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      Teammates in Brooklyn, Rivals in M.L.S.

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      When Kevin Durant bought a stake in the Philadelphia Union last summer, he became the fourth member of the Nets with an ownership stake in Major League Soccer.In the early days of Major League Soccer’s restart last summer, Jim Curtin, the coach of the Philadelphia Union, told his players that he had lined up a special guest for a video conference call.The Union players were in the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World, outside of Orlando, Fla., and because of health and safety protocols that limited large group gatherings, they had scattered to their hotel rooms for the call. A familiar figure soon appeared on their screens. Kevin Durant, one of the team’s new owners, had arrived to deliver a pep talk.As Durant’s speech — a message about what it takes to succeed and become a champion — morphed into a nothing-is-off-limits discussion, the players asked him about his N.B.A. title runs with Golden State, about his decision to join the Nets in free agency and about his then-ongoing rehabilitation from Achilles’ tendon surgery.“It hit with our players because they’ve all been injured at certain times — how lonely that can be, and getting yourself back to the top,” Curtin said. “The interesting thing is that I have guys from 15 different countries in my group, and all of them were like, ‘That was amazing.’ I think Kevin contributed to the team in a bigger way than he realized.”When Durant agreed to purchase a 10 percent stake in the Union last June — an investment worth more than $20 million — he joined a growing but select club of basketball stars who have acquired interests in professional soccer teams. LeBron James was ahead of the curve when, in 2011, he secured a small stake in the English club Liverpool.For a short spell, Carmelo Anthony owned Puerto Rico F.C. of the now-defunct North American Soccer League, and the W.N.B.A. star Candace Parker recently bought a piece of Angel City F.C., an expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League.Durant isn’t even the only soccer owner in the Nets’ locker room. He gets daily reminders of the N.B.A.’s rapid cross-pollination with M.L.S.: Steve Nash, the Nets’ coach, is a co-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps; Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner, has a stake in Los Angeles F.C.; and James Harden, one of Durant’s teammates, arrived in Brooklyn this season with an ownership slice of the Houston Dynamo.“I’m sure once we play those guys, me and James will have a nice little wager on it,” Durant said in a telephone interview, adding: “It’s cool to see guys in our sport stepping over and doing something different.”The involvement of top basketball players in North American soccer comes at a time when athletes — particularly Black athletes — are increasingly leveraging their wealth and their public profiles to upend the traditional athlete-owner dynamic. Consider that the N.W.S.L.’s ownership ranks now include not only Parker but also Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, tennis stars who understand their influence and are seizing opportunities to wield it beyond the court.Harden has a partial ownership stake in the Houston Dynamo of M.L.S. and the Dash of the N.W.S.L.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I think players are realizing now that they have the opportunity to not just play for these teams and get paid by these owners,” Parker said. “They have the opportunity to actually write the checks. This generation has a different mind-set.”Parker said she became more serious about the idea of team ownership in recent years as a player for the Los Angeles Sparks. She got to know the owners, she said, and was intrigued by what happens behind the scenes — and the profound effect of those decisions.Durant said that he had thrown himself into the Union’s affairs. He participates in the ownership group’s weekly conference calls. He has chatted with the coaches about development and training. He has offered opinions on everything from jersey design to community outreach. He has conferred with the players about social justice issues, joining a call that helped lead to the team’s role in a voter-registration drive last year. And he has shown a willingness to opine on dubious refereeing decisions, like any other good Union fan.After the Union parted with two of their best players in the off-season — midfielder Brenden Aaronson now plays in Austria and defender Mark McKenzie left for Belgium — Durant may be the team’s most high-profile addition in the last year.Durant was not exactly a soccer aficionado growing up in Prince George’s County, Md., outside of Washington, D.C. Tall for his age and 6-foot-10 by high school, he spent most of his time working on his jump shot. But he would kick the soccer ball around with his friends, he said, and he quickly identified a parallel between the sports.“I swear one of the things he loves about it is that it’s reliant on scoring a bucket,” said Rich Kleiman, Durant’s manager and business partner.Early in his N.B.A. career, Durant took a couple of promotional trips to Europe on behalf of Nike, one of his sponsors, and met some of the company’s other global pitchmen. They happened to be soccer players. Durant’s exposure continued to grow when he joined the Warriors and developed a relationship with Nash, who was then working with the team as a player development consultant. Nash, who has been a co-owner of the Whitecaps since 2008, is an avid soccer player whose brother Martin once played for Canada’s national team.Nash has had a stake in the Vancouver Whitecaps since 2008. He trained with prospects for the team in 2009.Andy Clark/Reuters“Steve is huge into soccer,” Durant said. “We’ve talked about what it is to be an owner, and how much traveling he does to stay up with the team and how often he goes over there.”Durant recalled a formative experience in 2019, when he saw a news release announcing that Harden had joined the ownership group of the Dynamo and the Houston Dash of the N.W.S.L. “I got more and more interested when I saw some of my peers get into this,” Durant said.For athletes like Durant, Kleiman said, soccer franchises are “a realistic entry point” for team ownership. Current players are not allowed to acquire stakes in N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. teams, and the valuations of N.F.L. franchises and top European soccer clubs can reach into the billions, putting significant ownership stakes out of reach even for wealthy athletes. (There are exceptions, of course: James purchased a minor stake in the Boston Red Sox last month from the same partners who own Liverpool.)Parker said the driving force behind her involvement with Angel City F.C. was her 11-year-old daughter, Lailaa. Parker, a two-time winner of the W.N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award, has long been vocal about encouraging others to support and invest in women’s sports.Candace Parker is a superstar in the W.N.B.A. and has become a top commentator on the N.B.A., but she says her first love was soccer. She recently purchased a piece of Angel City F.C., an expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer LeagueJonathan Daniel/Getty Images“And my daughter, she’s the main one who kind of calls me on all my stuff. She was the one who was like, ‘But Mom, are you doing it?’” Parker said. “So I kind of had her in my brain when I decided to go about this, because I think it’s so important for us to not just say it but do it as well.”Parker said soccer, not basketball, was her first love. She played until she was 13, she said. “Until my parents crushed my dreams because I was going to be tall and they told me that they didn’t ever see any 6-foot-2 soccer players,” she said. “I wanted to be Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain.”Durant had talked with a different M.L.S. team, D.C. United, about investing in the team before those negotiations stalled. After The Athletic reported on those discussions in October 2019, Jay Sugarman, the Union’s majority owner, reached out.