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      Magic Johnson, le business, la NBA, les Lakers et LeBron

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      Johnson prédit le nom des prochaines grandes équipes rivales au sein de la N.B.A, et évoque son seul regret du temps où il dirigeait les Los Angeles Lakers.The New York Times traduit en français une sélection de ses meilleurs articles. Retrouvez-les ici.Beaucoup d’athlètes de nos jours envisagent leur héritage au-delà des terrains de compétition, au travers d’entreprises qu’ils auront créées et de soutien apporté à leurs communautés. Magic Johnson a été pionnier de cet état d’esprit en fondant un empire commercial une fois sa carrière de joueur de la N.B.A, la National Basketball Association derrière lui.“C’était tout naturel pour moi de revenir dans la communauté dans laquelle j’avais grandi, pour l’aider à changer, pour fonder des entreprises et créer des emplois pour les gens”, nous explique Johnson lors d’un récent entretien téléphonique. “Ce qui manquait dans la communauté Noire, c’était des services et des produits de qualité.”Et Johnson de citer des joueurs comme LeBron James, Kevin Durant et Stephen Curry comme exemples de joueurs qui suivent ses pas: en inspirer d’autres, sur le terrain et en dehors.Johnson a servi d’ambassadeur officieux de la N.B.A. pendant la quasi-totalité de sa vie d’adulte: sa rivalité avec Larry Bird et les Boston Celtics dans les années 1980 a propulsé vers des sommets la notoriété de la ligue auprès du grand public, et les exploits de la Dream Team dont il faisait partie aux Jeux Olympiques d’été en 1992 ont contribué à populariser le jeu à l’échelle mondiale.Ce titre est maintenant officiel: pour célébrer ses 75 ans, la N.B.A. a choisi Johnson, Clyde Drexler Dirk Nowitzki, Bob Pettit et Oscar Robertson pour représenter, en 2021-2002, les différentes périodes de son histoire.Johnson, qui a abruptement quitté son rôle de président des opérations basketball des Los Angeles Lakers en 2019, va également faire son retour cette saison sur la chaîne d’informations sportives ESPN comme commentateur dans l’émission “NBA Countdown”.L’ancienne star des Lakers a accordé une interview au New York Times dans laquelle il évoque l’état actuel du basketball, cette ère d’émancipation des joueurs, et un regret personnel qu’il garde de son mandat à la tête des Lakers.Cette interview a été condensée et légèrement éditée pour des besoins de clarté.La N.B.A. connaîtra-t-elle à nouveau de vraies rivalités, comme dans les années 1980 quand les Lakers se retrouvaient presque toujours en finale contre les Celtics?Je crois que, plus les Knicks et les Nets jouent, plus ça a des chances d’arriver, vous ne trouvez pas? Parce que Brooklyn est maintenant une équipe championne. Et les Knicks sont une équipe de playoff. Et c’est ce qu’on va voir. Donc ce qui se passe, c’est qu’il faut qu’elles soient bonnes au même moment. Il faut qu’il y ait vraiment de la haine entre elles.Quand on voyait Philadelphia contre Boston, Dr. J [Julius Erving] et Larry Bird, Chicago contre Detroit, Isiah Thomas, Bad Boys contre les Bulls de Michael Jordan, ils avaient une vraie aversion les uns pour les autres. Donc je pense qu’on est en train de créer quelques-unes de ces rivalités. Je ne sais pas si elle sera un jour aussi intense que celle des Lakers-Celtics, mais si au moins on arrive à une espèce de rivalité, c’est prometteur.Pour Johnson (à gauche), qui a gagné cinq championnats avec les Los Angeles Lakers, le secret d’une vraie rivalité entre équipes de la N.B.A. est qu’il y ait “vraiment de la haine entre elles”.AP Photo/Lennox McLendonUne grande partie de ce que vous laissez en héritage, c’est ce vous avez accompli en dehors des terrains de basket, comme businessman dans les commmunautés défavorisées. Qu’avez-vous appris en travaillant avec ces dernières, et quelles erreurs de grandes entreprises qui tentent de faire pareil avez-vous notées? voir ?Eh bien le commerce de détail a fait l’erreur de penser qu’on ne pouvait pas faire d’argent avec la communauté Noire. Et sans surprise, on a prouvé le contraire avec les Magic Johnson Theatres . C’est pour ça qu’on voit les grands détaillants s’investir plus que jamais aujourd’hui dans l’Amérique urbaine, parce qu’ils savent qu’ils auront un retour sur investissement.Ils essaient aussi de faire du bien dans nos communautés. Je dis toujours: on peut à la fois bien faire et faire du bien. Quand est arrivé toute cette histoire avec George