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      Victor Wembanyama Has Always Done Things Differently

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      NANTERRE, France — On a rainy fall afternoon in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, François Salaün sat outside a cafe in a suit taking drags from a vape pen. He once taught at a high school around the corner, where, three years ago, he taught a student named Victor Wembanyama, who had to duck to get into classrooms and knew an unusual array of facts about the world.Salaün recalled asking the students in his French class to write a short story about the realization of a dream. Some shared their hopes of becoming famous basketball players, but not Wembanyama, though he was well on his way to that dream.In fact, Wembanyama didn’t really follow the prompt at all. Instead, he and a friend wrote a tale titled “Alice et Jules,” about a married couple whose lives were upended when Jules drove while drunk, crashed, fell into a coma and woke up having lost contact with Alice. In the end, they reunited.Wembanyama liked to do things his way, and Salaün didn’t mind so much. He remembered Wembanyama as smart, polite and gifted in French literature. He said he also had a calming influence on the class.Victor Wembanyama dancing as he warms up before a French league game.James Hill for The New York TimesHis former teacher’s recollection surprised Wembanyama and resurfaced a memory: One day in class, Wembanyama had folded his lanky body in half, with his forehead resting on his desk, so he could stealthily play on his phone. Then Salaün asked the class a question.“I answered the question, like, out loud, while being on my phone, because I knew the answer,” Wembanyama said. “And I remember he was like, ‘Thank you, Victor, but what are you doing?’”Wembanyama started laughing as he finished telling the story. He had been a typical teenager on that day, at least for a moment. But at 7-foot-3, he has never really been typical, and perhaps he never will be. In eight months, he will almost certainly be the top pick in the N.B.A. draft as the most hyped teenager since LeBron James, who called him an “alien.” His play and potential have drawn comparisons to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo.When Wembanyama plays basketball, he does sometimes look otherworldly.Wembanyama dunking in the layup line before a French league game.His height — and his wingspan of about eight feet — often make it seem as though he’s in two places at once. He’s as smooth as a smaller player, but he barely has to leave the ground to block shots or grab rebounds.This month, dozens of scouts and N.B.A. team executives gathered in Las Vegas to watch his French professional team, Metropolitans 92, play two games against G League Ignite, the N.B.A.’s developmental team for top prospects. Wembanyama’s team lost the first game, but he scored 37 points, including seven 3-pointers, and blocked five shots. Two days later, Metropolitans 92 won the rematch; Wembanyama had 36 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocks.“I’ve always felt like I was on a different level,” Wembanyama said. “I was living a different life than everyone else in school, for example, even in elementary school. I was just thinking differently than everyone. I’ve always tried to be original in everything I do, and it’s really something that stays in my soul: Be original. Be one of a kind. It’s like, I can’t explain it. I think I was born with it.”The people who knew Wembanyama growing up sometimes affectionately joked that he was on his own planet.He was playing for a youth basketball team in his hometown, Le Chesnay, west of Paris, when Michaël Allard, a coach from a club in Nanterre, saw him in what the coach called “a beautiful coincidence.” Allard thought the 10-year-old Wembanyama was an assistant coach because of his height, though he soon took notice of more than that.“He’s competitive, he’s joyful and he wants to play all the time,” Allard said in French.In Nanterre, near the dormitory of the academy of Nanterre 92 basketball club on the outskirts of Paris.Michaël Allard, one of Wembanyama’s coaches at Nanterre 92.The Nanterre club has both youth and professional teams. When Wembanyama was 13, he won his first French championship. He’d always loved basketball, but that championship made him fall in love with winning.“I cried that day,” Wembanyama said. “That was my first big title, so I was so happy.”In middle school, Wembanyama began teaching himself English, knowing that to play in the N.B.A. he would need proficiency beyond the little he’d learned in school. He watched videos from American accounts on Instagram, along with English-language television shows.As he entered his teenage years, scouts and the news media began flocking to see him.“It was when he was 14 that I said to myself, ‘This one, he has to go to the N.B.A.,’” said Frédéric Donnadieu, speaking in French. Donnadieu was Wembanyama’s first coach at Nanterre and is now the president of the club.Wembanyama’s parents, Felix Wembanyama and Elodie de Fautereau, tried to keep his life as normal as possible.They made sure he kept up with his schoolwork. If he got bad grades, the coaches made him sit at the wooden scorer’s table in the gym and do his homework instead of practicing with his friends.“That annoyed him more than anything else,” said Amine El Hajraoui, a coach at Nanterre.Amine El Hajraoui of the Nanterre basketball club at their home stadium, where Wembanyama spent his formative years, showing the trophies won by the teams that he played for in their academy.Though Wembanyama’s parents asked for him not to have any special treatment, that was sometimes unavoidable.He moved to Nanterre at 14 to live in the dormitory where the club housed its players. It was a simple building with bright brick accents about a 15-minute walk from school, where Wembanyama slept on a bed that had been specially made in northern France to fit him.The Nanterre club’s training facility was next door to Wembanyama’s high school, where it installed a fridge for easy access to the five meals a day that a caterer prepared, according to recommendations from nutritionists, to help the growing Wembanyama fill out his frame. His coach had an office on the school’s campus. The principal helped manage his schedule. A group of 25 people were responsible for his physical and mental development.At home, basketball was not the first subject discussed, though Wembanyama’s mother had played and coached the game. His parents shielded him from some of the ever-increasing news media requests for interviews. They worried about thrusting him onto a set path too soon, afraid of the effect that might have on his growth as a person.