“Sort of fortuitous timing,” Sugarman said. “We were looking for different voices in our ownership group.”Two months later, Durant and Kleiman visited with team officials at the Union’s training facility. Curtin operated as a tour guide. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little star-struck,” he said.“You could tell right away with Rich and with Kevin that they were serious,” Jim Curtin, the coach of the Philadelphia Union, said of Rich Kleiman and Durant. Kathy Willens/Associated PressAny preconceived ideas that Curtin had about Durant’s potential role — that he only wanted to attach his celebrity to the team without having any actual involvement — dissolved as they went around the building. Durant had questions.“You could tell right away with Rich and with Kevin that they were serious,” Curtin said.Sugarman said he sensed that Durant and Curtin were philosophically aligned. In the weight room, Curtin talked about how “beach muscles” are out and core strength is in. In the cafeteria, he introduced Durant to the team chef and emphasized the importance of diet to recovery. In the film room, Curtin mentioned how he liked to keep those sessions as tight as possible, otherwise he risked losing the players’ attention.“I feel the same way,” Durant replied.Curtin also explained how he avoided the locker room because he considered it the players’ “sacred space,” and how the team prioritized its youth academy and innovation. Philadelphia has experimented with GPS trackers, he told Durant. The team flies drones at training sessions. It digs into analytics.“He was interested,” Curtin said. “Not only interested in the game of soccer but also interested in what we do on the field and how we get our players ready.”By last June, the deal was official. Durant’s ownership stake includes a marketing partnership with Thirty Five Ventures, the sports, media and entertainment company that he co-founded with Kleiman. But it also has given him a championship goal in another sport.The Union finished with the best record in M.L.S. in last year’s shortened season but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. They, and Durant, want a better ending this year.“We just want to keep building,” Durant said. “It’s a lot of work to be done.” More

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      The Nets Could Have Had It All With Dr. J

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      As great as today’s Nets look with their starry threesome, they could have dominated the N.B.A. much, much sooner — in the 1970s, behind Julius Erving.Kevin Loughery and Julius Erving share a city, Atlanta, a golf club and an emotional connection to a basketball allegory told inharmoniously in three distinct parts — what was, what might have been and what now has become.In other words: the history of the Nets, from Long Island to New Jersey to Brooklyn.Inevitably, wistfully, Loughery’s conversation with Erving centers on Part 2, the potentially grand Nassau Coliseum stage that was dismantled just before the curtain was to rise on the N.B.A. debut of Erving and the Nets.“I always talk to him about what we might have done,” Loughery, who coached the developing legend of Dr. J. to two A.B.A. titles and stayed on to guide the remains of the Nets after the financially troubled franchise sold the rights to Erving, the world’s most electrifying player, to the Philadelphia 76ers on the eve of the 1976-77 season.Loughery added in a telephone interview: “What haunts you is that when we had him in the A.B.A. he was the best he ever was. The last A.B.A. series against Denver, when we won that second title, that was the best series I’ve ever seen anyone play.”That’s quite a mouthful, coming from an 81-year-old basketball lifer who once shared a backcourt in Baltimore with Earl Monroe and who coached seven pro teams, including one in Chicago that unveiled a rookie named Jordan.There is also an evolving symmetry to this ancient history. Forty-five years after their infamous selling of the rights to the Doctor, the Nets finally have become what they were poised to be in 1976: the sport’s sexiest team, with an opportunity to be its best.Kevin Loughery, who coached Erving in the A.B.A., said Dr. J “was the best he ever was” before he even got to the N.B.A.Associated PressAlas, Brooklyn’s assemblage of a superstar-laden lineup has occurred during a time of fan-less arenas only now welcoming crowds still enfeebled by the menace of Covid-19. Selling out America with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving for now remains the dream it was for Loughery and Erving.On the eve of that 1976-77 season, Erving was holding out for a contract upgrade and the league office was holding its breath after scheduling the Nets for a nationally televised opener against Golden State in Oakland. The arena sold out weeks in advance, but the sale of Erving’s rights to Philadelphia two days before the game by the owner Roy Boe — and after the Knicks absurdly let themselves be outbid for a homegrown player who would have altered their history — persuaded CBS to show a late-night movie instead.Erving was electrifying in the A.B.A., where he won two championships with the Nets.Associated PressHoping to make a splash, or at least save face, the Nets had acquired Nate Archibald, an explosive, New York-bred guard who was known as Tiny, one month earlier. Archibald had a bigger annual salary than Erving, which stiffened Erving’s resolve, despite his not wishing to leave Long Island, where he’d grown up.“It’s tough to play Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in the frontcourt,” Loughery memorably told reporters when the news reached California that Erving was gone. He and his players were gutted, even if they came to realize that Boe’s inability to pay millions both for league entry and to the Knicks for territorial rights limited his options to one.Still, Loughery has for decades wondered: what if? “I don’t know if we would have been a championship team, but we would have been very, very competitive,” he said.Rod Thorn, who returned to Loughery’s side that season as an assistant after a one-year absence to coach the Spirits of St. Louis, offered a more certain revisionist take.“History in New York basketball would have been changed,” he said. “We played and won exhibitions against N.B.A. teams. Every building was sold out for Doc. We also would have had a couple years’ window to add more pieces.”Instead, Archibald played 34 games for the Nets and blew out an Achilles’ tendon. The team moved to Piscataway, N.J., to play in a college gym. Loughery and Thorn shared long drives from their homes on Long Island, epitomizing the detour into a competitive ditch.The Nets and the 76ers had more peculiar chapters to co-author. Two years later, they played what may have been the weirdest game ever, when the N.B.A. upheld a Nets protest of technical fouls — the referee Richie Powers called three each on Loughery and Bernard King, one more than the limit for ejection.The game was replayed more than four months later from a point in the third quarter, but before then the teams made a four-player trade. In the final box score of the suspended game — won by the 76ers — three of the players appeared on both sides.Thorn later made what until further notice remains the most beneficial deal in the Nets’ N.B.A. history. As team president in 2001, he acquired Jason Kidd, who inspired successive runs to the finals. Thorn left New Jersey in 2010, joining the 76ers’ front office, essentially trading places with Billy King.Jason Kidd turned the Nets into an Eastern Conference powerhouse in the early 2000s.Ray Stubblebine/ReutersBilly King took over as Nets general manager in July 2010.Bill Kostroun/Associated PressThat put King at the Nets’ helm as they finished out their New Jersey run in April 2012 by hosting, of course, the 76ers.Now Thorn watches from afar as Sean Marks, who succeeded King with the Nets, plays personnel chess, building on his big three by reeling in the former All-Stars Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge with the ease of signing escapees of the G League.Skeptics worry about Durant’s health, Irving’s reliability and their sensitivity to criticism. Loughery has reservations about the perimeter defense of Harden and Irving. But Thorn has come to believe that the Nets will be fine as long as they remain in Harden’s soft hands.