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      LeBron James Leads a Generation of Athletes Into Ownership

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      James is now an owner of the Boston Red Sox and recently helped a W.N.B.A. player, Renee Montgomery, with her group’s bid to purchase the Atlanta Dream.In an age marked by kneeling protests and cross-league walkouts in sports, which gained new traction in 2020, it’s easy to put too much faith in the ability of professional athletes to make social change.True empowerment will only come when more players cross the longstanding divide between management and labor and enter the ranks of team ownership, where the real influence lies. That’s why the latest off-court move from LeBron James, largely overlooked amid the whirling excitement of the N.C.A.A. tournaments, is so intriguing.James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, announced his small but significant stake in the Fenway Sports Group last week. As you might have guessed because of the conglomerate’s name, that makes him a part owner in the Boston Red Sox and gives him entree into baseball’s inner sanctum. The investment also adds to James’s shares in Liverpool of the Premier League and his foothold with NASCAR’s Roush Fenway Racing team, which he bought into in 2011.It is a preview of things to come. Today’s athletes are beginning to realize that true strength lies not only in grass-roots activism and the chase for championships, but also in having a seat in team boardrooms. By doing that, they can sway leagues that remain halfhearted about transformation. Would the N.F.L. have blackballed Colin Kaepernick if a significant number of former Black players were at the owners’ table? Unlikely.Athlete involvement in team ownership isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Mario Lemieux bought the Pittsburgh Penguins out of bankruptcy in 1999. Eleven years later, Michael Jordan became the first former N.B.A. player to control a majority interest in one of the league’s teams when he purchased the Charlotte Bobcats. (One of his first big moves was to rename his team the Hornets.) Those actions allowed Lemieux and Jordan to reap financial returns that their labor alone could not have produced.But James’s increasing involvement in the corridors of power shows that today’s sports stars — more outspoken than Jordan and Lemieux, more inclined to push against entrenched wealth — are ready to use ownership as a means to push for more than personal gain.With a boost from James, Renee Montgomery announced her retirement at age 32 to become the first W.N.B.A. player to own a part of one of the league’s teams, the Atlanta Dream, after its players rallied against a team co-owner, Kelly Loeffler, the firebrand Republican senator who angered the basketball world when she denounced the Black Lives Matter movement. The outspoken tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams have signed up as team owners in the National Women’s Soccer League, as have a number of retired women’s soccer stars, in the wake of the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s fight for pay equity.Renee Montgomery sat out the Atlanta Dream’s 2020 season to work for social justice. In 2021, she retired from playing in the W.N.B.A. and became part owner of the team.Gregory Payan/Associated PressExpect more to come, with this generation’s athletes deeply aware of team owners’ direct power. Buying into the Fenway group allows James a chance to learn the ropes as he draws closer to one of his most cherished goals. I’m not talking about equaling or even surpassing Jordan’s haul of six N.B.A. titles. I’m talking about taking a majority financial stake in an N.B.A. team. For now, James must wait. League rules bar active players from joining ownership.When the time comes, he’ll be ready. Now 36, he’s long been a business mogul, backed by a cadre of high-gloss, well-heeled advisers. If he needs wealthy investors to form a partnership and come along for the ride, he has more than a few options on speed dial. Not that he would need much help. James is said to be a billionaire, or nearly so.Of all of today’s sports stars, James possesses the heaviest clout. He is the one most adept at standing up and speaking out — both inside the boardroom and, through his social activism, at street level.That’s why he offered advice and connections to help Montgomery’s successful bid to purchase a part of the Dream. Montgomery, a two-time W.N.B.A champion, sat out last year’s truncated season to work as a grass-roots activist. After the players called for Loeffler’s ouster from her Senate seat, Loeffler lost a runoff election in January, an outcome that allowed James to flex.