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    GOATs Are Everywhere in Sports. So What Really Defines Greatness?

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    Athletes from Tom Brady to Serena Williams to LeBron James have all been tabbed the Greatest of All Time. Faced with the term’s pervasive use, our columnist considers how sports heroes become transcendent.If you are reading this column, I have great news: You’re the GOAT!That’s right: Among those who have happened upon this space, I deem you the Greatest Reader of All Time.Then again, if you’re LeBron James, or Serena Williams, or Nikola Jokic — with that sparkling N.B.A. championship ring — well, you already know you’re the GOAT. Everyone has been saying so.“Bahhh, bahhh, bahhh,” goes the bleating of a goat. It’s also the sound made by James’s Los Angeles Lakers teammates when he walks into the locker room. GOAT hosannas are practically the soundtrack of his life.Driven by its pervasive usage around sports, five years ago the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster entered the term GOAT in the dictionary as an acronym and a noun.LeBron James is considered by many to be the GOAT in men’s basketball.Kyle Grillot for The New York TimesDefining the term as “the most accomplished or successful individual in the history of a particular sport or category of performance or activity,” a Merriam-Webster editor nodded to the pervasive use of Tom Brady’s name along with GOAT in a popular search engine as an example of why the acronym had become dictionary official.Yeah, I know — this GOAT thing, it’s a little confusing. To be the greatest implies singularity, no? But now there are GOATs everywhere we turn.Even worse than the acronym’s overuse is its doltish simplicity. There’s not enough nuance. Too much emphasis on outright winning, not enough on overcoming.What are our options here? Maybe we should ban the use of the term outright in sports, following the lead of Lake Superior State University, which cheekily ranked the hazy, lazy acronym No. 1 on its 2023 list of banished words.“The many nominators didn’t have to be physicists or grammarians to determine the literal impossibility and technical vagueness of this wannabe superlative,” read a statement from the university.Banning doesn’t quite seem like a possibility, however — not when a word has bored a hole this deep into our collective consciousness.No doubt, being a goat isn’t what it used to be. In sports, it was once a terrible insult, a term of shame hung on athletes who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Greg Norman, otherwise known as the Shark, was a goat for coughing up a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters, a tournament he lost by five strokes.Before Norman, there was the Boston Red Sox’ grounder-through-the legs-at-the-worst-possible-World-Series-moment goat, Bill Buckner.Need I say more?According to a Merriam-Webster editor, online searches for Tom Brady’s name and GOAT prompted the addition of the acronym to the dictionary in 2018.Elise Amendola/Associated PressMuhammad Ali is widely credited with first injecting the Greatest of All Time into the mix. When he went by Cassius Clay in the early 1960s, he recorded a comedy album anchored by the title poem, “I Am the Greatest.”After his upset win over George Foreman in 1974, he added a flourish, admonishing his doubters and critics, and reminding them of his status: “I told you I am still the greatest of all times!”But was it really Ali who came up with this particular egotistic flourish?Some say GOAT’s origins actually spring from a flamboyant, blond-tressed wrestler, George Wagner, who was known as Gorgeous George and who in the 1940s and ’50s earned lavish paydays by turning trash talk into fine art.In a precursor to W.W.E.-style braggadocio, Gorgeous George once claimed before a big fight that if he lost, he would “crawl across the ring and cut my hair off!” He added, “But that’s not going to happen, because I’m the greatest wrestler in the world.”Ali said he had learned a good chunk of his boastfulness from Gorgeous George.“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth,” the wrestler is said to have told Ali after a chance meeting. “So keep on bragging, keep on sassing, and always be outrageous.”This week marks the moment when sport’s most legitimate GOAT talk hovers over tennis and an event its organizers not-so-humbly call the Championships.Wimbledon starts Monday. The men’s favorite, Novak Djokovic, has 23 Grand Slam tournament titles, one short of Margaret Court’s record of 24. If he wins this year, his wildly devoted fan base will confidently proclaim the Serb’s GOAT status.That will drive fans of Rafael Nadal, who is stuck at 22 major titles, to distraction. They will argue that their idol would have won 25 major titles (or more) by now, if not for injuries.Then Roger Federer devotees will wade in. He had losing records against both Nadal and Djokovic. But, by goodness, he’s Roger Federer, fine linen with a forehand with 20 Slams and a raft of epic final-round battles to his name.Not so fast, Serena Williams adherents will remind. Not only does she have 23 Grand Slam titles — including one earned while she was pregnant — Williams braved playing in a mostly white sport and bent it to her will. Besides, she’s as much a cultural icon as an athlete. Can any male player say that?Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles in her career, bolstering her claim to being the GOAT of tennis.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThen there are the old-school partisans of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. Stop the unfairness, they will shout. No more comparing superlative athletes from vastly different eras.Time has changed everything in every sport — better equipment, better training methods, new rules — so how can we reliably compare? Before McEnroe lost to Borg in the 1980 Wimbledon final, neither had the benefit of sleeping, as Djokovic reportedly does, in a performance-enhancing hypobaric chamber.On and on the argument will go.That’s the craziness of it. The foolishness and the fun of it.Who’s the GOAT?Well, to be honest, I’ve got four. Willie Mays. Joe Montana. Williams. Federer.I can remember each for their sublime victories, of course. But also their stumbles. A 42-year-old Mays lost in the outfield. A fragile Montana in his twilight, playing not for San Francisco but Kansas City.I was on hand to see Williams struggle and come up short as she chased that elusive last Slam. I sat feet from Federer as he held two match points against Djokovic in the Wimbledon final of 2019. Then the Swiss crumbled in defeat.“For now it hurts, and it should — every loss hurts at Wimbledon,” Federer said at the post-match news conference. But, he added, he would persevere. “I don’t want to be depressed about actually an amazing tennis match.”No one escapes disappointment and frailty. But if we do it right, we soldier on.You know what that means? It means all of us can be GOATs!Bleat on, my friends. Bleat on! More

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      NBA Quiz: Where Is the Pass Going?