“I’ve changed my opinion of him,” he said. “He dominated the ball so much in Houston, but he’s been a fantastic playmaker for them.”As fate would have it, the Nets are challenging for Eastern Conference supremacy with the 76ers, along with Milwaukee. On Wednesday, they go to Philadelphia to confront a formidable group coached by a man nicknamed Doc (Rivers). On the Nets’ plus side, their owner, Joseph Tsai, is rich beyond belief. Lincoln and Washington didn’t make the cut. More

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      Irving Scores 40 as Short-Handed Nets Beat the Knicks

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      With Kevin Durant out and James Harden departing early with a sore hamstring, Kyrie Irving took over in a win against the Knicks.The injured Nets star Kevin Durant has been missing since mid-February, but his team got some good news on Monday with the return of James Harden, who had missed Brooklyn’s last two games with a hamstring injury.Harden’s return lasted four minutes.When the injury flared up again, he asked to come out. That left the Nets in a serious bind against the Knicks at Barclays Center, their Big Three reduced to a lonely one.James Harden, Nets say, is out for the rest of tonight’s game against the Knicks with right hamstring tightness.— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 5, 2021
      Step forward, Kyrie Irving. The third member of the Nets’ star triumvirate poured in 40 points with a blend of speed, strength and deep 3-pointers, as the Nets — short-handed as they have been for much of the season — beat the Knicks, 114-112.Irving shot 15 of 28 from the field, made five 3-pointers and also led his team with seven assists. Jeff Green added 23 points, tying his season high, but was merely a supporting player in Irving’s impressive performance.Irving’s final basket was a long 3-pointer that extended the Nets’ lead to 5 points with a minute left.After the Knicks rallied to tie the score at 112-112, Green drew a foul with three seconds left and hit both free throws. Julius Randle, who had a triple-double for the Knicks, missed a driving jumper to tie it as time expired.“This is the Brooklyn way, also mixed with a little Jersey swag,” Irving said in an on-court interview after the game, to the cheers of the pandemic-limited crowd of 1,700. He went to high school in Elizabeth, N.J., before spending his only college season at Duke.Harden had started the game but asked out early after pulling up in front of the scorer’s table and reaching for his hamstring. Coach Steve Nash quickly removed him.His cameo ended without a point, bringing to an end his 450-game streak of scoring in double digits. (LeBron James continues to lead that category with more than 1,000.)“Very similar to last time,” Nash said of Harden’s injury. “He has an awareness of something’s not right in his hammy. His scan was clean. His strength tests when he came back to the locker room were normal. It’s something where we have to protect him, we have to trust him. Very frustrating for James, but we can’t risk it, if we can afford not to.”Nash held out hope that Monday was merely a brief delay in Harden’s recovery, and not something that could imperil the championship dreams of the first-place Nets (35-16).“Who knows?” Nash said. This may linger or it may be all be behind us, like we thought it was before the game.”Even the injured Kevin Durant seemed impressed with some of Irving’s shots.Vincent Carchietta/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHarden remains a most valuable player candidate, scoring 25 points a game and leading the league in assists (10.9 per game) and minutes (37.1).With a third straight win over the Knicks, the Nets completed a season sweep of their rivals for the first time since 2014-15.Durant, who has his own hamstring injury, shot around before the game, and the Nets said they were hopeful he would return soon. Durant, Harden and Irving have played together only seven times since joining the Nets, making it all the more remarkable that the team leads the Eastern Conference.Randle’s triple-double — 19 points, 15 rebounds, 12 assists — was his fourth of the season. The Knicks are hanging on to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, on track for their first playoff appearance since 2012-13. More

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      Blake Griffin Agrees to Sign With the Nets

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBlake Griffin Agrees to Sign With the NetsA six-time All-Star, Griffin will be another big name on a Nets team stacked with them, but he has appeared in only 38 games since the 2018-19 season.Blake Griffin, right, has struggled since the 2018-19 season, when he made All-N.B.A. third team.Credit…Michael Dwyer/Associated PressMarch 8, 2021, 9:55 a.m. ETBlake Griffin, a six-time N.B.A. All-Star, is expected to sign a contract with the Nets on Monday, a person familiar with his plans said.The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. Griffin became a free agent on Sunday after clearing waivers.The terms of the contract were not disclosed.The deal adds another big name to a stacked Nets team, but it also carries some risk. Griffin, 31, had one of the best years of his career in 2018-19, when he made the all-N.B.A. third team, but his production has significantly slipped since then as a result of injuries. This season, Griffin struggled in 20 games for the Detroit Pistons, averaging 12.3 points on 36.5 percent shooting and 5.2 rebounds.There’s also a question of fit: Griffin’s best attributes have been his scoring and passing abilities. He has never been known as a defender. The Nets are already the best offensive team in the league with three players who dominate the ball: James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.Even so, Griffin, if he can recapture any of his play from his All-Star years, will make the Nets even more formidable. The Nets are 24-13 and second in the Eastern Conference behind the Philadelphia 76ers. They have won 10 of their last 11 games.Griffin was drafted first over all by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2009 but he missed the 2009-10 season because of a knee injury. He then became a sensation known for his high-flying dunks and charismatic personality. He made the All-Star team in his first season and helped revitalize the Clippers. In 2018, after more than seven seasons with the team, the Clippers traded him to the Pistons. This season was Griffin’s fourth in Detroit. The Pistons are rebuilding while Griffin is in the twilight of his career, so the two sides went their opposite ways.Griffin and his new Nets teammate James Harden have combined for 15 All-Star selections.Credit…Carlos Osorio/Associated PressLast season, Griffin played only 18 games because of knee soreness, and his production (15.5 points, 35.2 percent shooting) was well below his career averages (21.4 points, 49.5 percent). This year, though, Griffin has at least appeared healthy but it has not translated to on-court production.One of the most notable moments of Griffin’s career was a dunk over a car at the 2011 dunk contest. While now a part of N.B.A. lore, it also underscores a truth about Griffin’s career. He dominated in highlight reels especially during the regular season, but hasn’t had much playoff success. He has never been on a team that made the conference finals. Joining the Nets gives him the best opportunity in his career to do so.