’s run for you?It’s a lot more different. At first, last year, I was building confidence as we got further and further in the playoffs and going to the finals. But this, confidence isn’t a thing no more. That’s out the window. I’ve seen it all. I know what I can do.How much, if any, extra motivation do you have going up against Luka Doncic, given that you were both drafted in the same class and that you’re constantly being compared to him?There’s not motivation. I’m happy for the man, regardless of wherever it takes us, because I take pride in being a part of this class and us being the best draft class of all time. Obviously, through the competing, we’re trying to beat each other up, but at the end of the day I’m never motivated by somebody else’s success.You became a father last year. What has fatherhood taught you about yourself?I definitely stopped a lot of bad habits early.Like what?Like the way I eat. The way I sleep at night. Just being mindful of time. I’m very, very cautious about time and knowing time and place, especially with a child. And just representing myself the best way I can, on and off the court.Is your son going to play ball like you?Oh, yes! Once he sees a ball, he’s looking for his hoop, like: “Where’s the hoop? Where’s the hoop? I’m ready.” Then you pass it to him. I say: “Go to alley oop. Go to alley oop.” And he catches it and dunks it at 1 year old.Do you ever see Jayson Tatum and go, “Listen, my kid’s going to be a better baller than Deuce?” [Deuce — Jayson Tatum Jr. — is the toddler son of the Boston Celtics star.]I say that about all the dudes. All the players’ kids: “My son, we’re going to see your son. Regardless, you’re going to see him. You’re going to have to see him, man.”Devin Booker, left, Ayton, Paul and Suns Coach Monty Williams are the core of the team’s new identity as a tough, disciplined team.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersYou’ve talked in interviews about how pride is an identifying feature of being from the islands and how much confidence you have in yourself. Honestly, how upset were you that the Suns weren’t willing to give you a maximum contract before the season?I’ve been at the bottom of the barrel in my life so many times, and I’ve been through so many disappointments. And it wasn’t nothing to me. I was more motivated with my back against the wall, knowing who I truly am. And the decision they made, it was out of my control, and all I can do is really just continue to play because at the end of the day, you can be mad all you want. But negotiating, that’s a business at the end of the day. So what? You’ve still got to go play.I had teammates around me that put a smile on my face every day. Coaches would put a smile on my face every day. Front office, it was still the same energy. Nothing changed. It didn’t happen. All right. On to the next one. Now we’re here. No. 1 team in the league. And now we’re on a mission.Given how you played this year, what is your optimism on getting the contract that you feel that you deserve from Phoenix?I put that in God’s hands and my agent’s hands. I’ve just got to do my part and make sure we’re the last team standing in this thing when it is all said and done. The only thing I can control is getting a dub.How has your relationship with Chris Paul evolved now that you’re more experienced in the league?That’s big bro. That’s my brother because we come to each other with anything, to be honest, and we have a huge chemistry going on in the pick-and-roll and to where we don’t even have to talk.Let me ask it this way: Does he yell at you less now?Oh, hell yeah, he still yells. What?! He yells. He yells, man. He’s yelling with you more than at you, but he’s yelling for sure. You’re going to hear what he has to say, period. Nothing changes about C.P.Is there anything you want to do off the court outside of basketball?I’m a gamer.Who’s the best gamer on the Suns? Is it you or Devin Booker?Me. Book doesn’t play games I play. Book plays “Call of Duty.” I play the game we play in real life. I play basketball. I play NBA 2K. He wants to freaking jump out of airplanes and have parachutes and shoot.Do you play as yourself in 2K?I have imagination. I’m playing as a 6-foot-3 point guard who got unlimited dribble moves and beyond shooting like Steph Curry, period.You’re, at this point, a pillar of the franchise. With the allegations that were made against the owner of the team, Robert Sarver, do you have any discomfort with remaining for the franchise if it is owned by him going forward?[Sarver, the owner of the Suns, is under investigation by the N.B.A. after several current and former employees accused him of saying racial slurs and making other inappropriate comments.]I’ve never had any problem with Sarver. He’s never shown me any of those ways, to be honest. He’s always treated me well. And I’ve been to his house for dinner and, you know, just sometimes he’ll call me over his house just to chop it up and see how I’m doing. He always asks about my family. So, I mean, Sarver has never done me wrong. Me, I was just blinded by all that stuff that came out, to be honest. More

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      Chris Paul’s ‘Revenge Tour’ Is No Fun for Luka Doncic

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      The second-round playoff series between Paul’s Suns, who lost in the N.B.A. finals last year, and Doncic’s Mavericks has at its center two of the game’s best point guards.Chris Paul had already started the fourth quarter by draining a long 3-pointer and passing to Cameron Johnson, his Phoenix Suns teammate, for another. It was a bad sign for the visiting Dallas Mavericks, because Paul hadn’t even called for the defensive matchup he really wanted.His next time up the court, Paul was dribbling against Reggie Bullock when Johnson set a high screen on Bullock, dragging his defender with him. That defender was Luka Doncic, who found himself guarding Paul after the switch — and even managed to poke the ball away. But after Paul regained possession, he needed about 3 nanoseconds to blow past Doncic for a layup.It was the sort of scene that kept repeating itself in the closing stages of the Suns’ 129-109 victory in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series on Wednesday. The Suns were determined to force Doncic onto the ball, and then they were eager to capitalize. Doncic, who has the meaty build of a tight end at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, is an all-world offensive player. But his defense? For one game, at least, he went from hunter to hunted against shifty guards like Paul and Devin Booker.“Just have to play better defense,” Doncic said, “that’s it.”No one has been surprised to see two point guards take center stage in this series, which the Suns lead, 2-0, as it heads to Dallas for Game 3 on Friday. But in the process, Paul and Doncic have offered contrasting approaches. Paul has picked his moments to take charge, a luxury given the talent that surrounds him, while Doncic has tried to do it all, in large part because he has no choice.“We believe, man,” Doncic said, adding: “We’re going to believe until the end.”The Suns have been able to frustrate Doncic in many ways, even as he manages to pour in points as the driver of the Mavericks’ offense.Matt York/Associated PressDoncic has been putting up preposterous numbers, even by his gaudy standards. In Game 1, he finished with 45 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. In Game 2, he had 35 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists. Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd put the pressure on Doncic’s supporting cast to assert itself in Game 3.“He had a great game,” Kidd said of Doncic, “but no one else showed. So we’ve got to get the other guys shooting the ball better. We can’t win with just him out there scoring 30 a night, not at this time of year.”For Paul, the playoffs are another opportunity — arguably his best one yet — to win his first championship, one season after the Suns fell to the Milwaukee Bucks in the N.B.A. finals. Phoenix, Booker said, is on a “revenge tour,” which Paul seems to be steering from his personal time machine. Paul finished with 28 points and 8 assists on Wednesday, a tour de force two days before his 37th birthday.