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Westbrook, 32, averaged a triple-double last season and should help the Lakers rebound from their first-round exit from the playoffs.As the N.B.A. braces for the start of free agency negotiations on Monday, a pending blockbuster trade that would send Russell Westbrook to the Los Angeles Lakers is already in the running to be this summer’s most impactful transaction. More
By the time she got to the microphone, the applause had subsided, and Jeanie Buss was faced with the scariest sound for a stand-up comedian. More
Injury woes are not new, but they have been acute during the playoffs. Never before have eight All-Stars missed at least one postseason game in the same year.Sprained knees. Strained hamstrings. Twisted ankles. Shattered hopes.The N.B.A. playoffs have turned into a battle of attrition as the league grapples with a growing list of injuries to many of its biggest stars. No less an eminence than LeBron James, whose Los Angeles Lakers made a hasty first-round exit after his All-Star teammate Anthony Davis injured his knee (and then his groin), weighed in on Wednesday, blaming the league’s compressed schedule. Regular-season games began in December after an abridged off-season.“They all didn’t wanna listen to me about the start of the season,” James wrote on Twitter. “I knew exactly what would happen.”It is worth noting that the league and its players’ union agreed on the schedule.But injuries were a problem for many N.B.A. teams even before the start of the playoffs — the Denver Nuggets, for example, were left without Jamal Murray, their starting point guard, when he sustained a season-ending knee injury in April — and a fresh batch of injuries in the postseason has only amplified the issue. In fact, with two-plus playoff rounds remaining, the N.B.A. has already set an ignominious record: eight All-Stars (and counting, perhaps) have missed at least one postseason game.Here is a look at those players, and how their injuries and absences have affected their teams:Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles ClippersKawhi Leonard sat during the end of Game 4 against the Utah Jazz on Monday with knee soreness.Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesInjury: Leonard was huge for the Clippers on Monday in Game 4 of their Western Conference semifinal series against the Utah Jazz, finishing with 31 points and 7 rebounds in a win that evened the best-of-seven series at two games apiece. But the Clippers’ victory proved costly: Leonard sprained his right knee.Impact: Leonard was expected to miss Game 5 on Wednesday night, and the Clippers did not offer a timetable for his return. One of the top two-way players in the league, Leonard is vital to the Clippers’ championship hopes. There is also a sense of urgency for the franchise, which has never made a conference final and had been banking on the star-studded pairing of Leonard and Paul George to help deliver its first title: Leonard can opt for free agency after the season. Another playoff disappointment could figure in his decision. The Clippers would prefer that they not have to find out.Anthony Davis, Los Angeles LakersAnthony Davis’s injuries hurt the Lakers’ quest to defend their championship this season.Harry How/Getty ImagesInjury: After helping the Lakers win it all last season, Davis stumbled through the 2020-21 regular season, missing about two months with a calf strain. It only got worse for him in the Lakers’ first-round series with the Phoenix Suns, as he injured his knee and his groin.Impact: Despite spraining his left knee in Game 3 against the Suns, Davis played through pain to deliver a win. But he strained his groin in Game 4, then missed Game 5. He limped through the early stages of Game 6 before heading to the locker room in pain, and the Lakers lost the game and the series without him. The Lakers had hoped to mount a stronger title defense. Davis blamed himself. “We just couldn’t stay healthy,” he said. “A lot of that is on me.James Harden, Brooklyn NetsHarden played with a strained hamstring in Game 5 against the Bucks. He scored just 5 points.Adam Hunger/Associated PressInjury: It took less than a minute for Harden, holding his hamstring, to leave Game 1 of the Nets’ second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Harden missed the next three games before making a last-second decision to play in Game 5 Tuesday night. Strain to the same hamstring caused Harden to miss most of the last month of the regular season.Impact: The Nets’ top three stars — Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving — played only eight games together during the regular season. Harden is one of the most productive scorers in N.B.A. history, and he was largely ineffective in his return on Tuesday night in Brooklyn, with just 5 points and one made field goal. Without Harden’s shooting and playmaking ability, and combined with the loss of Irving, the Nets’ path to a championship becomes much more difficult. Harden is, however, expected to play in Game 6 on Thursday in Milwaukee.Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn NetsKyrie Irving landed on another player’s foot and sprained his ankle.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesInjury: During the second quarter of Game 4 against the Bucks, Irving sprained his right ankle when he landed on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s right foot after a layup. He is out indefinitely.Impact: Losing just Irving, given the Nets’ depth, probably would be a storm the team could weather. But his loss combined with Harden’s problematic hamstring, makes the Nets much more vulnerable. It puts pressure on Durant to produce historic numbers like he did in Game 5 against the Bucks (49 points, 17 rebounds, 10 assists). But even without Irving, the Nets, as they showed Tuesday night, may be deep enough to get by without him if role players like Jeff Green continue to show up.Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ersEmbiid has missed just one game with a small lateral meniscus tear, but the injury has also negatively affected him when he’s played.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesInjury: Sidelined with a left knee bone bruise for a couple of weeks during the regular season, Embiid sustained a small lateral meniscus tear in his right knee in the 76ers’ first-round series with the Washington Wizards.Impact: Despite the apparent severity of his injury, Embiid has been out only once — Game 5 against the Wizards, which the 76ers won to close the series. He was terrific at the start of their conference semifinal series with the Atlanta Hawks, averaging 35.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game as the 76ers took a 2-1 series lead.He struggled, though, in a Game 4 loss, shooting 4 of 20 from the field, including 0 for 12 in the second half. He acknowledged afterward that his knee was bothering him. “As far as being 100 percent, I don’t think that’s going to happen until the year is actually over,” Embiid told reporters. “I just got to go out and manage it.”Donovan Mitchell, Utah JazzUtah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell (45) is helped off the court after injuring his ankle.Russell Isabella/USA Today Sports, via ReutersInjury: Mitchell missed the last 16 regular-season games and Utah’s playoff opener against the Memphis Grizzlies because of a sprained right ankle.Impact: The Jazz lost their first playoff game against Memphis without Mitchell. After Mitchell returned for Game 2, the Jazz dominated the series. Mitchell averaged 28.5 points and 5.8 assists in four games on 45 percent shooting. In Utah’s second-round match up against the Clippers, Mitchell has been even more dominant, with 37.3 points a game on 46.8 percent shooting through the first four games.Mike Conley, Utah JazzMike Conley’s absence leaves the Jazz without one of their key scorers beyond Donovan Mitchell.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressInjury: Conley has not played in Utah’s semifinal series against the Clippers because of a right hamstring strain. He also missed 20 games during the regular season because of injuries or rest related to that hamstring.Impact: Conley, when healthy, is the starting point guard for the Jazz. On a team that sometimes is too reliant on Mitchell to make plays, Conley is another player who can help break down defenses to take the pressure off Mitchell. During the regular season, Conley made his first All-Star appearance and averaged 16.2 points and 6 assists per game on 44.4 percent shooting, placing him firmly in the upper tier of N.B.A. guards.Jaylen Brown, Boston CelticsBrown had season-ending wrist surgery in May.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty ImagesInjury: The Celtics announced on May 10 that Brown would miss the end of the regular season and the entire postseason because of a torn ligament in his left wrist.Impact: Brown established himself as a star this season, with averages of 24.7 points and 6 rebounds per game. He also made his first All-Star team. But his presence likely would not have made much of a difference in the playoffs, where the Celtics lost to the heavily favored Nets in the first round in five games. More
The Lakers have to figure out how to regroup, the Mavericks need to support Luka Doncic. The Celtics are shaking things up and Portland is looking for a coach.No playoff team seeded seventh has won an N.B.A. championship. That did not stop oddsmakers from listing the Los Angeles Lakers behind only the Nets as title favorites when the playoffs began. Nor did it stop the second-seeded Phoenix Suns from ousting the Lakers immediately.The Atlanta Hawks’ five-game dismissal of the Knicks was the only surprise, based on seedings, among the eight series in the opening round of the playoffs, but you have probably heard my stance by now, via traditional or social media: Round 1 was bonkers even without results that could be classified as upsets.The rapid demise of the defending champion Lakers was merely one source of chaos. After detailing many of them in Sunday’s column, let’s zoom in on four teams that have already been ushered into the off-season.The first first-round exit of LeBron James’s 18-year career was an aberration on many levels.The Lakers slipped so far in the standings largely because James (27) and Anthony Davis (36) combined to miss 63 games. James had never previously faced a first-round matchup against the 82-game equivalent of a 58-win team.Losing early does come with a silver lining. With Davis ailing and little hope of a deep run, the Lakers were better off bowing out so their stars could have the longest recuperation period possible. To ensure that last season’s title at the Walt Disney World bubble is not the only one they win together, James and Davis clearly need the extra time to recover after the way they responded to the shortest turnaround from one season to the next (71 days) in N.B.A. history.The Lakers’ larger problem is that James, who turns 37 in December, and Davis, whose durability has never been questioned louder, are not assured of being surrounded by more reliable teammates next season. We detailed in early April how the ballyhooed off-season acquisitions of Dennis Schroder, Montrezl Harrell, Marc Gasol and Wes Matthews had not panned out. It got only worse after that for the Lakers’ role players; and the March acquisition of Andre Drummond proved even more ill-fitting.The Lakers promised Drummond a starting role to secure his commitment in free agency, according to two people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. By Game 6, Drummond was rooted to the bench, receiving zero minutes in an elimination game. Worse, with such limited salary-cap flexibility to make changes, the Lakers likely must pay Schroder more than they’d like to in free agency — after Schroder turned down a four-year extension offer worth more than $80 million during the season — or lose him without the means to