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      Few aspects of basketball capture the joy of the game like great passes. The most exciting ones require communication, improvisation and a little luck. This year’s N.B.A. finals will feature one of the sport’s best at getting the ball to his teammates: Denver’s Nikola Jokic. Can you see the court like the pros? Try to […] More

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      The Lakers Have Options to Win With LeBron James

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      The Lakers can get back to the N.B.A. finals, but with James’s career almost over, some of the team’s possible strategies may take too long.The day after the Los Angeles Lakers’ season ended in a sweep, General Manager Rob Pelinka told reporters that the team intended to “keep our core of young guys together.”This quote did not escape the notice of Washington Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma, whom the Lakers drafted in 2017.“Heard that before,” Kuzma wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, adding four crying emojis to the post.Kuzma spent his first N.B.A. season with the Lakers, playing alongside the lottery picks Lonzo Ball, Julius Randle and Brandon Ingram, as well as a number of other young players who went on to play important roles on other teams.All of them were shipped out or let go in service of acquiring star players who the Lakers hoped could deliver immediate championships. In July 2019, after the Lakers had missed the playoffs, Kuzma survived the Anthony Davis trade, which sent Ball, Ingram and Josh Hart to the New Orleans Pelicans for Davis. The Lakers won a championship the next season. But a year later, after losing in the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers traded Kuzma to Washington as part of a deal for Russell Westbrook, hoping he could help them win their next championship.Anthony Davis helped the Lakers win a championship during his first season in Los Angeles, but the trade to acquire him cost the team several young players.Harry How/Getty ImagesHeading into this off-season, the Lakers are confronted with the question of whether they can or should be patient. On one hand, they were just swept in the Western Conference finals by a Denver team that showed how steady building can pay off. On the other hand, the Lakers are driven by LeBron James, 38, who wants to win now.It is a tension that will tug at the Lakers as they decide what’s next.“We’re incredibly proud of this group, obviously, to get to the Western Conference finals,” Pelinka said Tuesday at a season-ending news conference where he said the team’s goal was always to work toward a championship. “After the trade deadline we had one of the top records in the league. Keeping that continuity is going to be very important. We ultimately got knocked out by a team that has great continuity.”The Lakers have had a lot of turnover in recent years, but their performance this year showed that they might have a foundation on which to build. Darvin Ham, their first-year head coach, began to find rotations that worked, which helped the Lakers go from the worst record in the N.B.A. to the conference finals.“It’s just been a hell of a year,” Ham said. He mentioned having the support of Pelinka and the Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, then added: “To go through some of those tough times early, you know, we don’t get that support, we probably don’t make it to this point.”Their roster has promise. After the trade deadline, the Lakers competed well, though they had little time to jell. Guard Austin Reaves was a great fit beside James and Davis, and Rui Hachimura, acquired via trade in January, provided needed offensive bursts. Dennis Schröder was critical defensively. Lonnie Walker, Jarred Vanderbilt and D’Angelo Russell also had moments of success in the postseason. Walker, for example, saved the Lakers with a 15-point fourth quarter against Golden State in Game 4 of the second round.Guard Austin Reaves, left, and forward Rui Hachimura, right, are two of the most promising young players on the Lakers.Harry How/Getty ImagesThe Lakers were not built around youth this season, so it takes a little guessing to figure out what Pelinka means by the team’s “young core.” But Reaves is likely a key part of that.Reaves and Hachimura are restricted free agents this year; Russell, Walker and Schröder are unrestricted free agents.“We don’t know what team we have next year,” Davis said. “But whatever it is, whoever we have coming to training camp with the mind-set of building that chemistry, building that foundation, me and LeBron setting the tone, trying to get back here and further.”Because of the little time they have spent together, it’s hard to say how much further they could get.When James joined the Lakers as a free agent in 2018, some of his teammates were closer to his oldest son’s age than his. He said he knew being part of that team would require patience, and he said he was prepared to wait. But it quickly became clear he didn’t enjoy the interim.The Lakers missed the playoffs that 2018-19 season, in part because of serious injuries to James and Ball. Midway through the season, James began hinting that he wanted the Lakers to get Davis from the Pelicans. That summer, the Lakers completed the trade.“Yeah,” James told The Los Angeles Times when asked if he was glad he wouldn’t have to be patient anymore. “Because I was patient last year, and you see where it got me.”He showed a bit of that same impatience on Monday after the Nuggets clinched their series, saying he doesn’t “play for anything besides winning championships at this point in my career.”James hinted at retirement after 20 seasons.James outscored everyone in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, even though he was the oldest player in the game. He had 40 points.Ashley Landis/Associated Press“We’ll see what happens going forward,” James said. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve got a lot to think about, to be honest. I’ve got a lot to think about, to be honest. Just for me personally, going forward with the game of basketball, I’ve got a lot to think about.”Later, he explicitly told ESPN and Bleacher Report that he was considering retiring.“LeBron has given as much to the game of basketball as anyone that’s ever played,” Pelinka said. “When you do that you earn a right to decide whether you’re going to give more.”Some saw James’s remarks as a sign that he was worn out from the past four months, when he gave a herculean effort to play through a torn tendon in his foot, or that perhaps his friend Carmelo Anthony announcing his retirement this week made him wonder if he should, too.It was also possible he was trying to pressure the Lakers to get him a roster that could win a championship next year — perhaps by finding a way to acquire his former teammate Kyrie Irving, a controversy-plagued point guard who attended Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, despite restrictive new salary cap rules. Irving is phenomenally talented, but he has struggled to make a difference on teams since he helped James win a championship in Cleveland in 2016.The Lakers aren’t as used to delayed gratification as most other teams. The wait between acquiring a major star to win and winning has not taken long when it has worked.The Lakers drafted Magic Johnson with the No. 1 overall pick in 1979 and won a championship his rookie season, then four more over the next decade.It took a few years longer for the payoff from their key signings in the summer of 1996 — Shaquille O’Neal (free agent) and Kobe Bryant (post-draft deal) — but they never missed the playoffs before winning three championships in a row.The Lakers owner Jeanie Buss stands next to a row of the team’s championship trophies. The Lakers have won 17 titles.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesThey added Pau Gasol to Bryant’s team in February 2008, lost in the N.B.A. finals four months later, then won back-to-back championships.And Davis, like Johnson, helped the Lakers win a championship right away. It was only James’s second year in Los Angeles.Conversely, the Nuggets have spent years constructing this team.They waited while their point guard Jamal Murray tackled the long recovery that comes with an anterior cruciate ligament tear. Murray’s injury came in April 2021, after the Nuggets had built a roster that seemed capable of winning a championship. His recovery has delayed that timeline.They could afford to wait since their top star, Nikola Jokic, is still in his 20s.The reward for their patience is a team that has looked serene in challenging moments, whose players mesh with each other completely. This season’s newcomers understood the culture right away.But James is 10 years older than Jokic, and that provides a unique challenge. No star has ever played as well as he has at his age. He may not be at his own peak, but he is still one of the best players in the game. The night Denver ended his season, he had 40 points — more than anyone on either team.James doesn’t want to wait, but quick fixes don’t always work; see the trade for Westbrook that sent Kuzma to Washington. The Lakers missed the playoffs in Westbrook’s first season, then traded him away this season for young players who helped but couldn’t win it all.Based on what the Lakers established this year, they would not be starting from scratch if they chose to stay on their current path. But it could take more time than James has left. More

