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      After Opting Out, Micah Parsons Prepares for the 2021 NFL Draft

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      Players and scouts adjusted their methods to account for the absence of a traditional combine in Indianapolis.Micah Parsons relaxed his 246-pound body as he decelerated from running the 40-yard dash in front of N.F.L. scouts at a predraft showcase hosted by his college, Penn State, in late March.When Parsons, a linebacker projected to be one of the first defensive players selected in the 2021 N.F.L. draft, learned he clocked in at 4.39 seconds — a time comparable to receivers and running backs — he pounded his chest and pointed upward.“It’s like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said afterward. “Now I can finally relax.”Parsons, 21, is one of over 100 Division I players who opted out of the 2020 college football season because of coronavirus concerns, leaving N.F.L. talent evaluators precious little current information to go on in a year further hindered by the absence of a traditional scouting combine. Parsons knew that his data offered his strongest argument for why a franchise should still draft him a year after his last in-game action.Prospects and N.F.L. teams are adapting to having to rely on university-hosted workouts, teleconference interviews and video analysis, data that isn’t standardized and, in most cases, wasn’t collected in person, to make their draft cases.College-hosted workouts, or pro days, took on added importance after the N.F.L. canceled the in-person workout portion of its draft scouting combine, typically hosted in Indianapolis every spring. That decision meant players would conduct their 40-yard dashes, bench presses and vertical jumps — among other physical tests that can sway draft slotting drastically — at their college facilities, rather than at a neutral site with standardized measures.Many players who had opted out spent the college football season and beyond prepping specifically for that testing, as many draft eligible players do each spring. Without a college season, they had longer than usual to train. Parsons signed with an agency, Athletes First, and moved to Santa Ana, Calif., in September to train full time and focus on how he would perform in front of scouts in March.Along with some other star players who opted out, such as Louisiana State receiver Ja’Marr Chase and Oregon offensive lineman Penei Sewell, Parsons is among the potential first-round picks who are trying to remind N.F.L. teams of the promise and acumen they haven’t been able to display publicly in over a year.L.S.U. receiver Ja’Marr Chase spent the 2020 season training for the draft. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds at the school’s pro day workout in March.Matthew Hinton/FR 170690AP, via Associated PressChase, who in 2019 set Southeastern Conference records with 1,780 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns on the way to a national championship and undefeated season, enrolled with Exos, a company that trains professional athletes, in October and temporarily relocated to Texas. There, his packed days mimicked his collegiate peers’. Starting at 8 a.m., he rotated through positional workouts, speed drills, weight training and physical therapy until around 3:30 p.m., six days a week.“We wanted him to be in a predictable situation,” said Brent Callaway, the company’s director of sport performance. “We wanted to put him in the best situation possible to be able to maximize his strength and change direction with speed whenever the stopwatches came out.”Still, being at his best for L.S.U.’s pro day on March 31 meant timing his gains to the testing. Chase entered Exos at 207 pounds and swelled to 213 pounds, so Callaway pulled him off upper-body lifts ahead of the pro day. Chase weighed 201 pounds by his workout, where he ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash, faster, by nearly three-tenths of a second, than when he first got to Exos in October. Chase’s 41-inch vertical jump was an increase of seven inches.“I would say I kind of surprised myself,” Chase told reporters.As important as pro days have been to this year’s scouting process, those involved acknowledged that the circumstances were less than ideal. Prospects at one school may work out or test on grass while others run on FieldTurf or another surface, creating an unequal comparison.“I think also we’re trying to compensate for what we see on tape and matching what we see in the player,” said Howie Roseman, the Philadelphia Eagles’ general manager.With pro days scattered across the country and Covid-19 protocols still in effect for team staffs, scouting departments had to choose which workouts, if any, to attend in person. The Los Angeles Rams, who hold six total picks in this year’s draft, none in the first round, sent scouts to about a dozen pro day workouts, J.W. Jordan, the team’s director of draft management, said. Because of coronavirus concerns, the team instructed scouts to travel only by car and prohibited overnight stays, which limited them to regional workouts.“From a scouting perspective, it’s getting less and less necessary for you to go in person,” Jordan said. “Everything you’re trying to accomplish they already give it to you.”Rams staff relied mostly on videos and data of pro days provided to them by the league. To verify prospects’ times that seemed a tad fast, Jordan said their scouts would watch the drill onscreen and clock it themselves.This year’s limits on draft evaluations have also meant changes to the more subjective parts of the scouting process. Players recovering from injuries, like Syracuse’s Andre Cisco, whose knee injury early last season prompted him to opt out, got a chance to reassure N.F.L. teams of their health with in-person examinations in Indianapolis conducted by team doctors in April. While the top 100 athletes, plus 44 others who had an eligible medical history, received an additional physical checkup in Indianapolis, all of the draft prospects were given checkups by their local doctors, either virtually or in over-the-phone visits, which were then shared with teams that couldn’t evaluate those players in person.For players who opted out of playing the 2020 college season, prepping for video interviews with potential employers has been as important as training for drills.Parsons had 109 tackles and was an all-American as a sophomore in 2019, so he trusted that film of his game performance would show him as an elite competitor. But he said he faced questions about why he opted out last August as well as lingering character concerns stemming from a 2018 hazing accusation against him and other Penn State players made by a former teammate. Parsons’s accuser filed a lawsuit against Coach James Franklin and the university, claiming the coach ignored the claims. The university investigated the claims and took them to the Centre County, Pa., district attorney, who declined to bring charges. Penn State has filed for the suit to be dismissed.In his video interviews with teams, Parsons sometimes talked with just one person and at other times with a team’s entire defensive unit. He told evaluators that the health of his 2-year-old son, Malcolm, was his biggest concern in opting out, a response he said some teams easily accepted, while others pushed harder.Parsons said he had been more adamant, though, in addressing concerns over his character, emphasizing that once a team drafts him and interacts with him in person daily those concerns will be resolved.“It made me want to show how much of a hard worker I am and how good of a father I am,” said Parsons, who will attend the draft in Cleveland on April 29 with Malcolm in tow. “I’m going to make sure I never put myself in a situation that is going to dictate my future or put the team in jeopardy.” More