Floyd, le fait qu’il ait été assassiné, on a vu beaucoup d’entreprises du Fortune 500 — parce qu’il y avait tellement de jeunes qui manifestaient dans les rues. Mais c’était pas juste des Noirs — c’était aussi des Blancs et d’autres groupes de personnes. C’est là que tout le monde s’est dit: “Ça suffit. Je dois faire quelque chose. Je vais investir dans l’Amérique urbaine. “Pas mal de PDG m’ont appelé pour dire : “Earvin, on veut faire quelque chose. On n’a aucune idée quoi faire.” J’ai répondu, “Eh bien vous pourriez commencer avant tout par mettre de l’argent dans des petites banques Noires parce que le Paycheck Protection Program, un programme fédéral d’aide aux entreprises touchées par la pandémie, n’a pas eu de retombées chez les Latinos, les propriétaires de petites entreprises, les petits entrepreneurs Noirs, ou les femmes entrepreneures. Et si ces banques avaient des fonds, alors elles pourraient vraiment accorder des prêts à ces entrepreneurs ou aux gens qui veulent s’acheter un premier logement, dans la communauté Noire. Maintenant elles ont plus de cash pour accorder plus de prêts, n’est-ce pas?” Alors il y en a beaucoup qui ont fait ça. Ensuite je leur ai dit, “Écoutez, votre conseil d’administration doit refléter l’Amérique, alors il faut que vous recrutiez davantage de gens ou que vous élargissiez vos conseils d’administration, et aussi au niveau de la direction et de la haute hiérarchie, il faut inclure davantage de minorités à ce niveau-là.”Est-ce que ça vous intéresserait de diriger à nouveau une franchise de la N.B.A?Tout dépend de la situation, donc si de bonnes criconstances se présentent, j’y réfléchirai peut-être. Tout est une question de timing. Tout dépend de l’équipe. Moi je suis un Laker du matin au soir, donc il y a des chances que je retravaille avec Jeanie Buss, et c’est pas une blague. C’est sérieux.On m’a déjà proposé d’être le propriétaire de certaines de ces équipes, et puis j’ai décliné ces offres. Mais encore une fois, j’aime tellement ce sport. Je connais ce sport. Je connais les joueurs. Je connais les agents. Ce qui est bien avec moi, c’est que je suis là où je sais ce qui marche. Je sais à quoi ressemble une équipe gagnante qui a sa place dans le championnat. Donc je sais comment parler aux joueurs — vous n’avez qu’à demander à Julius Randle et à Lonzon Ball et tous ceux-là, parce que j’aime les voir avancer et réussir si bien, et donc les aider à atteindre leur meilleur potentiel. C’était ça mon rôle, et après tu les vois y arriver. C’était vraiment bien de voir ça.Rétrospectivement, y a-t-il des choses que vous auriez fait différemment à la direction des Lakers?Non, j’avais un plan en tête. On était au dessus du plafond salarial. Mon plan était de nous faire passer ce plafond. On y est arrivé. J’ai dû faire des choix difficiles. Julius était en train de monter. Je sais que Larry Nance Jr. était en train de monter, donc on a dû prendre des décisions difficiles qui leur allaient, mais qui allaient aussi aux autres Lakers. Donc je ne pouvais pas leur signer ces rallonges parce que je savais que LeBron était en train de monter, et Kawhi Leonard et tous ces gars-là, donc j’essayais de réserver un peu de ce plafond, pour pouvoir signer une de ces superstars, parce qu’on ne peut pas gagner un championnat sans superstar. Au final, on a fait les choses comme il fallait.La seule chose que j’aurais peut-être dû faire, c’était peut-être de parler à LeBron avant de démissionner, parce que je sentais que je lui devais ça, donc je dirais que c’est peut–être la seule erreur que j’aie faite, de ne pas avoir parlé à Jeanie ni parlé à LeBron avant les faits. Oui, ça je ne le referais pas pareil.LeBron James est arrivé à Los Angeles tard dans sa carrière. Qu’est-ce qu’il peut faire pour gravir les échelons et devenir un des plus grands Lakers de l’histoire?La réponse, vous la connaissez: gagner, c’est tout. Il faut qu’il en gagne un autre. Les fans des Lakers l’adorent déjà. Il nous en déjà gagné un. Il a déjà son maillot, qui sera accroché, mais la plupart des gars qui sont chez les Lakers ont gagné plusieurs championnats. C’est tout ce qu’il a à faire. En gagner un autre, c’est tout. Parce qu’après, il ne s’agit pas juste des Lakers. Il s’agit de l’héritage qu’il laisse ici, et c’est pas seulement ici — c’est à Hollywood aussi. LeBron, il est tellement extraordinaire, et pas uniquement comme joueur de basketball: c’est la plus grande célébrité dans la ville de la célébrité. Il faut lui reconnaître ça, aussi. More