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      Denver Nuggets Sweep Lakers to Head to NBA Finals

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      Denver dominated in the regular season but still had not been favored to make it to the championship round.LOS ANGELES — As the Denver Nuggets’ historic celebration began, LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star forward, walked off his home court, his face expressionless.On Monday night, the Nuggets stamped out the final gasps from the Lakers, who had kept their season alive for weeks after it was presumed finished. Even after the final buzzer, some of Denver’s players looked as if they couldn’t believe the series was over and that they had actually done it.The Nuggets are going to the N.B.A. finals for the first time in franchise history after completing a four-game sweep of the Lakers in the Western Conference finals with a 113-111 win on Monday.Denver will face the winner of the Eastern Conference finals, in which the Miami Heat have a 3-0 series lead over the Boston Celtics. Game 4 in the East is Tuesday in Miami.Nuggets center Nikola Jokic was named the most valuable player of the Western Conference finals. He smiled warmly as he held his trophy and his teammates surrounded him on the court and patted his head. He had 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists on Monday.“Even when you guard him for one of the best possessions that you think you can guard him, he puts the ball behind his head Larry Bird style and shoots it 50 feet in the air and it goes in,” James said, then he smiled wryly. “Like he did four or five times this series.” He added, as he took off his hat and tipped it: “So you do like this to him.”Jokic, left, was averaging a triple-double in the postseason and had another one in Game 4, with 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConDenver had not been to the N.B.A. finals in its 47 seasons in the league. Now the longest drought belongs to the Sacramento Kings, who have not been since 1951, when they were known as the Rochester Royals. The Pelicans, Timberwolves, Clippers, Grizzlies and Hornets have never been.“I’m really happy for the guys and for the organization and just how we fight through,” Jokic said. “I remember the days when nobody was in our — you could hear the ball bounce on the floor and there was no fans.”For the Nuggets, the win on Monday culminated a yearslong process in which their core players grew together, weathered challenging injuries and faced questions about their ability to even compete in the West. Jokic won the league’s M.V.P. Award twice, but could get to the conference finals only once.Denver lost the star guard Jamal Murray in April 2021, when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said the day after the injury Murray tearfully asked if the Nuggets would trade him, calling himself “damaged goods.”“I hugged him,” Malone said. “I said: ‘Hell no, you’re ours. We love you. We’re going to help you get back, and you’re going to be a better player for it.’”Murray missed the rest of that season and all of 2021-22. In this year’s playoffs, Denver’s patience paid off.Jamal Murray averaged 35 points in the first three games on hallowed shooting splits, exceeding 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the free-throw line.Allen Berezovsky/Getty ImagesMurray tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in April 2021 but returned to form this season, especially in the playoffs. He had 25 points and 5 assists Monday.Gary A. Vasquez/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConMurray began looking like the player he was before the injury and Jokic continued playing at an elite level, perfectly complemented by Denver’s cast of talented role players.The Nuggets rose to first in the West in December and never fell out of the top spot. In the playoffs, they beat the Timberwolves, 4-1, in the first round and the Phoenix Suns, 4-2 in the second round. Despite Denver’s dominance all season, oddsmakers did not favor them to win the championship. The Nuggets embraced that.“We’re the underdogs,” guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “We don’t get enough credit for what we do.” He continued: “Not being talked about a lot, we take that personal. We just use that energy, continue to prove everybody wrong.”Even after the first two rounds, some thought the Lakers were dangerous enough to be the team that finally upended the Nuggets.That confidence in the Lakers had developed only during the playoffs.For a while, the Lakers seemed doomed because of roster issues and injuries to their stars, James and Anthony Davis. They began the season with a 2-10 record. In December, when the Nuggets were solidifying their spot atop the West, the Lakers were in 13th.Guard Russell Westbrook, who struggled with the Lakers last season, still wasn’t fitting in and was pulled from the starting lineup after three games. Davis injured his foot on Dec. 16 against the Nuggets and missed 20 games while he recovered. Not long after Davis returned, James missed several games with a foot injury that some doctors he consulted said would require surgery.But changes at the trading deadline in February helped. The Lakers shipped out Westbrook and brought in role players — Jarred Vanderbilt, D’Angelo Russell and Malik Beasley. They had also traded for Rui Hachimura in January.They rose to seventh in the West by the end of the regular season, and beat Minnesota in overtime in the play-in tournament to secure the seventh seed for the playoffs. In the first round, they quieted a boisterous Memphis team, which had spent most of the season in the top three in the West, beating them, 4-2. Then they upset the defending champion Golden State Warriors, 4-2, dominating them in the clinching game of the second round.The Lakers’ LeBron James and Denver’s Aaron Gordon were called for technical fouls in the first half of Game 4 after they got tangled up. James had 31 first-half points.Ashley Landis/Associated PressAll the while, Darvin Ham, their first-year head coach, reminded them how few people expected them to even make the playoffs.But the Nuggets turned out to be a different type of opponent. They were more cohesive, less dramatic and stronger at center than Memphis and Golden State.“We competed every night,” Ham said. “We competed every game in this series. I just told the guys to take stock of what this meant, what this feeling feels like right now, what we went through in an entire season and what we had to do to get to this point.”In the Lakers’ first two series, their opponents sniped at them verbally, whether it was Grizzlies guard Dillon Brooks calling James, 38, old, or the Warriors accusing them of flopping for favorable calls. The Nuggets took a different approach, showing deference off the court until the very end.“I’m not going to say that I’m scared, but I’m worried,” Jokic said after Denver’s Game 3 win. “Because they have LeBron on the other side, and he is capable of doing everything.”James had looked more fallible in this series than he had in the past. He went 0 for 10 from 3-point range in the first two games, made costly mistakes late in Game 1 and drew ridicule for missing a dunk in Game 2. He had dragged the team through Davis’s postseason inconsistency so far, but the Nuggets wouldn’t let him do it again.Even when the Lakers’ Anthony Davis played well, he wasn’t the best big man on the court because of Jokic.Ashley Landis/Associated PressA few hours before Monday’s game, James was going through his pregame warm-up when a group of broadcast workers staged a rehearsal for the Western Conference championship trophy presentation on the court a few yards away. James said he used that as motivation.He scored 31 points in the first half, making all four of his first-quarter 3-point attempts.“It was scary,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We know who LeBron is.”James finished with 40 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists. On the game’s final play, James drove to the basket and tried to shoot a game-tying shot through a swarm of Nuggets. Murray was there, and as James gathered to shoot, Murray put both hands on the ball and didn’t let go.“I knew I had to be there,” Murray said.The clock expired and the Nuggets bench emptied in celebration.“It’s almost like shock a little bit,” Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon said. “You’re just, like, unsure, like, are you sure we don’t have more time on the clock? Are you sure we don’t have another quarter to play or another game to play? It’s just another chance at them winning? Then it’s like: ‘Oh. No. We won.’” More