“If one day he said to himself that he wanted to stop playing basketball because he was tired of it, that he said to himself, ‘I want to go out, to have fun,’ what would he have done?” said Donnadieu, his former coach. “Today it’s interesting, because his story is beautiful. But when he was 15, sometimes it was too much.”Michaël Bur, who coached Wembanyama in Nanterre, used to do a simple exercise with his players. He’d ask them to choose a meaningful word that started with the same letter as their first name. As usual, Wembanyama took the assignment in a different direction.“He said, ‘You know, Coach, my name is Victor,’” Bur recalled in French. “I said, ‘Well, yes.’ He said, ‘What letter does it start with?’ And I said, ‘the letter V,’ and he said: ‘V in Roman numerals means 5. My name is Victor because I can play all five positions.’ And I thought that was extraordinary for a 16-year-old.”Wembanyama standing in the center of the huddle with his teammates before a French league game in September.Wembanyama understood and embraced his uniqueness. But he also recognized that being part of a team meant needing to relate to his teammates.“Everybody is talking about him being a unicorn, being so different on the basketball court, but in real life he’s just a normal kid, having fun with friends,” said Maxime Raynaud, who transferred to Nanterre in Wembanyama’s final year there.In October 2020, Raynaud and Wembanyama were training one afternoon when two older French pros arrived — Vincent Poirier and Rudy Gobert. Gobert played for the N.B.A.’s Utah Jazz at the time and had won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year Award twice. The teenagers started trash-talking.“As soon as we turned from messing around talking about playing to actually playing two on two, there’s something that switches in his head and he just turns into a kill mode,” Raynaud said of Wembanyama.Video of the games went viral. Gobert, 30, who is 7-foot-1, chuckled recently at how excited people were to see Wembanyama shooting over him. Wembanyama, at 16, was already taller than Gobert.“In this era of social media, everything gets magnified,” Gobert said. “And you know, those young kids, it’s a lot of added pressure on them. I think what strikes me the most about him is his maturity.”After Wembanyama graduated from high school in 2021, he left Nanterre’s professional team, Nanterre 92, for ASVEL, a club based in a suburb of Lyon, France, and owned by the former N.B.A. star Tony Parker, who is French. Then, in July, Wembanyama chose to go home: Metropolitans 92 is based in Levallois-Perret, close to where his parents live.Fans in the city have sold out the 2,800-seat arena for the first three games of the team’s season.Wembanyama defending his team’s basket.A excited crowd watching Wembanyama and Metropolitans 92.“We come to see Victor Wembanyama, of course, before he goes to the U.S.,” said Jeremy Guiselin, 27, speaking in French before a game in late September. “It’s the last moment for us to see him before he becomes a superstar, before he becomes No. 1 in the draft, and before he becomes a bit unattainable.”A group of team employees meets once a month to discuss how to best help Wembanyama add strength to his still-lanky frame. They know opponents will use physical play as a weapon against him.“I told him that I’m not going to specifically try to get him the first position of the draft,” said Vincent Collet, the coach of Metropolitans 92 and the French national team. “We want to get prepared for the next goal, which is to dominate in the N.B.A.”There is a part of Wembanyama that will be sad to see this phase of his life end. He has spent his whole life in France, most of it around Paris.“I’m going to miss France, for sure,” he said. “But I’ve worked all my life for this, so I’m really just thankful and grateful.”Wembanyama and his teammates listened to coach Vincent Collet during the French league basketball match.In two exhibition games in Las Vegas, Wembanyama went toe-to-toe with the Ignite’s Scoot Henderson, who is expected to be drafted second overall behind Wembanyama next year. Henderson held his own before leaving with an injury early in the second game, but there was no question who everyone had been there to see.Amid all the commotion, Wembanyama still finds ways to unplug.The night between the games in Las Vegas, he sat on a tufted leather couch in the team hotel — his knees sticking up several inches past a coffee table — and spoke excitedly about his favorite fantasy and sci-fi stories. He said he was “the biggest” fan of “Star Wars” and shared books he’d been reading lately.“I’ve just finished the second book of, what’s the name? I read it in French,” Wembanyama said. He looked through his phone to remember the translation.Wembanyama dunking during a French league match between Metropolitans 92 and Le Portel.“‘The Royal Assassin,’” he said. “You know about it?“I read my first book in English a few months ago,” he added. “It was ‘Eragon.’ You know about it?”Every night before bed, Wembanyama sets an alarm on his phone then puts it away. He goes through his bedtime routine, then gets under the covers and reads.“I could read nonfiction, but the way I read is mostly to not think about anything I just did during the day,” Wembanyama said. “Not thinking about anything I’m going to do in the morning. Just disconnect from the world. And so fantasy is really what helps me the most in doing that. I just get absorbed by a book and just fly in another dimension.”He recently began reading the “Game of Thrones” novels, called “Le Trone de Fer” in French, a phrase that translates to “The Iron Throne.”“So far it might be the best thing I’ve ever read,” he said.He has already seen the television series, and his favorite character is Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage.“He’s just so complex,” Wembanyama said. “And the way he just settles into the story.”As he spoke about how much he loved the TV series, he was reminded about its ending, which was widely panned.“Ahhh, it’s OK,” Wembanyama said, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. “This is not about the way it ends. It’s about the journey.”Léontine Gallois More