“He can tell you better than I can,” Booker said, “but he’s feeling younger by the day.”In his own way, given his size and approach, Paul is unapologetically old school. Growing up in North Carolina, he was the prototypical point guard: a dazzling scorer, to be sure, but someone who was responsible, first and foremost, for involving teammates. Now, he has the institutional knowledge of 17 N.B.A. seasons informing each of his decisions.Doncic, on the other hand, is one of the league’s new-age players, a 23-year-old prodigy with a multidimensional game that was informed by his childhood in Slovenia, where children, no matter how big or how small, learned the fundamentals of shooting and passing.In this playoff series, the throwback has the edge. It helps, of course, that the Suns are a deeper team and that Paul plays alongside Booker, a three-time All-Star and one of the league’s most gifted scorers.For three quarters of Wednesday’s game, Paul largely created for his teammates, attempting just nine shots. He exploded in the fourth quarter, scoring 14 points while shooting 6 of 7 from the field.“It’s amazing,” the Suns’ Jae Crowder said. “For the first two quarters, he’s relaxed, chilling. He’s not too aggressive, just reading the game. And then he has a switch where he just turns it on.”Booker, 25, thought back to his childhood when he would watch games with his father, Melvin Booker, a former N.B.A. guard who shaped his son through daily workouts. In front of the TV, they would study Paul together. Devin was 5 years old, he said, exaggerating modestly.“See how he makes sure everyone’s involved?” Booker recalled his father asking him. “And then he picks his times when he’s going to take over the game?”Booker added: “I’ve always admired the way he does that. He’s just in control at all times. He’s two, three steps ahead of what the other team is doing.”Paul has long been known as one of the N.B.A.’s best passers.Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAs Paul surged in the fourth quarter, Doncic, having already carried such an enormous load for his team, seemed to tire — especially on defense. Kidd said he would need to concoct a plan to ensure that Doncic’s teammates “do a better job of helping him.” Perhaps the Mavericks need to avoid switching on screens so frequently, or perhaps they need to send more double-teams at Booker and Paul. Easier said than done.Paul joined Booker at his postgame news conference in time to answer a question about the importance of making Doncic work at both ends. Booker glanced at Paul and seemed to smirk, as if to say they had done their job picking him apart. Paul, forever the cagey veteran, chose the diplomatic route.“We just try to play,” he said. “Take what the defense gives us.”It was an exhausting night for Doncic. As he made his way off the court at halftime, he wheeled around to bark at a heckler.“He was just saying something reckless,” Doncic said. “If it’s something normal, I would not even look because I don’t care. But sometimes you’re in a bad mood and they say some bad stuff. It’s normal. We’re people, man. It’s normal to turn around.”Ahead of Game 3, Doncic had a chance to plot some revenge of his own. More

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      NBA Christmas Day Games 2021: What to Know

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      A coronavirus outbreak across the league has cast a shadow over Saturday’s highlight slate of games, with several key players unavailable to compete.The N.B.A. has long looked to Christmas Day as a highlight of the young season, a made-for-TV spectacle that brings together many of the best teams and best players for a daylong extravaganza of basketball fireworks.This year? Not exactly.Dozens of players have been cycling through the N.B.A.’s coronavirus health and safety protocols in recent days, forcing teams to improvise by signing scores of replacement players to 10-day contracts. So if you’re expecting to see Kevin Durant lead the Nets into their game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, you’ll be disappointed: On Friday, Durant remained in the protocols. But fans should be able to catch the surprise return of Joe Johnson, whom the Boston Celtics signed on Wednesday to shore up their own battered roster — the same Joe Johnson who is now 40 and had last appeared on an N.B.A. court in 2018.The pandemic has wrought havoc on the holiday season, and the N.B.A. has not been immune. The league even issued a memo this week to the teams scheduled to play on Saturday that their tip times could be tweaked if any of the prime-time games are postponed. (The Nets, for example, have already had three games scuttled over the past week because of low roster numbers.)For now, and keep in mind that this is subject to change, here is a look at the five games penciled in for Saturday:All times Eastern.Atlanta Hawks (15-16) at Knicks (14-18), Noon, ESPNKnicks forward Julius Randle is having an up-and-down season, but his short-handed team will need him against the Hawks on Saturday.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressSurprising runs to the playoffs last season led to these teams meeting in the first round, spurring talk about the two franchises resurrecting. The Hawks easily dispatched the Knicks then, with the Hawks’ star player, Trae Young, delighting in quieting abrasive Knicks fans, while the Knicks’ top player, Julius Randle, had a terrible series.The matchup looked like it would start a rivalry between two up-and-coming teams on their way to the Eastern Conference’s elite.But this season, both teams, far from being resurrected, have been two of the more disappointing teams in the league. The Knicks’ new additions, Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker, have been mostly underwhelming, though Walker, after being benched for several games, has been on a tear in a recent return to the lineup. And while Atlanta had one of the N.B.A.’s worst defenses, its stellar offense hasn’t been enough to compensate for it. Young, already one of the league’s best offensive players, is having the best year of his career, while Randle has struggled.The good news is that the same thing happened last season, and both teams had impressive second half turnarounds to make the playoffs.The Christmas game will undoubtedly lose some of its luster with several key players likely to miss the game as a result of the N.B.A.’s health and protocols, including Young, Clint Capela and Danilo Gallinari from Atlanta, and Nerlens Noel from the Knicks. Derrick Rose, one of the Knicks’ lone bright spots against Atlanta in the playoffs, is slated to miss several weeks with an ankle injury.Boston Celtics (16-16) at Milwaukee Bucks (21-13), 2:30 p.m., ABCJayson Tatum’s shooting percentage is down slightly this season, but he is still Boston’s leading scorer with 25.6 points per game.Charles Krupa/Associated PressFresh off their first N.B.A. championship since 1971, the Bucks knew the early part of their schedule would pose some challenges. For starters, last season’s playoff run extended into late July. Then, two of the team’s best players, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, helped the United States men’s basketball team win gold at the Tokyo Olympics in August. The Bucks subsequently reconvened for the start of their season and lost eight of their first 15 games.Despite a shifting roster — Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo are among the players who have missed games after landing in the league’s health and safety protocols — the Bucks seem to be finding their footing as they eye another title. That’s no great stretch, thanks to the presence of Antetokounmpo, a two-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award who still seems determined to expand his game. He is expected to play on Christmas after missing the past five games.The Celtics, meanwhile, are enduring growing pains under Ime Udoka, their first-year coach. From the start of training camp, Udoka has stressed the need for his players to pass more willingly around the perimeter. But too often, the ball still sticks — frequently in the hands of Jayson Tatum, a talented young player who has struggled with his shooting this season. The Celtics have also been hindered by injuries to Jaylen Brown.Boston needs to play a much more complete brand of basketball to have a shot of landing in the postseason, let alone to challenge the likes of the Bucks.Golden State Warriors (26-6) at Phoenix Suns (26-5), 5 p.m., ABCChris Paul leads the league in assists per game, which has helped his Phoenix Suns stay among the West’s best despite injuries.