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      Nikola Jokic Has Mastered the Art of Slowness

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      Providing unhurried but timely play, Jokic, the two-time most valuable player, has the Denver Nuggets on the cusp of the N.B.A. finals.LOS ANGELES — After watching Nikola Jokic repeatedly lumber down the court, hold a basketball above the defense like a freshly picked grapefruit, wheel, pause, and sling a tightrope pass that led a teammate to an open shot, a question came to mind.What is the best one-word descriptor for this guy, a player steadily distinguishing himself as unlike any in N.B.A. history, now on the verge of taking the Denver Nuggets to the finals?Is Jokic …Fundamental? Yeah, that partly hits the mark.Is Jokic …Efficient? Hmm, there’s more than a kernel of truth in that.Is he …Intelligent? That’s true, though it’s an assessment that comes with baggage. Jokic is white, and, yeah, he’s a physicist on the court, but so are LeBron James and a host of Black players who do not get nearly enough credit for their smarts.What about …Slow? Well, now we are on to something. Here we find his special sauce.It is the speed with which he plays, or, rather, the lack of it, that sets him apart in the fast-twitch N.B.A. Jokic, the two-time league most valuable player, could write an instructional book about the game he has come to master: Basketball and the Fine Art of Slowness.This particular faculty is not entirely about sprinting pace. Jokic can move fairly quickly in spurts. It is just as much qualitative. When he is on the court, no matter the circumstance, he seems to control time. He moves where he wants, when he wants, while every other player is slicing around the court in a frenzy.On Saturday night, as the Nuggets and Lakers starters gathered on the court at Crypto.com Arena before tipoff in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, it seemed like every other player was jumping up and down or fiddling nervously with their uniform or hunting for someone to high-five.Jokic just stood at center court, focused, waiting. It brought to mind something Jeff Van Gundy, the former N.B.A. head coach who is now a television analyst for ESPN, told me before the game, describing the towering Serb. “He looks completely unruffled. Jokic is the epitome of the John Wooden quote, ‘Be quick, don’t hurry.’”“He’s an absolute marvel,” Van Gundy added.Wait, this guy, a marvel? Jokic is muscular but hardly ripped. He stands nearly 7 feet, weighs almost as much as a subzero refrigerator, and has arms that might as well be pterodactyl wings. He is 28, still in the middle of the prime years for physical prowess, but he might trip while trying to jump over the Sunday paper.And yet he dominates the N.B.A.He has been a presiding force in this season’s playoffs, his consistently high level of play matched only by Miami Heat guard Jimmy Butler. Seven triple-doubles in 14 games. Six games with more than 30 points. A 53-point masterpiece against Phoenix in the conference semifinals. Then he practically won Game 1 against the Lakers by himself.But as Game 3 of that series began on Saturday, Jokic struggled to find a rhythm. Uncharacteristically, he scuffled for a while, and was saddled by foul trouble. Then, with the Lakers briefly taking an 85-84 lead early in the fourth quarter and James beginning to recall his younger self, a switch went on inside Jokic.Suddenly, there it was, the whole arsenal. Deflections, rebounds and orbital jump shots. Scooping, angling passes. Jokic dribbled up the court, a commanding, surveying point guard. He methodically backed down a Lakers defender. Time seemed to grind to something near a standstill. Then Jokic spun, twirled, and sped briefly to the basket to knock in a soft layup as if it were a one-inch putt.This was Zen: Wait patiently, clear the mind, calm the body, see the opening, strike. That’s Jokic.When Jokic is on the court, no matter the circumstance, he seems to control time. Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConDenver pulled away, Jokic (and his sidekick Jamal Murray) in full flight. When Jokic catapulted in a 25-foot 3-pointer with about three minutes left, the Nuggets surged ahead by 10 points. Eventually they won, 119-108.How did he become such a master?Jokic turned pro 11 years ago in his native Serbia when he was a rawboned 17-year-old. His coach, Dejan Milojevic, now an assistant with the Golden State Warriors, recalls Jokic operating in those days with the same uncanny understanding. He moved without haste, at what Milojevic prefers to call “the speed optimum for Nikola.”What Jokic needed, at least at the start of his professional career, was the strength or stamina to prosper. His old coach claims that Jokic had to undergo a crash conditioning course because he couldn’t complete even two push-ups. Once he got in shape, the blossoming began.But getting in shape and being well coached can’t be the whole story. If so, there would be 1,000 players like Jokic.Is there something about how he is wired?“The way he tracks information around him, knowing where everybody is on the court, making perfectly timed passes all the time to open teammates, takes a special mental ability,” said Greg Appelbaum, director of the Human Performance Optimization Lab at U.C. San Diego, where scientists study athletes’ cognition.“Prospective inference” Appelbaum called Jokic’s capacity to stay one, two, and sometimes three steps ahead of the action on a 94-by-50-foot hardwood swath.Prospective what?An analogy can be found in a cheetah’s amplified ability to scan terrain and extrapolate the possible escape routes of prey. In sports, it’s the skill to predict the future movements of opponents and teammates, said Appelbaum, shortly after watching Denver’s Game 3 win. “It sure looked like Jokic did that tonight.”It did, indeed.Of course, no matter the cause of his mastery, none of it happens if Jokic takes himself off balance by rushing. That’s the foundation.Speed defines our society. Faster, faster, faster is the mantra — sometimes for the better and, as it is becoming increasingly clear, often for the worse. But watching Nikola Jokic provides an antidote: the enduring power of taking one’s time. More