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      Chelsea Dungee Was Ready for Her W.N.B.A. (and Yacht?) Moment

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      Dungee, a guard from the University of Arkansas, was drafted fifth overall by the Dallas Wings after a whirlwind few days (that’s the yacht) and a lifetime in the gym.Chelsea Dungee was flying on Thursday, the day of the W.N.B.A. draft. She wasn’t on the court, where the ambidextrous guard is used to getting airtime on both sides of the basket. She was getting on a plane, returning to Fayetteville, Ark. She was also euphoric.“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Dungee said in a telephone interview during her layover in Atlanta. “I worked my entire life for today.”The 23-year-old star Arkansas guard was returning from Florida, where she had posed for her first photo shoot as one of the female athletes endorsed by Nike’s Jordan Brand. The shoot required Dungee to sip champagne on a yacht with an assortment of her soon-to-be-peers, W.N.B.A. players like Kia Nurse and Crystal Dangerfield, who won the Rookie of the Year Award last season. The Instagram chronicles of the glamorous evening became Dungee’s de facto announcement of her first endorsement.WNBA Prospect Chelsea Dungee is currently hanging out with Te’a Cooper (Sparks), Aerial Powers (Lynx), Jordin Canada (Storm), Dearica Hamby (Aces), Crystal Dangerfield (Lynx), and Kia Nurse (Mercury) on a boat. 👀 #WNBA pic.twitter.com/4Xa7HngE6X— Women’s Hoopz (@WomensHoopz) April 15, 2021
      From there, she was heading to her own draft party to celebrate making it to the league — and being a first-round draft choice, if the mock draft consensus held up. It made sense that she was so excited that she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. What she didn’t realize, though, was just how much better her day was going to get.Dungee was one of the players for whom the draft’s unpredictability meant good news, instead of a long, painful wait to hear her name called. She was the fifth overall pick, going higher than expected to the Dallas Wings — a squad full of compelling young stars that happens to be the closest W.N.B.A. team to both Dungee’s hometown Okmulgee, Okla., and her school, the University of Arkansas.“My mom has never missed a home game,” Dungee told reporters after celebrating her pick. “I’m only about three-and-a-half hours from her and about five from Arkansas, so it couldn’t be a better situation.”Her mother, Chi Dungee, a social worker, raised her alone in their tiny town of less than 12,000. Chi played basketball and softball in high school, and introduced Chelsea to sports.“We lived in the country,” Chi said as she sat with her daughter in the Arkansas athletics conference room where they, the women’s basketball coaches, Chelsea’s teammates and a few fans would watch the draft. “We had the outdoor hoop that was just old school. It was a 10-foot pipe with a basket welded to it, and you played on dirt.”The W.N.B.A., now heading into its 25th season, was new when Chelsea was learning the game, but she can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to make it to the league. Unlike so many of her predecessors, Dungee is younger than the league itself. It was nearby, too: The Detroit Shock became the Tulsa Shock when she was in middle school. Now, they’re the Dallas Wings.Dungee’s ability was evident early. An Oklahoma journalist at her draft night news conference, for example, recalled covering her when she was just 14 years old. Though that meant Chi had to take her to more and more games and tournaments, the mother said she found comfort in the grind of parenting a high-level athlete. “From this month to this month, you’re going to see these people, your kids are going to compete,” Chi said. “There was a lot of support system in that.”Dungee was the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer last season, averaging more than 20 points per game.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe beamed at her daughter as she spoke of all the work it took for both of them to get to this place, clad in television-ready outfits picked a few days before while waiting to hear life-changing, history-shaping news. “Whatever we decided to do, we did together — and we were all in, I mean 100 percent,” Chi said, her voice shaking slightly. “Here we are, again.”Chelsea Dungee is now preparing to meet a whole new group of teammates, and spent much of her time on set with her Jordan Brand colleagues asking them about life in the league. “Like, what’s training camp look like? What’s housing look like? What’s traveling look like?” Dungee said of the questions she asked some of the W.N.B.A. veterans. “Just getting a lot of knowledge from them, and asking about what to expect.”It was only right that she watched the draft at Arkansas, next to the gym where she spent so many hours trying to make sure that she would have her draft moment. Dungee’s mother and her Arkansas coach, Mike Neighbors, were by her side. Neighbors kept track of all 12 team hats the W.N.B.A. sent her, so that the right one would be handy for Dungee to put on as soon as she got picked. The three of them watched the broadcast quietly, until Dungee’s name was called. Neighbors handed her the Wings hat, Dungee hugged her mother, and then she did her national television interview.“I was surprised,” she said afterward. “I don’t think anyone would have thought that, coming from a small town, I’d be the fifth pick.”She went around the room, taking selfies with the teammates, coaches and fans. Arkansas, where she transferred after spending her freshman year at Oklahoma, was where she found her identity — a relentless shooter whose offensive creativity made her the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference in the 2020-21 season, averaging 22.3 points per game. Then there’s her razor-sharp crossover, the move that she hopes will become her W.N.B.A. signature.“I think this system has absolutely been great for me,” Dungee said of Neighbors’ program. “It’s fast paced, there’s a lot of pick-and-rolls, a lot of screening actions, and you see that a lot in the W.N.B.A.”The draft night party served as a more fitting conclusion to her time with the Razorbacks than their last game, in which Arkansas became the seventh No. 4 seed ever to be upset by a No. 13 seed in the first round of the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament. “It was disappointing,” Dungee said. “I had to come to terms with that, let it go and move on.”The coaching she received at Arkansas, and the community that was as willing to encourage her to shoot her shot as it was supportive of her on draft night, may have helped raise her draft stock. Before the draft, Chicago Sky Coach James Wade said that both she and her Arkansas teammate Destiny Slocum had “progressed a lot in their maturity and the way they approach the game, playing for a coach that gives them a lot of freedom and that plays a W.N.B.A. style.” Slocum was drafted in the second round by the Las Vegas Aces.After seemingly endless rounds of interviews on Thursday, Dungee finally had time to digest her wild 24 hours. “My dream actually just came true,” Dungee said. “I’m still in shock.” She pledged that she would be back in the gym the next day, getting ready for training camp on April 25, and hopefully her first W.N.B.A. season on May 15.“This is a celebration,” she added, not ruling out the possibility of having a little more champagne. “Afterwards, I’ll have my mind right and be ready to work.” More

