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      A New Era of Million Dollar Sports Trading Cards Is Here

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMove Over, Honus: A New Era of Million-Dollar Cards Is HereAs prices soar in the high-end collectibles market, cards of stars like LeBron James and Mike Trout are in the same discussion as those of Honus Wagner and Mickey Mantle.Aaron Davis brings security to the bank when he visits his LeBron James cards. The two on the table are worth more than $7 million.Credit…John Francis Peters for The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETAaron Davis’s wife thought it was absurd when he spent $312,000 on a one-of-a-kind LeBron James trading card in 2016. That assessment has not been officially retracted, but only five years later the card could fetch well over 10 times that at auction, experts say.In July, another James card — this one not nearly as rare — sold for $1.8 million. That caught Davis’s attention because there are only two versions of that particular card that share the same high quality, and Davis, a 42-year-old investment manager in California, owns the other one.Davis keeps those two cards, with a combined worth in excess of $7 million, safely squirreled away in a bank vault with some of his other prized specimens.“Every time I buy a card I feel like I’m a little bit crazy, too, and the rest of the world might also think that,” Davis said during a telephone interview in which he revealed, for the first time publicly, that he owns the two million-dollar cards. “But that’s when you’re buying a good card, because they are irreplaceable. There are two of them, and they are in tight hands.”The folklore that has built up around valuable, vintage sports cards over the last few decades is a romantic one. Antique trading cards, each one a colorful, pocket-size painting depicting a legendary player, fortuitously discovered after surviving decades in attics and shoe boxes, only to then realize staggering sums on the resale market.A Honus Wagner baseball card from the early 20th century was long considered the holy grail of collecting, with the few good ones that exist selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars 30 years ago and now worth a few million each. In January, a 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card set a record when it sold for $5.2 million thanks to its unusually pristine condition.But players no longer have to be dead — or even retired — for their cards to sell for astronomical figures. Until that Mantle card sold, the most money ever paid a sports card was $3.9 million, for a Mike Trout rookie card made by Bowman in 2009.Mickey Mantle’s 1952 Topps rookie card is one of the most sought-after classic cards. One recently sold at auction for $5.2 million.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe buyer of that Trout card, who remains anonymous, could have purchased a Brooklyn brownstone for that amount. Instead, they spent it on a small piece of cardboard depicting a 29-year-old slugger who has never won a World Series.“Maybe I should have kept that one,” Trout joked with reporters a few days later.Trout’s card sold in August, shortly after the market for modern cards went into overdrive. In September, two months after the James rookie card sold for $1,845,000, a Giannis Antetokounmpo rookie card produced by Panini fetched $1.9 million. Antetokounmpo is 26, with barely eight seasons in the N.B.A. and a full career ahead of him.“The modern cards are taking the market by storm,” said Chris Ivy, the director of sports at Heritage Auctions. “The vintage market is very strong, too, but the modern cards have joined in.”Of the top 10 prices paid for sports cards at public auction, seven were cards of modern stars who were playing as recently as 1999, and five of the 10 cards have players pictured who are still active. The list, however, is ever changing. A rising star card in the collectibles world is an immaculate so-called Logo Man card of Zion Williamson and Ja Morant (the top two picks from the 2019 N.B.A. draft). It can be had on eBay for a cool half a million dollars — just click on “Add To Cart.”“The industry is at its hottest point in my 40-year history,” Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions, said in an email. “It is nearly impossible to keep up with demand from buyers.”Ivy said that with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down many businesses, the sports collectibles industry expected hard times, too. But the opposite happened.“It’s not something I saw coming,” he said. “We, like many businesses, were tightening our belts preparing for a potential downturn, but the fact that we’ve see so much interest and so many people jumping in the market is a bit surprising.”The “T206” Honus Wagner card from 1909 was long considered the pinnacle of high-end sports cards because of its rarity. Now it competes with modern cards where the scarcity was built in from the start.Credit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesAnd the market continues to boil. Earlier this month, a 1997 Michael Jordan card fetched $1.4 million at auction. The soaring prices have created such a frenzy that investment groups are being formed to buy cards, making it harder for individual collectors to compete — even extraordinarily wealthy ones.“Billionaires chasing cardboard — we can deal with that dynamic,” Davis said. “But some people who don’t have the money themselves go around raising capital to buy the big stuff, which is really annoying.”The driving force behind the surge in modern card values, Ivy explained, is a new breed of collector, many of whom are similar to Davis — millionaires in their 40s and 50s who see sports cards as both a hobby and an investment. They hunt for the finest cards available, featuring athletes whom they actually watched play, like James, Trout, Jordan and the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, whose unique 1979 O-Pee-Chee rookie card sold for $1.29 million in December.The Gretzky card belongs to the older category of cards. It was printed at the O-Pee-Chee plant in London, Ontario, to be sold in wax packs along with an almost inedible piece of gum for kids to collect, trade or wedge into their bicycle spokes.The valuable modern cards are a completely different animal. These packs are not sold by the thousands at candy stores, and no kid is likely to have ever flipped one in the park. The new ones are produced in micro batches, like signature wines, often with a swatch of authenticated uniform fabric affixed to the card, and the player’s real signature emblazoned over a flashy chrome design.Whereas the supply of old cards from baseball’s antiquity were culled over time through wear and tear and loss, the newer cards, which date only to the beginning of this century, have scarcity built into them by limiting the supply at the front end.Scarcity has always driven the resale prices of cards, but in the mid to late 1980s, as the hobby morphed into a lucrative business, speculative collectors began buying cards of promising baseball prospects in bulk — Gary Sheffield, Gregg Jefferies, Todd Van Poppel, to name a few — hoping each one would turn into the next Mantle rookie card.In order to meet that demand, card companies like Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer and Bowman overproduced the cards, which flooded the market. Today, many of those cards are effectively worthless.“The ’80s and ’90s are known as the junk wax era,” Ivy said. “Nothing was scarce, nothing was rare.”Davis owns two of the most valuable LeBron James cards. There are 23 of the 2003-4 Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Patch on the left. The 2003 Ultimate Collection card on the right is the only one ever made.Credit…John Francis Peters for The New York TimesBut in 2003, Upper Deck made a singular rookie card of James under its Ultimate Collection imprint. That card — the one Davis bought in 2016 — contained the N.B.A. logo from James’s jersey, and James signed the card under a photo of him in his crimson Cavalier jersey. It has “1 of 1” written on the card and no other version exists. Packs of that series were sold in some retail shops at the time for $500 or more, and that James card is considered among the most prized in the world.“I know some people out there who are trying to hunt whales,” Davis said. “I have LeBron’s whale, the only one that someone could ever get.”But he had to go way out on a perch to get it. When he secured the winning bid of $312,000, it was considered such an outlandish amount that Goldin called Davis, a new bidder at the time, to ask, gently, if he was really going to pay.