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      Denver Nuggets Role Players Get to Be Stars, Too

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      The Nuggets can sweep the Lakers in the Western Conference finals, and it’s not just because of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. The role players have been just as important.LOS ANGELES — To win a championship in the N.B.A., a team almost always needs at least one transcendent player.But the championship journey will also depend on how well a team’s role players do their jobs.The Lakers, with 17 titles, know this well. Would they have won in 2010 without Metta Sandiford-Artest, or in 2002 without Robert Horry? Shaquille O’Neal, who won three championships for the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, often talks about the importance of the “others” — the players who aren’t stars.The Lakers franchise has found itself on the unpleasant side of the calculus this year. In the Western Conference finals against Denver, Los Angeles has the weaker supporting cast. The Nuggets, who lead the best-of-seven series, 3-0, are not just beating the Lakers with the talents of Nikola Jokic, a two-time N.B.A. most valuable player, or Jamal Murray, their dynamic guard. Aaron Gordon’s toughness, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s poise, Bruce Brown’s versatility and Michael Porter Jr.’s persistence are helping them get it done.On Monday, the Nuggets will try to complete a sweep of the Lakers to go to the franchise’s first N.B.A. finals. There have certainly been moments when Jokic and Murray have carried Denver, but a critical part of the Nuggets’ success is that they haven’t always had to do that. When Murray and Jokic ebb, the team’s role-players flow, and together they beat back any tide the Lakers have sent at them.Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said forward Aaron Gordon had “checked his ego” to fulfill his role for the team.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“There’s a lot of guys that can go get it,” Gordon said. “So we just go with the hot guy.”Jokic is the engine that powers the Nuggets, but Gordon also called him “one of the most unselfish basketball players.” Jokic is averaging a triple-double in the playoffs, with 29.9 points, 13.2 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game. But even when he isn’t at his best, his mere presence changes the game. That happened on Saturday, in the Nuggets’ 119-108 win in Game 3 with the Lakers. Jokic had just 5 points and 2 rebounds at halftime, then got into foul trouble by committing his fourth less than halfway through the third quarter.“There wasn’t a panic,” Nuggets Coach Michael Malone said. “It was: ‘OK, he’s out. That means somebody else has to step up.’ I think that’s something our team has done time and time again.”The Nuggets’ players have not just accepted roles that require them to defer to others, but embraced them in service of winning a championship. Jokic was the team’s only All-Star this year and no Nugget made an All-Defensive team; Jokic has never played with someone who made those teams while playing with him.On Saturday, Caldwell-Pope scored 12 points in a critical third quarter when Jokic was in foul trouble and Murray had cooled off after scoring 30 points in the first half.The last time Caldwell-Pope played in the Western Conference finals, it was 2020 and he was a Laker tasked with defending Murray. The Lakers beat Denver to win the West, then bested Miami to win the title. Caldwell-Pope knows what it will take for Denver to win this year.“We’re No. 1 in the West for a reason,” Caldwell-Pope said. “I believed it from the jump that we could win a championship. That was everybody’s mind-set. We knew how we could jell together and play together.”Bruce Brown had 15 points for Denver off the bench in Game 3.Ashley Landis/Associated PressDenver’s Jeff Green, who played 23 minutes on Saturday, has been on nine teams in the past eight seasons. Porter, whom the Nuggets drafted in the first round in 2018, missed most of last season with a back injury. He scored 14 points and led the Nuggets with 10 rebounds on Saturday. Brown, who had 15 points off the bench, signed with Denver last summer.Gordon, drafted fourth overall by Orlando in 2014, was once best known for his impressive showing in the league’s dunk contests. His stats on Saturday didn’t look all that impressive — 7 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists — but his defensive contributions were key. He blocked a shot late in the third quarter that helped the Nuggets maintain the lead.“He has checked his ego at the door,” Malone said. “He knew coming into this year with Jamal and Michael back that his role would be different, and he never fought that.”That isn’t always the case on ambitious teams, and this N.B.A. season provided examples of the friction that can emerge. Golden State’s younger players, for example, clamored for more playing time. But Denver, which led the West for much of the season, is an example of how good it can be when the system works.“Everybody realizes when we need something, we need a spark,” Murray said. “Could be Joker, could be me, could be Bruce, Jeff off the bench — whether it’s a chase-down block or a charge or something. Everybody has something they can come in and impact the game with.”The Lakers were another example of a team that struggled to satisfy everyone in their roles this season. In February, they traded away Russell Westbrook, who had been unhappy in a bench role. He had joined the team less than two years ago in a multi-team deal that also sent Caldwell-Pope to the Washington Wizards from Los Angeles. Moving on from Westbrook was part of a larger effort to add several new role players, who have had many electrifying games. But against the Nuggets their shortcomings have been clear.The Lakers’ role players struggled in Game 3. D’Angelo Russell, left, was just 1 of 8 from the field.Ashley Landis/Associated PressThe starkest example was D’Angelo Russell, who scored just 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting in Game 3 and committed three turnovers.Lakers Coach Darvin Ham could offer only this about the performances of the Lakers’ role players: “I thought they did the best they could, all of them.”But sometimes it takes more, like what Sandiford-Artest gave the Lakers in the 2010 N.B.A. finals against Boston.In Game 7, Bryant, the team’s leading scorer during the regular season and the playoffs, made only 6 of 24 shots. The Lakers had mostly relied on Sandiford-Artest for his defense as a past defensive player of the year, but in that game he scored 20 points and hit a crucial 3-pointer with less than a minute left.On Saturday, Sandiford-Artest sat across from the Lakers’ bench, a powerful reminder of how important role players can be to win a championship. More