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      Charli Collier Is the No. 1 Pick in the W.N.B.A. Draft

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      Collier, a 6-foot-5 center from the University of Texas, was selected by the Dallas Wings, which also picked Awak Kuier and Chelsea Dungee in the first round.Charli Collier, a center from the University of Texas, was selected No. 1 over all by the Dallas Wings in the W.N.B.A.’s virtual draft on Thursday, fulfilling the dream of her late father that she be the top pick. Collier, who is from Texas and was widely projected to be the first pick, averaged 19 points and 11.3 rebounds per game in the 2020-21 season.Collier, surrounded by her mother, brother and boyfriend, pointed to the sky as she was announced as the first pick.“We sat down in the hospital bed, and we wrote down goals,” she said, referring to her father, Elliott. “This was one of them. He’s here with me.”The Wings also had the No. 2 overall pick and used it to select Awak Kuier, who plays professionally for Virtus Eirene Ragusa in Italy. She will be the W.N.B.A.’s first Finnish player and, because of her defensive skills, has been compared to Chicago’s Candace Parker, who won last season’s Defensive Player of the Year Award with Los Angeles. This was the first time in league history that one team had the top two picks.The Wings also selected Chelsea Dungee of Arkansas, the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer, with the No. 5 overall pick, and started the second round by selecting Dana Evans, a 5-foot-6 guard from Louisville who twice won the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year Award.The Atlanta Dream, which were sold to new ownership in February, selected Aari McDonald of Arizona with the No. 3 pick. McDonald, a 5-foot-6 guard, emerged as a star for the Wildcats in the 2020-21 season, leading them to the N.C.A.A. title game for the first time in program history. McDonald scored more points than anyone in the tournament and helped keep UConn to its lowest-scoring game of the season in the national semifinals to advance to the championship, which the Wildcats lost to Stanford.The player-driven fight to oust the Dream’s now-former owner, Kelly Loeffler, because of the former Georgia senator’s disparaging comments about the Black Lives Matter movement was a defining effort during the W.N.B.A.’s 2020 season. The league, which has been ahead of others in discussions about social justice, plans to continue sparking discussions about advocacy this season, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters on Tuesday.“The players want to be about change, and they want to have their hand in that change,” she said. “Whether it’s civic engagement or voting rights or health equity or other issues that many of them are passionate about, I really look forward to seeing what they do this year and handling any crises that come our way.”The draft came as the spotlight had turned toward inequities between men’s and women’s athletics, with a focus on differences in facilities, coronavirus testing and meals at the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Engelbert addressed the disparities in an opinion piece on the league’s website earlier this month.“Sports is only one of the vast number of industries, markets, and forums where we need to drive more equitable representation,” she wrote, adding that the most important areas to change were “the number of female athletes sponsored by a company, the amount of money spent promoting the women’s game, and the breadth and depth of coverage dedicated to women’s sports.”Engelbert also said on Tuesday that the league was open to expanding, as women’s sports have gained more attention in recent years. Viewership of the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals was up 15 percent year over year, according to ESPN, and viewership of the title game was up 34 percent. The college championship between Stanford and Arizona was the most viewed title game since 2014, according to ESPN, which broadcast this year’s women’s tournament.During Thursday’s draft, which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, many draftees, like Collier, were shown celebrating their selections while surrounded by friends and family.The Las Vegas Aces picked the 19-year-old Iliana Rupert, a 6-foot-4 center from France, with the No. 12 pick and Destiny Slocum of Arkansas with the No. 14 pick. An emotional Rupert spoke with ESPN’s Holly Rowe with her mother and brother at her sides.“It’s really a family affair,” Rupert said of her late father, Thierry Rupert, who died in 2013 and played professionally in France. “And I am really happy to continue this and to continue to honor his name in the U.S. now.”Stanford’s Kiana Williams, who was drafted with the sixth pick of the second round by the Seattle Storm, spoke about the transition to the W.N.B.A.“I have the opportunity to learn from Sue Bird, one of the best point guards to play the game,” Williams said. “I’m leaving one winning atmosphere going into another winning atmosphere.”The season, the league’s 25th, will be played in teams’ home cities, some arenas with a limited number of fans in the stands, in accordance with local health officials’ recommendations. Each team will play 32 games in the regular season, down from the planned 36, with reduced travel because of the pandemic. The 2020 season was played in a bubble environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., because of the pandemic.The 2021 season tips off on May 14, when the Liberty host the Fever at Barclays Center. On Thursday, the Fever chose Kysre Gondrezick of West Virginia with the No. 4 overall pick in the first round, and the Liberty chose Michaela Onyenwere from U.C.L.A., at No. 6. Both teams are hoping to bounce back after down seasons last year.The Liberty used last year’s No. 1 overall pick to select Sabrina Ionescu, who severely sprained her ankle in her third game and missed the rest of the season.“I’m just glad were on the same side now,” Onyenwere said of Ionescu, who also played in the Pac-12, with Oregon. The Liberty also chose DiDi Richards, a guard from Baylor, in the second round.Arella Guirantes, a New York native who averaged 21.3 points per game in the 2020-21 season for Rutgers and told The New York Times that she hoped to play for the Liberty, fell to the second round. The Los Angeles Sparks selected her with the No. 22 overall pick. More