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      Lakers’ Opener Shows Its Stars Are Not Yet Aligned

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      A team that remade its roster around big names finds that getting them all on the same page is still a work in progress.LOS ANGELES — Anthony Davis still remembers the narrative that trailed him to Los Angeles: “Can he do it under the bright lights?”Davis had been a stat-stuffing star with the New Orleans Pelicans before forcing his way out, landing with the Lakers in a trade before the start of the 2019-20 season. His first game was against the Clippers, who limited him to a subpar effort in a Lakers loss. Afterward, Davis was beating himself up at his locker. LeBron James, who was sitting next to him, advised him to calm down.“You’re fine,” James told him. “This is Game 1.”And then James promptly went back to laughing at whatever he was looking at on his phone.It was an exchange that stuck with Davis, who wound up playing well enough that season to help deliver the Lakers’ first championship in 10 years. And it was one that Davis fondly remembered on Tuesday night after the Lakers’ season-opening loss to the Golden State Warriors. Something about it felt familiar to him.A new teammate, Russell Westbrook, had assembled a forgettable performance in his debut for the Lakers — 8 points in 35 frustrating minutes — that prompted James, with Davis’s help this time, to offer another post-Game 1 pep talk.“We’re with him,” Davis said of Westbrook. “It’s his job to continue to be himself, and we’re going to help him through all the little avenues and these challenges along the way.”James said he told Westbrook to go home and watch a comedy.“Do something that can put a smile on his face,” James said. “He’s so hard on himself.”The Lakers have emphasized star power over youth as they have rebuilt their roster.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressOne game does not mean a whole lot when there are 81 left to play. For the Lakers, their grand experiment — so many aging stars, only one basketball — will resume on Friday against the Phoenix Suns, who eliminated the Lakers from the playoffs last season. In the wake of that first-round exit, the Lakers used the summer to surround James and Davis with a fascinating cast of characters, including Westbrook, the winner of the 2017 Most Valuable Player Award and a triple-double factory in his heyday.Now 32, Westbrook is as polarizing as ever. Can he produce without having the ball in his hands most of the time? Can he find his jump shot? Will he help the Lakers, or ultimately hurt them?Again, the Lakers’ 121-114 loss to the Warriors was merely the first game of many. But it was a clunker for Westbrook, who finished with 8 points, five rebounds and four assists while shooting 4 of 13 from the field. In the 35 minutes he was on the court, the Lakers were outscored by 23 points. He also had four turnovers and a technical foul.His news conference was brief and fairly monosyllabic.What did it mean to him that James and Davis had given him some encouragement in the locker room? “We talked,” Westbrook said.What did he make of the ambience at Staples Center? “I would say I wasn’t paying much mind to be honest,” he said.OK, how about it being his first game for the Lakers, his hometown team? “Nothing different than a normal game day,” he said.You get the idea. The spotlight will only burn brighter from here — on the Lakers, on Westbrook, and on their decision to trade for him this summer instead of working out a deal with the Sacramento Kings for Buddy Hield, a shooting guard who would seem a better fit to play off the ball with the likes of James and Davis.“Him more than anybody, it’s going to be an adjustment period,” Coach Frank Vogel said of Westbrook. “He’s coming into our culture, our system. He’s the new guy, and he’s got to find his way.”Vogel cited the team’s patchwork preseason in explaining away some of Westbrook’s hiccups. Nobody played that many minutes together. Westbrook’s numbers in four games — 35 percent shooting, a team-high 23 turnovers — would have been more alarming if the preseason actually meant anything.For his part, James said he suspected that Westbrook had succumbed to “first-game jitters” as a player who had watched the Lakers growing up.“And now you’re putting on a Laker uniform and you’re stepping into Staples Center,” James said. “I can only imagine how many friends and family have contacted him over the last 48 hours.”The real referendum on Westbrook’s viability will play out over the coming weeks, though there are larger questions about how this Lakers team was assembled. In recent seasons, they have essentially gutted their roster of the young players they had drafted and were working to develop — everyone from Brandon Ingram to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — in favor of acquiring older, splashier players.Jordan Poole had 20 points for the Warriors.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressGolden State provided a useful counterpoint to the Lakers’ approach on Tuesday by showcasing Jordan Poole, a third-year guard who scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half and helped make up for Stephen Curry’s poor shooting night. Klay Thompson, who is expected to return to the Warriors’ lineup in a couple of months after missing the past two seasons with injuries, watched from the bench.Worth noting: All three of those players are Golden State draft picks. The Warriors continue to build from within while the Lakers go shopping every summer.It was not all bad news for the Lakers. James and Davis were as dynamic as ever, combining for 67 points. But they could have used some help.“I’ve got to figure it out,” Westbrook said. More

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      Magic Johnson Talks Business, Basketball and a Big Mistake With LeBron