“If this card were to be sold today, I would expect it to be the most valuable card ever,” Goldin wrote in an email, “and sell for more than $5 million.”Davis did pay, and he also coughed up the cash for the Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Patch card, the better-looking twin of the one that sold in July for $1.8 million (James is wearing a white jersey on that card). There are only 23 of those, but the one that sold, and Davis’s version of it, have the highest grades, according to the two main grading companies — PSA and Beckett. Those companies rate the cards according to four main factors: sharpness of the corners, quality of the surface, how well centered the design is and the crispiness of the edges. They also issue population reports to notify collectors of how many of the cards exist in each grade.“This is the art of the future for sports enthusiasts who have money and don’t want to buy art,” Davis said. “Pretty much everything I collect now is because I think it is a good investment and because I like the player. The common thread is, I think it will be a good investment. It’s part of the fun.”Davis won’t rule anything out, but he has no immediate plans to sell either of his prized James rookie cards, because he cherishes them so much. When he gets the urge, he ventures down to the bank vault and, under tight security, gazes over his tidy little gems.“My wife says, ‘You like to spend time looking at cardboard,’” Davis laughed. “She’s right, but she also knows that a lot of the decisions I’ve made worked out pretty well.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      In the N.B.A., Money Speaks Louder Than Stars

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballIn the N.B.A., Money Speaks Louder Than StarsWith tens of millions of dollars at stake, the All-Star Game is unlikely to be derailed by pushback from the league’s biggest stars about the health risks or the need for a break.The N.B.A.’s biggest stars are speaking out against the All-Star Game, but money has the megaphone for now.Credit…Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFeb. 10, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ETDavid Stern was in his final full season as the N.B.A. commissioner in 2012-13 when LeBron James won his fourth and most recent Most Valuable Player Award. Eight years later, James is in his 18th season and a leading candidate in the race to receive the Maurice Podoloff trophy from Commissioner Adam Silver.James can still do many things in his supposed twilight years with the Los Angeles Lakers. He remains the game’s most high-profile figure and, by playing at an M.V.P. level at age 36, is constantly reminding us that basketball has its own answer to the N.F.L.’s time-defying Tom Brady.It would appear not even James, though, can stop the N.B.A. from staging an All-Star Game next month in Atlanta.He couldn’t have come out much stronger against the concept than he did late last week, blasting the N.B.A.’s plans to stuff three days’ worth of All-Star events into a one-shot Turner Sports extravaganza on March 7. League and players’ union officials are nonetheless expected to soon announce that those plans have been locked in.It is reminiscent of how the season started — and another illustration of the louder-than-ever say held by the N.B.A.’s broadcast partners at such challenging financial times for the sport’s various stakeholders.Players largely left the summer bubble expecting the 2020-21 season to be contested exclusively in 2021, starting no earlier than January and perhaps as late as March. Opening night was then suddenly moved up to Dec. 22 at the strong urging of the league’s two national broadcast partners, who wanted to preserve two valuable television properties: Disney’s five-game Christmas slate on ESPN and ABC, and Turner’s traditional Tuesday night doubleheader to start the season.As James said in a postgame session with reporters on Thursday, many players assumed there would not be an All-Star Game during the extended break scheduled from March 5 to 10. Those players were surprised when it emerged in late January that the league and the union were working on a one-night-only window for All-Star festivities that would enable TNT to air the event, the jewel of its annual N.B.A. coverage.The 2020 All-Star Game in Chicago, for example, attracted 7.3 million viewers for TNT. That was better than the viewing figures for any of the Christmas games on Disney-owned channels.The big difference between December and now is that no one has pinpointed the financial impact of a modified All-Star program. League officials maintain that it’s difficult to project figures for All-Star festivities in terms of basketball-related income, which owners and players split nearly 50/50. The New York Times was among the news outlets to report in December that starting the season before Christmas, rather than in mid-January, was expected to generate at least $500 million more in revenue.Chris Paul, left, has been working with the league to plan for the All-Star Game as president of the players’ union.Credit…Ralph Freso/Associated PressTwo estimates I was provided by industry insiders pegged the value of Turner’s All-Star coverage at $30 million to $60 million — money that the N.B.A. would have to make up to Turner later if the game was not played. You can safely assume that the overall potential loss (with B.R.I. added) would be much higher, given the way players of considerable stature, such as Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers, have talked about what’s motivating the league to take the health risk of bringing together the top players during the coronavirus pandemic.“It is what it is at this point,” Leonard said. “We all know why we’re playing it — there’s money on the line.”Leonard seemed to grasp better than most that, 11 months into the N.B.A.’s new reality (and the world’s), trade-offs for the big picture are a constant.Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Nets’ James Harden are among the marquee players who have joined James in publicly questioning the All-Star plans, contributing to an uncharacteristic swirl of pushback for Silver from the league’s stars. Phoenix’s Chris Paul, the players’ association president, said in response that “guys are entitled to their feelings” — but Paul insisted that “decisions are being made” with “the full body of players in mind.”Translation: More than 400 players who won’t be invited to participate in the resuscitated All-Star gathering are counting on those who do take part to ensure TNT can proceed with its usual showcase event and insulate them from a costly financial hit.The league’s deals with Disney and TNT, worth $24 billion over nine years, do not expire until after the 2024-25 season, but it is never too soon in coronavirus times to re-establish oneself as an exemplary partner. The N.B.A., for all the criticism it has absorbed in recent days, is certainly on a winning streak there, from conceiving a bubble to safely usher the 2019-20 season to a conclusion … to engineering that bubble at Walt Disney World as opposed to Las Vegas or any other interested city … to this All-Star save.I’m told Phoenix was proposed as a potential venue for March 7. Holding it in Atlanta instead would put the game in TNT’s backyard, eliminating travel for its coverage crews.Yet it’s the opposite for the participants, and that’s the unsettling part — even after the N.B.A. announced zero positives in leaguewide coronavirus testing last week. The All-Stars face extra travel to a function steeped in fraternization between players at a time when teams, in their day-to-day existence, are strongly discouraged from postgame interactions of any kind. There’s seemingly no way to avoid describing this game — an exhibition — as risky.The All-Star Game “has been an important tradition throughout the history of the league and remains one of our top events for global fan interest and engagement,” Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, said in a statement to The Times last week. “The health and safety of everyone involved is at the forefront of our discussions with the players’ association.”The league and the union have been adamant that the game will feature a significant philanthropic component to benefit historically Black colleges and universities as well as Covid-19 relief efforts. The broadcast itself is certain to amplify a league campaign that urges fans to take the coronavirus vaccine as it becomes available and features Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Gregg Popovich in commercial spots.Murmurs persist that some All-Stars will seek to opt out of playing what has been a mandatory assignment for those selected, according to the league’s bylaws, but all signs indicate the game will go ahead.James surely knows it, too. Don’t forget that, dismayed as he was about a game that “I don’t even understand” and a trip that will take 24 All-Stars “into one city that’s open,” he also said he would be there if selected.Even for the face of the N.B.A.’s player empowerment era, even when he’s playing Brady-esque ball, there are limits.Corner ThreeKobe Bryant, left, and Shaquille O’Neal, right, won three championships in eight seasons together in Los Angeles.Credit…Matt Campbell/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYou 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: Who you got? Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant? Or LeBron James and Anthony Davis? I know you’ve covered both duos. I bet you go with Kobe and Shaq. — Chris Williams (Laguna Beach, Calif.)Stein: We’ve seen James and Davis together for less than a season and a half. As fearsome as they look as a tag team, even after winning a championship on their first try and quickly establishing the Lakers as this season’s title favorites, I can’t put them ahead of the twosome at the center of the N.B.A.’s last three-peat.Not yet.But I reserve the right to change this vote down the road.For all their success together, O’Neal and Bryant had to settle for three titles in eight seasons. They dominated every aspect of the league for nearly a decade, with their drama as much as with the on-court havoc they caused, but the partnership was dissolved in acrimony when the Lakers decided it was untenable to keep orbiting the team around O’Neal and traded him to Miami in July 2004. There will always be a sense that these two divorced prematurely and could have won more together.James and Davis so far have a harmony that O’Neal and Bryant scarcely achieved. It’s still the honeymoon phase, with no guarantee things stay this way, but the Lakers also have their two biggest stars under contract together through 2022-23. The outlook is rather rosy — as long as they stay healthy. (Davis, as we speak, is nursing some nagging discomfort in his right leg and foot.)It’s important to remember the circumstances when making your assessments. O’Neal hadn’t won an N.B.A. championship and was still reasonably young himself, at 24, when he was paired with Bryant, then the most ambitious teenager in basketball history. James and Davis not only have games that mesh together beautifully, as offensive fulcrum and defensive anchor, but they came together when they were clearly ready to team up.James is in the later stages of his career and, with his legacy secure, has willingly ceded a chunk of the spotlight to Davis that might have been much harder to share in his 20s. Davis couldn’t carry New Orleans to glory as the face of that franchise and has clearly reveled in the boost he gets from James’s presence to unlock his full potential.Q: Why did the Nets feel compelled to give away so much in the James Harden trade? Couldn’t this transaction have gone forward without including Cleveland and Jarrett Allen? — Tom Cartelli (Milford, N.J.)Stein: No chance.The three future first-round draft picks that the Nets parted with were the headliner trade assets they used to win the Harden sweepstakes, but they were not going to have any shot at constructing a workable deal without including both Caris LeVert and Allen. Rather than keep Allen, Houston routed him to the Cavaliers for another first-round pick (Milwaukee’s 2021 first-rounder) and to reduce the Rockets’ luxury-tax bill.Harden’s incoming $41,254,920 salary required the Nets to send out a minimum of $32,923,936 to make the salary-cap math work. Allen’s $3,909,902 salary didn’t make much of a dent into that figure, but combining him with another blossoming talent in LeVert at $16,203,704, those three first-round picks and the rights for Houston to swap first-rounders in four additional drafts enabled the Nets to outbid Philadelphia and Boston.Q: Given the potential voter fatigue with the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo this season and Luka Doncic’s Mavericks off to a slow start, could we see someone in his 30s win the Most Valuable Player Award for the first time in 15 years? Steve Nash was the last to win the award in his 30s in 2006. — David Anderson (Raleigh, N.C.)Stein: You’re onto something for sure. Denver’s Nikola Jokic (26 on Feb. 19) and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (27 in March) are at the forefront of the M.V.P. race with roughly one-third of the regular season complete, but there are more 30-somethings in the conversation than players in their 20s.The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (36), Golden State’s Stephen Curry (33 in March) and the Nets’ Kevin Durant (32) would be in my top five with Jokic and Embiid if voting ended today.The duel between Curry (57 points) and Doncic (42 points, 11 assists and 7 rebounds) Saturday night in a 134-132 victory for Dallas was one of the games of the season so far — and reminded you that Curry is back to his best after missing almost all of last season with a broken hand.(The Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, in case you’re wondering, turns 30 in June.)Numbers GameAnthony Davis is struggling from the free-throw line this season.Credit…Daniel Dunn/USA Today Sports, via Reuters17The Western Conference-leading Utah Jazz (20-5) are making 17 3-pointers per game — which puts them on pace for a league record. The 2018-19 Houston Rockets made 16.1 3s per game to set the record, according to Stathead.70.2For all the justified praised we heaped on the Lakers’ Anthony Davis last week for how perfectly he complemented LeBron James, there’s no avoiding one prime area of slippage in his game this season: Davis is shooting a career-worst 70.2 percent from the free-throw line. He shot a career-best 84.6 percent last season.2Jeremy Lin of the Santa Cruz Warriors (Golden State’s affiliate) and Nik Stauskas of the Raptors 905 (Toronto’s affiliate) were the only two N.B.A. veterans allocated to the G League team of their choosing via the N.B.A. developmental league’s new veteran selection rule — which is also known unofficially as “the Jeremy Lin rule.” The G League’s 20th season opens Wednesday with 18 teams playing in a restricted-access zone at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., similar to last summer’s N.B.A. bubble.5We’re down to just five teams that have not faced a game postponement through the season’s opening seven weeks. That group includes both New York teams (Knicks and Nets), both Los Angeles teams (Lakers and Clippers) and Toronto (which is playing its home games in Tampa, Fla.).3Atlanta appears poised host to the All-Star Game for the third time. It was the host city in 1978 (when my beloved Randy Smith of the Buffalo Braves won most valuable player honors) and in 2003.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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      Growing Chorus of N.B.A. Stars Boos League’s Virus Strategy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGrowing Chorus of N.B.A. Stars Boos League’s Virus StrategyGiannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard joined LeBron James in criticizing the league’s plans for an All-Star Game, while Kevin Durant questioned protocols.Kevin Durant spoke out against the N.B.A. on social media on Friday night after he was pulled from a game because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols. He had already played 19 minutes.Credit…Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressFeb. 6, 2021Updated 4:53 p.m. ETMultiple N.B.A. stars, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant, added their voices to the growing chorus of players criticizing the league’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly plans to hold the All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7.“We’ve got to all follow the big dog,” Antetokounmpo told reporters on Friday night, referring to LeBron James, who this week said that holding the game would be “a slap in the face” for players. Echoing James, Antetokounmpo, the reigning Most Valuable Player Award winner, said he had “zero excitement, zero energy” for the game.Following Antetokounmpo’s comments, Leonard, the Los Angeles Clippers forward, said he was not surprised by the league’s plans, but that it was “just putting money over health right now, pretty much.”