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      5 W.N.B.A. Draft Hopefuls to Watch

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      A deep run in the N.C.A.A. tournament isn’t required for a basketball player to become a star or make it to the pros. These five women aim to prove it.W.N.B.A. teams covet versatile, two-way play, and scores of players in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament displayed the skill, basketball I.Q. and strength to thrive in the professional ranks on both ends of the floor.Several players who hope to be picked in the W.N.B.A. draft on Thursday night made deep tournament runs and had the big stages of the later rounds to prove their readiness. The players whose teams made early exits, however, were left to hope that their individual performances were strong enough to be remembered — or that one subpar outing would not overshadow an otherwise impressive collegiate career.Here’s a look at five players who either didn’t make or didn’t last long in this year’s tournament but may still be one of the 36 drafted Thursday night. With the league’s 12 teams allowed just 12 roster spots each, an even slimmer number will make opening day rosters.Chelsea Dungee, ArkansasDungee set the Arkansas women’s career record for free throws made in just three seasons.Sean Rayford/Associated PressThe Razorbacks’ first-round exit from the tournament was not a reflection on the 5-foot-11 guard Chelsea Dungee. Her game-high 27 points mirrored her high-scoring collegiate career, but they came in a game in which the opposing team, Wright State, hit 50 percent of its 3-pointers (to the Razorbacks’ 31.8 percent) in a 66-62 win.During her 2020-21 senior season, Dungee scored in double figures in all 27 games. She scored 30 points or more in 12 games in her career, the most in team history. Free throws are an important part of her offensive repertoire; she exploits mismatches, draws fouls and makes 80.2 percent of her shots from the line.Against Wright State, she made 14 free throws on 18 attempts — fitting for the leading free-throw shooter in Arkansas history. That she set the record for made free throws (552) in just three seasons — Dungee sat out the 2017-18 season because of N.C.A.A. transfer rules — emphasized her sharpshooting game. The record had been 485, by Bettye Fiscus in the 1980s.N’dea Jones, Texas A&MJones averaged a double-double over her last three seasons at Texas A&M and helped her team reach the round of 16 in this year’s tournament.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIf a dogged defender who made a name for herself by gobbling up rebounds and otherwise converting defense into offense is what a W.N.B.A. team seeks, it should look no further than N’dea Jones.Setting aside a freshman season in which she averaged only about six minutes per game, Jones was Texas A&M’s biggest double-double threat, averaging 10.1 points and 11.1 rebounds a game in her final three seasons. Jones’s offensive production climbed year over year, including in the 2020-21 season that was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic. She pulled down her 1,026th career board as a senior, becoming the team’s career leader. She finished with 1,056, after just 33 as a freshman.Jones’s double-double effort against Troy to open this year’s tournament was followed by a 9-point, 14-rebound performance that helped the Aggies advance past Iowa State to the round of 16 in overtime. Texas A&M’s tournament run ended there, against a formidable opponent: Arizona, the eventual tournament runner-up, which was led by point guard Aari McDonald.Kasiyahna Kushkituah, TennesseeKushkituah reliably forced Tennessee’s opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers.Brianna Paciorka/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated PressSometimes the box score does not reveal the full truth, and so it goes for the 6-4 center Kasiyahna Kushkituah, who averaged 6.8 points and 6 rebounds per game as a senior at Tennessee.Even while starting just 23 of her 100 career games, Kushkituah began to carve out a niche for herself as an agile big. Her quickness was central to her ability to disrupt opponents’ offensive schemes; if she failed to record a steal or a block, she could reliably force opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers. And if the ball ended up in her hands, she could use her impressive speed to score on the break.The 3-point shot is not in her arsenal, but she made half of her field goals. If she can improve her 47.5 percent free-throw shooting and maintain an appetite for offensive rebounds — which accounted for more than a third of her total career rebounds — she could become an important paint presence for any W.N.B.A. team seeking depth at center. In Tennessee’s first-round win against Middle Tennessee, Kushkituah scored 10 points and grabbed eight boards, five of them off the offensive glass.Lindsey Pulliam, NorthwesternPulliam finished her college career averaging 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game.Ronald Cortes/Associated PressCommonly referred to as Pull-Up Pulliam because of her smooth and reliable midrange shot, Lindsey Pulliam was the fastest player to reach 1,000 points in Northwestern women’s basketball history. A 5-10 guard, she finished her college career averaging a well-rounded 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game. Her career shooting averages of 37.9 percent from the field, 26.6 percent from 3-point range and 75.6 from the free-throw line may not be the best in her draft class, but she has increasingly demonstrated that she can sizzle in the biggest moments, in whichever way her team needs:With a game- and season-high 28 points, Pulliam carried the Wildcats to a double-digit win on Jan. 21; one week later, in a road game against Iowa, she helped Northwestern to a 7-point victory by converting 12 of her 16 free-throw attempts.On defense, Pulliam secured 10 rebounds in early February against Ohio State (to go with 15 points) to help power Northwestern to a 12-point win. Her four steals against Eastern Kentucky in December helped the Wildcats score 40 points off turnovers and 28 on fast breaks on the way to a 29-point victory.Unique Thompson, AuburnThompson grabbed 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor.Butch Dill/Associated PressOvercoming an 18-point deficit but ultimately losing to Florida in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament kept Auburn from being invited to the N.C.A.A. tournament, denying the 6-3 forward Unique Thompson a national stage.Despite the loss, Thompson, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, made her standard double-double contribution in her final collegiate outing. In 2020-21, she was one of two players in the nation to record two games of 20-plus points and 20-plus rebounds. As a junior in the 2019-20 season, she tallied her 21st double-double of the season and the 41st of her career, surpassing the three-time W.N.B.A. All-Star DeWanna Bonner for the most in team history.If Thompson can improve her 66.3 percent free-throw shooting, she will solidify an otherwise stalwart game that features 52.8 percent shooting from the field. With a proficiency for cleaning the offensive glass — Thompson gathers 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor — she is ready to contend in the most competitive league in the world. Even without a national tournament run, Thompson seems poised for a first-round draft selection. More