“The individual awards and these things are fine, and I’m appreciative of them, but I just want to win,” Griffin said in January. “Not making it to a conference final, yeah, it does gnaw at me. Not to the point where I’m losing sleep over it. But that’s the main goal — I want to win.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why the Nets May Be the Most Feared Team in the N.B.A.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn pro basketballWhy the Nets May Be the Most Feared Team in the N.B.A.At the midpoint of the season, the Nets are clicking, whether or not all three of their big stars are on the floor. That’s good for them, and frightening for all other contenders.The Brooklyn Big Three — Kyrie Irving, James Hardin and Kevin Durant — have worked out better than expected this season.Credit…Jed Jacobsohn for The New York TimesMarch 6, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ETSo it turns out that when you put three elite players together in their primes, the result is some elite basketball.The Nets’ grand experiment combining Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden in one on-court souffle is a work in progress. But at the halfway point of the season, the Nets may be the most feared team in the league. They are 10-1 in their last 11 games and 17-7 since trading for Harden in January.In some ways, it is a challenge to draw any lasting conclusions from the Nets’ first half, in the same way it would be to assess Thanos’s powers early in the Marvel universe films. They aren’t fully formed.The most jarring data point is that the Nets have barely scratched the surface of their super trio. Durant, Irving and Harden have played together in only seven games, as a result of nagging injuries and rest. The Nets are 5-2 in those games. One of those losses — a close one against the Toronto Raptors — was with Durant coming off the bench.All three are playing some of the best basketball of their careers, and they have barely been able to do it together. It’s possible that being apart is what has allowed them to thrive. Even so, the Nets are just a half-game behind Philadelphia for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.The Nets are title favorites right now. In recent history, trios featuring multiple Most Valuable Player Award candidates have won titles (the Durant-era Golden State Warriors, the LeBron James-led Miami Heat). And there is a legitimate argument to be made that these three are the most talented threesome in N.B.A. history.Here is a look at what to expect from the Nets in the second half of the season and what they’ve done right so far.The Rich, as Usual, Might Get RicherBlake Griffin is on his way to being a free agent after reaching a buyout agreement with the Pistons.Credit…Carlos Osorio/Associated PressThe way that championships have been deemed by the public (and the media) to validate a player’s career incentivizes talented players to join already talented teams, even for lesser roles. This often shows itself in midseason when productive players get bought out and land on contenders to try to chase a championship.The trade deadline is March 25. Two players on the Nets’ radar are surely Andre Drummond of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who is on track to become one of the greatest rebounders in league history, and Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons, who is one season removed from one of his best years. The Pistons announced Friday that they had reached a buyout agreement with Griffin, and the same could happen for Drummond in Cleveland.The Nets are likely to be serious contenders for their services, and that of other players who could be on the move because of their age and their team’s priorities, such as Al Horford and George Hill of the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder are in the middle of a youth movement.The Nets are in a position where they don’t have to give up anyone. They just have to be patient. (And even if they wanted to, they don’t really have many attractive trade pieces, especially with Spencer Dinwiddie injured.)A Happy Harden Is Sad News for OpponentsHarden facing the Golden State Warriors last month.Credit…Jed Jacobsohn for The New York TimesIn Harden’s eight games with the Houston Rockets this season, it was clear he was not putting in the effort. He was often jogging, uninvolved in the offense and otherwise lethargic.But it goes to show you: Sometimes being petulant pays off. In Brooklyn, Harden has been motivated and, as a result, exceptional. In 23 games, Harden is averaging 11.4 assists (on pace for a career high and to lead the league), shooting 49.7 percent from the field and 42.2 percent on 3-pointers. Harden would be a top M.V.P. candidate right now if not for the stellar play of Irving and Durant.He has flowed seamlessly with Irving on and off the ball, often creating easy opportunities not just for role players, but also for Irving, who has thrived in the shooting guard role.Since the Harden trade, the Nets have had the league’s best offense, without the team’s stars playing all together much.And this isn’t surprising for a team with Harden and Irving, but the Nets are near the top of the league in isolations. When you have so many elite scorers, as Coach Steve Nash does, you have the luxury of letting them go to work and break down defenses one-on-one.What to watch out for with Harden is whether his conditioning will cause a drop-off later in the season. But for the first time in a long time, Harden won’t be expected to carry an entire offense by himself, so it may not matter.The Nets’ Defense Is Bad — and That’s OK?Luka Doncic of the Mavericks put up 27 points against the Nets last month. Dallas shot 52 percent.Credit…Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBefore Harden arrived, the Nets were 13th in defense. Not great, but just above average. With Harden, the team’s defense has tanked, all the way to 26th, among the worst in the league. Even over the Nets’ recent 10-1 stretch, the defense was still below average.Some of this can be chalked up to injuries. Durant is the team’s most versatile defender, and he has missed roughly half the season and hasn’t taken the floor since Feb. 13 because of a left hamstring strain.So can a team with a bad defense win the championship? Yes, actually. But it’s rare.The 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers had the 10th-best defense, as did the 2005-6 Miami Heat. Those are still above-average, if not elite, defenses.A truly bad defensive team that won a championship was the 2000-1 Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. That team was 22nd. Incidentally, the year before, when they also won the championship, the Lakers led the league in defense. Go figure.The Schedule Looks PromisingThe Knicks, hovering around .500, are part of the Nets’ start to the second half.Credit…Pool photo by Brad PennerThe Nets will start the second half with a fairly soft schedule: 11 of their first 20 games will be against teams below .500. Of the other nine contests, four are against the Boston Celtics, the Miami Heat and the Knicks, three teams hovering around .500.The Nets’ Big Three should be able to use this time to jell, at the expense of less-talented teams.The Role Players Are Getting It DoneThe Nets have gotten production from all over the roster.Credit…Jed Jacobsohn for The New York TimesIt’s easy to keep all the attention on the stars, but Sean Marks, the general manager, has also assembled a solid surrounding cast.Jeff Green, the 34-year-old veteran, has been a bargain. He has started 16 of his 33 games this season and averaged 9.5 points per game on a career-high 50.7 field-goal percentage. And he is also shooting 42.2 percent from 3, which is essential to take pressure off the Nets’ main scorers. He is the kind of player who knows his limits and rarely makes mistakes. Green also has 72 playoff games under his belt, including a trip to the finals — experience that should come in handy in the spring.Joe Harris is also having a career year, fresh off landing a big contract. He is shooting a whopping 50.6 percent from 3-point range. That is ridiculous. Last year, no one finished above 46 percent. In fact, no one has since Kyle Korver in the 2009-10 season.Bruce Brown has been a revelation for the Nets, both as a fill-in starter and otherwise. He is averaging 8.6 points per game and 59 percent shooting. In his last six games, he is averaging 18 points, which has helped fill some of Durant’s absence. He dropped a career-high 29 points against the Sacramento Kings on Feb. 23.