“We all know why we’re playing it,” said Leonard, a four-time All-Star. “It’s money on the line. There’s the opportunity to make more money.”The All-Star events are a chance to showcase the N.B.A.’s top talent. There is also a financial benefit, although how much is unclear. This year, the league, in conjunction with the players’ union, is planning to hold the 3-point contest and the skills competition on the same day as the game to condense an affair that typically lasts days. The N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement requires those selected for the All-Star Game to play if they are healthy.Nonetheless, a condensed schedule does not eliminate the added health risks of an event bringing together the game’s best players from across the country for an exhibition — and presents a sharp contrast to rules that bar players from sharing hugs and handshakes after games to help reduce the chances of infection spread.The league’s protocols appear to be wearing on some players, including Durant of the Nets, who was pulled from a game on Friday night in a strange spectacle that played out on TV and social media. About 20 minutes before the Nets were to tip off against the Toronto Raptors, the Nets announced that Durant would not start the game because of the league’s virus protocols. Just after the game started, the Nets announced that Durant had been cleared to play. But then, after Durant played a little more than 19 minutes, he was pulled from the game and ruled out because of the protocols.Shortly after leaving the game, Durant posted on Twitter, “Free me.” He had appeared frustrated on the TV broadcast as he walked out of the arena after being removed from the game, tossing a water bottle to the side as he walked into the tunnel.The N.B.A. then released a statement saying that Durant had tested negative for the coronavirus three times in the past 24 hours but had “interacted” with someone who first had an inconclusive test result before the game on Friday, then a positive result during the game. An inconclusive test, according to the N.B.A.’s protocols, does not necessarily require quarantine, so Durant was allowed to play. But when the positive result came in, the league pulled Durant “out of an abundance of caution.”In response to the statement, Durant tweeted: “Yo @nba, your fans aren’t dumb!!!! You can’t fool em with your Wack ass PR tactics.”Mike Bass, a spokesman for the N.B.A., told The New York Times that the All-Star Game “has been an important tradition throughout the history of the league and remains one of our top events for global fan interest and engagement. The health and safety of everyone involved is at the forefront of our discussions with the Players Association.”The players’ union declined to comment, but Chris Paul, the Phoenix Suns guard and president of the players’ union, told reporters on Friday: “Guys are entitled to their feelings, their decisions, everything. I think the job for the union has been to try to make sure our players are healthy and safe.“This is something that was a decision by the league, and we are definitely day in and day out trying to figure it out,” he added. “But we’ve got 450 players that we are always trying to get insight from. It’s tough, but we are trying to figure it out right now.”Paul also said that he had previously spoken to James about the topic.The league has struggled to contain virus outbreaks this season. The N.B.A. has postponed 23 games in connection with infections and contact tracing, and has stationed security guards on the court before and after games to discourage players from socializing. Only five of the league’s 30 teams have not had a virus-related postponement.On Jan. 12, the league and the players’ union announced new health protocols to deal with a rash of game postponements. Among the new rules, players and staff have been directed to remain at their homes or hotels when on the road except for team activities and essential tasks. After a recent game between the Miami Heat and the Nets, a security official interrupted Nets guard Kyrie Irving’s attempt to exchange jerseys with the Heat’s Bam Adebayo — much to the bafflement of Irving. (Irving slipped a jersey to Adebayo after their next game two days later.)Others players have weighed in on the All-Star game as well. On Friday, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics, who was selected to his first All-Star team last season, said: “I feel like, for the most part, they have done a great job of trying to keep us safe,” referring to the league, “though you can’t control everything. But I do understand the concerns about it, especially in Atlanta.”His teammate Kemba Walker, a four-time All Star, told reporters on Friday that he agreed with James.“He’s a smart man,” Walker said. “He’s been around. He’s a leader. A lot of things he says are correct. He feels the way he feels. I’m probably going to be on vacation.”Earlier in the week, De’Aaron Fox, the top guard on the Sacramento Kings, said holding the game would be “stupid.”“If we have to wear masks and do all this for a regular game, then what’s the point of bringing the All-Star game back?” Fox told reporters. “Obviously, money makes the world go ’round so it is what it is.”For the moment, the N.B.A.’s virus-related game postponements have died down. The most recent one was on Monday, when the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets were supposed to play in Denver. Two days later, the league said in its weekly report that no new players had tested positive for the coronavirus. The week before there had been one case, a sharp reduction from the 27 reported over the two weeks prior. In January, several teams were missing multiple players because of infections and contact tracing, but now most teams are no longer missing anyone for that reason.N.B.A. players — like much of the country — are under enormous mental strain, as Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors said in a podcast interview that was posted on Friday. He said this season has been particularly difficult with longer days as a result of daily testing and restrictions in the league’s protocols.“Even on off days, you have to go to the facility and test,” Green said. “And so even just seeing that facility that day, although you may not even go in and work out, but you drive into that facility every day. Mentally, it’s exhausting and so it’s been a very tough season to say the least, and I think a lot of guys are struggling with it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      LeBron James Doesn't Want an All-Star Game

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. All-Star Game Would Be ‘Slap in the Face,’ LeBron James SaysJames has “zero energy and zero excitement” about flying to Atlanta in a pandemic for an exhibition game.“I don’t even understand why we’re having an All-Star Game,” LeBron James said.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressFeb. 5, 2021, 7:33 a.m. ETAs the N.B.A. finalizes arrangements to stage an All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers issued a strong rebuke of the whole concept, calling the idea “a slap in the face” for players who thought the annual midseason showcase would not take place this season.Speaking after he led the Lakers with a triple-double in a nationally televised victory over the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night, James said he had “zero energy and zero excitement” about flying to Atlanta in the midst of a pandemic for what amounts to an exhibition game.While James acknowledged that the N.B.A. players’ association consented to the proposal, he said he had been eagerly anticipating the league’s scheduled break from March 5 through March 10, given that the Lakers and the Miami Heat faced the shortest off-season (72 days) in league history after meeting in last season’s N.B.A. finals in October.“I don’t even understand why we’re having an All-Star Game,” James said.Earlier on Thursday night, the N.B.A. notified its teams that it expects to have “finalized agreements” with the players’ association by next week on holding the All-Star Game as well as a dunk contest, a 3-point contest and a skills competition — all on March 7. Those plans were conveyed in a memo issued to the league’s 30 teams, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.A typical All-Star weekend includes even more events and can stretch across four days, but next month’s proposed trip would still require participants and various team and league employees to be in Atlanta on March 6 and 7. The All-Star functions are likely to take place at the Atlanta Hawks’ State Farm Arena, according to two people familiar with the negotiations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.Negotiations between the league and the union on a modified All-Star proposal have been ongoing for more than two weeks, but the prospect of bringing representatives of numerous teams to interact in one place — given all the coronavirus-related disruptions that the league has faced during the first six weeks of the season — had been criticized as needlessly risky even before James’s blasts.