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      Golden State Falls to Lakers, Ending Title Hopes and Starting Uncertain Future

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      Golden State isn’t used to getting eliminated this early in the playoffs. Now, it will face questions about how to sustain its run since 2015 as a top contender.LOS ANGELES — Whoops, shouts, music and a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” were so loud inside the Lakers locker room that they could be heard out in the hallways. Outside Golden State’s locker room, there was silence, as those inside assessed what had gone so wrong this season.To the victor goes the noise. To the defeated goes an unusually early and sullen vacation.The reigning champion Golden State’s freewheeling, 3-point-centric style of play changed the N.B.A. and made Stephen Curry a household name. But on Friday night, the team couldn’t muster up one last overwhelming flurry of deep shots, bowing out to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the Western Conference semifinals.It marked the first time a West team had defeated Golden State in the playoffs during its dynastic run, which began in 2015 with the first of four championships led by Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. But this season was among the most difficult of the last decade, marred by long absences for key players, a confounding inability to win on the road, struggling young players, and the fallout from Green punching a teammate, Jordan Poole, before the season even started.LeBron James led the Lakers with 30 points in Game 6.Ashley Landis/Associated Press“This is not a championship team,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said after Game 6, which the Lakers won, 122-101. “If we were, we’d be moving on. So you can look at the year in total and see all the ups and downs, and there was all kinds of stuff that went on and adversity that hit. But our group stayed together and competed till the end and made a pretty good run.”But “pretty good” has long been below the standards of Golden State, given the stature of Curry, who is widely considered the best shooter in N.B.A. history. And now his team may have to contend with coming back down to earth. It’s the basketball equivalent of confronting mortality.“You’re disappointed and kind of shell shocked that it’s over,” Curry said. “You’ve poured so much into every season, but going off last year you’re trying to defend and give ourselves the chance to keep advancing. It’s a tough way for the season to end.”The series against the Lakers marked one of the most highly anticipated playoff matchups in years, pitting Curry against the Lakers star LeBron James for the first time since the 2018 N.B.A. finals, when James was on the Cleveland Cavaliers. But this series ultimately didn’t match the hype, with blowouts in four of the five games after a thrilling Lakers win in Game 1. Curry and Thompson struggled on Friday, combining to shoot an abysmal 14 for 47 from the field. Thompson, who made just three baskets in each of the last three games, said this was “probably the worst shooting series I’ve had in a long time.”Golden State now faces an uncertain summer; Curry called it “unfamiliar territory.” With one of the most expensive rosters in the league, and a new collective bargaining agreement aimed at curbing heavy spenders, Golden State is likely to try to bring down costs. It could be a stark transition for the team, given that it went from a rudderless middle-of-the-road franchise to one of the most financially valuable ones with Curry at the helm over the past decade.Draymond Green, center, has been a force on defense for Golden State, but he could opt out of his contract this summer.Ashley Landis/Associated Press“For us, it’s an opportunity to kind of take stock of where we’re at, keep the confidence that we can come back and be back at this stage next year,” Curry said.It might help if they get off to a better start. This season, Green punched the fourth-year guard Poole in the face during training camp. TMZ published a video of the punch, exposing the internal discord of a franchise known for continuity and harmony.“Every season is made up of events. Some are great, some are not,” Green said after Friday’s game. “I think for this team, more of the events that aren’t so great were so public, and, you know, that’s not something that you normally do. And so the world knows, you know, the tough times that this team has had.”Now Green’s career is at a turning point. A four-time All-Star, he has a player option for next year and is expected to test free agency. Green had one of his better seasons this year, but he turns 34 next March, and Golden State may balk at offering him a maximum contract. Green has shown a penchant for impulsive behavior, like punching Poole or racking up technical fouls, for which he ranked second in the league during the regular season. The resolution of his contract is the key domino in a summer of retooling.“I want to be a Warrior for the rest of my life,” Green said Friday. “I want to ride out with the same dudes I rode in with.”This season was a slog for Golden State. “It felt like we were swimming upstream from the beginning,” Kerr said.Golden State started the season 3-7. It finished at 44-38 for the West’s sixth seed and had one of the worst road records in the league, at 11-30. Andrew Wiggins, a key contributor to last season’s title run, missed more than half the regular season because of an injury and an undisclosed personal issue. Thompson, a five-time All-Star, struggled to find his shot in the first third of the season and he has noticeably slowed on defense after two major injuries in recent years.If Thompson, 33, has doubts about his future in Golden State, or any skepticism that this team can win again, he didn’t show it on Friday night. His contract expires after next season.“I can tell you, we gave it everything we had,” he said. “But I believe that we have greatness in our future still.”Curry went cold from 3-point range over the last three games of the series with the Lakers.Harry How/Getty ImagesGolden State will also have to decide what to do with the young players it has tried to develop while chasing a championship — a path criticized for placing too much of a load on the 35-year-old Curry. Poole, 23, struggled mightily in the playoffs, a problem given that Golden State signed him to a four-year contract extension in October worth up to $140 million. Other young players, like Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, both 20, were in and out of the lineup all season.In addition, the contract of Bob Myers, the team’s general manager for the last decade, ends this year. Carrying the dynasty into its next stage may fall to a different architect.If there was one bright spot for Golden State this season, it was its most magnetic figure: Curry. He played some of the best basketball of his career — which meant some of the basketball that anyone has ever played. In the first round of the playoffs, Golden State faced the third-seeded Kings in Sacramento for a decisive Game 7. Curry scored 50 points — the most ever in a Game 7 — and hit seven 3-pointers. It was a reminder of the magic that had made his teams so great.But Curry said Friday that reaching the conference semifinals was not “a moral victory.”“There’s a lot of pride in what we accomplished,” he said, “but there’s also an understanding that this is not good enough.” More