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThis game features the top two teams in the Western Conference. The Suns are hoping to improve upon their trip to the finals last year, while Golden State looks to continue its resurgence.In November, the N.B.A. began investigating Robert Sarver, the Suns’ owner, after ESPN published accusations of racism and sexism against him from what ESPN said were current and former Suns employees. If the specter of that investigation has affected the team, it hasn’t shown on the court.Phoenix has looked formidable in Coach Monty Williams’ third year with the franchise. After a 1-3 start to the season, the Suns went on an 18-game winning streak, which set a franchise record for consecutive wins. That included a win over Golden State and ended with a loss to Golden State. Aided by point guard Chris Paul’s steady veteran hand (he leads the league in assists per game), they’ve weathered injuries. Deandre Ayton missed eight games with a leg injury and illness, and Devin Booker missed seven games with a hamstring injury.Golden State awaits the return of Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry’s sharpshooting counterpart, who has been absent for more than two years with two serious injuries. He could return soon, but not in time for this game. The team has rocketed to the top of the conference even without him.Curry set the N.B.A. record for career 3s last week and has been playing well enough to merit consideration for his third M.V.P. Award. Role players, such as Jordan Poole and Gary Payton II, have made major contributions as well.Nets (21-9) at Los Angeles Lakers (16-17), 8 p.m., ABC and ESPNThe Nets have been hit hard by the virus recently, with so many players, including James Harden, unavailable that three games were postponed.Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesIdeally, this would be a matchup of the Nets’ Kevin Durant against his longtime elite contemporary, LeBron James of the Lakers. And in theory, there would be other stars, too, like Kyrie Irving for the Nets and Anthony Davis for the Lakers.But it’s not to be. Davis is out for several weeks because of a knee injury. And the Nets are missing so many players as a result of the league’s health and safety protocols — including Durant and Irving — that their last three games have been postponed. On Thursday, Nets Coach Steve Nash announced that James Harden had left protocols, making him available against the Lakers.For this matchup, the Nets, who are in first place in the Eastern Conference, are taking on a Lakers team fighting just to stay in the conversation to make the playoffs.The Lakers’ supporting cast around James and Davis, thus far, has proved to be ill-fitting, and the roster has dealt with a scourge of injuries. Russell Westbrook, the Lakers’ most high-profile off-season addition, has struggled at times. James is putting up exceptional numbers for a 36-year-old, but appears to be finally slowing down: He’s more reliant on his jumper than ever before, averaging a career high in 3-point attempts per game, and a career low in free-throw attempts per game. James is still one of the best players in the league, but it’s not apparent that he can carry an offense by himself like he used to.With the Nets slated to be without so many key players, this should have been marked as an easy win for a James-led team. But not this year. These Lakers, even at full strength, are mediocre and prone to coast through games. Right now, it’s a tossup.Dallas Mavericks (15-16) at Utah Jazz (22-9), 10:30 p.m., ESPNDonovan Mitchell, left, and the Utah Jazz will face a Mavericks team that has been dealing with injuries all season.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressWhat’s regular-season dominance without playoff success? The Utah Jazz found themselves confronting that question last season when they finished the regular season with the best record in the N.B.A., but only reached the second round of the playoffs.That’s meant so far this season their game-to-game focus is on not just their early wins and losses, but on what lessons they can take into the postseason.“If you’re perfect in November, no one’s going to care come playoff time,” Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell said.Mitchell has led the Jazz offense with more than 25 points per game, while Bojan Bogdanovic and Jordan Clarkson, the league’s reigning sixth man of the year, have also been important pieces.Defensively they are led by Rudy Gobert, who is the league’s best with 15.1 rebounds per game and also contributes more than 2 blocks per game.They’ll face a Mavericks team that has dealt with injuries all season, including to guard Luka Doncic, their best player, who is expected to miss this game because of the league’s health protocols.Although Doncic leads the team with 25.6 points per game, the Mavericks are not dramatically different statistically when he’s on the court. But they are more fun to watch. If Doncic misses the Christmas Day game, a Dallas team ravaged by the virus and injuries will have a tough time making a game against the Jazz interesting. More

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      Luka Doncic Autographs Questioned Among Collectors

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      Handwriting experts disagree about whether the N.B.A. star’s signatures could be from one person. And collectors have brewed a bigger conspiracy theory — that Doncic’s mother signed his cards.Luka Doncic can appear to lack no superpower on the basketball court, where the 22-year-old Slovenian star regularly treats N.B.A. fans to long-distance floaters, nutmeg passes and playoff fireworks. But cyber sleuths have been flummoxed by the inconsistency he displays during a more pedestrian task: writing his name.Many collectors believe that an elegant signature of Doncic’s name on the lone copy of a basketball card that sold for $4.6 million this year was written not by him, but by his mother. Like the signature seen on many of his other highly coveted trading cards, the blue script is not the tilting scribble Doncic used during his teenage years.Although player autographs evolve and handwriting analysis is subjective, the conjecture has become a powder keg for the sports card industry, which has thrived during the coronavirus pandemic.When live sports went silent last year, some people discovered the drama of watching others rip open expensive packs of cards on YouTube. Speculators stripped Target and Walmart shelves of lucrative boxes, flipping them for fivefold prices. Bolstered by stay-at-home orders and stimulus funds, the frenzy shared the get-rich-quick impulses that propelled cryptocurrency and meme stocks.Investors also flocked to grading companies, which by authenticating autographs and rating cards as pristine — sharp corners, smooth edges, perfect centering and an unmarred surface — can spin cardboard into gold. The demand was so great that Professional Sports Authenticator, which charges at least $150 to grade a card, temporarily refused most submissions.Few of the companies that benefited as money poured in to the collection industry are willing to discuss the ecosystem of athlete autographs, which are used as a key way to tantalize customers. Among collectors, autographed cards found within sealed packs are called “hits.”Luka Doncic signing autographs in 2019, during his rookie season with the Dallas Mavericks.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesRumors of ghost signers spring every so often, with the signatures of workaday players and superstar athletes like Shaquille O’Neal and Cam Newton sometimes questioned. This summer, collectors were startled by apparent similarities between the autographs of the Charlotte Hornets teammates LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges. And the companies that make sports cards — and imprint them with a guarantee of authenticity — have acknowledged a few cases when athletes did not sign their own cards.