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      Johnson predicted the N.B.A.’s next great rivalry and said he has only one regret from his time running the Los Angeles Lakers.Many modern athletes envision their legacies expanding beyond the playing fields, seeing themselves building companies and improving communities. Magic Johnson helped pioneer that mentality, carving out a business empire following the end of his N.B.A. playing career.“It was just a natural for me to go back in the community that I grew up in to bring about change, to build businesses, to create jobs for people,” Johnson said during a recent telephone call. “What was missing right in the Black community was really quality product services and goods.”Johnson cited players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry as current players carrying on his legacy of inspiring others on and off the court.Johnson served as an unofficial N.B.A. ambassador for most of his adult life by propelling the league into the mainstream through his rivalry with Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics in the 1980s and by helping to spread the game globally as a member of the Dream Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics.Now, that title is official with the N.B.A. choosing Johnson, Clyde Drexler, Dirk Nowitzki, Bob Pettit and Oscar Robertson to represent different eras as it celebrates its 75th anniversary throughout the 2021-22 season.Johnson, who abruptly left his role as the president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019, will also return to ESPN this season as a commentator on “NBA Countdown.”He recently spoke to The New York Times about the state of the game, this era of player empowerment and his singular regret from his tenure running the Lakers.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Will the N.B.A. ever have true rivalries again, like when the Lakers seemingly faced the Celtics every year in the 1980s?I think you’re going to see the more the Knicks and Nets play, it can become one, right? Because now Brooklyn is a championship team. The Knicks are a playoff team. And so you will see that. So what happens is you got to be good at the same time. There’s got to be a real hate toward each other.When we used to see Philadelphia against Boston, Dr. J [Julius Erving] and Larry Bird, Chicago against Detroit, Isiah Thomas, Bad Boys against Michael Jordan’s Bulls, there was a real dislike for each other. So I think we’re starting to create some of these rivalries. I don’t know if it ever gets to the level of the Lakers-Celtics, but at least if we get it to some type of rivalry, it’s going to be good.Johnson, who won five championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, said the key to a great N.B.A. rivalry is “real hate toward each other.”AP Photo/Lennox McLendonA large part of your legacy is the work you’ve done off the court in low-income communities as a businessman. What have you learned about working in those communities, and what are some of the mistakes you’ve seen from large corporations trying to make the same inroads?So, retail has made a mistake in thinking they couldn’t make money in the Black community. And sure enough, we proved that wrong with the Magic Johnson Theatres. We proved it wrong with the Starbucks. That’s why you see big retailers going into urban America more now than ever, because they know they can get a return on investment.They look to also do some good within our community. I always say, you can do well and do good at the same time. When the whole George Floyd situation happened, in terms of he was murdered, you saw a lot of Fortune 500 companies — because young people were out there protesting. But it wasn’t just Blacks — it was also whites and other groups of people. That’s when everybody said: “That’s wrong. I got to do something. Let me invest in urban America.”A lot of C.E.O.s called me and said: “Earvin, we want to do something. We quite don’t know what to do.” I said, “Well, No. 1, you could put money into small Black banks because the Paycheck Protection Program did not trickle down to Latinos, small business owners, Black small business owners, or women business owners. So if these banks had money, then they could actually make loans to these entrepreneurs or to those who want to buy a home for the first time in the Black community. Now they got more cash to provide more loans, right? So a lot of them did that. Then I said, “Hey, your board must reflect America, so you got to hire more people or bring more people on your board and also on the management and the C-suite level, you got to put more minorities on that level.”Are you interested in ever running an N.B.A. franchise again?It’s all about the right situation, so if the right situation comes I might think about it. It’s all about timing. It’s all about who that team is. I’m a Laker all day long, so I’m probably going to end up working with Jeanie Buss again, and I’m not laughing. That’s serious.I had offers before to own some of those teams and then I turned those offers down. But again, I love the game so much. I know the game. I know players. I know agents. The great thing about me, I’m set up where I know what works. I know what a winning and championship team looks like. So I know how to talk to the players — you can ask Julius Randle and Lonzo Ball and all those guys, because I’m happy to see them thriving and doing so well, and so just trying to help those guys reach their full potential. That was my role, and then you see them reaching it. So it was really good to see that.Is there anything you would have done differently during your time running the Lakers?No, I had a plan. We were over the salary cap. I had a plan to get us up out of the salary cap. We did that. I had to make tough decisions. Julius was coming up. I know Larry Nance Jr. was coming up, so we had to make tough decisions that worked out for them, but also worked out for the Lakers. So I couldn’t sign them to those extensions because I knew LeBron was coming up and Kawhi Leonard and all these guys, so I was trying to save enough of that cap space, so I could sign one of those superstars, because you have to have a superstar to win a championship. So, we did it right.The only thing I probably would’ve did was probably talked to LeBron before I stepped down, because I felt that I owed him that, so that’s probably the only mistake I made was not talking to Jeanie and talking to LeBron before I actually did it. So, yes, I would do that different.LeBron James came to Los Angeles late in his career. What can he do to climb the ranks of as one of the greatest Lakers?You know the answer to that: Just win. He’s got to win another one. The Laker fans already love him. He’s already brought us one. He’s already got his jersey, it’ll be hanging up, but most of the guys who’ve been with the Lakers have won multiple championships. So, that’s all he has to do. Just win another one. Then it’s not just about the Lakers. It’s all about his legacy here, and it’s not just here — it’s in Hollywood. LeBron, he’s so amazing, not just as a basketball player, but he’s the biggest celebrity in a celebrity-driven town. So you got to give him credit for that too, as well. More

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      LeBron James and Stephen Curry Test Different Paths Back to N.B.A. Peak