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      For Some NBA Draftees, Making it to the Pros Runs in the Family

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      Three of the top five picks in this year’s N.B.A. draft have parents who played professionally, including in the W.N.B.A.When the Houston Rockets selected Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. with the third pick of the N.B.A. draft on Thursday, it continued a tradition of basketball as a family inheritance.His father, also named Jabari Smith, played in the N.B.A. in the early 2000s.“My dad just told me it was time to amp it up a little bit, time to work even harder,” Jabari Smith Jr. said of his father’s reaction to the draft. “It’s a new level, whole new game. Just trying to get there and get to work.”For a cadre of N.B.A. players, having a parent or being related to someone who played in the N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. isn’t particularly unusual. And many players who aren’t related to someone who played professionally have parents who played college basketball.This past season, 30 second-generation players appeared in at least one N.B.A. game — a total that represents 5 percent of the league, and is nearly twice as many players as about two decades ago.Jabari Smith Jr., center, with his father, Jabari Smith, left, and mother, Taneskia Purnell, right.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesSmith was one of several players drafted this year whose father had N.B.A. experience. Among them was the University of Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis, whom the Washington Wizards picked at No. 10. His father is Mark Davis, who played in the N.B.A. briefly after the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him in 1985. There was also Duke’s A.J. Griffin, picked at No. 16 by the Atlanta Hawks. His father is Adrian Griffin, who played in the N.B.A. from 1999 to 2008, and has since been an assistant coach in the N.B.A. The other was Colorado’s Jabari Walker, a late-second-round pick for the Portland Trail Blazers, the son of Samaki Walker, who played a decade in the N.B.A. and won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers.W.N.B.A. connections could also be found among top picks. Rhonda Smith-Banchero, the mother of the No. 1 pick, Paolo Banchero, played in the W.N.B.A. Banchero, who was drafted by the Orlando Magic, said his mother “stayed on me, always held me accountable and made sure I was on the right track.” The Detroit Pistons selected Purdue’s Jaden Ivey with the fifth pick. His mother, Niele Ivey, played in the W.N.B.A. and was a recent assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies. She’s now the coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.“It’s actually an amazing story to have a mother who’s been in the league,” Jaden Ivey said. “You don’t see too many stories like that, and the bond that we have is special. I thank her for all the things that she’s done for me. I know I wouldn’t be on this stage, I wouldn’t be here, without her.”Niele Ivey, left, played college basketball at Notre Dame before her W.N.B.A. career. She’s now the head coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.Photo by Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesSometimes the connection to professional basketball players isn’t parental. Midway through the first round, the Charlotte Hornets drafted Mark Williams out of Duke. His older sister Elizabeth Williams has been in the W.N.B.A. since 2015. In the second round, the Cavaliers picked Isaiah Mobley out of the University of Southern California, which will be convenient for family visits, as his brother, Evan Mobley, is already on the team. (Brothers are common in the N.B.A. See: the Lopezes, Antetokounmpos, Balls and Holidays.)In some cases, there were recognizable names who weren’t drafted but nonetheless received contracts. Scotty Pippen Jr., who played three seasons at Vanderbilt, is expected to sign a two-way contract with the Lakers. His father, Scottie Pippen, won six championships with the Chicago Bulls. Ron Harper Jr., a Rutgers alum whose father, Ron Harper, won three championships alongside Pippen, is expected to be offered a similar deal with the Toronto Raptors.But while the N.B.A.’s father-son connections were highlighted by this year’s draft class, the phenomenon is nothing new. Consider Golden State’s roster, which featured four second-generation players during the team’s championship run this year: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton II.And some of their fathers were front and center.Each player has a family connection in professional basketball: For Paolo Banchero, left, it’s his mother; for Mark Williams, center, his sister; and for A.J. Griffin, right, his father.John Minchillo/Associated PressPaolo Banchero hugs his mother, Rhonda Smith-Banchero, who played in the W.N.B.A. Banchero was the No. 1 pick in the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesAs Payton got set to check into Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals against the Boston Celtics, he spotted his father, Gary Payton, a nine-time All-Star, sitting courtside with Detlef Schrempf, one of his former teammates. Father and son made eye contact — no words needed to be exchanged.“He just shook his head,” Gary Payton II said. “I know that means it’s time. You know, go to work.”And as the final seconds ticked away in Golden State’s championship-clinching win in Game 6, Curry embraced his father, Dell Curry, along one baseline. Stephen Curry broke down in tears.“I saw him and I lost it,” he said, adding, “I just wanted to take in the moment because it was that special.”In fact, the N.B.A. finals offered up a smorgasbord of generational talent. Among the Celtics: Al Horford, whose father, Tito Horford, played for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Bullets, and Grant Williams, whose cousins, Salim and Damon Stoudamire, both played in the N.B.A. This season, Damon Stoudamire was able to keep a close eye on Williams as one of the Celtics’ assistants.Players and coaches have cited a number of factors in the steady, decades-long emergence of father-son pairings, starting with genetics: It obviously helps to be tall. But many sons of former players also benefited from early exposure to the game, from top-notch instruction from the time they could start dribbling and from various other perks. For example, Stephen Curry and his younger brother, Seth Curry, who now plays for the Nets, had access to a full-length court in their family’s backyard, complete with lights.But with certain privilege comes pressure — especially when you share a name with a famous father. Gary Payton II recalled how his father had learned to back off when it came to basketball so that his son could develop a passion for the game on his own. They simply stopped talking about hoops, and that has remained the case.“Nowadays, he really doesn’t say anything,” Gary Payton II said. “We just talk about life, family, other sports and whatnot.”But sometimes it can cause strains, like the one between Tim Hardaway Jr., a Dallas Mavericks guard, and his father, Tim Hardaway, a five-time All Star who played from 1989 to 2003. They have both publicly spoken about how their relationship was made more difficult as a result of how hard the elder Hardaway was on his son about the game.Scotty Pippen Jr., the son of the Chicago Bulls great, Scottie Pippen, was expected to sign a two-way deal with the Lakers after going undrafted.Mark Humphrey/Associated PressIt can also be a strain if your father is the coach, a situation that Austin Rivers was faced with when he played for his father, Doc Rivers, on the Los Angeles Clippers. Doc Rivers played in the league from 1983 to 1996 and is also an accomplished N.B.A. head coach. The younger Rivers called it “bittersweet.” Doc Rivers had his back as his father, but Austin Rivers told The Ringer that “everything else, man, was hell,” because it created an awkward dynamic with his teammates.A similar situation may repeat itself next season: The Knicks hired Rick Brunson, a former N.B.A. player, as an assistant coach and are expected to target his son, Jalen Brunson, one of the top free agents, as an off-season acquisition.Of course, it could work out just fine, as it did for Gary Payton. In the hours after Golden State won it all last week in Boston, he celebrated his son’s triumph by dancing through the hallways at TD Garden. More