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      Arella Guirantes' Killer Sidestep Is Clearing a Path to the WNBA

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      Arella Guirantes, the star Rutgers guard, hopes to be drafted by her hometown team, the Liberty, this week. But no matter where she ends up, she said she’ll be ready.Arella Guirantes has seemed destined for the W.N.B.A. ever since she stood 4 feet 7 inches tall as a fifth-grader on the varsity team in summer league at Bellport High School on Long Island. Her basketball skills have always been steps ahead of her peers’, and her ambition to be the best against any level of competition has pushed her to the next level.Guirantes, 23, remembers a game from her senior year at Bellport, not for scoring 58 points, but for what she didn’t do. She was alerted with around 2 minutes left that she had scored 50 points, but she wanted 60. She’d missed her team’s first blowout loss against that day’s opponent, Kings Park High School, for showing up 20 minutes late to school.“I just like mentally took a note,” Guirantes said. “When I play them again, I’m going to kill them.”Guirantes brought that competitive fire to Rutgers, where she led the Big Ten in scoring as a redshirt junior during the 2019-20 season with 20.6 points per game and topped that number in the 2020-21 season with 21.3 points per game. Now she appears on the brink of her W.N.B.A. destiny, with the draft on Thursday and Guirantes projected to be one of the top picks.“I mean, every day in practice, she was always that one player that you knew that was just going to compete,” said Kelley Gibson, a former recruiter and assistant coach at Rutgers. “You know, players show up and just sometimes work hard in practice, but Arella competed.”Guirantes is foremost a scorer, and an efficient one at that. In her redshirt senior season, she shot 41.6 percent from the field and 37.8 percent from 3-point range on 4.3 attempts per game. She also had per-game career highs in assists (5.2) and steals (2.2) steals. She was named first team All-Big Ten for the second consecutive year and awarded All-Big Ten Defensive Team honors.No. 11-seeded Brigham Young upset Guirantes and No. 6-seeded Rutgers in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament with a 69-66 victory.Chuck Burton/Associated PressOne of Guirantes’s signature plays is the jaw-dropping sidestep she uses to create space away from her defender off the dribble. She absorbs contact with her strong frame to fade away and shoot off either foot, moving in either direction using constant changes in speed.“You know what, now that you mention that, she did hit me with a couple of those,” said Dennis Smith Jr., a point guard with the N.B.A.’s Detroit Pistons, who has trained with Guirantes.Guirantes’s individual moves are stellar, and her series of jabs, in-and-outs and spins led her to finish in the 86th percentile of all scorers in isolation situations, according to Synergy Sports. But W.N.B.A. front offices are just as excited by her success in pick-and-roll situations. She ranked in the 90th percentile of all players as the ballhandler during the 2020-21 season, according to Synergy Sports.Scoring isn’t the only reason Guirantes’s name has shot up draft boards. Defensively, she’s a hawk, plucking passes and stripping ballhandlers. She’s also a bully down low, afraid of no one. “Oh, yeah, one thing I can tell you for sure,” Smith said. “She ain’t ducking no smoke. That’s a promise. She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Despite standing six inches shorter than the 6-foot-5 Charli Collier of Texas, who some think could be drafted first over all, Guirantes recorded more blocks per game. She credits many of her defensive instincts to her time playing middle blocker in volleyball. “I think I have a good just I.Q. for the game to understand where people on offense are going, when they’re going to put the ball up,” she said. “I have good timing.”The W.N.B.A.’s 2021 draft class isn’t heralded as a strong one, but an experienced scorer like the 5-foot-11 Guirantes could be an immediate-impact player for a contender. She’ll be up against the likes of Aari McDonald from Arizona, Dana Evans from Louisville and Rennia Davis from Tennessee to be the first guard taken off the board. Unlike those three, her team, a No. 6 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, was upset in the first round, by No. 11-seeded Brigham Young, 69-66. Fortunately for her, scouts have had five years to assess her talent.“I don’t know if she’s separated herself,” said James Wade, head coach and general manager of the Chicago Sky. “I think when you talk about big guards, you can mention Davis in the same breath. I think it’s more of what you’re looking for and how they kind of fit into your team and the players that you have.”He continued: “I do think that she is a high-quality guard because of all the things that she can do — her strength, the fact that she can create her own shot. I think she has certain qualities that separate her from the bunch, but at the same time it depends on what you’re looking for, versatility defensively or versatility offensively, which I think she has a lot of offensively.”Detroit Pistons guard Dennis Smith Jr., who has trained with Guirantes, said she’s not afraid to challenge anyone. “She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressWade said he believed Guirantes would be selected within the first six picks, three of which belong to the Dallas Wings. Mock drafts place Guirantes as high as No. 3 to the Atlanta Dream. Guirantes said she will be happy no matter where she lands, but the Long Island native is making it no secret that she’d love to play for the Liberty, who hold the No. 6 pick.“That would be a dream come true,” said Guirantes, who grew up going to Liberty and Knicks games at Madison Square Garden with her family and friends from the Boys and Girls Club. The Liberty now play at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.“The Garden has a special feel, but the transition to the Barclays I can’t say is a bad transition,” Guirantes said. “I’d really love to play at the Barclays Center.”The W.N.B.A. draft will be held virtually for a second straight year because of the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, and Guirantes will be lying low until then, working on her game and training. She plans to watch the draft with her family and sweat out the moments until her name is called. In the meantime, she’ll try to avoid looking at mock drafts and people critiquing her game on social media. Maybe playing with Donkey Kong in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video game on her Nintendo Switch against Smith will pass the time.Wherever Guirantes lands on Thursday night, she’s going to be ready.“My short-term goal is to really come in and make a quick transition,” Guirantes said. “I know it’s a lot easier said than done. But I want to make a huge impact and be in the running for rookie of the year. I think if you’re not going for rookie of the year, then you’re not really trying to help your team as much as you think you are.”She knows about starting strong: In only the second game of her college career, with Texas Tech before she transferred to Rutgers, she sank a buzzer-beating shot to force overtime against Texas A&M.“I really want to make a strong first impression in the W.N.B.A. because the way you start your career is important,” Guirantes said, adding: “That translates to overseas, too. They’re watching. A strong first year in the W.N.B.A is important.” More