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      James’s Los Angeles Lakers revamped their roster in a bid for another championship. For Golden State and Curry, familiar faces were just fine.LOS ANGELES — On the cusp of his 19th N.B.A. season, Carmelo Anthony belongs to a new team but harbors the same ambitions: winning his first championship. In that regard, he is not alone on the Los Angeles Lakers, a collection of veterans who will form one of the league’s most curious experiments.“We have too much experience on this team to think anything other than we’ll figure it out,” Anthony said. “But it all takes time.”After a winless preseason, the Lakers will get going in an official capacity on Tuesday night, when they play their season opener against the Golden State Warriors, a franchise that has recently gone about its business in a decidedly different way.While the Lakers have been a tear-down project — LeBron James, who signed with the team in 2018, is the longest-tenured player on the roster — Golden State has been busy remodeling while keeping intact the essential core from its not-so-distant championship era, all in the hope of staging a resurrection with the help of some new pieces.Two teams. Two approaches. And an early-season, but much-anticipated, litmus test at Staples Center on the viability of each.“I think we’ll be ready,” Anthony said. “You can feel it.”Russell Westbrook, at 32, adds a scoring punch to a team with several old-for-the-N.B.A. veterans.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressThe Warriors — remember them? — are running it back with Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and, eventually, Klay Thompson, whom the team expects to return by late December or early January after he missed the past two seasons with injuries. Thompson tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the 2019 finals, then ruptured his right Achilles’ tendon last November.“It doesn’t work without Klay,” Curry said in an interview last week. “So there’s definitely anticipation. And we feel like we’ll have three seasons in one this year: this first chapter until he gets back, reintegrating him into the fold, and then the playoff chase down the stretch. So there’s a lot to look forward to.”Without Thompson — and largely without Curry, who broke his hand and missed all but five games — Golden State hibernated through the 2019-20 season, finishing with the worst record in the league. Last season, as the team continued to groom prospects like Jordan Poole, a first-round draft pick in 2019, and Juan Toscano-Anderson, who came out of the G League, the Warriors went 39-33.Now Golden State is nearly whole. And the team has welcomed the reappearance of a familiar figure: Andre Iguodala, a key cog in the team’s five straight trips to the finals, from 2015 to 2019, which produced three championships.“We built something special here,” said Iguodala, who has rejoined Golden State after spending most of the past two seasons with the Miami Heat.While Iguodala was gone, Golden State experienced its share of turbulence. But the franchise maintained a sense of stability. Curry and Green were still around. Thompson would be back at some point. And Steve Kerr, now entering his eighth season as the team’s coach, was at the helm. The pieces were there. It would just take some time for them all to coalesce again.“Our expectations are definitely higher this year than they have been the last couple of years,” said Kerr, whose team went 5-0 in the preseason. “It’s a really fun group to coach.”The Lakers will be playing under an even brighter spotlight after overhauling their roster (again) this summer. They signed Anthony, traded for Russell Westbrook and acquired veterans like Kent Bazemore, DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo while jettisoning the bulk of their personnel from last season. Gone are many of the role players from their championship run in 2020: Kyle Kuzma, Alex Caruso, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.The Lakers are not big on continuity, demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice draft picks and young players for name-brand stars of a certain vintage. If there is urgency, it stems in large part from the fact that James is 36 and has struggled with injuries in recent years. No athlete can operate at the height of his powers forever, not even James. And so the Lakers have gone about mortgaging their future in pursuit of another championship now — if they can create chemistry in short order while avoiding more health problems.“I think our basketball I.Q., our talent and our skill will, for the most part, get us there,” Anthony said, “and then, the cohesiveness of being together and playing together will take us over the top. We understand where we want to be and where we’re going to be, but we’re not there yet.”Draymond Green, right, provided a critical defensive complement to the offense of Stephen Curry, left, during Golden State’s championship runs.John Hefti/Associated PressThe team has acknowledged that it will be a work in progress. As James put it before the start of training camp, “I don’t think it’s going to be like peanut butter and jelly to start the season.”Any mention of preseason basketball ought to come with the disclaimer that the games are fairly meaningless. But the Lakers did go 0-6, which was enough to raise some important questions: Is this a hodgepodge roster? Can a team this old withstand the rigors of an 82-game regular season? And, perhaps most important, can Westbrook and James, two ball-dominant players, coexist in a productive way?Frank Vogel, the team’s coach, said he had no such concerns.“There’s definitely a willingness for those guys to share and sacrifice,” he said, adding, “It’s tough to get 15-plus-year vets to be completely serious about the preseason.”For his part, James said Monday that he had fully recovered from the ankle injury that slowed him toward the end of last season — “I didn’t do much basketball for the first two months of the summer,” he said — and that he was ready for a fresh start, one that will come against an opponent that, unlike the Lakers, hopes to reach into its past. More

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      LeBron James Laughs at Your ‘Old’ Lakers Memes. After His Nap.