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      Golden State on the Brink Against the Lakers

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      Golden State’s stars made several uncharacteristic errors down the stretch against the Lakers in Game 4. The role players haven’t helped much either.LOS ANGELES — With 37 seconds left in the fourth quarter Monday night, Stephen Curry was isolated with Lakers center Anthony Davis guarding him one on one.The Lakers were up by 1 point in Game 4 of their Western Conference semifinal series, and the Golden State Warriors needed a basket to keep from being pushed to the brink of elimination. It should have been a mismatch: one of the greatest scoring guards in N.B.A. history matched up against a slower center. But Curry was stymied twice on the same possession. First, Davis, a top defensive player, poked the ball away. Then Curry missed a fadeaway. After an offensive rebound, Curry missed a 3-pointer over Davis again.Those were two of several fumbles by Golden State in the closing moments of an ugly affair in which the team did not show the championship mettle that led to four N.B.A. titles since 2015.With nine seconds left, forward Draymond Green threw the ball away with Golden State down 3. On an ensuing jump ball, Curry came down with possession, and instead of calling a timeout, he threw the ball away.“I actually felt like somebody was behind me,” Curry said after the game. “I kind of just let it go. But bang-bang play. I wish I had a little bit more awareness to maybe call a timeout knowing we’ve got enough time, but, you know, it just didn’t go our way.”Golden State let an opportunity slip through its fingers, having led by as many as 12 in the third quarter. Instead, the Lakers won, 104-101.Curry finished the game shooting 12 for 30. Klay Thompson, Curry’s teammate, was 3 for 11. That, combined with not getting playmaking from Golden State’s role players, has placed the team in dire straits, down, three games to one, against a rejuvenated Lakers team. The late possessions were emblematic of a season-long deficiency that has plagued Golden State, particularly on the road: an inability to sustain effort through long stretches.Perhaps this is the reality of having a core anchored by Curry, 35; Thompson, 33; and Green, 33: It’s easier to get tired and make mental mistakes. But if Golden State doesn’t dig deep to resurface the magic of the last decade, its dynasty will be extinguished on Wednesday in San Francisco.This isn’t the first time Golden State has been down 3-1 in a playoff series. In 2016, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder went up, 3-1, in the Western Conference finals before Golden State came roaring back and won the series. Three years later, Golden State found itself down, 3-1, against the Toronto Raptors in the finals. But with injuries to Durant, who was then a teammate, and Thompson, the team lost in six games.“It feels like what it is: three to one,” Coach Steve Kerr told reporters after Game 4. “You go home and you take care of business and you get a win and the momentum is right back in your favor. So that’s all it is. Somebody has to win four times, and that’s why you play it out.”It hasn’t helped that Golden State’s younger players have not been able to fill the void left by an off night by Curry. For the Lakers, Lonnie Walker IV, 24, a guard in his fifth year, scored 15 points, including crucial baskets in the fourth, to keep Golden State at bay. The second-year guard Austin Reaves, also 24, chipped in 21 points.Those kinds of contributions have eluded Golden State this postseason. Instead, Golden State has had to rely as much on Curry at age 35 as it did when he was 25, a recipe for trouble this late in the season.For years, the Golden State front office has been selling a two-timeline plan of development. It would try to chase championships in the present on the backs of Curry, Thompson and Green, while also developing young talent like Jonathan Kuminga, 20 (drafted seventh in 2021); Moses Moody, 20 (14th pick in that same draft); James Wiseman, 22 (second pick in 2020); and Jordan Poole, 23 (28th pick in 2019).It was a risky maneuver with mixed results. It has meant not trading young, developing talent for veterans who could help the team now, and placing more of the load on Curry in the back half of his career. Golden State traded Wiseman this season as injuries and inconsistency left him without a firm role in the rotation. Moody and Kuminga, each in his second year, have been yanked in and out of the lineup this season, though Moody has had playing time in this series. He scored 7 points in 19 minutes Monday night.That’s not abnormal for players barely out of their teenage years. But Golden State has one of the best players in the history of the N.B.A. playing at a high level right now. It needs Moody and Kuminga to be better immediately to take advantage of Curry’s window.Poole has been flummoxing. At times in his four-year career, he has been Golden State’s best player. When the team’s top stars have faced injuries, he has been counted on to fill their absences as a reliable scorer. Last year, he was a core part of a Golden State team that won a championship, and he started a majority of games during the regular season. Poole was a concrete example of investment in a young player that worked for Golden State.In October, Golden State invested in Poole further, rewarding him with an extension reported to be worth nearly $140 million. He was slated to be the bridge to the future — a potential All-Star replacement for a franchise looking forward to a life after Curry, Green and Thompson.But Poole’s production has become as unpredictable as his decision-making on the floor. While he averaged a career-high 20.4 points a game during the regular season, his shooting percentages dipped and his turnovers increased. His shot selection has drawn immense criticism.In the playoffs, Poole’s play has cratered. Against the Sacramento Kings in the first round, he shot a dismal 33.8 percent from the field. On Monday night, he missed all four of his shots and played only 10 minutes. One shot was an air ball near the basket.Andrew Wiggins of the Warriors guarded by Lonnie Walker IV of the Lakers.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockPoole’s play was clearly a sore spot for him after the game on Monday. When approached by a reporter in the locker room, a frustrated Poole tersely said, “I’ve got nothing for you, big man.”After being cajoled by a Golden State press representative, Poole took questions, though he would not physically face reporters, creating an odd spectacle of reporters aiming recorders at the back and side of his head.“Work ethic doesn’t change,” Poole said. “Routine doesn’t change. Maybe opportunity changes. But you can only control what you can control. We’ve got another game in a couple days at home.”Curry, asked about Poole, said it wasn’t about any one player.“We get questions about him a lot and it’s our whole team,” Curry said. “We’re all together in the sense of trying to figure out how to win playoff games. And we all have to make adjustments. We all have to play better, considering we’re in a 3-1 hole. So there’s no sense of isolating him in this situation.”Golden State has already overcome one playoff deficit this postseason. After being down, 2-0, in a first-round series against the Kings, Golden State found its footing. But it took Curry scoring 50 points in Game 7 for his team to win the series, the most he had ever scored in a playoff game.If Poole or the rest of Curry’s teammates don’t offer more support, Curry may need to reach into reserves that most 35-year-olds don’t have. And that means the Golden State dynasty may go out with a whimper rather than a bang. When Curry was asked after the game whether he let himself think about the larger implications of a series loss, he didn’t let the reporter finish the question.“No,” Curry said.“Just a 3-1 series deficit?” the reporter asked.“Yes. Thank you.” More