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      N.F.L. Steps Out of the Basement for 2021 Draft

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      Rebounding from the 2020 version that saw Commissioner Roger Goodell announcing picks from his basement, the league announced plans for an in-person event in Cleveland.Commissioner Roger Goodell eschewed bro hugs and a podium during the N.F.L. draft last April, when he was forced to announce teams’ picks from his wood-paneled basement as the league conducted the event virtually while the coronavirus raged.For part of the night, when New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick briefly left his setup at a dining table, his pet dog, Nike, seemed to be orchestrating the franchise’s moves. TV cameras captured the husky sitting near its owner’s computer.Arizona Cardinals Coach Kliff Kingsbury drafted from his luxurious, white modern home, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sent in his choice from below deck on his yacht. Scenes of both men went viral because of their backdrops, and a record 15.6 million people watched the first round despite its teleconference feel.The 2020 N.F.L. draft was very different from the glossy production that the league has become used to hosting. Since 2015, the three-day event has grown from a staid broadcast to a multi-location football festival with musical performances. The event last year was supposed to culminate with an extravagant display in Las Vegas, where drafted players would be ushered by boat to a stage floating in the fountain outside the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. That plan was moved to 2022.The N.F.L. announced Monday that the coming draft, slated to take place from April 29 to May 1, will be a bridge between the league’s recent extremes. Goodell will once again announce selections from a stage, this time in Cleveland, and team personnel will once again be allowed to work from so-called war rooms, as long as they follow local health guidelines. ESPN, ABC and the NFL Network will televise the event.This version of the annual spectacle will marry the ceremony of the league’s recent drafts with the socially distanced production elements from last season. Some rookies will still participate virtually from their homes, while mask and distancing requirements will be in place for those on site in Cleveland. The N.F.L. did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how many prospects will be in Cleveland, or about whether health protocols will prevent the bear hugs between draftees and Goodell that have been a hallmark of the event.The draft will be the N.F.L.’s first public event since Super Bowl LV, which took place with a hybrid attendance model in Tampa, Fla. There, 22,000 fans — a relatively large number in the pandemic era but the lowest attendance ever for the event — watched in person, following masks and social-distancing measures, at Raymond James Stadium as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs.The prospect of a celebratory championship, or even completing a full season, had been in doubt in March 2020. But despite outbreaks at team facilities and the slew of schedule changes that resulted, the N.F.L. played all 256 regular-season games and a full playoff slate within the confines of the season’s planned start and end dates. From August through the end of the playoffs, 262 players and 463 team personnel, or 0.08 percent, contracted the coronavirus. Those statistics, along with a steady decline of infections and loosened local restrictions across the country, allowed some of the league’s teams to raise permitted attendance levels at games as the season progressed.Goodell will announce picks from an outdoor stage near Lake Erie, and invited fans from all 32 teams will watch from a nearby theater. Those fans must be fully vaccinated, according to a statement released by the league Monday. Entertainers, coordinated by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, will also perform at the main stage. More

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      A New League’s Shot at the N.C.A.A.: $100,000 Salaries for High School Players

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA New League’s Shot at the N.C.A.A.: $100,000 Salaries for High School PlayersThe Overtime Elite league proposes that providing a salary and a focus toward a pro career might be more appealing than college basketball’s biggest programs.Aaron Ryan, Zack Weiner, Dan Porter and Brandon Williams, executives of the sports media company Overtime and its new basketball league, aim to change the career pathway for young stars.Credit…OvertimeMarch 4, 2021Updated 9:49 a.m. ETA new basketball league backed by a sports media company is entering the intensifying debate over whether student athletes should be paid, by starting a new venture offering high school basketball players $100,000 salaries to skip college.The league, Overtime Elite, formed under the auspices of the sports media company Overtime, would compete directly with the N.C.A.A. for the nation’s top high school boys by employing about 30 of them, who would circumvent the behemoth of college sports.Overtime will offer each athlete, some as young as 16, a minimum of $100,000 annually, as well as a signing bonus and a small number of shares in Overtime’s larger business. The company will also provide health and disability insurance, and set aside $100,000 in college scholarship money for each player — in case any decide not to pursue basketball professionally.The trade-off is major: The players who accept the deal will forfeit their ability to play high school or college basketball.