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      The Los Angeles Lakers have five players who are at least 35 years old, including the 36-year-old James. Older, wiser, championship?LeBron James has seen the memes and read the punch lines.“The narrative about our age,” he said, “I kind of laugh at it. I actually do really laugh. I’m not just saying that.”The Los Angeles Lakers are old. They are the N.B.A.’s Traveling Wilburys, an aging rock star collective hoping to produce one more chart-topping album. Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan have more mileage between them than a 2003 Honda Civic. Carmelo Anthony, 37, recalled first getting to know James, 36, when they were high school standouts — way back in the previous millennium. At 32, Russell Westbrook is comparatively spry.It all could make for an all-encompassing disaster. Or it could be an extraordinary success. But the Lakers will not be boring.“I don’t think it’s going to be like peanut butter and jelly to start the season,” James told reporters on Tuesday ahead of training camp. “But that’s all part of the process.”As change swirls around him, James remains the franchise’s central force. On the cusp of his 19th N.B.A. season and his fourth with the Lakers, he has had an eventful tenure in Los Angeles. Year 1: an injury-marred season for James that the Lakers punctuated with a losing record. Year 2: the death of Kobe Bryant, followed by a championship run in the league’s pandemic-era bubble. Year 3: more injuries and a first-round playoff exit.Ahead of Year 4, James donned a hard hat as the Lakers underwent a hefty renovation. Only James, Anthony Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker remain from last season, though a couple of familiar faces — Howard and Rajon Rondo, both 35 — are back after helping the Lakers win a title two seasons ago.“It was exciting helping put this team together this summer,” said James, who might as well have a front office role.In his own small way, James reinvented himself, too, by slightly slimming down at this august stage of his career.“He’s made the decision to come back a little bit leaner,” Rob Pelinka, the team’s general manager, said last week. “And I think that’s going to translate in his explosiveness and his quickness.”Pelinka said he had outlined three objectives ahead of the draft and free agency: Add playmakers, find more shooting and, finally, shift back to employing two defensive-minded centers to both augment Davis’s presence in the post and remove some of the physical demands on him. Pelinka wound up raiding a warehouse of vintage All-Stars.“A lot of times when you put a group of players together — a group of talent like we have — it doesn’t work out,” said Anthony, who spent last season with the Portland Trail Blazers. “But I think where we’re at in our careers and understanding what we have to do, understanding the sacrifices that we all have to make in order for us to work, that’s the beauty of the actual journey that we’re about to go on.”Russell Westbrook, who is from the Los Angeles area and played at U.C.L.A., was traded to the Lakers from the Wizards in August.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressCarmelo Anthony spent the past two seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers before joining the Lakers this summer.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressWestbrook, a former winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award, spent last season with the Washington Wizards before he was traded to the Lakers in August. Westbrook called it a “blessing” to be playing in Los Angeles, where he grew up. James said he and Westbrook had been “tied at the hip” since the summer.“I think it’s because we both understand and know what it takes in order to win, and obviously LeBron knows what it takes to get to that next level,” Westbrook said.To that end, the Lakers have already managed to avoid a potential distraction dogging several other teams, including the Nets and the Golden State Warriors: Pelinka said the Lakers would be fully vaccinated by the time they open their season against Golden State on Oct. 19.“I know that I was very skeptical about it all,” James said. “But after doing my research and things of that nature, I felt like it was best suited for not only me but for my family and my friends, and that’s why I decided to do it.”At the same time, James said he would not his use his public platform to urge others to be vaccinated.“I don’t feel like for me personally that I should get involved in what other people should do for their bodies,” he said.It was not a topic that James seemed to relish, though the spotlight will presumably settle on the Lakers’ wild on-court chemistry experiment soon enough. And there will be a feeling of urgency for everyone involved.There is not much of a clear future for the Lakers, at least not in the painstaking let’s-make-sure-we-plan-beyond-this-season sense. In acquiring the likes of Davis in 2019 and Westbrook this year, the Lakers have traded away several promising players and an armada of first-round draft picks. The idea has been to win now, no matter the cost.But the aging process is undefeated, and there are obvious concerns about the Lakers’ durability. James, so indestructible for much of his career, has been hampered by injuries in recent years, and Davis limped through the team’s abridged playoff appearance last season. For his part, Pelinka sought to downplay the suggestion that the Lakers were brittle by citing the example of Tom Brady, who, at 44, is still quarterbacking football teams to Super Bowls.Amid the doubts and the questions about the Lakers, Anthony can make out a path that leads to a championship ring, which would be his first. There were moments in his career, he said, when he considered the possibility of teaming up with James, one of his closest friends. The opportunity never materialized. Perhaps neither player was ready for that to happen, Anthony said.“But here we are now,” he said. “Timing is everything.” More

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      LeBron James Says He Had Been Vaccinated Against Covid

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      LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, said Tuesday that he had been vaccinated against the coronavirus, after evading questions about his vaccination status last season. Several other high-profile N.B.A. players have resisted getting vaccinated ahead of the start of the N.B.A. season next month.“I think everyone has their own choice to do what they feel is right for themselves and their family,” James said. “I know that I was very skeptical about it all, but after doing my research and things of that nature, I felt like it was best suited for not only me but for my family and my friends, and that’s why I decided to do it.”James did not say which vaccine he had taken, or the number of doses he had received. He also said he would not use his platform to publicly encourage others to be vaccinated.“We’re talking about individuals’ bodies,” he said. “We’re not talking about something that’s political or racism or police brutality and things of that nature.”He added: “So I don’t feel like for me personally that I should get involved in what other people should do for their bodies and their livelihoods.”Rob Pelinka, the general manager of the Lakers, said last week that he expects the team’s entire roster to be fully vaccinated ahead of its season opener against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 19. Kent Bazemore, one of the team’s new players, said he was reluctant to be vaccinated before Pelinka persuaded him to receive his first dose. More

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      Westbrook Always Plays With Stars. But Will They Align on the Lakers?