“If I’m going to be brutally honest, I think it’s stupid,” De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings said on Wednesday.Noting that the N.B.A. has instituted countless health and safety regulations to limit potential coronavirus exposure, including rules aimed at curtailing postgame fraternizing between teams, Fox added: “If we have to wear a mask and all this for a regular game, then what’s the point of bringing the All-Star Game back? But, obviously, money makes the world go round, so it is what it is.”The league does not have a separate television contract for its All-Star festivities, but All-Star programming is regarded as the jewel of Atlanta-based Turner Sports’s annual N.B.A. coverage. Having at least one night of All-Star events to broadcast would give Turner an opportunity to recoup some prime advertising revenue, and holding the game in Atlanta means Turner’s coverage crews won’t have to travel.The Phoenix Suns’ Chris Paul, the president of the National Basketball Players Association and one of James’s longtime friends, has been described as one of the strongest backers of an All-Star weekend boiled down to one day in Atlanta — with both the league and union determined to ensure that the game benefits historically Black colleges and universities and Covid-19 relief efforts.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Anthony Davis Is the Teammate LeBron James Has Been Waiting For

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.Will the Harden Trade Work Out?The N.B.A. Wanted HerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMarc Stein on basketballAnthony Davis Is the Teammate LeBron James Has Been Waiting ForJames, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar, has seemed happier and looser with Davis around. The duo have already won a championship together, but, somehow, seem to be getting better.Anthony Davis may be the best teammate LeBron James has ever had (no disrespect to Dwyane Wade).Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressFeb. 3, 2021, 8:00 a.m. ETAnthony Davis started to say that he and LeBron James blend together as a basketball duo with the made-for-each-other properties of peanut butter and jelly. Then Davis caught himself.“I can’t be jelly,” Davis said.Referring to Dwyane Wade, James’s former All-Star running mate in Miami, Davis said, “D-Wade is jelly.”This was a quick but memorable chat we had at Barclays Center last season. Respectful of the bond and championships James shared with Wade on South Beach years earlier, when Wade was the one universally known as James’s most talented teammate ever, Davis searched for an adjacent metaphor that felt more appropriate.“Maybe we’re peanut butter and bananas,” Davis said, sounding unsure for one of the few times since he joined the Los Angeles Lakers.The conversation stays with me — and not only because Davis was so descriptive. I registered it as a measure of his contentment and belief, at an embryonic stage in his partnership with James, that they were already on course to become as dangerous a combo as they looked on paper.It also sticks in my head as the last time I successfully managed to break away from a pack of colleagues to secure some one-on-one time with a coveted subject, however brief, in an N.B.A. locker room after a game. Several of my fellow N.B.A. reporters and I refer to the practice as “sidling” — in tribute to a “Seinfeld” episode in which one of Elaine’s work colleagues, referred to as “a real sidler” named Lou, repeatedly managed to get close to her before she could detect him. In the current climate, such sidling is not possible because the news media’s access to locker rooms went away indefinitely last March because of the coronavirus pandemic.The usual wave of nostalgia I am prone to get swept up in duly hit me recently when I did the math and realized that one year had passed since that successful sidle in January 2020 — with no telling when the next opportunity will come. Yet there is some satisfaction knowing that my last locker-room sidle was such a good one, providing a handy window into the union that ranks as one of the few sure things in today’s N.B.A.Most teams have played at least 20 games, which is a traditional marker for front offices to assess their teams, but not this season. Not when game postponements and coronavirus-related lineup disruptions are so prevalent. Complicating evaluations further: Training camps were condensed, practice time and pregame shootarounds are scarce, and off-court bonding opportunities are drastically reduced.“I think it’s going to take a little bit longer to get a real sense, for any team in the league,” Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka said in a recent television interview with Spectrum SportsNet.What can be said, six weeks into such an uneven season, is that the Lakers remain on a tier unto themselves no matter what the standings say, thanks largely to their starry twosome of James and Davis.As good as the James-Davis pairing was in last year’s championship season, it may be even more potent this year.Credit…Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesThe Nets created the most ambitious assemblage of offensive talent in league history by trading for James Harden on Jan. 14 to play alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Denver’s Nikola Jokic have made big men fashionable again by promptly establishing themselves as certifiable candidates for the Most Valuable Player Award with their performances in January. The Utah Jazz (with a recent 11-game winning streak) and the Los Angeles Clippers (with the league’s best record as of Tuesday morning at 16-5) have likewise made strong opening statements.Yet you wouldn’t put any of those teams on the Lakers’ level. You can’t. Not with the Nets looking so vulnerable defensively and depth-wise in support of their flammable trio. Not until Embiid can sustain his ridiculous near-triple-double production for a longer stretch. For Denver, Utah and the Kawhi Leonard-led Clippers in the West, a question nags at them all, even in prosperous times: What if James and Davis are getting better together?“They’re better than last year,” Sixers Coach Doc Rivers said last week, already treating the matter as decided.After leading the league in assists last season for the first time, James is trying something new: He’s on pace to shoot a career-best 40.9 percent from 3-point range and is attempting nearly seven 3s per game. James also has played each of the Lakers’ 22 games, squelching any notion that, at age 36, he would be skipping chunks of the regular season to preserve his body after the shortest off-season (72 days) in league history.The standards for Davis are so high after he won his first championship in October that his 22.3 points and 8.7 rebounds per game have actually generated criticism that he has started slowly, including from Davis himself. Maybe he won’t be the Lakers’ leading scorer ahead of James again, as he was last season, but Davis’s ability to play so many positions and cover so much of the floor remains the driving force behind the Lakers’ fearsome defense.The Lakers top the league in defensive efficiency, allowing just 104.8 points per 100 possessions, with the versatile and ultra-mobile Davis anchoring L.A.’s resistance. The myriad options he provides Lakers Coach Frank Vogel may be best illustrated by the way Davis memorably guarded Miami’s Jimmy Butler in Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals, then made a rare start at center in the clinching Game 6 victory when Vogel wanted a lineup that could play faster.With six new players on the roster, there are still issues to resolve before the playoffs. Vogel is smoothing out his rotation, and team chemistry will need more time to ferment to reach the levels of togetherness that steeled the Lakers during their stay inside the bubble at Walt Disney World last season. Montrezl Harrell and Dennis Schröder had bigger roles on their previous teams. Talen Horton-Tucker, like Alex Caruso before him, is an emerging role player. Questions abound about how Vogel can possibly find minutes for everyone.Davis was the Lakers’ leading scorer last season, helping ease the burden on James, who typically provides most of the offense on his team.Credit…Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressYet with James and Davis to lead the way, after they agreed to new mega contracts with the Lakers almost in tandem in early December, there are roughly 29 coaches who would trade problems with Vogel. The Lakers played in the Disney World bubble through Oct. 11, but hushed concerns about that very tight turnaround by winning their first 10 road games. Going 5-2 on a 15-day road trip that finally came to an end Tuesday, when the Lakers flew home from Atlanta, only figures to boost their resilience quotient.No James team will ever be devoid of drama, given the scrutiny James invites as an all-time great and how demanding he can be on teammates. Evidence is mounting, though, that James has never coexisted so comfortably with a co-star. Not even Wade.Age is presumably a factor. James is eight years older than Davis, secure in his legacy and at a point in his career when he needs more help than he would care to admit. But it also reflects supreme respect for Davis’s talents — how he is perfectly suited, as a two-way menace who looks ominously bigger than his listed height of 6-foot-10, to complement James’s all-court game.