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      From Tattoos to Malcolm X T-shirts, N.B.A. Hopefuls Talk Style

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      Three top draft prospects — Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams — explained their approach to fashion. “I feel like I don’t really miss when I put fits on,” Holmgren said.Paolo Banchero lifted the right sleeve of his black hooded sweatshirt to point out the green tattoo ink on his forearm. His long arms make up most of the 7-foot-1 wingspan that positioned him as one of the top prospects in the N.B.A. draft on Thursday, but they also tell a story.His right arm is packed with tattoos that depict crucial parts of his upbringing and make statements about his style: the Space Needle and the rest of the skyline of his hometown, Seattle, sit on his right shoulder; “19th and Spruce” is written on his inner biceps as a nod to the Boys and Girls Club where he began playing basketball; and on his inner forearm is the logo for his friend’s Seattle-based Skyblue Collective clothing brand, which he sports often and says is “a part of him.”Banchero has a tattoo on his right arm that reads “19th and Spruce,” a nod to the Boys and Girls Club in Seattle where he grew up playing basketball.Bob Donnan/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBanchero, 19, who led the Duke men’s basketball team to the Final Four this year, uses his tattoos and outfits as a form of self-expression, a subtle way of sending messages. At a pre-draft style event at a Brooklyn barbershop on Tuesday, he wore an all-black luxury designer outfit, which he said was tame compared to what he would put together on draft night.On Thursday, he wore a bright purple suit as the Orlando Magic selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.Banchero and many of the top players in the 2022 draft class already have a public persona, but it will be boosted immensely if an N.B.A. team signs them. While playing well and winning championships are paramount in how an N.B.A. player is perceived, style and image are a close second. After all, this is the league in which Los Angeles Lakers forward/center Anthony Davis made his unibrow a celebrity in its own right, even trademarking the phrase “Fear The Brow” in 2012.N.B.A. athletes have made it easy for fans to appreciate their fashion sense, turning their pregame entrances into their own version of the Met Gala. Fans on social media quickly share photos and videos from players’ 30-second walks to the locker rooms from cars or team buses at N.B.A. arenas. GQ magazine crowned Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the N.B.A.’s most stylish player of 2022, over Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker, because “the guy cares about getting dressed.”Jalen Williams, a forward from Santa Clara University and a potential first-round pick in the draft, is looking forward to the pregame catwalk. On his cellphone, he has multiple search tabs open for different clothing brands. He laughed and pointed at Jaden Hardy from the G League Ignite, another potential 2022 draft pick, when he saw that they were wearing the same black sweatpants from the brand MNML at the event on Tuesday.Williams said he tried to balance being conscious about what he wore while having fun with his style, because he knew that he would be judged by his outfits and appearance. He incorporates clothing from less popular brands into his wardrobe to encourage those who may look up to him to be “comfortable in their own skin.”Jalen Williams said fashion was important to him — even in video games.Young Kwak/Associated PressWilliams at the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty Images“I think that’s the biggest thing that gets misunderstood in fashion,” Williams, 21, said. “You feel like you have to please whoever or look a certain way, but whatever you like is what you like.”Williams said he also tried to support small brands and promote social-justice issues through his clothing. He sported a jacket from Tattoo’d Cloth, which made custom embroidered jackets for some draft prospects, and tagged the brand in an Instagram story. On Juneteenth, he wore a shirt featuring Malcolm X, and he frequently wears different kinds of apparel supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think as athletes, it’s important to inspire people and kind of spark a change and use our platform,” Williams said. “Sometimes, not even saying anything but wearing the clothes is really important.”Williams’s style goes beyond his outfits, too. As a high school sophomore, he decided to don a single braid while keeping the rest of his hair unbraided, hanging the braid at eye level. That has become a popular style in the N.B.A.“I’m not going to say I started it, but I might’ve started it,” he said jokingly.Fashion has long played a significant role in Williams’s life, back to his childhood when he began using the My Player mode in the N.B.A. 2K video game, in which users create players and can style them for hanging out in a virtual park. He is serious about the fashion choices of his My Player.“You can’t pull up to the park in brown and gray,” Williams said, mocking the generic outfit given to the created players. “No brown shirts!”The Oklahoma City Thunder selected Williams with the 12th pick in the draft on Thursday. He wore a dark pinstriped suit and large sunglasses with his famous single braid draped over them.Chet Holmgren, who is seven feet tall, said it was hard to find clothes that fit his long and lanky frame when he was younger.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHolmgren at the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesFor the seven-foot center Chet Holmgren, who played at Gonzaga and was expected to be a top-three pick on Thursday, being fashionable was a challenge growing up. He could never find clothes that fit his long and lanky frame, and he could not afford the custom-fitted outfits he adored. He ridiculed his most impressive childhood outfit: Nike socks, basic T-shirts, basketball shorts and basketball shoes. In high school, Holmgren said, his style skyrocketed as he turned to resale websites and brands that had clothes in the large-and-tall sizing. Now, he is confident that he is the most fashionable prospect in this draft class.“In my opinion, I’m the swaggiest dude beyond just what I am wearing,” Holmgren said. He further explained that fashion was about more than just the pieces a person was wearing.“You could spend $10,000 on an outfit, but you might have a trash outfit on,” he said. “You might have the right pieces, but if you can’t put them together, the outfit’s not going to be great.”Like Williams, Holmgren is looking forward to the N.B.A.’s pregame runway, and he isn’t apprehensive about his style choices.“I feel like I don’t really miss when I put fits on,” Holmgren said. “So whatever I’m wearing, I’ll be all right.”Holmgren was drafted second overall to the Oklahoma City Thunder. His diamond chain, which featured a pair of dice, shone in Barclays Center as he walked to the stage. He chose dice for his chain, he said, because he was “big on betting on himself.” More