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      James Harden Is Headed Back to Houston. Too Bad He’s Not Staying.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballJames Harden Is Headed Back to Houston. Too Bad He’s Not Staying.Harden is in a groove with the Nets as they head to face his former Rockets team, which is struggling.James Harden returns to Houston reinvigorated and chatty about defense, while his former team is in the midst of a losing streak.Credit…Daniel Dunn/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMarch 3, 2021Updated 7:13 a.m. ETThe Nets haven’t achieved anything substantial yet. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the newcomer in their star trio, James Harden, haven’t even played 200 minutes together yet.As flammable as the new Nets have looked at their best, in such an inviting Eastern Conference, what we’ve seen so far does not assure the three alphas and their rookie coach, Steve Nash, of meaningful future success.One notable exception: Harden’s return to Houston on Wednesday, 50 days after his last game there, is certain to be triumphant.Entering his first visit to Toyota Center since the weekslong mutiny he staged to persuade the Rockets to trade him, with his former team in the throes of a relentless losing streak, Harden appears reinvigorated, almost reborn, in the wake of the divorce. That was evident on Monday night in San Antonio, where Harden racked up 30 points, 14 rebounds and 15 assists — without a turnover — in an overtime victory against the Spurs.“He can literally do almost everything there is to do out there,” Nash said.Harden has been on his best behavior as a Net, embracing a much more watchable share-the-ball approach with a vigor some skeptics thought he no longer had at age 31. The result: Harden’s reputation has rebounded dramatically, with a swiftness and flair few predicted when the Rockets shipped him to Brooklyn in mid-January.I say “few” because there were some, as confirmed when I went back and reread my post-trade analysis. I quoted a Western Conference executive who felt that Harden-bashers in the news media, including the guy who curates this newsletter, had gotten so lost in Harden’s various acts of sabotage that we had turned him into the league’s most underrated player.The executive’s point, if somewhat theatrical, resonates pretty strongly now. As natural, and fair, as it was to fixate on the desultory manner in which Harden essentially quit on the Rockets, it was too readily forgotten that he remains an offensive force almost without peer. With these Nets, everyone, including Irving, saw it immediately: Harden had to have the ball.Kyrie Irving and James Harden have blended their games in the way that quickly became the clear solution: by giving the ball to Harden.Credit…Al Bello/Getty ImagesThe notion that he was some sort of luxury addition greeted Harden when he joined the two incumbent scoring machines at Barclays Center. The Nets then assembled an eight-game winning streak last month, with Durant — his spectacular comeback from a torn right Achilles’ tendon suddenly interrupted by a pesky hamstring strain — playing in only one of those games. Irving is on pace to shoot above 50 percent from the floor (.514) for the first time, and he routinely dazzles with his shotmaking, but by mid-February he was openly referring to Harden, rather than himself, as the Nets’ point guard.It’s why Harden is now more commonly described as a durable, dependable necessity who, in the Nets’ dream scenario, just might make them so dynamic offensively that they don’t have to sweat their shortcomings in depth and on defense. He has seven triple-doubles in 22 games and, on the way to Houston on Tuesday, he was named Eastern Conference player of the month.Rockets fans, of course, won’t need the up-close reminder of Wednesday’s game against the Nets to slam home the reality that The Beard is no longer theirs. They feel it every night.Everything this franchise did revolved around Harden for eight seasons. Without him? While Harden was shredding the Spurs, Houston was absorbing its 12th consecutive defeat, squandering a chance to bring a halt to the skid against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are now 14-21.Still reeling from the news that the city’s beloved football star J.J. Watt had just signed with the Arizona Cardinals, Houston has too many problems these days to know where to look first. The injury-hit Rockets have gone winless since Feb. 4, when their best player this season, Christian Wood, was sidelined by a sprained right ankle. Five of those 12 defeats came by at least 20 points — including a 49-point humiliation at home against Memphis on Sunday.The Rockets are caught between a need to lose for optimum draft position, as they begin a period of heavy reliance on the draft, and the emotional toll of getting reacquainted with losing for the first time in years. This franchise last endured a sub-.500 season in 2005-06, only to get a head start on this season’s theme through a steady stream of high-profile departures that began last September. First it was Coach Mike D’Antoni, then General Manager Daryl Morey, then Russell Westbrook and ultimately Harden.There will probably be more, too, with the March 25 trade deadline looming. The Rockets are weighing whether to shop Victor Oladipo, the former All-Star guard who arrived from Indiana in the four-team Harden blockbuster. The bruising forward P.J. Tucker, one of the few remaining holdovers from a run with Harden that delivered two trips to the Western Conference finals, three scoring titles and one Most Valuable Player Award — but no championships — is eagerly awaiting his own exit in the coming days and a new start with a contender. John Wall replaced Westbrook but watched his close friend and fellow former All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins, negotiate his release last month, so Cousins, too, could search for a job with a playoff-bound team.The Nets’ three big stars haven’t spent much time all together on the court, but individually, and in pairs, they have turned the team into one of the league’s greatest offenses.Credit…Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesTeardowns are never pretty, but this one has even more layers than usual because it wasn’t the only option. The Rockets, remember, could have traded Harden to the 76ers for Ben Simmons, but rumblings persist that Tilman Fertitta, Houston’s owner, pushed for the Nets’ deal built heavily on draft compensation in part because he could not bear to send Harden to Philadelphia, where Morey landed after their frosty parting. Amid the Nets’ surge to No. 1 in the N.B.A. in offensive efficiency (117.9 points per 100 possessions) and the Knicks’ unforeseen rise to No. 4 in the cushier Eastern Conference, I hope you haven’t missed last month’s other major development in the East: Simmons has responded to the sting of bracing himself for a trade to Texas with the best two-way basketball of his life.Last week, Simmons smothered Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks in a way that pretty much nobody else has managed. Simmons hounded Doncic for five of the Dallas star’s seven turnovers in a nationally televised game on TNT. That followed impressive clampings of Portland’s Damian Lillard and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell.“I like taking those challenges,” Simmons said. “Just tell me who to guard.”Ever since I watched Simmons make his case for the Defensive Player of the Year Award so forcefully against Doncic, with his offense also picking up, I’ve been thinking about the Rockets a lot. I was part of the December and January chorus touting Simmons as the ideal return in a Harden deal for Houston’s new front office, led by General Manager Rafael Stone. Now Simmons looks even more like the young franchise cornerstone that Houston had convinced so many rival teams it was holding out for in a Harden deal.For all the inevitable curiosity about what sort of reaction Harden will get from an expected crowd of roughly 4,000 Houstonians, only one question really matters for the Rockets: Did they make the right trade? They can rightfully say it’s too early for final judgments, but the answer, thanks to both Harden and Simmons, is not trending in their direction.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeSome fans wanted Kyle Lowry to play for and coach the Toronto Raptors, but it wasn’t to be.Credit…Todd Kirkland/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Responses may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Fun read on Luka Doncic and Larry Bird. But I do have one quibble. You wrote:Another key contrast: Doncic didn’t land with a franchise as close to title contention as Bird and, in Year 3, finds himself in his most challenging stretch since he reached the N.B.A.There is a problem with that statement. Bird joined the Celtics in 1979-80 and immediately led them to a 61-win season after the team went 29-53. They won 32 games the season before that. I’m a lifelong Knicks fan, but I have also long recognized that Bird made his team dramatically better right away and for the duration of his time there. — Bill Dailey (Rye, N.Y.)Stein: You are not the only one, Bill, voicing opposition to this sentence. I worded it without the requisite clarity and, as you suggested, definitely shortchanged Bird for the staggering improvement he inspired in his rookie season in Boston. But I’m going to push back on the idea that Bird alone put Boston back in the title mix, because the Celtics did have some things going for them in 1979-80 that you wouldn’t normally associate with a franchise coming off a 29-win season:Dave Cowens and Tiny Archibald were future Hall of Famers and still quality starters, albeit late in their careers, when Bird showed up. Cowens and Archibald clearly could no longer lead a good team at that point, but Bird accentuated (and benefited from) their veteran know-how.Cedric Maxwell, who inspired last week’s Doncic/Bird piece, was in his third N.B.A. season in 1979-80. The next year, Maxwell won the finals’ most valuable player honors. Dirk Nowitzki was in his 21st N.B.A. season when Doncic was a rookie; none of Doncic’s other teammates has looked like a future Hall of Famer or finals M.V.P.The Celtics had enough draft picks stashed, before Bird played a game, to swing the league-altering trade with Golden State in June 1980 that brought Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to Boston. Before that trade, remember, Red Auerbach also won a power struggle with the Celtics’ owner John Y. Brown that kept Auerbach — perhaps the most successful team-builder in the sport’s history — from leaving Boston to take over the Knicks. Brown sold his stake in the team to go into politics, and Auerbach stayed to make the moves that flanked Bird with McHale and Parish.When you take all that into account, I’d argue that the Celtics were indeed much closer to title contention than the two seasons pre-Bird would have suggested — and certainly closer than Doncic’s Mavericks. Don’t forget that only three of the East’s 11 teams in Bird’s first season had winning records. Philadelphia was a perennial power, but Milwaukee’s ascension, which made the East much more competitive, came later.Q: Tree Rollins was a player/coach for Orlando in 1995. — @theregoeshappy from TwitterStein: This tweet came in response to the history lesson we reviewed on Friday about player/coaches in the N.B.A.Despite the Rollins reference, players’ doubling as head coaches, even on an interim basis, was indeed deemed impermissible by the league office starting in the 1984-85 season after the N.B.A. implemented its first salary cap. The league wanted to ensure that teams could not circumvent the limits and provide extra compensation to players, since coaches’ salaries are not governed by the salary cap.Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, in other words, was not eligible to be the Raptors’ interim player/coach when Nick Nurse could not coach because of virus-related health concerns — no matter how badly N.B.A. Twitter was rooting for that to happen.Some of the game’s greatest players served as player-head coach before the salary cap era, including Bill Russell, Lenny Wilkens, Dave DeBusschere, Bob Pettit and Bob Cousy. The last player who doubled as player and head coach in the N.B.A. was Boston’s Dave Cowens in the 1978-79 season.Rollins functioned as a player-assistant coach for his last two seasons as an active player in Orlando, 1993-94 and 1994-95, but he appeared on the Magic’s payroll as a player in both cases and, again, would not have been allowed to serve as the head coach if asked.Q: The Bucks at roughly the same point last year were 27-4 and had 15 double-digit wins. And the discussion was whether Khris Middleton would make the All-Star team as the Bucks’ second-best player. There was not even a discussion about Eric Bledsoe, who had similar numbers to Utah’s Mike Conley. I don’t think that Milwaukee team warranted a third All-Star, and I don’t think Conley should make it, either. I just don’t understand the double standard. — @JoohnSn from TwitterStein: This reader is questioning why I publicly lobbied for Utah to have three All-Stars this season. I can’t speak for every All-Star voter. I can only share the principles I use when I make my (unofficial) All-Star picks, which are similar to the principles I and many other voters apply in M.V.P. voting. In short: Every season is a story unto itself. The circumstances are never the same, especially on the All-Star front, so what may have applied one year doesn’t automatically apply later.When choosing All-Star reserves, just like when trying rank five candidates on an M.V.P. ballot, many voters are trying to pinpoint who has assembled the strongest “best season” cases to that point of the schedule. I don’t think All-Star voters should be getting bogged down by the granular details about previous years when they make their selections. The number of worthy All-Star contenders in each conference fluctuates season to season, which is partly how Atlanta got four All-Star reserves in 2014-15.I said Utah should have three All-Stars this season because the Jazz have been a runaway force in numerous statistical categories. Whether Milwaukee had three worthy All-Star candidates last season, or if you found it fair or unfair that the Hawks landed their four All-Star reserves six years ago, those seasons are largely immaterial to this discussion.I made the case, in print and on Twitter, that Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Conley should claim three of the West’s seven All-Star reserve spots this season because of both Utah’s first-half excellence and the outstanding individual production all three have given