“If you saw their chemistry off the floor, it’s no wonder they’re the best duo in the N.B.A.,” Jared Dudley, the veteran Lakers forward, said of James and Davis.Davis tried to put it into words for me in Brooklyn a year ago. It’s one of the few things he hasn’t managed to pull off since forcing a trade to the Lakers.My opportunity to sidle over to his locker came while a pack of reporters had encircled James. I approached Davis, after covering him a fair bit in his New Orleans days, and told him his presence seemed to make James happier and looser.“He makes me happy,” Davis said.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeCleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton, right, scored 42 points against the starry Nets on Jan. 20. Cleveland won in double overtime.Credit…David Richard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersYou 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.)Stein: You can’t say that all of last season’s bubble triumphs have been undone — that’s hyperbole — but I understand the reaction. I don’t like the idea of crowds, either.My position from the start of the season was that, beyond the considerable safety concerns involved, it’s not even fair. Teams that can admit reduced crowds hold a competitive advantage over the teams whose local jurisdictions mandate that buildings stay empty.Utah has increased its capacity to about 3,900 spectators from 1,500 since you voiced these concerns, but none of this is new or exclusive to the Jazz. As noted here, Atlanta and Miami last week became the eighth and ninth teams to start playing in front of reduced crowds at home. On Tuesday, Phoenix made it 10 by announcing that it, too, would begin admitting up to 1,500 fans starting on Feb. 8. The N.B.A. is allowing each of its 30 teams to make the call on letting fans in or not if local laws permit indoor gatherings.I can admit, though, that I reacted as you did when I heard last week that momentum was building toward the staging of an All-Star Game in Atlanta that would require players who were selected to be there March 6-7. Flying a bunch of the league’s best players to one location for an exhibition game in the midst of a pandemic seems especially unwise and needlessly risky — and I would imagine that there are All-Stars who will be reluctant to go.If (when?) this substitute game comes together, admirable philanthropic pursuits supporting historically Black colleges and universities and Covid-19 relief efforts will be part of it, but I would have voted for restricting N.B.A. All-Star business in 2021 to All-Star voting only. Safety first.Q: Why do headline writers use “spoil” so often? It was used on many stories after Cleveland’s Collin Sexton had his career night against the Nets on Jan. 20. Doesn’t the use of this word imply that the win rightfully belonged to the Nets, and that the Cavaliers took something that wasn’t theirs? — Andy Moore (Pittsburgh)Stein: Questions about headlines are best answered by editors rather than writers, since writers typically don’t write the headlines that land on their stories. But I had to try to respond because the copy editor energy in your question was so good.The newsiest aspect of the game in question, for a broad audience, was the debut of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving as teammates. I don’t see it as sinister to assert that the Cavaliers spoiled the Nets’ hopes for a grandiose opening act for their new star trio.Habit is surely a factor here, too. Virtually every game in every sport has a favorite and an underdog, which feeds into the “spoil” concept. Perhaps most crucially, “spoil” is also a headline-friendly word because it’s short, which will always matter to newspaper copy editors dealing with limited headline spaces. I’ve done just enough copy-desk work over the years to understand that.Q: I’m curious to know if Amar’e Stoudemire is the first N.B.A. player or coach to observe Shabbat this seriously. Also: Is he is forfeiting salary for those days? — Andrew Esensten (Palo Alto, Calif.)Stein: In my 28 seasons covering the league, speaking strictly about players and coaches, Stoudemire’s insistence that he avoid work on Shabbat is certainly the strictest observance I have seen.Ben Falk, who worked in the front office in Portland and Philadelphia before beginning his excellent Cleaning The Glass website, had the blessing from both of those teams to put religion first from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, as chronicled in this Sports Illustrated article by Chris Ballard. Tamir Goodman played Division I college basketball at Towson University without playing on Shabbat — after turning down a scholarship offer from Maryland because it was impossible to secure that time off.Those, though, are the only basketball examples I can readily cite. It’s difficult to answer more definitively than that.I don’t want to diminish the significance of the Nets’ gesture to allow Stoudemire to be away from the team from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown every week for religious reasons, because it is a wonderful gesture. Yet there’s no denying that this would be much more challenging to work through with an active player or if Stoudemire was a more prominent member of the Nets’ coaching staff.Stoudemire is a player development assistant in his first season with the club. The Nets have several player-development coaches and a big staff in general. Mike D’Antoni, Ime Udoka and Jacque Vaughn are the three assistants who sit beside Coach Steve Nash during every Nets game.Stoudemire, in other words, does not have a role with the Nets in Year 1 that compels him to be with the team every second or to join the traveling party.Numbers GameD’Angelo Russell, third from left, and Karl-Anthony Towns, right, have played in only five games together since Russell was traded to Minnesota on Feb. 6, 2020.Credit…Andy Clayton-King/Associated Press2Only two players were averaging 100 touches per game as the N.B.A. moved into February: Denver’s Nikola Jokic (102.4) and Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis (100). They are both listed at 6-foot-11.29.3In his third season, Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks started 2 for 21 on 3-pointers and is shooting 29.3 percent from long range, which ranks 168th leaguewide. Doncic’s overall statistical production remains spectacular, and he creates numerous good looks from 3 for his teammates that aren’t being cashed in, but his 3-point shooting is cause for concern. He shot 32.7 percent on 3s as a rookie and 31.6 percent last season, struggles magnified by Dallas’s dearth of outside shooters after trading Seth Curry to Philadelphia and the team’s early woes. Injuries, coronavirus-related disruptions and a road-heavy schedule are all factors, but the Mavericks’ 8-13 start is one of the league’s most alarming through the season’s first six weeks.2-8While the Lakers thrive, the Heat were only 2-8 in the 10 games that Jimmy Butler missed while awaiting clearance to rejoin the team via the league’s health and safety protocols. Coming off the shortest off-season in league history at 72 days after last season’s trip to the N.B.A. finals against the Lakers, Miami (7-13) has played several games with a depleted roster and awoke Tuesday at No. 13 in the Eastern Conference.5Saturday is the first anniversary of Minnesota’s acquisition of D’Angelo Russell in a trade with Golden State. Russell and his close friend Karl-Anthony Towns have played together in only five games in that span because of injuries and the Timberwolves’ exclusion from the N.B.A. restart last summer.13Last Sunday was the 40th anniversary of the N.B.A.’s first international broadcast — 13 days after the game was actually played. On Jan. 31, 1981, Primarete Indipendente TV in Italy aired a Boston Celtics home victory over the Los Angeles Lakers from Jan. 18, 1981. This season, when opening night rosters featured 107 international players from 41 countries, Sky Italia will broadcast at least 10 N.B.A. games per week. There were only four international players in the league during the 1980-81 season.