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      NBA Draft: Paolo Banchero Goes No. 1 to Orlando Magic

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      Banchero, a forward from Duke, helped his team reach the Final Four this past season. Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren went to the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 2.Paolo Banchero knew Thursday would be a special day, the start of his N.B.A. career.He had no idea about the plans of the Orlando Magic, the team selecting first overall in the N.B.A. draft that night. When he found out, just minutes before N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver called his name, he couldn’t believe it.“This isn’t even a dream,” Banchero said. “I feel like this is a fantasy. I dreamed of being in the N.B.A., but being the No. 1 overall pick — this is crazy.”The Magic selected Banchero, a forward from Duke University, with the top pick in Thursday’s draft. He is a 6-foot-10, 250-pound power forward, whose mother, Rhonda Smith-Banchero, played in the W.N.B.A. He was a guard earlier in his basketball career and played football and basketball at O’Dea High School in Seattle.In the minutes before his name was called, Banchero sat at a table on the floor of Barclays Center showing no emotion on his face. The Magic were on the clock and word began to spread that Banchero might be their pick. Cameras crowded around him, but he didn’t outwardly react. Only when he heard his name did his expression change.He lowered his head, looked up and smiled with tears in his eyes.“I was telling everyone I wasn’t going to cry no matter what pick I was picked,” Banchero said. “It just hit me. I couldn’t stop it.”In his only season at Duke, Banchero averaged 17.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s rookie of the year.The picks for the rest of the top five: Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren at No. 2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. to the Houston Rockets at No. 3, Iowa’s Keegan Murray to the Sacramento Kings at No. 4 and Purdue’s Jaden Ivey to the Detroit Pistons at No. 5.Three prospects were thought to have separated themselves at the top of this year’s draft: Banchero, Holmgren and Smith.Holmgren nodded and smirked subtly as he heard Banchero’s name called first. When Silver called his name, Holmgren broke out into a wide smile, stopping for handshakes and long embraces with his family members.“I got a thousand emotions to describe this moment,” Holmgren said during an interview that was broadcast in the arena in Brooklyn. “It’s surreal and everything I expected.”Holmgren, 20, is a rail-thin, seven-foot-tall center who grew up in Minneapolis and was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball in 2021. He was a high school teammate of Jalen Suggs, whom the Magic drafted fifth overall in 2021. They each spent one season at Gonzaga.Holmgren led Gonzaga to a 28-4 record and averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts. He also averaged 9.9 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game. Gonzaga entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, but was upset in the round of 16.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, left, announced Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren second. Holmgren, a seven-footer, averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesIn the days before the draft, rumors circulated in media reports that Orlando had decided to select Smith first overall. As Smith waited for his name to be called, he looked disappointed. When finally Silver announced his name, another prospect, Louisiana State’s Tari Eason, who played in the same conference, leaped out of his seat to clap for Smith.“I know it was a possibility, so when it didn’t happen, I was surprised,” Smith said of the prospect of his being selected first overall. “You know, all the guys up for the pick are great players. They bring a lot to the table. It was like I said in the other interviews: It was a coin flip. So when it happened, you know, I was just happy for them, clapped for them and just waiting to get my name called.”Smith, 19, spent one season at Auburn after a distinguished high school basketball career in Georgia. He played for the same Amateur Athletic Union team as another No. 1 pick by the Magic: Dwight Howard. Smith’s father, also named Jabari Smith, spent parts of four seasons in the N.B.A. in the early 2000s.Jabari Smith Jr. was named the Southeastern Conference’s freshman of the year and a second-team all-American this past season. Smith is a 6-foot-10 power forward with the ability to shoot from the perimeter. He made 42.9 percent of his 3-pointers and averaged 16.9 points per game at Auburn.The first surprise of the night was the selection of Murray by the Kings at No. 4, given the expectation that Banchero, Holmgren and Smith would go in some order in the top three. The spectators at Barclays Center erupted at the announcement.The first big surprise of the draft came at No. 4, when Sacramento selected the Iowa forward Keegan Murray.John Minchillo/Associated PressMurray is the highest-selected Hawkeye in school history. The 6-foot-8 forward earned consensus first-team all-American honors this past season and finished fourth in Division I scoring with 23.5 points per game. He led the Hawkeyes to a 26-10 record and a first-round appearance in the N.C.A.A. tournament.Ivey spent two seasons at Purdue before declaring for the draft. He averaged 17.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game during his sophomore season.The Magic won this year’s draft lottery after finishing the season at 22-60, the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second-worst record in the league. Only the Houston Rockets, who had the third pick in this year’s draft after a 20-62 season, won fewer games than the Magic.This year marked the fourth time in the franchise’s history that it made the first overall pick. The Magic drafted Shaquille O’Neal with the first pick in 1992; Chris Webber, whom they immediately traded for Penny Hardaway, in 1993; and Dwight Howard in 2004.The pairing of Hardaway and O’Neal yielded one N.B.A. finals appearance, but no championships for the Magic. Howard also led the Magic to one finals appearance, in 2009.Later in their careers, O’Neal and Howard won championships while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers — O’Neal in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and Howard in 2020.Before Banchero, the last Duke player selected No. 1 overall in the N.B.A. draft was Zion Williamson in 2019. Banchero follows two guards — Anthony Edwards (2020) and Cade Cunningham (2021) — in earning the distinction of being the top pick. More

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      N.B.A. Draft Preview: A Deep Field Could Yield Surprise Stars