“People have been saying things need to change, and we are the ones changing it,” said Dan Porter, the chief executive of Overtime.Overtime is diving into an argument that has roiled American sports for generations — whether it’s appropriate for pro sports leagues to lure young athletes out of high school and college with big checks, or for colleges to exploit the talents of athletes for big money without compensating them beyond attendance costs.Since the 2006 draft, players have not been able to go directly to the N.B.A. after high school — they do not become eligible to be drafted until the year they turn 19 or at least one N.B.A. season after their high school graduation year.For decades, the N.C.A.A.’s rules on amateurism, now under challenge in courts and in state legislatures, have held back a swell of money from flooding toward young elite athletes. The system has always had fissures, and they have grown in recent years as federal and state lawmakers and the N.C.A.A. have considered some changes to let athletes earn some more money.You may not have ever heard of Overtime — especially if you are, say, over 30 — but if you are a sports fan you have almost certainly seen its videos.If a crazy highlight or moment from a high school game floated across one of your social media feeds, it was probably filmed by Overtime. If you saw any dunks from Zion Williamson before he played for Duke, they were probably filmed by Overtime. The company says its videos are viewed almost two billion times each month.Overtime, which was founded in 2016 and got an early investment from David Stern, the former N.B.A. commissioner, has made connections with young prospects by building its presence in high school gyms across the country, where filming rights are essentially free and the competition not nearly the same as the ever-shifting battle among media behemoths to televise college and professional sports.Overtime’s videographers are recognized by the players. Laurence Marsach, more commonly known as Overtime Larry and the host of many Overtime videos, is highly popular among fans of youth basketball. The Overtime “O” logo is a stamp of approval online, with teens and tweens even throwing it up in the background of their videos.The new league, Overtime Elite, most resembles soccer academies in Europe and elsewhere. The players, and possibly their families, will move to one city — Overtime says it is selecting between two choices — to live and train together. Overtime will hire education staffers to teach the athletes and help them get high school diplomas. A basketball operations division will include coaches and trainers and will be led by Brandon Williams, the former N.B.A. player who was also previously a front office executive for the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings. The commissioner is Aaron Ryan, a former longtime N.B.A. league office executive.No players have been signed yet — so as not to ruin their eligibility during the current high school basketball season. But Porter and Zack Weiner, Overtime’s president, are confident that many of the top players ages 16-18 will join.“We think our system will be amazing for their basketball development,” Weiner said. “Will every single player make the N.B.A.? Maybe not every single one of them, but the large majority will become professionals.”But there are almost as many risks as there are benefits for the young athletes. Most start-up professional sports leagues, no matter how innovative, fail. Overtime Elite will require tens of millions of dollars to operate on the scale its founders envision, but if it does not succeed, its athletes could be left with nowhere to play.“We are genuine in really investing in hiring really serious and legitimate people to run every aspect of the company,” Porter said. “I don’t want to mess around with kids’ lives. I don’t want people to mess around with my kids’ lives. There is a moral obligation that goes with that.”Weiner said the company is “extremely well capitalized” to launch the league. Overtime, Porter added, raised a “meaningful” amount of cash in a previously undisclosed funding round last fall, and planned to use it to pay players, hire employees and lease housing, office, gym and education spaces.Some details on what the league will actually look like or how fans can watch are still unsettled. There will be no permanent teams, but instead dynamic rosters within the league, and Porter and Weiner envision some sort of barnstorming tour of Europe. Games will no doubt be viewable online, but Overtime promises the games themselves and content around them won’t look too similar to typical basketball telecasts.Overtime Elite isn’t the only basketball league that spies opportunity in the shifting rules around amateurism and a desire by players to get paid immediately. David West, a former N.B.A. player, has started the Professional Collegiate League, and the N.B.A.’s development league has recently begun courting top 18-year-olds who want to skip college altogether on their way to the N.B.A.But Overtime Elite is the first serious league aimed at paying high school players, LaVar Ball’s failed Junior Basketball Association notwithstanding.Porter and Weiner talk down the idea that they are challenging high school state athletic associations, the N.C.A.A., high school coaches and the many other entities invested in the current system.“We are not against the N.C.A.A.” Carmelo Anthony, an Overtime investor and member of its board of directors, said in an interview. “We are not against the N.B.A. We are not trying to hurt those guys or come at them. We want the support of the N.B.A. and N.C.A.A. Eventually we are going to need those guys anyway.”Carmelo Anthony during his championship run at Syracuse in the 2002-3 season.Credit…Kevin Rivoli/Associated PressAnthony has an interesting perspective on Overtime Elite in part because, for all of the trade-offs of college sports, he is one its most visible success stories. He played college basketball for one season with Syracuse, won the N.C.A.A. tournament for the university’s first championship, improved his draft stock and got a huge boost in name recognition.“Going to college and playing college basketball is what it is,” he said. “It never will change. The concept of Overtime Elite is not to disrupt that, but to give these kids opportunities because they are taking control of their own brands and what they do, and social media becoming so powerful. Why not embrace that?”Perhaps the biggest challenge for Overtime, besides convincing enough elite players to join its league and enough consumers to watch high school basketball, is the floodgates opening to alternative ways for players to make money while also playing for high school and college teams.Under rising pressure from Washington and the nation’s statehouses, some of which have already approved legislation to require defiance of existing N.C.A.A. rules, the association spent months crafting new policies only to postpone votes that were planned for January.The turmoil within the N.C.A.A. is unfolding as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments this month about whether the association may limit education-related benefits for top football and basketball players. And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have been circulating a range of proposals that could set a national standard for name, image and likeness rules, including some particularly aggressive ideas to give athletes a bigger slice of the industry’s profits (Congress is not expected to act imminently and no proposal has advanced beyond a committee).The political forces were already complicating the long-term strategy of the N.C.A.A., which makes most of its money from its signature men’s basketball tournament. Overtime Elite, if it can succeed, would make the N.C.A.A.’s chase for players even more difficult.Alan Blinder More