“Stick to Sports,” James said in a Twitter post aimed at Loeffler in the wake of the sale to a group that included Montgomery. The barb turned the tables on what James and others have been told for years after they have spoken up on political matters.The two basketball stars know that joining ownership offers them a new and important way to make their voices heard.It’s one thing to kneel during the national anthem, attend marches or even lead teams on walkouts and work stoppages. Such moves are key. They enlighten, draw attention and energize passion. But in sports they are also not enough.The limits athletes face became clear during the protest movement that swept through last summer. Team owners in the major North American men’s sports talked a good game and contributed millions of dollars to causes backed by players. But many of the same owners gave lavishly to President Donald J. Trump, who stood in direct opposition to everything the players were pushing for. Such double-dealing showed that the players might have had a megaphone, but money remains the language that packs the biggest punch.Real transformation isn’t likely to happen unless enlightened athletes continue to cross the divide, enter the ranks of ownership and have their say on everything from the hiring of head coaches to an effort in sports to push for more accountability in policing. It’ll take time to get enough in place to make a consistent difference. Thankfully, owner-activists like LeBron James and Renee Montgomery are creating a road map. More

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      LeBron James Is Becoming a Red Sox Owner

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      James bought a minor stake in the M.L.B. team as its ownership group also received a $750 million investment from a private-equity firm.The Boston Red Sox have gained a global sports star as a partial team owner. LeBron James has bought a minor stake in the M.L.B. franchise at the same time that the team’s longtime ownership group received a $750 million infusion from a private-equity firm.It was not clear how much James invested in the Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club, an English Premier League soccer team.The investment from the private-equity firm, RedBird Capital Partners, places the value of Fenway Sports Group at around $7.3 billion, including its debt. In addition to the sports teams, F.S.G. owns Fenway Park, Roush Fenway Racing, the NESN regional sports network and Fenway Sports Management, a marketing company.James, 36, a member of the Los Angeles Lakers who is in his 18th N.B.A. season, has a long history with F.S.G. He originally partnered with Fenway Sports Management in 2011, allowing it to represent his global marketing rights, and as part of that deal took a small ownership stake in Liverpool F.C. But by investing in F.S.G. itself, James added the Red Sox and other F.S.G. companies to his portfolio.Maverick Carter, James’s longtime friend and business partner, also invested in F.S.G. The deal will make the pair the first Black partners in Fenway Sports Group.The investments, which still requires approval from Major League Baseball, were confirmed by two people with knowledge of them, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media before a public announcement from F.S.G. The Boston Globe first reported the investments from RedBird and James.James, an Ohio native, has described himself as a lifelong Yankees fan, and he created a stir during the 2007 baseball playoffs when he wore a Yankees hat to an American League playoff game in Cleveland. He then actively rooted for Cleveland in the 2016 World Series, just months after leading the Cavaliers to the city’s first major sports championship in 52 years.Expanding his role with F.S.G. is one of James’s many ventures off the basketball court, which include his More Than a Vote group, which aims to fight voter suppression; his work with Carter at SpringHill Entertainment, a production company; and starring in, as well as producing, the movie “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” scheduled to be released this summer.Though James has the highest profile among the new investors, RedBird’s involvement is likely to have more effect on F.S.G.’s operations.RedBird Capital Partners is led by Gerry Cardinale, who helped the Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys form Legends Hospitality when he previously worked at Goldman Sachs. RedBird recently joined the Yankees, Amazon and others in buying the YES Network from the Walt Disney Company. RedBird also recently purchased an 85 percent stake in Toulouse Football Club, which plays in France’s second soccer division. F.S.G. has more than 20 investors, who are all called partners, but it is led by John Henry, Tom Werner and Michael Gordon. RedBird’s stake in F.S.G. will be around 11 percent, making it the third-largest investor, surpassing Gordon’s stake, according to one of the people with knowledge of the deal.Henry and Werner paid $660 million for the Red Sox in 2002 and about $476 million for Liverpool in 2010. Both teams won long-awaited championships under F.S.G. and would almost certainly be worth multiple billions individually if they were sold. RedBird’s investment will allow F.S.G.’s current partners to cash out some of those gains without relinquishing control of the franchises. According to The Boston Globe, more than $600 million will go to F.S.G. partners.Whatever money is left could be invested in a number of ways, including upgrading the current teams’ rosters.After winning their last World Series title in 2018, the Red Sox substantially slashed their payroll, notably trading the star outfielder Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who later signed Betts to one of the largest contracts in the sport’s history. Liverpool has won the Champions League and Premier League in recent seasons but has also been reluctant to spend on roster depth, a decision that has caused a crisis this season after a rash of season-ending injuries to important players. More