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      Fans may have heard of Chet Holmgren and Shaedon Sharpe, but others are ready for their shot: “I knew if I got good enough, the N.B.A. would find me,” one said.When the Orlando Magic hand their draft card to N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, on Thursday night at Barclays Center, they’ll settle a debate that has raged in draft circles for the better part of a year: Who should be the No. 1 pick?The front-runner is Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, a rail-thin but nail-tough seven-footer who can shoot, dribble, pass and defend with aplomb. But there are equally strong cases to be made for the Auburn big man Jabari Smith, who spent this past season sinking seemingly impossible shots, and for Duke’s Paolo Banchero, a creative shotmaker who is as polished in the paint as he is on the perimeter.“All three guys are incredibly talented,” said Jonathan Givony, founder of the scouting service DraftExpress an N.B.A. draft analyst at ESPN. “This draft has really great players at the top and really good depth, too.”Here are five more prospects to know.Nikola Jovic doesn’t mind being compared to Nikola Jokic. After all, Jokic is a two-time most valuable player, he said.Darko Vojinovic/Associated PressNikola Jovic6-foot-11, 223 pounds, forward, Mega Mozzart (Serbia)People ask Nikola Jovic about Nikola Jokic all the time. And it makes sense. Jovic and the Denver Nuggets star have quite a bit in common: They’re both Serbian big men who played for the same club, Mega Mozzart, and only a single letter separates their last names. But the comparison doesn’t bother Jovic, who is expected to be the first international player taken on Thursday.“People bring that up all the time,” he said. “I’m really cool with that. I think it’s pretty funny also because the chances of something like that happening are really low. At the same time, I feel good because people are comparing me to a two-time league M.V.P.”As a boy, Jovic wanted to be a professional water polo player. He spent his summers with his mother in Montenegro and loved swimming in the Adriatic Sea. When he was 13, his father introduced him to basketball. What started as a backyard hobby soon became an obsession and a profession. “I was getting bigger and bigger,” Jovic said, “and it was pretty easy to see that basketball would be a better choice than water polo.”Although many N.B.A. teams track European stars from their early teenage years, Jovic didn’t become a big name on draft boards until he broke out at the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in Belgrade in March 2021. Offensively, he could develop into a floor-spacing 4 who can shoot 3s, lead fast breaks and make smart passes. He said he is willing to remain in Europe after being drafted, but he hopes to land with a team that wants him to play right away.“Even if I need to play in the G League, that’s cool,” he said, referring to the N.B.A.’s developmental league. “But right now, I think the perfect fit for me is the N.B.A.”Dominick Barlow has gone from overlooked three-star prospect to a potential first-round pick.Kyle Hess/Overtime Elite, via Associated PressDominick Barlow6-foot-9, 221 pounds, forward, Overtime EliteWhen N.B.A. evaluators visited Overtime Elite this year, it was with an eye toward the future. The start-up league has potential top-10 players in the 2023 and 2024 drafts. But one player from the 2022 draft class took advantage of all that extra scouting attention and has worked his way from being an unheralded 3-star high school prospect to a potential first-round draft pick: Dominick Barlow.“The fact that this was OTE’s first year intrigued scouts,” Barlow, 19, said. “And once the scouts were in the building, they were able to see what I could do.”Barlow played for Dumont High School, a small public high school in Dumont, N.J. He didn’t land with a powerhouse Amateur Athletic Union program until the summer before his senior year, when a coach for the New York Renaissance spotted him playing at a public park. He surprised most basketball insiders in September when he left a prep program and declined several high-major offers to sign with Overtime Elite. It offers a six-figure salary to boys’ and men’s basketball players who are at least in their junior year of high school.Barlow hopes his story inspires other overlooked players to keep working. “I came in as a 3-star kid, and I’m leaving as an N.B.A. draft pick. Some 5-star kids struggle with getting to the N.B.A. one year after high school,” he said.Keegan Murray, who played for Iowa, was described as the “most productive player in college basketball this year.”Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressKeegan Murray6-foot-8, 225 pounds, forward, IowaWhen Keegan and Kris Murray were going through the recruiting process for college basketball, the twin brothers told every coach that they weren’t a package deal. Their father, Kenyon, had played college basketball at Iowa in the early 1990s, and he encouraged them to each find their own path.Their father’s faith and knowledge helped the brothers remain buoyant even when they ended their high school careers with just one scholarship offer, to Western Illinois, a Summit League school that has never been to the Division I N.C.A.A. tournament.“Having a D-I player be your coach and teach you everything and guide you through the recruiting process is really helpful,” Keegan, 21, said of his father, who was an assistant on his high school team in Iowa. “He told us we were going to be pros, and we believed him.”After declining the Western Illinois offer and decamping to Florida for a year at a prep school, Keegan and Kris signed with their father’s alma mater, Iowa. Keegan showed remarkable efficiency as a freshman and started garnering N.B.A. draft buzz, but he wasn’t considered a top-flight talent until this past season. As a sophomore, Murray was the top scorer among Power 5 conference players, he had the second most rebounds in the Big Ten, and he shot 55.4 percent from the field and a solid 39.8 percent from 3.“He was the most productive player in college basketball this year,” Givony said, adding that he was good in transition and on defense. “Everybody’s looking for a player like him.”Keegan is projected to be a top-five pick, while Kris has decided to return to Iowa for another season. “Thinking about where I was three years ago and where I am today is surreal,” Keegan said. “I didn’t always know where or when all this hard work would pay off, but I knew it would pay off eventually.”Ryan Rollins, in blue, who played for the University of Toledo, is looking to follow the path of other mid-major players, like Ja Morant, to the N.B.A.Al Goldis/Associated PressRyan Rollins6-foot-3, 179 pounds, guard, ToledoRyan Rollins has heard people say that he should have returned to the University of Toledo for his junior season. With another year of experience, he would project as a likely first-round pick in 2023. But Rollins rejects that idea. He doesn’t see any reason to wait.“I feel like I’m one of the better players in the draft,” Rollins said. “If I don’t get picked first round, that’s fine. In the long run, I’m going to be very good for a very long time in this league. Whenever and wherever I end up going, I’ll be proud to be there.”A Detroit native, Rollins played for a prominent A.A.U. program, the Family. But the stacked roster, combined with some nagging injuries and his decision to commit to college early, kept him under the recruiting radar. “I always had the mind-set that I was where I was for a reason,” he said. “I kept working, kept trying to perfect my craft. I didn’t worry about the politics of basketball. I knew if I got good enough, the N.B.A. would find me.”Over two seasons at Toledo, he emerged as a mid-major showstopper, with a smooth handle, fluid footwork and a deadly midrange game. Now he’s likely to be a second-round pick with the potential to sneak into the first round. But he’s more worried about what he does when he arrives in the N.B.A. He hopes he can be the next mid-major player to become a superstar.He’s inspired by former mid-major players who are in the N.B.A., such as Ja Morant (Murray State), Damian Lillard (Weber State) and CJ McCollum (Lehigh University).“They went to small schools but have been able to make names for themselves,” Rollins said. “I feel like I’m next.”Shaedon Sharpe is expected to be a top-10 pick, even though he hasn’t played competitively in almost a year.Todd Kirkland/Getty ImagesShaedon Sharpe6-foot-5, 198 pounds, guard, KentuckyThere is no player more mysterious in the 2022 draft than Shaedon Sharpe. Although he’s listed as a Kentucky prospect, Sharpe never suited up for the Wildcats. In fact, he hasn’t played in a competitive basketball game in almost a year.The Ontario, Canada, native moved to Kansas to play for Sunrise Christian Academy in his sophomore year of high school, then transferred to Arizona’s Dream City Christian in 2020 for his junior season, when he was unranked in the class of 2022. Then a dominant performance with the UPlay Canada team in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League last summer made everyone take notice. The tournament is often a proving ground for future N.B.A. stars, and Sharpe averaged 22.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 28.3 minutes per game over 12 games.Sharpe graduated from high school a year early and enrolled at Kentucky this spring. Although there were rumors that he would join the team on the court, or return for the 2022-23 season, he has instead entered the N.B.A. draft. And there’s good reason: He will almost certainly be taken in the top 10.“In terms of physical ability and sheer talent, it’s all there,” Givony said. “He’s a dynamic shot maker, an aggressive defender, a smart passer.”N.B.A. teams haven’t been able to see much from him, but his 6-foot-11 wingspan, explosive athleticism and polished shooting stroke could have most N.B.A. teams outside of the top five ready to take the risk. More