the Jazz. I likewise did that lobbying, as stated from the outset, as one last pre-emptive hat tip, because I was expecting Conley to be snubbed and for Utah to get only two All-Stars.There was no double standard at play, just one man’s opinion and voting approach. Western Conference coaches, who picked the reserves, clearly joined you in disagreeing with me.Numbers GameLloyd Pierce was fired as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks on Monday. He was one of seven Black N.B.A. coaches.Credit…Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesStats entering Tuesday night’s games..402Tuesday marked one full year on the job for Leon Rose as the Knicks’ team president. The Knicks are 18-17, better than many pundits predicted, but the history stacked against Rose is foreboding: This is the 20th season of James L. Dolan’s ownership, during which the Knicks are 661-982 — resulting in the league’s lowest winning percentage in that span, at .402.3The three best regular-season winning percentages during Dolan’s reign belong to the three Texas teams: San Antonio’s .688 (1,131-512), Dallas’s .599 (988-662) and Houston’s .576 (949-698).19.8When the Knicks selected Obi Toppin with the No. 8 pick in November’s draft, Toppin was billed as Julius Randle’s potential successor in the frontcourt. Instead Randle, who has a very friendly team option for next season at $19.8 million, will play Sunday in his first All-Star Game. Without warning, Randle has emerged as the offensive fulcrum for Coach Tom Thibodeau, who is the closest thing to a marquee signing the Knicks made in the off-season.5The former Knicks team president Dave Checketts will join Burnley’s board of directors in June and make it the fifth club in the 20-team English Premier League club with an N.B.A. connection at ownership level. Arsenal is owned by Stan Kroenke, whose son, Josh, is the Denver Nuggets’ governor and team president and also serves on Arsenal’s board. Aston Villa is co-owned by Wes Edens, one of the primary owners of the Milwaukee Bucks. Crystal Palace is owned by the Philadelphia 76ers’ duo of Josh Harris and David Blitzer. And the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James has been a minority owner of Liverpool since 2011.16The diversity of the N.B.A.’s big-picture landscape remained largely unchanged after coaching moves in Minnesota and Atlanta over the past nine days. Of the league’s top 60 positions, only 16 are held by nonwhite coaches and heads of front offices.With a player pool estimated at more than 75 percent Black, the league has just seven Black head coaches. Nate McMillan has replaced the ousted Lloyd Pierce in Atlanta as the Hawks’ interim coach and joined Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit’s Dwane Casey, Houston’s Stephen Silas, Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers, Phoenix’s Monty Williams and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Tyronn Lue.Charlotte’s James Borrego, who is Mexican-American, and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, who is Filipino-American, are the league’s other two coaches of color.The six Black executives with lead decision-making authority in the front office are Cleveland’s Koby Altman, Detroit’s Troy Weaver, Houston’s Rafael Stone, Phoenix’s James Jones, San Antonio’s Brian Wright and Toronto’s Masai Ujiri. Minnesota’s Gersson Rosas was the first Latino in league history to run a team’s basketball operations.Rosas hired Chris Finch, who is white and had worked with him in Houston, to replace Ryan Saunders as head coach of the Timberwolves on Feb. 22. Rosas has faced considerable criticism for hiring Finch, an assistant coach from the Toronto Raptors, in the middle of the season rather than promoting David Vanterpool, who is Black, from within, or commissioning a wider search. In the front office, Rosas has hired two Indian-Americans, Sachin Gupta and Robby Sikka, and Joe Branch, a Black former player agent.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Nets and Knicks Welcome Back Fans for First Time

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadThe fans allowed into Barclays Center in Brooklyn were scattered about to ensure social distancing.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFans Return in New York, Thrilled to Cheer (and Jeer) AgainThe Nets and the Knicks were the first teams to take advantage of New York’s relaxed rules on attendance at sporting events. It was … different, but also a welcome bit of normalcy.The fans allowed into Barclays Center in Brooklyn were scattered about to ensure social distancing.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 24, 2021Updated 9:24 a.m. ETThe lights went dark before the game at the Barclays Arena on Tuesday night. A glossily produced video blared from the video screens, filling the 19,000-seat venue with sound and clips of Nets dunking or shooting through colored wisps of smoke, along with the words “Brooklyn Together.” Then the team’s starting lineup sprinted onto the court, one by one, as they were introduced by the public address announcer. And with each name, the crowd roared.Well, it was a fake crowd mostly — piped in through the speaker system — that provided the roars as the Nets got set to play the Sacramento Kings. The actual crowd in attendance — about 300 or so — mostly sat quietly in their seats, lightly clapping as if they were watching a Dvorak symphony or a middle school graduation.Tuesday night was the first time that the Nets allowed fans to watch a game in person since March 8 of last year, when more than 15,000 people attended. Two weeks ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that venues with 10,000 or more seats would be allowed to host fans at 10 percent of the venue’s capacity.James Harden had a triple double in a win over the Kings.Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated PressStephen Curry said it felt good to be heckled again.Credit…Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBarclays could have hosted thousands more fans, but opted to start small. To attend, patrons had to take two coronavirus tests — one within 72 hours of the game and another, rapid version on site.Across New York’s East River, similar scenes were playing out when the Knicks hosted the Golden State Warriors at Madison Square Garden. The crowd was a bit bigger in Manhattan — about 2,000 fans — but it was enough that Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau called the night “a first step back toward normalcy.”The Knicks boasted the game had been a “sellout,” and before it began the fans chanted “M-V-P! M-V-P!” and nearly drowned out the remarks of Julius Randle, who addressed the crowd after being named the Knicks’ first All-Star Game since 2018. By the second half, even the visitors got a sense nature was healing. The Warriors won, 114-106.“There were some fans heckling,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry told reporters after the game, “which was awesome.”Credit…Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe former Giant Justin Tuck and the actor Tracy Morgan were courtside at the Garden.Credit…Pool photo by Wendell CruzIn Brooklyn, the return of fans meant the return of the Nets’ dance team, too.Credit…Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets and the Knicks are two of 14 N.B.A. teams allowing patrons to attend games in some way.