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      Giannis Antetokounmpo Couldn't Miss at the All-Star Game

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyon pro basketballGiannis Antetokounmpo Was the All-Star Who Couldn’t MissA 16-for-16 night highlighted a game that many players didn’t really want to play.While Giannis Antetokounmpo banked in a couple of 3-pointers, most of his damage came at the rim.Credit…Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressMarch 8, 2021Updated 9:23 a.m. ETATLANTA — Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks unintentionally banked in two of his three 3-pointers. He took 11 shots in the first half, and five more in the second half, without missing one. He also made a priceless memory with his infant son before the game even started, leaning down to Liam Antetokounmpo at courtside for some quick ball-handling work as the opening tip approached.When the N.B.A.’s 70th All-Star Game was over Sunday night, Antetokounmpo seized the game ball without waiting for anyone’s authorization, cradled it with his left hand and collected the Kobe Bryant Trophy as the occasion’s most valuable player minutes later. It was, at least for Antetokounmpo, about as perfect as an All-Star Game gets.That the sentiment could be applied to even one participant at State Farm Arena was a grand surprise given how the N.B.A.’s All-Star Sunday started. Weeks of unease and second-guessing about the league’s decision to summon 24 players from 18 teams to Georgia for an All-Star Game, in the ongoing clutches of a pandemic that caused 31 game postponements in the first half of the season, seemed to be validated some eight hours before tipoff, when it was announced that Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers would not be allowed to play.Antetokounmpo had a sweet moment on the sideline with his son Liam.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesExposure in Philadelphia to a barber who had tested positive for the coronavirus caused Embiid and Simmons to be barred from playing, even though their coach, Doc Rivers, said both players tested negative on Sunday in Atlanta. League officials thus had to be relieved, at night’s end, to see Antetokounmpo so giddy about his 35 points on 16-for-16 shooting — albeit almost all of that from at-the-rim range — and to hear the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James speaking so excitedly about the rare opportunity to play beside Golden State’s Stephen Curry.As the captain of the victorious Team LeBron, James benched himself for the second half of a 170-150 victory after scoring a modest 4 points in 13 minutes. He spent the rest of the evening encouraging Portland’s Damian Lillard (32 points) and Curry (28) to “back up further and further to shoot,” as James explained via his Twitter feed. Lillard and Curry duly drained eight 3-pointers each, including back-to-back flings from halfcourt to close out a 60-point second quarter (yes, 60) that looked laughably effortless.It was a marked change in tone from the afternoon, when the Nets’ James Harden, among numerous players dismayed by the Embiid and Simmons developments, said this All-Star Game had essentially been “thrown upon us.” James, remember, called the concept a “slap in the face” a month ago, explaining that he and many other players had been led to believe they would get an All-Star break free of basketball after the league postponed its originally scheduled 2021 All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis to 2024.The uniforms used Sunday night were those designed for Indianapolis, inspired by an old Pacers scheme from the 1980s in yellow and blue, adding to the night’s “forced” feel — to use another Harden description. No matter how many times Commissioner Adam Silver has insisted that the league’s motivations for staging the game were to reward its global fan base and bring a needed spotlight to historically Black colleges and universities, as much as the obvious “economic factors,” this was one instance where players voiced more (and louder) skepticism than members of the news media.