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      He Saw. He Believed. Now He Can Be an N.B.A. Star.

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      MIAMI — The training drill is named after LeBron James. Most people would be better off if they just let him do it.Dribble a basketball while sprinting full court. Dunk it. Rebound. No time to catch your breath. Turn around and do it again.Ten times.Is that how to spend a morning in Miami?Mark Williams walked into a gym tucked beside the bustling Interstate 95 in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami on a recent Thursday. The glowing lights of the gym were a poor substitute for the sunny skies in South Beach, where he could have been instead. But when you’re trying to make it to the N.B.A., some things have to wait.He sat on the first row of bleachers inside the gym and exchanged his slides for splashy Nikes — a little blue, a burst of purple, a lot of neon orange. He wrangled the shoelaces and made his way to a video room, slipping his 7-foot-2 frame through the doorway. Williams, 20, is tall enough to touch a basketball rim just by shifting onto his toes.He joined a handful of N.B.A. hopefuls to watch video of a pre-draft workout by the Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo from several years ago. The message? While Adebayo, now an All-Star and all-defensive team member, did not sink every one of his shots, his energy never wavered.Williams got the message.Williams is best known for his rim protection skills, but he’s been working on his shooting.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesBaseline, sprint, dunk. Baseline, sprint, dunk. His black T-shirt and black shorts didn’t show it, but his face couldn’t hide the sweat. The LeBron James drill seemed to exhaust him. But Williams had enough in his tank to display some of the jaw-dropping athleticism that has him pegged as a potential first-round draft pick. Standing at the baseline, he jumped, rotated the ball under his legs and slammed it into the hoop.N.B.A. prospects a generation ago were largely on their own after either declaring for the draft or exhausting their college eligibility. Their agents scheduled workouts with teams before the draft, and the players, often by themselves, flew out for the visit. They did not think of altering their diet or agonize about how to answer questions from N.B.A. personnel. They often trained for the auditions of their life by joining whatever pickup games they could find.But the best players in Williams’s generation have little downtime while dangling on the cliff between childhood and adulthood, amateurism and the N.B.A. Their Thursdays are spent training. Their Mondays and Fridays, too, are at the gym. The hopefuls who sign with the same agent — in Williams’s case, Jeff Schwartz at Excel Sports Management — can become a team of their own. They may live with one another, attending workouts, recovery sessions and media training all aimed at preparing them for those fateful auditions and the complicated life that awaits an N.B.A. star.It can be an anxious time, a monthslong Christmas Eve.“I think it’s just the uncertainty about where I’m going to be,” Williams said. “When I get there, got to find somewhere to live. I got to find a car. I’m going to have new teammates, so just building a relationship with them, coaches. Just not knowing what’s going to happen. I feel like I embrace the uncertainty. It’s not like I’m nervous, but I’d say that’s the biggest thing.“You don’t know what’s going to happen.”Williams thought about entering the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season at Duke, but “I just wanted to go back and really prove myself.”Mary Beth Koeth for The New York Times‘Places where people can’t see’Williams grew up in Norfolk, Va., the youngest of three children. His mother, Margaret, was a nurse, and his father, Alex, is a gastroenterologist. Mark went to golf camp as a child. He played tennis for a summer. He dominated flag football for a while. No sport held his imagination like basketball did.Mark was almost 10 years old and already nearing 6 feet tall when he started shadowing his older sister Elizabeth, who at 17 was a basketball star in Virginia. She trained with Nadine Domond, a former W.N.B.A. player, who is an assistant coach for Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. Domond indulged the curious younger brother by letting him box out and practice his footwork in the post.“I’d be messing around looking, and she would teach me little tips and tricks,” Mark said.Mark started to envision his own basketball future when he attended the McDonald’s All American Game for top high school players in Chicago in 2011. Elizabeth had been chosen for the girls’ team.Mark surveyed the tall, young players on the boys’ team and asked one of them — the future eight-time N.B.A. All-Star Anthony Davis — to sign his basketball. He considered the path players such as Davis were taking toward the N.B.A. That’s what he wanted to do, too.He enjoyed watching James, who was with the Big Three in Miami, and Kevin Durant, who was beginning to harness his talents as a deadly marksman in Oklahoma City. Both were dominant, multifaceted players who seemingly did everything possible on the court. But Williams had no local N.B.A. team to follow.He could expend most of his energy being Elizabeth’s biggest fan.Mark Williams blocked the shot of a Virginia Tech player during a game in March.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersElizabeth Williams blocked the shot of a Stony Brook player during a game in 2014.Andy Mead/YCJ/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty ImagesElizabeth finished high school in Virginia and began her 2011-12 freshman season at Duke, where she became the program’s first four-time all-American. Mark was a vocal fixture at her games. “He was super loud,” Elizabeth said. “It didn’t bother me. I loved it.”Elizabeth had figured her brother would be tall. She is 6 feet 3 inches tall, and they have a couple of uncles who are around 6-foot-9. But Mark did not simply have a growth spurt — it really never stopped. “I like being tall,” Mark said. “It’s nice. You get to see over everything, places where people can’t see.”A rising basketball star needs that kind of vision, both physically and metaphorically. Williams became a McDonald’s all-American like his sister — although the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the game — and he chose to play basketball at Duke, too. Elizabeth’s No. 1 jersey was retired at Cameron Indoor Stadium after the Connecticut Sun took her with the fourth overall pick in the 2015 W.N.B.A. draft. She’s in her eighth W.N.B.A. season, her first with the Washington Mystics. Mark has his sights set on that kind of professional path as well. But others don’t always see what we see.Williams debated declaring for the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season, but returned when he was pegged as a borderline first-round selection.“I just wanted to go back and really prove myself and make it not up for debate anymore,” Wiliams said.Williams is learning how to navigate the increased recognition that comes with playing high-stakes basketball.Al Drago for The New York TimesHe flashed dominance as a rim protector and rebounder as a sophomore and grew more confident with each game. By the time North Carolina outlasted Duke in a memorable Final Four appearance in early April, he had known for a while that he would be off to the N.B.A. “Throughout the year, I really felt like I could be a pro,” Williams said.‘Setting a tone’The voices of Kanye West, Drake and DJ Khaled blared through the speakers of Core Fitness Miami, but Williams was tuned in to Andy Luaces.Luaces owns the gym on Northeast 25th Street in the Edgewater neighborhood of Miami. It’s near a juice bar and is lined with framed jerseys of some of the professional athletes Luaces has trained, including Terry Rozier and John Wall. The space has fake grass, rows of weights and no room for messing around.“If I let people start to get away with half-ass reps, then you’re setting a tone for your gym that quality here doesn’t matter,” Luaces said.Williams watches film with other N.B.A. hopefuls. One video showed a yearsold predraft workout of the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesFueled by a bagel sandwich and a smoothie, Williams was there with four other N.B.A. prospects for an afternoon workout after the morning drills at the Overtown gym several miles south.Williams tossed a football back and forth with Ousmane Dieng, a French prospect who last played for the New Zealand Breakers, a professional men’s team based in Auckland. Luaces gathered Williams, Dieng and three others for what he called a feel-good workout. For the next hour, the group cycled through exercises that targeted their hamstrings and glutes.They started working out with Luaces at his gym a couple of months earlier. At the time, most still had lingering aches and pains from their seasons in college or overseas. Luaces had hoped to help them become healthy, stronger and faster to make their bid for the N.B.A.Now, with team tryouts on the horizon, he steered the workouts toward preserving their progress.Luaces watched closely as Williams collapsed before finishing the final repetition on a Nordic hamstring exercise. He told Williams to do it again. Williams grimaced and complied, letting out a long exhale upon finishing.Getting ready for the N.B.A. involves plenty of weight lifting and basketball, but there is more. It’s about learning to find time for balance — Williams and the hopefuls took a trip to the beach — and deciding how to craft an image. Williams picked his draft-night suit earlier that week, debating how flashy he wanted to be and what accessories he wanted to wear. He went to an Eastern Conference finals game between the Boston Celtics and the Heat in downtown Miami the day before.“I saw A-Rod at the game last night,” Williams told Luaces, referring to the former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.Some fans asked Williams for selfies at the game. His height has always made him noticeable, but he also has a quick smile. Now he stands out by name, especially after the Final Four run. Williams hopes he can stir some of the same inspiration in children that his 2011 run-in with Davis spurred in him.The best big men in the N.B.A. are able to dunk and shoot from outside.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesHis oldest sister Victoria Oloyede has a 2-year-old son named Tristan. “He’s a lot of fun,” Williams said. “Being an uncle is fun.”Just before leaving the gym to spend an hour in physical therapy next door, Williams asked Luaces if he had a tape measure.Luaces found one in a drawer. Williams held out one long arm and asked Luaces to measure his wrist. He planned to buy a new bracelet soon.“I would go 8 ½ or 8 ¾,” Luaces said. “Are you a bracelet guy?”“He’s about to be,” Dieng chimed in.‘Something I never experienced’Williams returned to the Overtown gym for another hour of shooting to close the day’s sessions. The final workout was shorter and looser, designed to develop a shooting rhythm and confidence by seeing the ball repeatedly splash home.Andrew Moran, a skills coach who works with Williams, sees him as more than a dunker and rim protector and said that N.B.A. teams would be surprised by the fluidity and accuracy of his outside shot.Ten years ago, a 7-foot-2 center wouldn’t need to spend months working on 3-pointers. But the demands are different now. The best big men are shooters — Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns — so prospects want that edge.And in this enlightened era of load management, they also want to rest sometimes.Williams has been projected to be drafted in the middle-to-late first round. The N.B.A. invited him to attend the draft in person.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesAfter dunking and sprinting and activating his glutes, Williams planned to spend the rest of the day recuperating, possibly starting on a new show. He recently finished “Ozark” on Netflix.“It was crazy,” he said of the show’s final season.He thinks about how he would fit on various N.B.A. teams, the combinations cycling through his mind. He is projected to be drafted in the mid-to-late first round. Williams said he didn’t care where he went.Elizabeth will be at Barclays Center for the draft on Thursday after getting permission from the Mystics to miss a game to attend with her parents and sister.Mark is ready. He can already see it. “I’m looking good in my suit, and then when Adam Silver calls my name, it’ll just be surreal,” Williams said, referring to the N.B.A. commissioner. “It’ll be, I don’t know. I can’t even put into words that feeling. It’ll just be something I never experienced. A life-changing moment.”On most evenings, Williams asks himself if he had a good day before drifting to sleep. Soon, he will be living the dream. More