“This whole thing is just an honor system,” Adam Gellman, who runs the blog Sports Cards Uncensored, said of how card companies like Panini obtain most of their autographs through the mail. “Historically, players have abused it to the nth degree.”Early doubts regarding Doncic’s signature were highlighted in an extensive Blowout Cards forum thread in early 2019, before the promising Dallas Mavericks rookie had generated the stream of triple-doubles that amplified fervor among collectors. The user who started the thread had previously identified fake basketball cards from the 1990s that were of such high quality that they had fooled grading companies.Card aficionados traced the evolution of Doncic’s autograph, debating whether the “Luka” signature he has used in person — which slants to the right, with narrow letters and significant peaks and valleys — could be from the same hand as the symmetrical, loopy cursive known as the “Lulu” signature. (There is a wide spectrum of universally accepted Doncic autographs, and not all “Lulu” signatures have drawn suspicion, but the questioned ones are in that script.)A signature from an Upper Deck Exquisite Collection card.The signature from the $4.6 million Doncic card.Matt ChaseIt is practically impossible to prove who signed a particular card; without video proof, not even a “Sasquatch” signature could be unequivocally discredited. Yet that has not stopped some collectors from speculating that Doncic’s mother is responsible for the “Lulu” signatures, which they describe as more feminine.There is zero evidence for that specific theory, which has become a pervasive inside joke in the industry, but the larger skepticism surrounding the “Lulu” autographs has persuaded some people to purge those versions of the cards from their collections.Doncic declined to comment, a Mavericks spokeswoman said.His mother, Mirjam Poterbin, said the idea that she had signed any of his cards was a crazy rumor. “I don’t even know how people can say things like this,” she said, adding, “He’s probably changing his writing — I don’t know. I don’t know.”Many star athletes, including Michael Jordan and Patrick Mahomes, have simplified their autographs, with the different signatures containing underlying consistencies, such as the relative heights and widths of letters. Skeptics of the “Lulu” signatures argue that it is unusual for an autograph to become neater and to take longer to write.Three forensic handwriting analysts with no ties to the sports industry disagreed when shown examples of the “Luka” and “Lulu” autographs. One said no determination about their authenticity could be made. One said they were unlikely to be written by the same person. And one said the signatures were generally consistent. A common thread, each expert said, was that the simple four-letter autograph would be easy to forge.The “Lulu” signatures are primarily on cards printed by Panini, which holds an exclusive license with the N.B.A. and directly reaches contracts with athletes for their autographs; it announced an exclusive deal with Doncic this year. Panini referred questions to a public relations agency, which did not answer inquiries about the authenticity of Doncic’s signatures, or how the company validates autographs.Several months after the buzzy forum thread in early 2019, Upper Deck, a Panini competitor, posted an Instagram video of Doncic signing cards in its Exquisite Collection. For several interested observers, the swift strokes that produced two long, angled consonants in “Luka” also sharpened Occam’s razor.“When we hear of issues where authenticity is being questioned, we like to do everything to let people know they’re getting the right thing,” said Chris Carlin, Upper Deck’s head of customer experience.Top rookies often sign cards at in-person promotional events. But it is otherwise common for athletes to privately sign sheets of stickers that will be affixed to cards, along with a legally binding affidavit that promises the autographs are theirs.When Upper Deck receives a stack of signed stickers through the mail, Carlin said, the company goes “through it with a fine-toothed comb,” rejecting those that have smeared in transit or that raise authenticity questions. “Usually we eliminate it before it ever gets out to the market,” he said.Yet there have been times when companies have recalled autographed cards. In 2017, Panini said that in “an extremely unfortunate situation,” N.F.L. defensive end Takkarist McKinley was not always the person who had signed his rookie cards “Takk.” Two months later, Panini recalled some cards of Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, announcing that it chose to remanufacture them “after being contacted by an autograph authenticator and following an internal quality control process.”Now the rumors about Doncic’s autographs have some collectors wary.When his official memorabilia website offered signed photos as a promotion last year, a Facebook thread was inundated with questions about their authenticity. The store, which is based in Slovenia and did not respond to requests for comment, dutifully responded that it had personally witnessed his autograph session.“Luka has really special way of signing,” it said in one reply. “If you compare Luka’s signature a year ago and today, yeah it’s different. It’s just the way he does it. Even his signature today is different then 8 months ago. Who knows with what he will surprise us in future.”Interest in Luka Doncic cards has risen alongside his star power in the N.B.A.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesDoncic was named the most valuable player of the Euroleague at age 19 and had immediate success in the N.B.A., making two All-Star teams after being named rookie of the year. This summer he led Slovenia to a fourth-place finish in its first Olympic basketball appearance.“He cares about one thing and one thing alone, and that’s winning,” said Doncic’s agent, Bill Duffy, who added that the athlete did not relish the growing off-court obligations.“Quite frankly,” he added, “everything else is just burdensome.”Asked directly whether someone other than Doncic was responsible for any of his autographs, Duffy said the accusation was “false” before deferring to a spokeswoman for the agency, who said, “There has been no fraud, whatever the word is, with any of these signings.”Collectors who agree that the “Lulu” signatures are legitimate point to a gift for the Slovenian president that features one, a skipped pen stroke that has been observed in both archetypes of autographs, and the fact that grading companies authenticate them.A spokeswoman for Beckett Grading Services said in an email that outside speculation about Doncic signatures did not influence its autograph experts, who consider “the letter shape and formation, the pen pressure, the flow, rhythm, conviction and spontaneity of the signature, and letter size and spacing to determine if it is consistent with known exemplars.” Professional Sports Authenticator declined to comment.Another common defense of the “Lulu” signatures is that the variations can be attributed to fatigue from frequent signings. Industry experts said that it took about an hour to sign 400 stickers and that Doncic might have signed at least 10,000 as a rookie.Gellman, who runs Sports Cards Uncensored, dismissed that explanation, noting that he once watched the quarterback Johnny Manziel replicate his intricate signature for four hours.“Athletes are required to sit and do this for so many parts of their life that it becomes secondhand to sign everything the same,” Gellman said.Ultimately, the rumblings about Doncic’s signature have not dulled the top end of his card market.Nick Fiorella, an entrepreneur who puts most of his disposable income into sports cards, said his riskiest purchase was the $4.6 million Doncic card with an N.B.A. logo and a “Lulu” autograph. But he is betting that the player and the hobby will continue to soar.“To me, if it’s him or his mom or whatever, it’s always going to be his one-of-one,” Fiorella said. “If he becomes a transcendent player, it doesn’t really matter if I signed it.”Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. More

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      Lost Lead Reminds Mavericks Fans of 2006 Collapse