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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      From Kobe to LeBron: Tragedy and Triumph in the N.B.A.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonThe Warriors Are StrugglingVirus Upends Houston RocketsMarc Stein’s Fearless PredictionsThe Reloaded LakersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballFrom Kobe to LeBron: Tragedy and Triumph in the N.B.A.A year that began with the deaths of two N.B.A. icons could not end soon enough, marked by heartache along the way but also small moments worth celebrating now.Kobe Bryant and LeBron James dominated a year of tragedy and triumph in the basketball world.Credit…John McCoy/Getty ImagesDec. 30, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETThe longest and possibly saddest year in pro basketball history is almost over. From this world that plays out on hardwood, as with so many other wings of society, there will be few fond farewells to 2020.The basketball public has been losing and grieving since the first day of January, when David Stern, the N.B.A.’s former longtime commissioner, died at age 77. Soon after, a helicopter headed for a weekend youth tournament with nine aboard, among them Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, crashed into a hillside in Calabasas, Calif. There were no survivors.Mere weeks later, the country was gripped by the coronavirus. Inside and outside of the sport’s sphere, life did not get easier and, as 2021 dawns, it still hasn’t.Yet there was some undeniable good along the way, most of all the N.B.A.’s leadership in coping with the coronavirus, and how its players, in tandem with their longtime activist peers from the W.N.B.A., lent many loud and influential voices to a year of profound social reckoning. The N.B.A. was the first major professional sports league to shut down in response to the pandemic, completed its 2019-20 season by engineering an ambitious protective bubble, and amplified the fight for racial justice and equality.Those were real-world triumphs that will be long-lasting.So let’s celebrate them. In the final edition of Year 3 for this newsletter, I have singled out a few of the far smaller victories, too, as opposed to rehashing a frequently dispiriting 12 months in detail. For all the natural Year In Review instincts that kick in for all of us every December, I’d rather reach back for some smiles, thin as they might be, than recount all the tumult and tragedy.Allow me to rewind to All-Star Weekend in Chicago in February, when the much-maligned dunk contest, and a competitive All-Star Game crunchtime enhanced by the use of the Elam scoring system, generated a level of tension and watchability that many skeptics no longer thought possible.Derrick Jones Jr. won the dunk contest during a revitalized All-Star Weekend in Chicago in February.Credit…Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThere were five uplifting Sundays in a row during the mostly lonely (and scary) days of April and May when a basketball documentary about Michael Jordan, “The Last Dance,” delivered the sort of shared experience and sense of community — through sports — that was otherwise unavailable.Michael Jordan captivated millions each week this spring with his recollections of his Chicago Bulls glory days.Credit…Jon RocheThe recent sports trading card renaissance extended to basketball, and led to rookie cards from LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo fetching $1.8 million — each — at auction.The creative forces behind the acclaimed animated series “Game of Zones” served up one final season that, to my great shock and pride, managed to work in a few lucky sports scribes.The seventh season of the animated show “Game of Zones” by Bleacher Report includes characters inspired by Marc Stein, right, and the former N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade, left.Credit…Bleacher ReportAnd when it comes to something that really matters: Delonte West, the former N.B.A. guard, was back in Maryland to spend Christmas with his family after years of struggling with bipolar disorder and drug use. A video surfaced in late September that appeared to show West, a former Dallas Maverick, homeless in Dallas. That led Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, to track him down and help West enter a drug rehabilitation facility in Florida.The dunks and trading cards and M.J. memes, to be clear, were mere footnotes at a time even sports struggled to provide its usual escape, but one suspects we will keep coming back to the bigger headlines from basketball’s intersection with a global health crisis.“This will go down as the most remembered year in N.B.A. history,” said Jared Dudley, the veteran forward and frequent unofficial team spokesman for the Los Angeles Lakers. “They will be making movies about 2020 for years to come.”He’s probably right. Tales from the bubble are bound to hold considerable long-term interest, particularly after Dudley’s Lakers emerged from the grand experiment as champions.Hollywood’s team is back on top for the first time since 2009-10, and the ending did include a surprise element: James and Co. have not been subjected to as much asterisk talk as the curmudgeons among us (like me in April) envisaged.My original view stemmed to some degree from fears that the N.B.A. postseason would be truncated from its usual four rounds of best-of-seven series, and thus not constitute a representative championship run. Critics could have also seized on the absence of travel, arenas without fans, and how much living and playing at the same address might have benefited the Lakers, so I still wanted to give it some time to see how their 17th championship would be received.LeBron James said he has won “the two hardest championships” in N.B.A. history, including the 2019-20 title.Credit…Harry How/Getty ImagesThe response has been encouraging. Occasional jabs about James and his supposed “Mickey Mouse” ring haven’t really stuck.Perhaps James went too far the other way with his recent assertion on the “Road Trippin’” podcast that he had won “the two hardest championships” in league history: Cleveland’s comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the 2015-16 N.B.A. finals against the 73-win Golden State Warriors, and the Lakers’ bubble crown. Historians haven’t exactly rushed to endorse those claims, but there is an no shortage of appreciation for what the Lakers did overcome during their 95-day bubble stay, cut off from the outside world.There was a mental toll from essentially living at work. There was isolation. There was an internal conflict to manage, as James and many of his peers would explain, for athletes playing a game and feeding the entertainment industry at a time of so much social unrest in their home communities.The truth, of course, is that you could slap an asterisk on just about anything that happened in 2020, sports or not, since we strayed so far from normalcy in too many precincts to count. Or did so much change get foisted upon all of us that nothing in 2020 should be sullied by the asterisk treatment?Maybe we’ll have that figured out by next year’s final newsletter.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeThe league’s free agency investigation of the Bucks ruined Milwaukee’s chances of signing Bogdan Bogdanovic, who landed with the Atlanta Hawks.Credit…Brett Davis/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: It is vital that it be explained why this was the “line in the sand” for the N.B.A. There have clearly been other examples of tampering. Why were no draft picks rescinded in those cases? — @Wanediggity from TwitterStein: I know Bucks fans are upset, but I don’t think the league’s decision to strip their team of a second-round pick in 2022 in the wake of Milwaukee’s failed attempt to court Bogdan Bogdanovic is such a mystery. For all the league’s shortcomings in policing and curbing tampering, it has been consistent in dishing out penalties when violations were blatant. The violations, in this case, were pretty blatant.These were not mere rumblings or assumptions about the sort of free-agent conversations that many of us suspect are happening leaguewide before they are supposed to. The league opened an investigation in response to a detailed news report about a five-player deal involving the Bucks and Sacramento Kings that had Bogdanovic, a restricted free agent, landing in Milwaukee — nearly four days before free agency was scheduled to start.The league took action again on