“All in all, obviously the league did a hell of a job of being able to put this together still,” James said afterward, withholding any further criticism. He had just improved to 4-0 as an All-Star captain, helped along by the stunning array of M.V.P. candidates he drafted (Antetokounmpo, Curry, Lillard, Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Dallas’s Luka Doncic), as well as the absences of Embiid and the injured Kevin Durant, the other team’s captain.“There’s always a lot of back and forth on these different decisions, but once guys get here, I think they’re grateful for it,” said Chris Paul of the Phoenix Suns. Paul, of course, doubles as president of the National Basketball Players Association and is James’s close friend, which made for an uncomfortable month after James was so forceful in initially questioning the wisdom of holding even this scaled-down version of All-Star Weekend.To try to make this venture as safe as possible, league and union officials agreed that the players would spend no more than 36 hours in Atlanta, flying in and out via private jet and maintaining the daily coronavirus testing that has governed the season so far. Traveling parties were required to check in at the league’s hotel by 7 p.m. Saturday and then stay at the hotel until departing for the arena Sunday afternoon, with an array of private postgame flights scheduled Sunday night. Players were allowed to bring up to four guests. Teams were allowed to send three club representatives with them — one each from the athletic training staff, team public relations and team security.LeBron James gushed on Twitter about finally getting a chance to play a game as Stephen Curry’s teammate rather than his rival. “Well overdue and I loved every single second!”Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe idea, Silver said, was to create a “mini bubble” and keep everyone granted access to the league’s inner sanctum away from the bustling nightlife that swirled around them. League officials were well aware that many Atlantans had shown little interest in heeding recent pleas from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to stay home and treat this as the made-for-television event that the N.B.A. intended. The N.B.A., in fact, was moved to send roughly 200 letters containing cease-and-desist orders to local party organizers who used the event name or logo to promote unaffiliated events across the weekend, according to a league spokesman.Beyond the $20-plus million that Turner Sports was projected to generate in advertising and sponsorship revenue through Sunday’s broadcast, estimates for precisely how valuable this substitute All-Star experience would be for the N.B.A. have been difficult to come by. It was widely reported late last year that starting the 2020-21 season during Christmas week rather than mid-January would result in a $500 million revenue gain. No such projections have been released in connection with the All-Star Game, but one league insider with a firm grasp of money matters told me last week that just keeping a valuable partner like Turner happy, by preserving the network’s most valuable N.B.A. content of the year, was worthy of any trouble.Fake crowd noise was pumped in to amplify the understandably modest buzz generated by an invitation-only crowd of 1,500. TNT likewise had concerns of its own to contend with, competing for viewers against Oprah Winfrey’s interview on CBS with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.Commissioner Adam Silver said of the game, “It would have been a bigger deal not to have it.”Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesSilver insisted at a news conference on Saturday that he had weighed it all before deciding that “we should do it for our fans and for our business” once the league “got to the point where we felt we could do it safely.”“For me,” Silver said, “it would have been a bigger deal not to have it.”Atlanta’s previous All-Star Game, in 2003, when the Hawks’ home was known as Philips Arena, was Michael Jordan’s final All-Star Game. This one will take its own place in league history, thanks to the unusual circumstances, but Silver proposed that “maybe it should be judged when people are looking back as to what this meant to them as opposed to what some of the initial reactions were.”Maybe.“It was more fun than I thought it would be,” Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics said.Lillard, who on another night might have wrested M.V.P. honors from Antetokounmpo with his repeated splashes from 40 feet and beyond, said: “It just didn’t have the All-Star Weekend feel, just because it was so quick, it was so quiet, it was empty. But I think once we got on the floor, that was like the only time it snapped into like, ‘This is the All-Star Game.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe 7 N.B.A. All-Stars Who Would Be King (or Just M.V.P.)Near the halfway point, this season’s race for the Most Valuable Player Award has top-tier candidates from the usuals (LeBron James) to the newcomers (Joel Embiid).Damian Lillard is keeping the Portland Trail Blazers competitive despite injuries to key players, as he has done for years. He’s a top-tier candidate for M.V.P.Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated PressFeb. 26, 2021, 5:27 p.m. ETOne of the fiercest debates among fans and observers each N.B.A. season is over who should win the Most Valuable Player Award.This season — already strange because of the coronavirus pandemic — has created the most wide-open race for the coveted award in several years.Being named M.V.P. is official recognition that a player is not just a star, but a superstar. Every winner of the award who is eligible has made the Hall of Fame. But the qualifications for the award vary by voter, which is partly what makes the debate so contentious.Is it for the best player? If so, why hasn’t LeBron James — a four-time recipient — won every year? Is it for who has the best stats? Is it for who does the most with the least talent around him? Is it for the best player on the best team? Should past playoff performances factor in? (The winner is chosen by members of the news media, but The New York Times does not vote on awards.)Sometimes, the answers are easy. Last year, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks was a runaway winner. His stats were top notch (fifth in scoring, second in rebounding), and the Bucks had the best record.The 2016-17 season had one of the most hotly disputed M.V.P. races ever, among James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard. Westbrook, who finished that season with his first triple-double average and led the league in scoring, ended up winning, even though his team at the time, the Oklahoma City Thunder, was only the sixth seed in the Western Conference.Almost halfway through this season, several players have made a compelling case to be a top-tier candidate.Statistics were updated entering Friday night’s games.LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers25.6 points/8.1 rebounds/8 assists per game; 50.2 field goal percentageLeBron James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league, and he has already won four M.V.P. Awards.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressThe Case For:James, 36, has played every game so far. His true shooting percentage — a measure of scoring efficiency that factors in free throws and gives more weight to 3-pointers — is at a solid 59.2 percent, despite a recent slump from the perimeter. The league average is around 55 percent. James is the best player on the team that entered the weekend with the fourth-best record in the league. And he’s LeBron James. His numbers rival those of his previous M.V.P. seasons. If you believe that he should have won the award then, there is no reason he shouldn’t win now.The Case Against:James has another elite player, Anthony Davis, as a teammate. If you believe in the literal definition of valuable, then you must consider that when James sits, Davis, if healthy, fills some of the void in a way the vast majority of players can’t. Put another way: No other candidate has a teammate as good as Davis. Also, James is 13th in the league in scoring. He’s ninth in assists and 22nd in rebounding. The last M.V.P. to not be top 10 in points, rebounds or assists was Dirk Nowitzki in the 2006-07 season.Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers29.6 points/11.2 rebounds/3.1 assists per game; 51.6 field goal percentageThe Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid is performing well across the board. He ranks fourth in the league in scoring.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressThe Case For:Embiid is anchoring the best team in the Eastern Conference on both ends of the floor and does not have another bona fide top-10 player supporting him. He’s fourth in the league in scoring, while being absurdly efficient (64.4 percent true shooting).The Case Against:Embiid’s counting stats are fantastic, but he’s not as good a passer as other contenders. And even with his gaudy numbers, there is an argument that Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is having a better season.Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets26.9 points/10.9 rebounds/8.4 assists per game; 56 percent field goal percentageNikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is in the midst of having one of the five best offensive seasons in the history of the league.Credit…Harry How/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Jokic’s traditional stats are eye-popping, but when you look under the hood, you see he is putting together one of the greatest seasons ever. That is no exaggeration: His O.B.P.M. (a measure of how much a player contributes offensively compared with an average player) puts his performance at not just No. 1 in the league this season but among the five best offensive seasons in league history. It’s a higher O.B.P.M. than Larry Bird ever had. Michael Jordan had only one season better. Jokic’s win shares per 48 minutes — an estimate of how many wins an individual player is responsible for — lead the league, and also rank as one of the highest in history. He’s doing all of this while not having a teammate who will make the All-Star Game this season.The Case Against:The Nuggets are only 17-15. There is a chance they won’t even make the playoffs this season. It’s hard to give an M.V.P. to someone, no matter how great, if his play isn’t leading to wins.Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors30 points/5.5 rebounds/6.3 assists per game; 47.9 field goal percentageStephen Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-2016 season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history.Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThe Case For:Curry has played every game this season except one and has kept the Warriors afloat, despite Klay Thompson’s missing the whole season, and Draymond Green’s missing time because of injuries. From a statistical perspective, Curry is putting up nearly identical numbers to his 2015-16 M.V.P. season, which is considered one of the most dominant in N.B.A. history. This run might be even more impressive, given the lack of consistent playmakers around him. Curry is second in the league in scoring.The Case Against:As with Jokic, the team success isn’t there. The Warriors are 18-15 and are closer to missing the playoffs than to getting home-court advantage.Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers29.6 points/4.4 rebounds/8 assists per game; 44.7 percent field goal percentageThe Case For:Lillard’s numbers are consistently exceptional from year to year. This season, however, he’s doing this without the second- and third-best players on his team, CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, who have been sidelined with injuries. Despite not having another elite playmaker next to him, Lillard has carried Portland to 18-13 and fifth place in the Western Conference. From a “doing the most with the least” perspective, combined with elite statistics, Lillard and Curry have the best cases.The Case Against:There’s no obvious hole in Lillard’s M.V.P. case other than simple competition. It’s a deep field, and Lillard’s numbers are on par with those of multiple candidates, including Curry and Luka Doncic.The Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, left, and the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic are both contenders for this season’s M.V.P. Award.Credit…Michael Ainsworth/Associated PressLuka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks28.5 points/8.4 rebounds/9 assists per game; 47.4 field goal percentageThe Case For:Doncic is, once again, having one of the best all-around seasons in the league. He does it all. He’s an elite scorer and passer, while also being one of the best rebounding guards in the league. The Mavericks have been in flux for much of the season, as multiple players have missed games because of health concerns related to the coronavirus, so Doncic, as the only All-Star on the team, has to shoulder much of the offensive load.The Case Against:As things stand right now, Dallas, at 15-16, would not make the playoffs. The last time a player from a below-.500 team was named the M.V.P. was 1976, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award in his first year with the Lakers. Doncic is also a streaky shooter, so his percentages might not hold up as the season goes on.Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks28.9 points/11.7 rebounds/5.9 assists per game; 55.5 field goal percentageGiannis Antetokounmpo has positioned himself for a third straight M.V.P. Award.Credit…Rick Bowmer/Associated PressThe Case For:Antetokounmpo’s numbers are in line with his previous two seasons, both of which won him M.V.P. Awards. He’s top 10 in rebounding and scoring, something only Embiid can also say.The Case Against:Fairly or not, Antetokounmpo’s falling unexpectedly short in multiple playoff runs will be on the minds of voters. Additionally, if he wins the award, it would be his third straight — and there may be voter fatigue when there is such a deep field. The Bucks are only 20-13, slightly below preseason expectations. In almost any other season with that stat line, Antetokounmpo would be the runaway winner.Honorable Mentions:Kyrie Irving/James Harden/Kevin DurantThe players in the Nets’ trio are individually having exceptional seasons, rivaling all the other candidates. But they play on the same team, making it difficult to pick one most valuable player, and each has missed a significant chunk of time.Paul George/Kawhi LeonardBoth players are having essentially the same great seasons on the Los Angeles Clippers. Leonard is averaging 26.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, around the same as George. And the Clippers have the second-best record in the league. As with the Nets, it’s hard to pick one player to give the award to, especially with others putting up better stat lines.Donovan MitchellHe is the best player on the best team in the league. But his all-around stats don’t match those of other candidates.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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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