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      He Saw ‘Greatness’ in the Lakers When They Were at Their Worst

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      You’d have to look closely or you’d miss the homemade sign nailed to a telephone pole outside the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo, Calif.It’s right outside the entrance to the players’ parking lot, but many of them miss its blue-and-yellow words as they drive in.“I SEE GREATNESS IN YOU,” it says.The sign gives no indication of who “I” might be, who “you” are or what kind of greatness you possess. But in a small yet meaningful way, the message has inspired Lakers Coach Darvin Ham as he leads the team in their Western Conference semifinal series against the Golden State Warriors.Ham has even forged an unlikely friendship with the man who posted the sign: Terrance Burney, a basketball-loving airline employee whose home is filled with inspirational signs. Burney’s unceasing positivity has charmed prominent athletes and entertainers.“It’s not just a slogan he’s trying to get picked up by some corporate sponsor or something,” Ham said. “It’s something he actually believes in. I love it.”Burney lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Crystal Lewis.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesNeither rich nor widely known, Burney, 40, works for Delta Air Lines and lives in Los Angeles with his German shepherd, Ziva, and his girlfriend, Crystal Lewis.He stands outside of Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles after most Lakers home games holding a handmade sign bearing his message, hoping that whoever sees it feels happier, lighter or maybe even newly confident.“When I tell people, ‘I see greatness in you,’ it means, ‘I see God in you,’” Burney said. “So this is something that God told me to do, you know?”Burney first held up a similar sign 15 years ago on a street corner in Highland Park, Mich., a small city surrounded by his hometown, Detroit. He said prayer led him to do it.In the years since, he has taken his sign all over the world, flying for free as an airline employee. He has shared his message on street corners and during protest marches, in small gyms and outside professional arenas. He has shouted it as a contestant on “The Price Is Right.”“He’s like the Forrest Gump 2.0,” said Morris Peterson, a former N.B.A. player who grew close with Burney after a charity event Peterson hosted with the rapper Snoop Dogg to support people affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich. “He’s just everywhere. He’s everywhere. You might see him in Paris with the sign.”Burney played basketball for one year at Prairie View A&M University, and in the years after he’d often get asked to participate in pickup games and workouts. In 2007, he was preparing for a workout with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, then the G League affiliate of the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, when he spotted Rasheed Wallace, then playing for the Pistons, sitting at the bar of a T.G.I. Friday’s.Burney said he hoped his signs gave people confidence.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“Excuse me, sir, your turnaround jump shot is the best in the history of a turnaround jump shot,” Burney recalled telling Wallace. “How do you get it over people who are taller than you?”Wallace got up from his seat and demonstrated his method. The two of them drank a few beers together and a friendship began.Wallace and Ham, the Lakers’ coach, had become close over the years through N.B.A. circles. Early this season, Wallace planned to visit Ham’s home. He asked if Burney could join.The Lakers had started the season 2-10. Ham was struggling to make the most of the team’s two best players, LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Not many people would have used “greatness” to describe anything happening with the Lakers. But Burney did.“He said: ‘Don’t worry, coach. You’re going to be great. We’re going to be great. I see greatness in you,’” Ham said.Ham trusted his read on Burney, so they stayed in touch. Burney sent text messages to Ham to inspire him. The Lakers’ fortunes began to change, which likely had more to do with their dramatic makeover at the trade deadline than with Burney’s sign. But he believes something larger was happening.Before Game 4 of the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, Burney sent a text to Ham that read: “Your PEACE gives PEACE to others!! I SEE GREATNESS IN YOU!!”Burney outside the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo, Calif.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesThe Lakers were 6 points greater than the Grizzlies that day.“Everyone wants to be thought of in a positive light and have — not just in basketball, N.B.A. basketball, in life in general — you need good vibes, good energy, people that believe in you,” Ham said. “And he represents that.”The sign outside the Lakers’ practice facility has been there for weeks. Davis saw it for the first time on May 1, just before the Lakers left Los Angeles for their series against Golden State in San Francisco.He assumed a fan had left it there and gave it little thought.The next day, Davis scored 30 points with 23 rebounds, joining only four other big men in Lakers history with at least 30 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game. His performance helped the Lakers beat the Warriors in Game 1 of their series.“Sooooo he saw the Sign before he had a RECORD setting win??” Burney said in a text message.He could not be convinced that it was a coincidence.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times More