Monday when it fined Daryl Morey, Philadelphia’s new president of basketball operations, $50,000 for a seemingly harmless tweet congratulating James Harden on a statistical milestone he hit when Morey was still his general manager in Houston. It doesn’t matter if the social media post was automated or accidental, as ESPN reported Morey told the league office. The mere fact that Morey publicly “discussed” another team’s player put him in line for a fine.Bucks fans have asked me: What about all the teams that have tried to recruit Giannis Antetokounmpo behind the scenes? My retort: Do we have proof? If there was a detailed news report in circulation about a specific team doing so — or if text messages Antetokounmpo has reportedly received from players on other teams were turned in to the league — I’m quite sure penalties would be imposed on the offending clubs. But no such evidence has surfaced in the public domain. It’s not that the Bucks are the only ones breaking the rules. Other teams have just been better at hiding it.Whether or not Milwaukee or Sacramento wanted this stuff to be out there, it got out. Both were operating as if they had a deal even though Bogdanovic insisted he never agreed to anything. The league wasn’t going to let that go.Even though the league announced in September 2019 that it would institute a new set of anti-tampering regulations to crack down on the practice, there is clearly still much to fix, given how many deals we still saw coalesce in the early hours of free agency on Nov. 20. But the league’s stance on this one, in the words of its general counsel Rick Buchanan, is that Milwaukee had to be sanctioned for “gun-jumping” the start of free agency.There is plenty of skepticism regarding Commissioner Adam Silver’s claim that the punishment “will act as a clear deterrent” to other teams, since the whole episode technically only cost Milwaukee a future second-round pick. Yet it’s also true that the league’s decision to investigate essentially snuffed out any chance the Bucks had of resurrecting a deal for Bogdanovic — someone, by all accounts, Antetokounmpo badly wanted to play with.So losing the ability to pursue Bogdanovic was Milwaukee’s real penalty here, while Sacramento wound up losing Bogdanovic without compensation after electing not to match Atlanta’s four-year, $72 million offer sheet. The Kings did not receive any formal penalty from the league office, but they would have acquired a player they coveted from the Bucks (Donte DiVincenzo) had the original sign-and-trade plan been resuscitated.Q: Any word on the status of Jeremy Lin getting his FIBA Letter of Clearance yet? Many fans want to know! — Tom GardnerStein: To catch up those who weren’t following this saga as it played out on Dec. 19, Golden State needed a clearance letter from the Beijing Ducks, Lin’s last team in China, to sign and then immediately release him before 11 p.m. Eastern time that day. That would have allowed the Santa Cruz Warriors to secure Lin’s G League rights.In part because FIBA’s office is closed on weekends, Golden State couldn’t obtain the letter in time. The rush to get the clearance letter pretty much ended then, because it initially appeared that subsequently obtaining Lin’s G League rights would require some complicated (and more costly) roster gymnastics for the Warriors.It has since emerged that the Warriors will have a new pathway to steering Lin to their G League affiliate that wasn’t apparent then — provided that the G League goes ahead with a 2020-21 season that will be at least partly played in a bubble environment. The N.B.A. is instituting a rule that will enable N.B.A. parent clubs to recruit players to fill one G League roster spot with an N.B.A. veteran who has at least five years of service time. The Warriors will thus have a mechanism to guarantee that Lin can play with Santa Cruz, their G League affiliate, should he decide to sign with the league.Neither the Golden State Warriors nor the Santa Cruz Warriors would sign Lin. He would have to sign with the G League first and then be allocated to Santa Cruz via the new rule, which some G League observers are even calling “the Jeremy Lin rule.” Yet there is no frantic need for the clearance letter now with the G League still trying to resolve some outstanding issues and commit to a season.If Lin decides he wants to go the G League route in hopes that it can boost his chances of an N.B.A. comeback at age 32, and if Santa Cruz is where he wants to play, it will happen.Q: Knowing James Dolan, do you think that the Knicks want to trade for James Harden? I’m sure Dolan is already tired of the Knicks playing second fiddle to the Nets. — Frank AlecciStein: After skipping the opening week of training camp and forcing the league to hit him with an additional four-day quarantine last week, while repeatedly violating the league’s health and safety guidelines in both instances, Harden made his season debut Saturday and promptly uncorked 44 points and 17 assists in Houston’s overtime loss to Portland.As my Houston Chronicle colleague Jonathan Feigen put it, Harden quickly reminded us that, yes, he is worth the trouble on a lot of levels.This would be especially true for a Knicks team that doesn’t have anything close to a certifiable franchise player at the moment. I imagine that Harden would hold appeal throughout the organization — not just with Dolan — despite being under contract only for the rest of this season and next season before he has the right to become a free agent in July 2022.The harsh reality of the Knicks’ current roster, though, is also a problem when it comes to getting into the Harden sweepstakes, since Houston has made it clear that it wants a player like Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons to headline the package it receives for Harden. If there is a combination of Knicks players and draft picks that would entice the Rockets, I don’t see it.Numbers GameKevin Durant (7) and Kyrie Irving (11)Credit…Sarah Stier/Getty Images7-11In one of the better quotes from the season’s opening week, Kyrie Irving said he and his Nets teammate Kevin Durant had “introduced the world to 7-11” with their scoring outbursts in the Nets’ first two games. Irving, of course, was referring to their jersey numbers, not the famed convenience store chain.23.2The average margin of victory from the league’s five Christmas Day games was a whopping 23.2 points. Only the first game (Miami over New Orleans by 13) and the last one (Clippers over Denver by 13) could be classified as competitive. Not what the N.B.A. was hoping for when it pushed up the start of the season at the behest of the league’s television partners, who badly wanted a Christmas week launch.107There were 107 international players from 41 countries on opening-night rosters, including a record 17 players from Canada and a record-tying 14 African players. It’s the seventh consecutive season that opening-night rosters included at least 100 international players; 113 at the start of the 2016-17 season is the record. France (nine), Australia (eight) and Serbia and Germany (six each) are the countries with the most players after Canada.5K.C. Jones earned enshrinement to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1989, but his coaching résumé is perhaps even more H.O.F.-worthy. Jones coached three teams in the N.B.A. across 10 seasons (Washington, Boston and Seattle) and made five trips to the N.B.A. finals in that short span, winning championships with the Celtics in 1983-84 and 1985-86. Jones died on Christmas at the age of 88.4,500There is a strong argument to be made, as a matter of fairness, that fans should not be in N.B.A. buildings until all 30 teams were allowed by local health regulations to do so, because it is a competitive advantage to have a crowd of any size. Yet it’s worth noting just how varied the maximum crowd sizes are for the six teams currently admitting fans. At the low end: Cleveland (300 fans maximum), New Orleans (750) and Utah (1,500). At the high end: Toronto (3,800 fans maximum in Tampa, Fla.), Orlando (4,000) and Houston (4,500).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 Clippers Open N.B.A. Season With Big Wins

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonNets and Clippers Win BigMVP: LeBron or Luka?The Reloaded LakersWill the Nets Reign?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNets and Clippers Open N.B.A. Season With Big WinsThe Nets dominated the Warriors, and the Clippers staved off a comeback attempt by the Lakers. Kevin Durant and Paul George were the night’s stars.Paul George had a strong performance for the Clippers on Tuesday, with 33 points on 13-of-18 shooting.Credit…Harry How/Getty ImagesScott Cacciola and Published More