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      Fifteen years ago, the Mavericks lost the N.B.A. finals after winning the first two games of the series. Now they have blown a 2-0 lead over the Clippers.DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks are one of only four teams to win the first two games in the N.B.A. finals and still lose the series. It was always assumed thereafter that, for this franchise and its fans, no playoff collapse could inflict as much pain as Dallas’s disintegration against the Miami Heat in 2006.Chances are the sentiment still applies, since a first-round series will never be confused with a championship series, but the Luka Doncic-led Mavericks are suddenly careening toward a doozy of an unraveling that might wind up in the same conversation.After seizing a 2-0 lead over the Los Angeles Clippers, with back-to-back road victories that had the league buzzing, Dallas welcomed crowds of nearly 18,000 fans on Friday night and Sunday night at American Airlines Center — and promptly disappointed them both.The series now resting at 2-2 is even worse than it sounds for the Mavericks, because they amassed a 30-11 lead in the first quarter of Game 3 that could have easily caused the Clippers, on the brink of a full-blown franchise crisis, to capsize. Two defeats later, and with Doncic clearly compromised by a neck strain he sustained during Game 3, Dallas has been forced to confront the painful reality that it actually squandered more than a 2-0 lead.“We’ve got to hope in the next couple of days that he can be better — hopefully substantially better,” Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle said of Doncic’s health. “There’s a two-day break between games, which is a positive in this case.”An extra day off before Wednesday’s Game 5 back at Staples Center in Los Angeles was the lone positive Carlisle could realistically pinpoint.Fueled by Coach Tyronn Lue’s small-ball lineups, stout team defense in Sunday’s 106-81 rout in Game 4 and, most of all, relentless paint attacks from Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the Clippers have mustered a show of unity and resolve that maybe no one in the N.B.A. outside of Lue expected.Leonard, in particular, has been as dominant as ever offensively in response to last week’s chatter about Doncic’s emergence as the best player in the series, averaging 33.0 points per game on ridiculous 62.7 percent shooting from the field.Mocking the Clippers’ moxie had evolved into a sport within the sport since their collapse against the Denver Nuggets in last summer’s bubble playoffs at Walt Disney World in Florida.On the brink of a Western Conference finals showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers, their storied Staples Center co-tenants, the Clippers went from a 3-1 cushion to a second-round exit by losing three consecutive games to Denver. Coach Doc Rivers was fired and the rigors stemming from the isolation of bubble life were blamed.But then the Clippers appeared to go out of their way to lose their final two games this season to lowly Houston and Oklahoma City, locking in the first-round matchup they preferred with Dallas and ensuring that they would avoid the Lakers until the conference finals.When Doncic and the Mavericks shredded the Clippers twice in Los Angeles to open the series, Lue and his players were lampooned for messing with basketball karma and, worse, reinforcing perceived frailties as a group that could potentially convince Leonard to leave the club in free agency this summer.Reggie Jackson, in the Clippers’s starting lineup for his ball-handling and shooting, scored 15 points in Game 4.Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLue responded with his best work since his coaching contributions to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ historic comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the 2016 N.B.A. finals to Golden State.He made the 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum his primary center in hopes of keeping more mobile players on the floor to cope with the brilliant Doncic, who averaged 38.0 points through the first games before his 9-for-24 shooting struggles and quiet 19 points on Sunday.Lue also made Reggie Jackson a starter in the backcourt for a boost in shooting and ball-handling and expanded roles for Rajon Rondo and Terance Mann, even though that meant relegating the boisterous Patrick Beverley, his original starter at point guard, out of the rotation.Lue admitted that the Clippers want to “try to wear Luka down” and “let him play one on one” by switching defenders on him constantly, and living with the results as long as they can “keep his assists down.”The smaller, quicker lineups likewise exacerbated the mobility issues that have plagued Dallas’ Kristaps Porzingis defensively since Porzingis, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as a Knick in 2018, sustained a meniscus tear in his right knee in last season’s first-round series against the Clippers.“We still haven’t done anything yet,” Lue said.A reserved approach is wise in a series in which the home team has yet to win a game, and when Dallas is 3-0 on the Clippers’ floor this season. But there is a strong case to be made that the Mavericks won the first two games thanks as much to their unsustainable success from 3-point range as to the damage Doncic caused at full strength.The Mavericks shot 35-for-70 from deep in those two games, then cratered to 5-for-30 on 3-pointers in Game 4, with Doncic’s supporting cast fading badly, after wasting a 20-for-39 showing in Game 3.Carlisle said that, from his vantage point, Doncic’s injury left him unable to “turn his neck to the left.” That would help explain the lack of zip in his game and Doncic’s joyless expression from the start, with strips of black protective tape from the back of his neck and across his left shoulder protruding from his uniform.Doncic is shooting 40.6 percent from the free-throw line.Jerome Miron/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThere is another growing worry for the Mavericks on top of their star guard’s uncertain health: Doncic’s free-throw shooting. He shot 0-for-5 from the line in Sunday’s loss, taking the All-Star guard down to an indefensible 40.6 percent (13 for 32) for the series.“I don’t think that matters right now,” Doncic said of his injury. “I played terrible.”The Mavericks of 2005-6, who orbited around Dirk Nowitzki, avenged their finals collapse by beating Miami in the 2011 N.B.A. finals after the Heat had signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh to flank Dwyane Wade. Dallas, though, has not won a single playoff series since. These Mavericks came home after stunning the host Clippers twice, believing they had a shot at a sweep to end that drought, given the Clippers’ recent history of folding, and lost all the momentum.N.B.A. teams that lose the first two games at home in a best-of-seven series have rallied to win only four times in 31 tries.The Mavericks know how unlikely the feat is because they pulled it off it in the Nowitzki era in 2005, falling into a 2-0 hole before completing the comeback with a 40-point humiliation of the Houston Rockets in Game 7. Alas, in that series, Dallas had the luxury of playing the deciding game on its own floor after its dreadful start. The Clippers have reclaimed home-court advantage in this series and, more worryingly for Dallas, seem to be enjoying themselves for the first time in a long time after so much doomsday talk.George said he and Leonard did “an incredible job complementing each other” in Dallas and described the victories as two prime examples of “ultimately what we wanted to get to” as a partnership.“And, you know, it’s fun,” George said. More

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      The N.B.A.’s Play-In Tournament Isn’t the Problem