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      The WNBA Has Too Few Spots for Too Many Talented Players

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      Making it to the pros is always hard. But with only 12 teams with 12 players each, the W.N.B.A. makes it seemingly impossible for too many women’s college basketball stars.Raina Perez is used to staring down obstacles. It’s not just her sport, women’s basketball, which seems forever in the shadow of the men’s game. It’s not just her height, 5 feet 4 inches — diminutive, even for a point guard. It’s not just that she is Mexican American, and that there are few Mexican American stars in the world of hoops.“When you look at me, you don’t automatically think ‘basketball player,’” she told me. “I don’t catch the eye like that.”It’s all of these things, and another — the biggest obstacle of them all. After starring in college and nearly guiding North Carolina State to this year’s Final Four, Perez hopes to make it into the W.N.B.A.And that’s not easy in the slightest.Even as the league’s popularity has surged — last season it drew its highest viewership since 2008 — making the full-time roster on a W.N.B.A. team remains one of the most challenging tasks in American sports, especially for young players who need seasoning. Each of the league’s 12 teams can carry only 12 players, and most teams play with 11 because of salary cap restrictions.Said Breanna Stewart, the former league most valuable player, who anchors the Seattle Storm: “There are too many teams like ours: no rookies.”That means the chances are slim for players trying to start a meaningful career in the best league in the world. They’re even slimmer for undrafted talents like Perez.Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm was impressed with Perez’s play. “Women’s basketball needs to find a way to bridge the gap between college and pro,” she said.Steph Chambers/Getty Images“I’ve dreamed of playing in the league since I was a young girl,” said Perez, 23, who grew up rooting for her hometown team, the Phoenix Mercury. “I found out this year just how hard that is. No matter how good you are, you’ve got to find a situation that is just right.”Perez was part of a powerful core that made North Carolina State a top-five Division I college team last season and a contender for the national title. One of her teammates, Elissa Cunane, was drafted with the 17th pick by the Storm. The Minnesota Lynx used the 22nd pick to take another teammate, Kayla Jones.Perez wasn’t selected in the three-round draft, but Storm Coach Noelle Quinn sought to sign her as a free agent. Quinn had been following Perez’s unusual journey for years.Known as a clutch shooter with a soothsayer’s knack for reading the action before it fully developed, Perez finished high school as one of the best players in Arizona. Still, there were doubts about whether she was good enough to make it in big-time Division I basketball.She went to Northern Arizona and immediately flourished. Then she transferred to Cal State Fullerton and flourished again. Finally, seeking to prove her ability against the best college competition, Perez switched to North Carolina State, where she became a star.Perez left college on a roll. Her game-winning jumper sealed North Carolina State’s Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship. Then she led her team to the N.C.A.A. tournament round of 8 with a last-minute steal and layup to beat Notre Dame in the Sweet 16.On April 14, when she signed a training camp contract with the Storm, she felt buoyed by confidence from those performances.On April 23, she played a preseason game against the Los Angeles Sparks, scoring 9 points and recording three rebounds, two steals and an assist.Quinn was impressed. So was Stewart. “Raina is someone who just gets it, who just knows how to play,” Stewart told me. “She’s a flat-out hooper.”On May 2, shortly before the regular season began, Perez was cut from the team. Around the same time, Cunane and Jones were cut, too.The roller coaster kept on.Perez headed back to Phoenix, eyes set on training for the women’s professional leagues in Europe, which begin their seasons in the fall.Then her cellphone rang. “How quickly can you rejoin us?” a Storm official asked. Seattle’s Epiphanny Prince had tested positive for the coronavirus. The Storm needed a quick replacement.So it was that Perez made it onto a roster for a regular-season game: two minutes against the Mercury, long enough to dish out a pair of assists. She suited up for another game. And then, once again, she was let go.Perez helped lead North Carolina State to the round of 8 in this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament.William Howard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt shouldn’t be this way, Stewart said. “Women’s basketball needs to find a way to bridge the gap between college and pro.”My thoughts exactly, especially since the W.N.B.A. is still working to gain traction with American fans besotted mainly with men’s sports.Stewart is among a chorus of veteran stars speaking openly about the need to keep more players like Perez, who gain sizable followings in college only to seemingly disappear after graduation.“They need to be kept in the fold so they can keep learning and then take bigger roles,” Stewart said, before citing possible solutions: a more flexible salary cap; a developmental league modeled after the N.B.A.’s G League; taxi squads that allow fringe players to remain with teams for practice.W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has acknowledged the problem and says growing the league beyond 12 teams is likely the best solution. That sounds great, but expansion will probably take years.Waiting too long for a solution could take a toll on the league’s future. Suppose the W.N.B.A. keeps making it this hard to develop a viable career. How much time must pass before the younger generation decides that the W.N.B.A. is too much of a long shot to aim for?Perez now suits up in a newly minted league for Fuerza Regia in Monterrey, Mexico. On Sunday, before 1,800 home fans in Fuerza Regia’s 100-79 victory over Abejas de León, she scored 9 points and had 8 assists.It’s hardly the biggest stage, and the season will last no longer than mid-July, but it’s professional. The team provides her with an apartment. The crowds are small but boisterous, and they love cheering for an American with Mexican roots.Perez knows the future is uncertain. She’s still planning on eventually playing in Europe. But more players are looking for fewer jobs overseas. Because of the war in Ukraine, Americans aren’t playing in Russia anymore. Enthusiasm for playing in China has dimmed because of its politics. And yet, like so many others in her position, Perez vows not to give up.“I’m a basketball lifer,” she said, voice firm as she prepared for another practice with her new team in a new country. “I’m going to stay with this as long as I possibly can.” More

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      The Liberty Are Reinventing Themselves

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      The team enters the 2022 W.N.B.A. season with a new coach and center, returning players who were hampered by injuries last year, and the desire to become full-fledged title contenders.The Liberty are not sure what the full identity of their revamped team should be. But they are certain about one aspect of it.“I want teams to kind of be scared of us when they have to be on offense,” said forward Natasha Howard, who won the W.N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2019, when she was with the Seattle Storm.This will be Howard’s second season with the Liberty, but in many ways, and for many reasons, it seems unlikely to be much like her first. The team has a new head coach (Sandy Brondello), a new veteran center (Stefanie Dolson) and, players said, a new commitment to becoming a championship contender once the season begins May 6.“There’s a sense of urgency,” guard Sabrina Ionescu said during the Liberty’s media day on Thursday. She added that the team did not want to wait years to become better, and had a “Why not us?” mentality.The Liberty finished last season with a 12-20 record and slid into the playoffs as the eighth seed. They lost to the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury in a first-round single-elimination game. The team had injury woes all season: Jocelyn Willoughby tore an Achilles’ tendon in a preseason scrimmage; Howard missed 15 games because of a knee injury; Ionescu dealt with a lingering ankle injury.All three are back and said they are feeling good.“I’m way ahead of where I used to be,” Willoughby said.Another returner is guard Asia Durr, who goes by AD. Durr, the second overall draft pick in 2019, missed the past two seasons as they recovered from Covid-19. On Thursday, Durr said they were still dealing with confusion and brain fog but that Liberty teammates had been helpful.“It’s pretty challenging to stay patient every single day,” Durr said, punctuating the last three words.Like Howard and several others, Durr mentioned defense as the focus of this year’s team. Brondello, who coached the Mercury to the finals last season in her eighth year with the team, said she wanted the Liberty to have an “aggressive mentality.”More points in the paint. Fewer turnovers. Not settling for outside shots. Drawing more fouls.“We’re trying to develop a tough team,” Brondello said.At the core of the team are players like Ionescu; Howard; Betnijah Laney, who was named to her first All-Star team last season; and Michaela Onyenwere, the 2021 W.N.B.A. rookie of the year. “I’m always looking to grow,” Laney said, adding that she’s surrounded by great players.Joining them is Dolson, who won a championship with the Chicago Sky last year.Dolson, a 6-foot-5 center entering her ninth season, said she likes to post up — even though people don’t think she does — and that it will be difficult for teams to face off against her and the 6-foot-2 Howard.“It’s hard to scout when both post players can kind of do everything,” she said.Dolson averaged 7.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last season, and shot 40.4 percent from 3-point range. Howard averaged 16.2 points and 7.2 rebounds in 13 games last season.Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu had a double-double in the team’s playoff loss to Phoenix.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesVeterans like Howard and Dolson will be key to the Liberty’s success, but so will the younger players, who spoke on Thursday about how they’ve grown and what they still need to improve.“I was so lost last year,” said DiDi Richards, a second-year guard-forward.Richards said she often was in her own head while on the court, instead of being vocal, but she is working on changing that as coaches ask her to take on a bigger leadership role. “I’m ready for it,” she said.Onyenwere spoke confidently about defense — “not really a skill; it’s all effort” — but also said she wanted to improve on offense after shooting just 32.7 percent from 3-point range last season.Guard Sami Whitcomb, who went 42.5 percent from 3-point range last year, is the team’s most prolific and best long-range shooter. She came to the Liberty last year after four seasons in Seattle, and she said she was excited about helping the team create a new identity. But, she said, it won’t happen “overnight.”Some things do happen quickly in sports, though — like going from W.N.B.A. prospect to Liberty rookie.The Liberty traded with the Storm to get the 18th pick in the draft on April 11 and used it to select Lorela Cubaj, a 6-foot-4 forward from Georgia Tech. Four days later, she signed a rookie contract with the team. Three days after that, training camp began.On Thursday, she said that she had developed as a facilitator while at Georgia Tech and hoped to use that skill with the Liberty. “I just want to put my teammates in the best position to score,” she said.One thing she wants to leave in Georgia: the food. Cubaj, who is from Italy, joked that she would not miss the pizza from Atlanta now that she is in New York. More