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      Tom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74He traveled to schools, camps and schoolyards to evaluate high school players, and his reports were essential to college coaches in their recruiting.Tom Konchalski in 2013 at a high school basketball game in Brooklyn. Though he didn’t drive a car, he traveled throughout the East for more than 40 years, scouting high school basketball players.Credit…Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021Updated 5:32 p.m. ETFor more than 40 years, Tom Konchalski was a fixture in gyms, summer camps and tournaments from Maine to West Virginia, a soft-spoken high school basketball scout whose newsletter was required reading for college coaches craving insights about potential recruits.He showed prescience about future N.B.A. players like Kyrie Irving, Bernard King and Kenny Anderson, but his focus was primarily on creating opportunities for high school players at all levels of college basketball, whether at Division I, II or III schools, or in Canada. A devout Roman Catholic, he thought of players as his ministry.“You’d read his report, mark down names you wanted to investigate, and you took what he said as gospel,” said Dave Odom, a former coach at Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina, where he recruited a guard, Tre Kelley, whom he learned about from Konchalski’s newsletter. “Tom saw the kid in a summer league, and I followed up with him.”Konchalski, who retired last year from publishing the newsletter High School Basketball Illustrated, died on Feb. 8 in hospice care in the Bronx. He was 74. The cause was prostate cancer, said his brother, Steve, who is retiring after 46 seasons as the men’s basketball coach at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. For his newsletter, Konchalski assessed players in 13 categories and offered colorful accompanying comments about them like “loaded with offensive chutzpah” and “scores like we breathe!”“He had a genuine interest in getting his evaluations right,” said Bob Hurley Sr., who was the basketball coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J., for 45 years until the school closed in 2017. “He would never rush. If someone had a bad game, he promised to come back.”Konchalski’s long career made him the subject of a short ESPN documentary in 2013 and earned him a nomination in December from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the contributor category. Honorees will be announced in April.Thomas Coman Konchalski was born on Jan. 8, 1947, in Manhattan and grew up in the Elmhurst neighborhood in Queens. His father, Stephen, was a general foreman with the New York City Department of Parks and a semipro baseball player. His mother, Marjorie (Coman) Konchalski, was a homemaker who later worked as a department store cashier.Tom was 8 when he and his brother, who is two years older, went with their father to an N.B.A. doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. The brothers eventually took the subway on their own to see games at the Garden and at schoolyards around the city.And he was 14 when he first saw Connie Hawkins play. Hawkins, the exhilarating star of Boys High School in Brooklyn, was demonstrating his prowess during a summer league game, and it was an epiphany for young Tom.“I would follow him from playground to playground,” Konchalski told The New York Times in 2013. “His game was electric. With one hand, he could palm a rebound out of the air.”At Archbishop Molloy High School in the Briarwood section of Queens, where his brother played guard on its basketball team, Konchalski covered the team for the school newspaper and learned the intricacies of basketball from Jack Curran, Molloy’s coach from 1958 to 2013.“Tom never really played,” Steve Konchalski said in a phone interview. “He’d go to the park and put up some shots, and he had a nice shooting touch. But it wasn’t his thing to compete. He got the height. I’m 6-2. He’s 6-6.”Konchalski, center, with Syd Neiman, left, and Konchalski’s uncle, John Coman, when they were officials for the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Forest Hills, Queens.After graduating from Fordham University in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, Konchalski taught math and social studies at a Roman Catholic school in Queens (and for a time pursued another sports interest, as a linesman at the U.S. Open tennis championships, and its predecessor, when they were played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills).Konchalski’s path to scouting was accelerated by coaching Catholic Youth Organization basketball teams in New York City. His expanding knowledge of local players led him to part-time scouting in the 1970s for Howard Garfinkel, the influential founder of High School Basketball Illustrated and a co-founder of the Five-Star Basketball Camp, a celebrated youth instructional showcase for future superstars, among them Michael Jordan and LeBron James.Konchalski left teaching to work full-time for Garfinkel in 1979; five years later he bought H.S.B.I. In 1980, Konchalski famously helped get Jordan — then known as Mike Jordan — into the Five-Star camp at the request of Roy Williams, an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, which was recruiting Jordan (and which he would attend) and wanted to see him play against high-octane competition.Not yet well-known, Jordan stunned the camp with his play.“In tryouts when people were guarding him, they were guarding his belly button,” Konchalski recalled last year in an interview with Forbes magazine. “He had a great stop/ jump. He’d stop on a dime and really elevate. He was an extraterrestrial athlete.”Konchalski — who was known for his detailed recall of games and players from decades earlier — was something of a Luddite. He did not own a computer, a cellphone or an answering machine. Working from his apartment in Forest Hills, Queens, he typed each of the 16 annual issues of his newsletter, stapled them and mailed them in manila envelopes to about 200 coaches, who subscribed for several hundred dollars a year. He did not post his publication online.“I have an electric typewriter,” he told The Daily News of New York in 1990. “That’s my concession to the ages. I always say I was born seven centuries too late.”He did not drive, so he commuted to and from games by train or bus, and was nicknamed the Glider for the way he quietly slipped into a gym, settled onto the top level of the stands and started taking notes on players on a legal pad.In addition to his brother, he is survived by a sister, Judy Ball.In 1976, Konchalski saw that Chris Sellitri, a 6-foot-5 forward at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, had no scholarship offers from colleges in the United States.“Today, a player who made All-Brooklyn would get a scholarship,” Steve Konchalski said. “But back then, some outstanding players fell through the cracks. So Tom directed me to Chris, and he became the leading rebounder in the history of our school.”He added: “He wouldn’t tell a kid, ‘Go to my brother’s school,’ but he’d say to me, ‘This kid is still available — here’s his coach’s name and my evaluation.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More