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      Though stars like LeBron James and Luka Doncic have complained about the pre-playoff hurdle, the stress of the play-in matters less than injuries and the compressed season.The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, who lashed out about the All-Star Game staged in Atlanta in March, has a new source of league office ire. James said on Sunday that the forces behind the N.B.A.’s forthcoming playoff play-in tournament “should be fired.”Weeks before James voiced his displeasure, it was Mark Cuban, after voting for the play-in as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who blasted the concept as an “enormous mistake.”I say they’re both wrong, and see the race to set up the N.B.A.’s play-in round from May 18 to 21 as the most invigorating aspect of a dour, draining, pandemic-skewed season.The idea here, though, is not to dwell on James or Cuban, two of the league’s most outspoken figures. They were offering emotional reactions to their teams’ increasingly unpleasant circumstances in the standings. Both surely know how self-serving it sounded to attack the play-in format only after their teams faced an acute risk of having to participate in it.Zoom in on what’s happening among the top 11 teams in each conference, and you will see that the format change is doing its job — and promisingly so. More teams are playing more games that mean something than we’re accustomed to with just under two weeks left in the regular season. A system that gives the No. 9 or 10 seed a last-ditch pathway into the playoffs — but only if one of those teams can win two play-in games in a row — has spawned new levels of jockeying for seeding position. That’s good for the game at large, even if it has, in Year 1, complicated matters for the injury-ravaged defending champions in Los Angeles.Adam Silver, in his seven-plus years as commissioner, has emphasized finding ways to make the regular season matter more. He has also sought to discourage teams from shifting into the familiar late-season mode of resting veterans and focusing on youth development to foster losing and improve draft position, better known as tanking. The combination of the play-in and changes to the lottery odds starting in the 2018-19 season is making a difference on both fronts. Before the 2019 draft, the team with the lowest winning percentage had the highest odds to get the No. 1 pick. The three worst teams now share an equal shot at the top spot.Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks said he didn’t “see the point” of playing the whole season if a play-in tournament could keep a team out of the playoffs.Nelson Chenault/USA Today Sports, via ReutersEntering Tuesday’s play, 24 of the league’s 30 teams were still in playoff contention because of the added play-in slots, although the chances seemed unrealistic for Chicago in the East and Sacramento in the West. In both conferences, in addition to the usual grappling for the No. 1 seed, there are fevered races to secure a top-six seed and avoid the play-in round, as well as crowded races to clinch a spot in the 7-to-10 range to extend the season.The play-in scenario calls for the No. 7 seed in each conference to play one game against No. 8 at home, with No. 9 playing No. 10 at home. The winner of 7 vs. 8 claims the No. 7 seed. The loser of that game plays the winner of 9 vs. 10 at home for the No. 8 seed, with the loser of 9 vs. 10 eliminated. The seventh- and eighth-seeded teams in each conference thus have to win just once to clinch a playoff berth. No. 9 or No. 10 must win two games in a row to advance.The Mavericks’ Luka Doncic lamented last month that he didn’t “see the point” of playing an entire season if “maybe you lose two in a row and you’re out of the playoffs.” That was what prompted Cuban’s “enormous mistake” comment, but on Monday he said that he had “no problem” with the play-in and that he welcomed the competitive boost it could lend to a standard 82-game season. Cuban’s dismay, he said both last month and Monday, is contained to this season because of the stress it heaps on already stressed teams. He contended that additional games with seeding implications compound the burden on teams chafing from cramming 72 regular-season games into five months while coping with daily coronavirus testing and extensive league health and safety demands.But the benefits, at least for fans, have been plentiful. There is a newfound incentive for teams to finish no lower than sixth, both to avoid the play-in and to gain several days of additional rest before the first round of the playoffs. The seeding scramble also features highly watchable players vying for play-in berths: Washington’s duo of Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook, New Orleans’s Zion Williamson, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball and, most of all, Golden State’s scorching hot Stephen Curry. The prospect of stars like Curry, Portland’s Damian Lillard and maybe even Williamson headlining bonus high-stakes broadcasts presumably excites network executives as much as the possibility of an early Lakers exit scares them.In Washington’s case, Beal and Westbrook have been at the forefront of a 13-3 surge that has enabled the Wizards to overcome a 17-32 start and compete for something after a coronavirus outbreak in January essentially shut down the franchise for two weeks. As a counter to Cuban’s complaint, San Antonio’s bid to stay alive for a playoff berth despite a second-half scheduling crunch has been boosted by the play-in path. The Spurs must play 40 games in 67 days in the season’s second half, but they have clung to 10th in the West, ahead of Williamson’s Pelicans.Young players like New Orleans’s Zion Williamson, left, and Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball, right, have added intrigue to the races for lower seeds.Derick Hingle/Associated PressTanking has not been eradicated by the play-in chases, but there is certainly less of it. The numbing regular-season discourse about individual awards (and little else) has been mercifully balanced by a heightened focus on the playoff ladders and how meaningful, just to give one example, Boston’s regular-season finale against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on May 16 could be. Even fears that adding play-in berths would lead more teams to stand pat and thus chill the trade market proved mostly unfounded; deadline day on March 25 delivered a record number of trades (16).The most compelling argument against the play-in tournament is the one Cuban raised — that this wasn’t the season for such experimentation. I suppose, for some, it’s a step too far after the tight turnaround from last season, which carried into October, and all the virus-related demands that cut into players’ rest, rehabilitation and practice time.Yet the bulk of the additional stress is a byproduct of the league’s decision, in conjunction with the players’ union, to start this season on Dec. 22 and play 72 games in a compressed period. The rising concern among teams’ medical staffs about increased injury risk because of game density and scheduling logjams caused by game postponements would probably have manifested with or without the play-in wrinkle.As for suggestions that the East and West No. 7 seeds deserve more protection than the play-in system affords, based on their season-long body of work, let’s push back. The lowest seed to win a championship since the league adopted a 16-team playoff format in 1983-84 was sixth-seeded Houston in 1994-95 — when the Rockets were defending champions and traded for Clyde Drexler at midseason. The playoffs do not revolve around No. 7 seeds. If they can’t win one play-in game at home, when given two chances, how much playoff damage were they going to do, anyway?What no one envisioned was three of the four teams that reached last season’s conference finals tumbling into play-in territory, which is why the issue has caused so much angst. Miami (No. 6) and Boston (No. 7) in the East, among the teams that have been hit hardest by Covid-19 disruptions, might have to go the play-in route just to get back to the playoffs. The Lakers began the season as overwhelming championship favorites and duly started 21-6, but their subsequent struggles have played out in the most daunting way. James and Anthony Davis, as we warned, have not been able to make seamless returns from their long-term injuries.The Lakers will not look capable of a lengthy playoff run, even if they can avoid the indignity of a play-in game or two, until the health of their two stars improves. For all the attention on James’s harsh critique of the play-in games, he said something else on Sunday to suggest he had a firm grasp of the Lakers’ larger seeding plight.“If I’m not 100 percent, or close to 100 percent, it don’t matter where we land,” James said.