“It’s a nice change,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said. “We obviously have been playing in empty stadiums for the most part, at least at home. And so to have some fans and a little bit of life and energy, and hopefully we can safely incorporate more fans as we go here.”Barclays Center was a microcosm of the disruption that the world has gone through over the last year. At times, it felt like an uneasy blend between a haunted house and a private Beyoncé concert. Thousands of seats remained unavailable, many still covered by tarps. Almost all of the arena’s restaurants were closed.There was no line for bathrooms, and inside them some sinks had tape over them to encourage social distancing. A sign outside the arena, where scalpers used to roam, offered free testing for the coronavirus, the specter of which was never far away: After walking inside for the game, patrons were greeted with a warning sign that included the line, “Traveling to and from, visiting, and/or providing services in and around the arena may lead to a risk of exposure to COVID-19.”Dozens of ushers stood idly by — back to work for the first time all season — holding placards shaped like stop signs that read, “Please wear your masks.” One remarked that while it was good to be back, she was befuddled by the lack of hallway traffic. “So why am I here?” she said. “There’s no guests!”While the Barclays Center crowd was limited to a few hundred by the Nets, Madison Square Garden welcomed about 2,000 fans. “Even just having a couple thousand fans makes a difference,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said. “It just feels more normal, more real.”Credit…Pool photo by Wendell CruzBut as the Knicks’ Thibodeau noted across the river, Tuesday night also represented the first tentative steps back to normalcy in New York sports. Along with the ushers came the return of the Brooklynettes, the Nets’ dance team, and the team’s drum line. Before tipoff, a woman with a headset approached the rehearsing dancers, who were on an elevated podium far from the court, and pleaded: “We have to be really on it with our masks. Please.”One drummer yelled across the arena — possibly to a team of breakdancers — “You all look wack over there.” In previous years, his voice would not have carried so far.Shortly before tipoff, the Nets debuted a video of players speaking the lyrics to the Bill Withers classic, “Ain’t No Sunshine,” dedicated to absent fans. Then Kyrie Irving waved to the crowd on both sides of the court; in an arena with hundreds instead of thousands of people, fans might have been forgiven for thinking Irving was waving to them individually.“It felt like you were sitting in your living room,” said Dylan Schultz, 27. “I’m sitting just with my friend. Not too many people around me. But there’s still this environment of the game is right directly in front of you. You could hear them talking to each other. Sick.”Some in the building tried to keep up traditions, like trying to interrupt opponent’s free-throw shooting. On Tuesday, that effort — normally taken up by thousands of fans screaming and waving objects — fell to four drummers behind the basket, joined occasionally by the five dancers. (Statistically speaking, they could claim success: The Kings shot 13 of 19 from the line, slightly below their season average.)As far as the game itself, the Nets led most of it and won their seventh straight, 127-118. Bruce Brown, the starting guard, got a rare turn in the spotlight, scoring 29 points, as did James Harden, who had a triple-double: 29 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists.For the most part, the crowd — scattered throughout courtside seats, luxury suites and some in the lower level — stayed subdued, in spite of having the most hyped Nets team in years to watch in person.“It feels like you’re watching a practice session,” said Rich Schaefer, 42, a season-ticket holder. “You’re at a high school gym, and there’s no one there. But you’re watching the best players in the world. It’s not the same energy you get during sold-out games. But there is something incredible, as a basketball fan, of watching and hearing everybody talking and not being distracted by what’s happening around you.”But for the players, the sight of friendly jerseys was a welcome one.“Just having somebody in there to cheer you on is better than nothing,” Nets guard Joe Harris said. “It was definitely nice, even though 300 is not a lot in the big arena. But it’s still a better feel than the empty ones.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Knicks’ Julius Randle Named to His First All-Star Team

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKnicks’ Julius Randle Named to His First All-Star TeamRandle is the first Knick to be an All-Star since Kristaps Porzingis in the 2017-18 season. He is averaging a team-leading 23.1 points per game.Julius Randle is on a pace for career highs in points, rebounds and assists in his second season with the Knicks.Credit…Pool photo by Jason DecrowFeb. 23, 2021Updated 7:28 p.m. ETForward Julius Randle, who is having a career year, was named to the N.B.A. All-Star team on Tuesday night as a reserve, giving the Knicks their first All-Star since Kristaps Porzingis during the 2017-18 season.It was the 26-year-old Randle’s first All-Star selection. He is on a pace for career highs in points, rebounds and assists, and is the best player on a Knicks team making a push for its first playoff run since 2012-13. He is the eighth Knicks All-Star this century. (The others are Porzingis, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire, David Lee, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell.)“It’d be amazing, man,” Randle recently said about the prospect of being named to the team. “You put in a lot of work and sacrifice and dedication to your craft. So for you to receive those accolades or whatever it may be and be recognized as such would be a great feeling. And especially as a Knick.”With James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant making the team for the Nets, this season’s All-Star Game, in Atlanta on March 7, will be the first with players from both New York teams since the 2013-14 season, when Joe Johnson (Nets) and Anthony (Knicks) were selected. This is the first time the Nets have had three players in one season chosen for the All-Star team.Randle was drafted with the seventh pick in 2014 by the Los Angeles Lakers after a standout year at Kentucky. He missed all but one game of his rookie year because he broke his leg during his first game. But he recovered fully and became a solid contributor for the Lakers over the next three seasons. He then played one season for the New Orleans Pelicans, averaging 21.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, showing glimpses of his All-Star potential, which has emerged fully in New York.Randle’s strong play comes at a time when his future with the Knicks is uncertain. His contract is up after the 2021-22 season, and he has made it clear he wants to remain a Knick.“I signed here with the hopes of being here long term,” Randle said recently. “I want to be one of the guys that’s part of this team and eventually, hopefully, we are competing for championships and winning championships. That’s my dream. A picture perfect thing for me.”The rosters:Western Conference starter poolLeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers)Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors)Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers)Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks)Eastern Conference starter poolKevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets)Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers)Kyrie Irving (Brooklyn Nets)Bradley Beal (Washington Wizards)Western Conference reservesAnthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers)Paul George (Los Angeles Clippers)Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz)Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers)Donovan Mitchell (Utah Jazz)Chris Paul (Phoenix Suns)Zion Williamson (New Orleans Pelicans)Eastern Conference reservesJaylen Brown (Boston Celtics)James Harden (Brooklyn Nets)Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls)Julius Randle (New York Knicks)Ben Simmons (Philadelphia 76ers)Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics)Nikola Vucevic (Orlando Magic)AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More