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      Russell Westbrook has played with the N.B.A.’s best, with limited success. Here’s what that says about him, and what it could mean in Los Angeles.Russell Westbrook is coming off one of his best seasons, having posted a career high in rebounds and another in assists that was enough to lead the N.B.A. And for the fourth time in five seasons, he averaged the vaunted triple-double, typically defined as reaching double-digit numbers in points, rebounds and assists. Before Westbrook, it seemed almost impossible to average a triple-double once, much less multiple times.But those numbers weren’t good enough to land him on the All-Star team last season, the first time the 32-year-old hadn’t been selected since 2014. It was in part because his Washington Wizards were not very good. But the Wizards’ barely making the playoffs was a perfect microcosm of the general debate about Westbrook’s legacy: It’s not a sure thing that Westbrook’s style of play is conducive to winning basketball, even with his gaudy numbers.And now Westbrook is with the Los Angeles Lakers, traded for the third time in three years. Former Most Valuable Player Award winners like Westbrook typically do not play for four different teams in successive seasons while still putting up numbers comparable to when they won the honor.Westbrook will again have superstar teammates, this time LeBron James and Anthony Davis on an unequivocally so-called superteam. On paper, this new iteration of stars assembled to chase a championship should easily compete with teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, the reigning champions, and the Nets, both of whom have star trios of their own.Westbrook is a less efficient shooter than Kyle Kuzma, right, one of the players he was traded for.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThis will most likely be the best chance Westbrook has had to win a championship.These Lakers are better than the Oklahoma City Thunder team Westbrook helped take to the finals in 2012 alongside a young Kevin Durant and James Harden, where the three M.V.P.s-to-be were outmatched against the James-led Miami Heat superteam. These Lakers are more talented than the 2017-18 Thunder team with Carmelo Anthony and Paul George, which bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. When Westbrook reunited with Harden — now a bona fide star — in Houston in 2019-20, James’s Lakers easily dispatched them in the postseason’s second round. And it goes without saying that the current Lakers team is better than last season’s Wizards, even though Westbrook was playing with Bradley Beal, one of the league’s best scorers.Westbrook has not lacked for star teammates, but he has lacked the success that is expected to come with having them, and that may be an indictment of his style of play: high-volume scoring, weak shooting and elite rebounding that is devalued in favor of shooting. Some of this is also an indictment of the rosters Westbrook has played with. The 2017-18 Thunder team had an ill-fitting Anthony, who had difficulty adjusting to a lesser role. In Houston, the Rockets traded away center Clint Capela and opted to play small ball, which had limited effectiveness. In Washington, the Wizards dealt with injuries to key players, like Rui Hachimura and Thomas Bryant, and were hampered by a coronavirus outbreak.But if Westbrook can’t figure out how to win next to James and Davis, who won a championship with some of the players the Lakers traded for Westbrook, it will be a blow to Westbrook’s legacy.The Wizards lost in the first round of the playoffs last season.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAfter Durant left the Thunder in 2016, Westbrook became the focal point, and the Thunder were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round for three straight years.A large part of the issue with Westbrook is that he has been an inefficient scorer for much of his career. His career true shooting percentage — which accounts for free throws and 3-pointers — is 52.8 percent, whereas the league average is around 55 percent. And he takes up a lot of possessions to score his points as a result.His defense has also been suspect.This is where his joining James and Davis makes for a fascinating, and potentially treacherous, situation. Two of the players the Lakers traded for Westbrook — Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — were helpful defensively and with floor spacing. That meant they didn’t need the ball in their hands to make their presence felt on the floor. Kuzma shot 36.1 percent from 3 last season, while Caldwell-Pope was at 41 percent. Westbrook’s career average from 3 is 30.5 percent. A data point helpful to Westbrook: Kuzma shot only 31.6 percent from 3 in the Lakers’ championship year.The fit with Westbrook, James and Davis will be a mad experiment. Westbrook needs the ball in his hands to be effective, while James usually runs his team’s offense. James’s best teams have been loaded with shooters to toss the ball to when he drives into the paint. Davis is one of the most offensively skilled big men but, like Westbrook, inconsistent from 3, at 31.2 percent for his career. Even James is a career 34.5 percent shooter from deep — around average.This means the Lakers will presumably start three players who aren’t the most reliable shooters in today’s N.B.A., which is so dependent on efficient offense generated by spacing. The Lakers have some counters with their other additions: Kent Bazemore, Anthony and Wayne Ellington — all of whom shot better than 40 percent from 3 last season.Westbrook’s addition to the Lakers makes this one of the most intriguing roster constructions in the last decade.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWestbrook’s career usage rate — how often he uses possessions — is 32.51 percent, second to only Michael Jordan in N.B.A. history. James is fifth at 31.55 percent. If Westbrook is using more possessions than James next season, something has gone terribly wrong. For the Lakers to be at their best, Westbrook is going to have to take a back seat, and some players — think Allen Iverson — don’t adjust well to that, because their skills and ego don’t allow them to.Players have steadily complimented Westbrook as a teammate. But does he know that he will have to watch the ball a lot more than he’s used to? With the Wizards last season, according to the league’s tracking numbers, Westbrook’s usage percentage with Beal on the floor was about 26 percent, compared with 33.9 percent when Beal was off. For Beal, his rate was at about 29.8 percent with Westbrook on, and 38.2 with him off. But the Wizards didn’t have a third player of Davis’s caliber.Westbrook will be helpful if he plays to his strengths. He is a relentless slasher and because of his ball-handling and penetration, he will create easier shots for James and Davis. He also pushes the fast break. The Lakers were 21st in pace last season, making them one of the slowest teams, while Westbrook’s Wizards were the fastest. Westbrook plays every possession as if he is trying to outrun a vengeful lightning bolt, and that’s if he’s not the lightning bolt himself. That will help the Lakers add a new dimension to their offense: Westbrook and James are among the best fast-break players the league has seen.Westbrook’s days of averaging a triple-double are most likely behind him. Davis and James are exceptional rebounders and playmakers, leaving less for Westbrook to put on his plate, at least statistically. But Westbrook’s addition to the Lakers, as well as that of Dwight Howard and Anthony, makes this one of the most intriguing roster constructions in the last decade.But if Westbrook is unable to jell with his latest batch of star teammates, the Lakers may end up being an ill-fitting, must-watch mess. More

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      Malcolm D. Lee on ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ and Directing LeBron James