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeA reader writes in with the hottest of hot takes: Stephen Curry isn’t that good.Mark Mulligan/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be condensed or lightly edited for clarity.)Q: To answer the question posed by last week’s newsletter, Russell Westbrook is not appreciated because he does not win. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson could have averaged 15 points, 15 rebounds and 15 assists per game every season if that was their goal. Westbrook is a pretty amazing player, and a deserved All-Star, but teams looking to win it all don’t seem to be interested in him. — Noel MacDonald (Petaluma, Calif.)Stein: This is a popular sentiment about Westbrook, and there are some minds he will probably never change until he is part of a championship team, no matter what he achieves statistically.That Westbrook has been traded twice since winning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2016-17 only amplifies the argument. Yet when Westbrook has gotten triple-doubles, his teams have won handily, so I would dispute the blanket statement that Westbrook “does not win.”Westbrook has 178 career triple-doubles in the regular season and a 134-44 record in those games, good for a winning percentage of .753. That equates to a 62-20 record in a typical season.Oklahoma City, Houston and Washington, then, have clearly benefited from his triple-doubles. Detractors are bound to say Westbrook could be chasing them in every game and hurting his team when he doesn’t achieve them, but I don’t think Westbrook is motivated by triple-doubles above all else. Teammates probably wouldn’t respect him the way they do if that were happening.All of these layers, and everything we covered last week, are why I’m so curious to see the reaction when Westbrook breaks Oscar Robertson’s career record for triple-doubles (181). Maybe this will be the moment that the league at large stops to appreciate someone who plays as ridiculously hard as Westbrook does, season after season after season, even if his résumé lacks a championship. Or maybe not.Q: Stephen Curry is great, but he’s the third-best Warrior ever. He’s not better than Rick Barry, and he’s not better than Wilt Chamberlain. Unless Curry adds another dimension to his game, he will not crack the top 10 or 15 all time. — @michaelbookit from TwitterStein: This is another bold opinion (or you were just trying to get a Twitter rise out of me). Whether or not I can persuade you to reconsider your stance, I strongly disagree.Chamberlain’s greatest successes as a player were as a 76er and as a Laker. Although the statistics he posted as a Warrior remain difficult to fathom, like the 50.4 points per game he averaged as a Philadelphia Warrior in 1961-62, his time in the Bay Area lasted less than three seasons. The Warriors even missed the playoffs in Wilt’s first San Francisco season.Barry has long been one of the game’s underappreciated stars, and his all-around excellence in leading Golden State to an unforeseen championship in 1975 cemented him as one of the game’s greats, but Curry’s résumé has it all. Three championships, five consecutive trips to the N.B.A. finals, back-to-back M.V.P. awards, longevity with one franchise, massive popularity with fans and seemingly limitless shooting range that changed the game — Curry really has no peer here.Q: I have assumed that teams that qualified for the playoff play-in round but did not advance further would not be considered teams that reached the playoffs this season. Then on Friday, according to the league’s official standings, Philadelphia was shown to have clinched a playoff berth when the 76ers had 10 games left on their schedule — but only an 8½-game lead over No. 7 Miami. Didn’t that mean that the Sixers conceivably could have still slipped to seventh?— Jeff Pucillo (Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.)Stein: You are correct that teams that get to the play-in round will not be considered playoff teams unless they win the last playoff spot in each conference.The standings, though, did not convey the full picture of Philadelphia’s situation. The Sixers clinched a playoff berth as of Friday because No. 6 Boston and No. 7 Miami still had two games against each other — and the results of those forthcoming games, no matter what they are, will ensure that either the Celtics or the Heat can’t catch the Sixers.Numbers GameThe Sixers are 32-6 when Ben Simmons, center, and Joel Embiid play together.Darren Abate/Associated Press57It’s not your imagination: Major blowouts have been increasingly common this season. A record six games in April were decided by margins of at least 40 points, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and Indiana promptly drubbed Oklahoma City by 57 points, 152-95, on Saturday, the first day of May.50When Utah scored 154 points in a 49-point rout of Sacramento last week, it was the eighth time over the past two seasons that an N.B.A. team had scored as many as 150 points in a non-overtime game. Over the prior 20 seasons, from 1999-2000 to 2018-19, it happened only four times, according to Elias.32-6Philadelphia is 32-6 this season when Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are both in uniform. The 76ers’ .842 winning percentage in those games shows the team’s tremendous potential when the two stars are healthy, but their 38 games together mean Embiid and Simmons have been available as a duo for only 58 percent of Philadelphia’s schedule.8Of Utah’s 18 losses this season, eight were inflicted by three teams: Phoenix, Washington and lowly Minnesota. The Suns and Timberwolves went 3-0 against the Jazz, who also absorbed a 2-0 season sweep from the Wizards. In another quirk, Sacramento is 10-1 against Denver (3-0), Dallas (3-0), Boston (2-0) and the Los Angeles Lakers (2-1). The Kings are 17-36 against the rest of the league and will most likely soon miss the playoffs for the 15th consecutive season.96Golden State’s Stephen Curry sank 96 3-pointers in April to establish a league record for a single month. It was not until the ninth season of existence for the 3-point line in the N.B.A. that a player reached that total over 82 regular-season games; Boston’s Danny Ainge (148), Denver’s Michael Adams (139), Seattle’s Dale Ellis (107) and Ainge’s Celtics teammate Larry Bird (98) were the first to get there, in 1987-88.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      The 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)Near the halfway point, this season’s race for the Most Valuable Player Award has top-tier candidates from the usuals (LeBron James) to the newcomers (Joel Embiid).Damian Lillard is keeping the Portland Trail Blazers competitive despite injuries to key players, as he has done for years. He’s a top-tier candidate for M.V.P.Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated PressFeb. 26, 2021, 5:27 p.m. ETOne of the fiercest debates among fans and observers each N.B.A. season is over who should win the Most Valuable Player Award.This season — already strange because of the coronavirus pandemic — has created the most wide-open race for the coveted award in several years.Being named M.V.P. is official recognition that a player is not just a star, but a superstar. Every winner of the award who is eligible has made the Hall of Fame. But the qualifications for the award vary by voter, which is partly what makes the debate so contentious.Is it for the best player? If so, why hasn’t LeBron James — a four-time recipient — won every year? Is it for who has the best stats? Is it for who does the most with the least talent around him? Is it for the best player on the best team? Should past playoff performances factor in? (The winner is chosen by members of the news media, but The New York Times does not vote on awards.)Sometimes, the answers are easy. Last year, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks was a runaway winner. His stats were top notch (fifth in scoring, second in rebounding), and the Bucks had the best record.The 2016-17 season had one of the most hotly disputed M.V.P. races ever, among James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard. Westbrook, who finished that season with his first triple-double average and led the league in scoring, ended up winning, even though his team at the time, the Oklahoma City Thunder, was only the sixth seed in the Western Conference.Almost halfway through this season, several players have made a compelling case to be a top-tier candidate.Statistics were updated entering Friday night’s games.LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers25.6 points/8.1 rebounds/8 assists per game; 50.2 field goal percentageLeBron James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league, and he has already won four M.V.P. Awards.