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      The filmmaker recalls the “organized chaos” that went into making the new film and the studio pickup games with Chris Paul and other pros.The making of “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was a head-spinning exercise in the unfamiliar for the director Malcolm D. Lee.For one thing, the film went into production less than a week after he officially signed on to direct the film. Lee was a late addition in summer 2019, taking over directing duties from Terence Nance. The script was still in development. Lee, the veteran director of comedies like “Girls Trip” (2017) and “The Best Man” (1999), had never worked with animation before and had never seen the original “Space Jam,” the 1996 basketball-Looney Tunes crossover starring Michael Jordan.On top of all that, Lee was charged with taking care of a movie built around LeBron James, one of the most popular athletes in the world. James had appeared on the big screen before (most notably in a supporting role in the 2015 romantic comedy “Trainwreck”) but had never anchored a feature.“It was organized chaos,” Lee, 51, said in an interview this week.The director met James a decade earlier when they had discussed making a film together, but it never came to fruition. The new project is a gamble for both Lee and James: It will inevitably be compared to the now-beloved original in the same way that James is continually measured against Jordan. If it flops, a movie literally billed as “A New Legacy” may be damaging to James’s own.The movie is, if nothing else, self-aware. At one point, James, playing himself, notes how poorly athletes fare when they try to act. (Similarly to the original, other pro basketball players — including Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis and Diana Taurasi — have cameos.) The film also features Don Cheadle as the villainous manifestation of an algorithm named, well, Al G. Rhythm, who kidnaps James, his youngest son (Cedric Joe) and the rest of the Warner Bros. universe.James and Bugs share the screen.Warner Bros. In addition to preparing for the film, James, 36, also had to stay in shape for the N.B.A. season. Lee said that on shoot days, James would wake up at 2 a.m. and work out till 6 a.m., then show up for a full day on set.In an interview, Lee, who is the cousin of fellow filmmaker Spike Lee, discussed his own love for basketball and how he directed a star without a traditional acting background. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.Did you grow up playing basketball?The third grade really is when I started playing organized basketball. I wasn’t as into it as my brother and my dad were encouraging me to. I started playing in this league in Brooklyn called the Youth Basketball Association. My dad coached a year. In fact, it’s funny, too, because Spike, who was living with us at the time, was the assistant coach. [Lee is 13 years older than his cousin.]No kidding.Swear to God. And Spike will tell you himself. There was one week when my dad went down to Alabama — that’s where he’s from — and Spike had to coach us. We had an undefeated season until that date, so Spike was sweating coaching us. And we actually got the victory. He didn’t want to spoil my father’s streak.What was your first conversation with LeBron like when you took the “Space Jam” gig?I think LeBron had the same agenda as everyone else in that he wanted to make the movie great. He wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing, that my vision was clear and that he’d be taken care of. Not coddled, but that there was a leader aboard who was going to say, “This is what we’re going to do and this is how are we going to do it.” I assured him that there could be delays — I just don’t know — but I’m a professional, I’ve been in this for a long time and I will make sure that you’re taken care of.Lee signed onto the film late in the process. “It was organized chaos,” he said.Justin Lubin/Warner Bros.Did you have any reservations about working with a basketball star who doesn’t have the traditional acting training that someone like Don Cheadle has?Not really. LeBron’s been in front of the camera since he was 18 years old. Now, I mean, “Oh, those are just interviews,” but people get asked the same questions over and over again. So he’s got some rehearsed responses. He also was very funny. He wants to be good. He was good in “Trainwreck.” There’s some actors that get something and say, “OK, that’ll cut together.” And some that are just natural. I think LeBron has a lot of natural ability.Without spoiling it, there is a scene where LeBron has to convey a vulnerable emotion toward his son. Is there anything in particular either you or he did to prepare for that scene? Because that had to be out of his comfort zone.For sure. Look, the first thing that I try to get with any actor is trust, right? I have to trust them. They have to trust me because I’m going to ask them to go to some places that they aren’t necessarily comfortable going. So yes, we did talk about something before he delivered some of those lines. Then we did a couple of takes — just let him get warmed up. If I’m not getting what I’m looking for, then I’ll say, “Why don’t you think about this? And don’t worry about the line so much. Just have this in your brain and then say it.”From left, Nneka Ogwumike, Cedric Joe, Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson and Diana Taurasi on the set. Scott Garfield/Warner Bros.Film is a director-driven medium, and basketball is very much player-driven in that players can get coaches fired or disregard them entirely. Did that dynamic ever come into play in the course of filming?No. I don’t think there was ever any “I want to do it this way and I don’t care what you have to say.” I think LeBron likes to be coached. He’s a master of his craft. But at the same time, people are in your corner whose job it is to say: “Make sure you do this. Think about this. I’m seeing this on the court. You’re not seeing blah, blah, blah.” And I think he takes that information. Same thing with acting.During the filming of the original “Space Jam,” Michael Jordan hosted scrimmages with other N.B.A. players. Was there anything like that here?There was a court built for [James] on the Warner Bros. lot. I did go to one pickup game and that was thrilling for me, because I’m a huge basketball fan. Chris Paul was there, Ben Simmons, Anthony Davis, JaVale McGee, Draymond Green.You didn’t ask to play?Hell no.What an opportunity, man!Are you kidding? The opportunity to get embarrassed. A lot of those guys come into the gym, they don’t know I’m the director of the movie. They’re like, “Who’s this dude?” I can’t be like, “Hey, how you doing? I played intramurals at Georgetown.” That’s not going to impress anybody. More