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressThe Case For:James, 36, has played every game so far. His true shooting percentage — a measure of scoring efficiency that factors in free throws and gives more weight to 3-pointers — is at a solid 59.2 percent, despite a recent slump from the perimeter. The league average is around 55 percent. James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league. And he’s LeBron James. His numbers rival those of his previous M.V.P. seasons. If you believe that he should have won the award then, there is no reason he shouldn’t win now.The Case Against:James has another elite player, Anthony Davis, as a teammate. If you believe in the literal definition of valuable, then you must consider that when James sits, Davis, if healthy, fills some of the void in a way the vast majority of players can’t. Put another way: No other candidate has a teammate as good as Davis. Also, James is 13th in the league in scoring. He’s ninth in assists and 22nd in rebounding. The last M.V.P. to not be top 10 in points, rebounds or assists was Dirk Nowitzki in the 2006-07 season.Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers29.6 points/11.2 rebounds/3.1 assists per game; 51.6 field goal percentageThe Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid is performing well across the board. He ranks fourth in the league in scoring.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressThe Case For:Embiid is anchoring the best team in the Eastern Conference on both ends of the floor and does not have another bona fide top-10 player supporting him. He’s fourth in the league in scoring, while being absurdly efficient (64.4 percent true shooting).The Case Against:Embiid’s counting stats are fantastic, but he’s not as good a passer as other contenders. And even with his gaudy numbers, there is an argument that Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is having a better season.Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets26.9 points/10.9 rebounds/8.4 assists per game; 56 percent field goal percentageNikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is in the midst of having one of the five best offensive seasons in the history of the league.Credit…Harry How/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Jokic’s traditional stats are eye-popping, but when you look under the hood, you see he is putting together one of the greatest seasons ever. That is no exaggeration: His O.B.P.M. (a measure of how much a player contributes offensively compared with an average player) puts his performance at not just No. 1 in the league this season but among the five best offensive seasons in league history. It’s a higher O.B.P.M. than Larry Bird ever had. Michael Jordan had only one season better. Jokic’s win shares per 48 minutes — an estimate of how many wins an individual player is responsible for — lead the league, and also rank as one of the highest in history. He’s doing all of this while not having a teammate who will make the All-Star Game this season.The Case Against:The Nuggets are only 17-15. There is a chance they won’t even make the playoffs this season. It’s hard to give an M.V.P. to someone, no matter how great, if his play isn’t leading to wins.Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors30 points/5.5 rebounds/6.3 assists per game; 47.9 field goal percentageStephen Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-2016 season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history.Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Curry has played every game this season except one and has kept the Warriors afloat, despite Klay Thompson’s missing the whole season, and Draymond Green’s missing time because of injuries. From a statistical perspective, Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-16 M.V.P. season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history. This run might be even more impressive, given the lack of consistent playmakers around him. Curry is second in the league in scoring.The Case Against:As with Jokic, the team success isn’t there. The Warriors are 18-15 and are closer to missing the playoffs than to getting home-court advantage.Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers29.6 points/4.4 rebounds/8 assists per game; 44.7 percent field goal percentageThe Case For:Lillard’s numbers are consistently exceptional from year to year. This season, however, he’s doing this without the second- and third-best players on his team, CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, who have been sidelined with injuries. Despite not having another elite playmaker next to him, Lillard has carried Portland to 18-13 and fifth place in the Western Conference. From a “doing the most with the least” perspective, combined with elite statistics, Lillard and Curry have the best cases.The Case Against:There’s no obvious hole in Lillard’s M.V.P. case other than simple competition. It’s a deep field, and Lillard’s numbers are on par with those of multiple candidates, including Curry and Luka Doncic.The Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, left, and the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic are both contenders for this season’s M.V.P. Award.Credit…Michael Ainsworth/Associated PressLuka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks28.5 points/8.4 rebounds/9 assists per game; 47.4 field goal percentageThe Case For:Doncic is, once again, having one of the best all-around seasons in the league. He does it all. He’s an elite scorer and passer, while also being one of the best rebounding guards in the league. The Mavericks have been in flux for much of the season, as multiple players have missed games because of health concerns related to the coronavirus, so Doncic, as the only All-Star on the team, has to shoulder much of the offensive load.The Case Against:As things stand right now, Dallas, at 15-16, would not make the playoffs. The last time a player from a below-.500 team was named the M.V.P. was 1976, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award in his first year with the Lakers. Doncic is also a streaky shooter, so his percentages might not hold up as the season goes on.Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks28.9 points/11.7 rebounds/5.9 assists per game; 55.5 field goal percentageGiannis Antetokounmpo has positioned himself for a third straight M.V.P. Award.Credit…Rick Bowmer/Associated PressThe Case For:Antetokounmpo’s numbers are in line with his previous two seasons, both of which won him M.V.P. Awards. He’s top 10 in rebounding and scoring, something only Embiid can also say.The Case Against:Fairly or not, Antetokounmpo’s falling unexpectedly short in multiple playoff runs will be on the minds of voters. Additionally, if he wins the award, it would be his third straight — and there may be voter fatigue when there is such a deep field. The Bucks are only 20-13, slightly below preseason expectations. In almost any other season with that stat line, Antetokounmpo would be the runaway winner.Honorable Mentions:Kyrie Irving/James Harden/Kevin DurantThe players in the Nets’ trio are individually having exceptional seasons, rivaling all the other candidates. But they play on the same team, making it difficult to pick one most valuable player, and each has missed a significant chunk of time.Paul George/Kawhi LeonardBoth players are having essentially the same great seasons on the Los Angeles Clippers. Leonard is averaging 26.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, around the same as George. And the Clippers have the second-best record in the league. As with the Nets, it’s hard to pick one player to give the award to, especially with others putting up better stat lines.Donovan MitchellHe is the best player on the best team in the league. But his all-around stats don’t match those of other candidates.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More