sign a suitable replacement.The refusal to surrender Talen Horton-Tucker in trade talks for Kyle Lowry will likewise linger as another source of regret if Horton-Tucker, 20, doesn’t blossom next season or figure in a helpful trade. He earned only 48 minutes of playing time across four games against the Suns.The Mavericks heard the best news they possibly could on the day after their first-round unraveling against the Clippers.Luka Doncic all but announced on Monday that he would sign a five-year contract extension in August.There was no grave concern in Dallas that Doncic wouldn’t sign a deal expected to exceed $200 million, which would be the richest rookie extension in league history, but the public reassurance won’t hurt given the daunting challenges the Mavericks face to put a better team around him.They owe Kristaps Porzingis, a former Knick, nearly $102 million over the next three seasons, which makes him incredibly difficult to trade after a postseason in which he had a marginal impact offensively and, of greater concern, was punished defensively. The Mavericks surrendered two future first-round picks to the Knicks and signed Porzingis to a five-year, $158 million contract before he ever logged a second for them in the belief he would mesh well with Doncic and provide elite rim protection. Neither is happening after Porzingis sustained the second serious knee injury of his career (a right lateral meniscus tear) in last season’s bubble.With limited flexibility to upgrade the roster, the Dallas Mavericks need Kristaps Porzingis to develop into the sidekick for Luka Doncic that they had envisioned. Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTim Hardaway Jr. unexpectedly emerged as Dallas’s more dependable former Knick, prompting cynics in Dallas and beyond to increasingly mock it as “the Tim Hardaway Jr. trade.” I reported on May 27 that there was confidence within the Mavericks’ organization that they could re-sign Hardaway in free agency, but doing so would leave them without any wiggle room to make another splashy signing.Mark Cuban, the team’s owner, made it clear he had no intention of making a coaching change despite Rick Carlisle’s sixth successive first-round exit since Dallas’s championship in 2011. As a result, there is a strong likelihood that the key figures in Doncic’s orbit next season will be mostly the same. Doncic’s conditioning and fourth-quarter freshness can certainly be nitpicked, but he averaged 35.7 points, 7.9 rebounds and 10.3 assists while being frequently hounded by the Clippers’ two-way menace, Kawhi Leonard. Can Dallas really ask for more?Short-term improvement for the Mavericks thus could hinge on whether they can salvage Porzingis, who, at 25, at least seems to understand that he has to adapt to what Doncic needs.“The game’s evolving,” Porzingis said. “The way I was playing in New York, a lot of post-ups, barely any teams do those kinds of things anymore, so my game has to evolve and I have to find ways I can be effective.”Danny Ainge coached the Phoenix Suns for three-plus seasons before returning to the team he was most associated with as a player and becoming one of the game’s most successful executives with the Celtics.Brad Stevens coached the Celtics for eight seasons and will now try to make the same transition Ainge did.The move makes sense only because Celtics management is known to love Stevens and dread change. Ainge had a successful N.B.A. career as a player, coach and broadcaster before he took over Boston’s front office in May 2003. Stevens has only ever been a coach at the highest levels and will have to overcome even more skepticism about his preparedness for the job than he did when he left Butler University for the N.B.A. in July 2013.Whispers in the past week that the N.B.A. coaching grind had begun to wear on Stevens, 44, are the most concerning aspect about the Celtics’ abrupt power shift. The front-office grind can be even more withering.It should help Stevens that the well-regarded assistant general manager Mike Zarren is expected to expand his responsibility and lend considerable guidance. Besides hiring his own replacement on the bench, Stevens has to overcome limited flexibility to improve a roster around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown that Ainge said in a February radio interview was “not good.”I wondered at the time why Ainge was willing to put public pressure on himself to make in-season upgrades that he was ultimately unable to deliver. Chances are Ainge already knew, deep down, he would be stepping down at season’s end.Trail Blazers General Manager Neil Olshey said on Monday that he planned to evaluate “20 to 25 candidates” to replace Terry Stotts as coach.The expectation in league coaching circles nonetheless persists that Olshey already knows he wants to hire the former N.B.A. finals M.V.P. Chauncey Billups, an assistant to Tyronn Lue with the Los Angeles Clippers, to take over.Other opportunities could materialize for the in-demand Billups, but his path to the Portland job opened up considerably when Jason Kidd, an assistant coach to Frank Vogel with the Lakers and Damian Lillard’s preferred choice to succeed Stotts, withdrew from consideration before the search really started. Kidd wanted no part of Lillard pushing him on a resistant G.M.The onus, though, is on Olshey to mollify a frustrated Lillard, who is rapidly gaining on Washington’s Bradley Beal as the star some rival front offices want to believe they have a chance of pilfering. Referring to Lillard (or Beal) as a disgruntled star might be a step too far, but he appears to have begun questioning his well-chronicled loyalty to the franchise that drafted him out of Weber State. After Portland’s first-round exit to Denver, Lillard captioned a photo with a “How long should I stay dedicated?” reference borrowed from the rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle, who was fatally shot in 2019.Lillard averaged 34.3 points and 10.2 assists per game against Denver. It’s hard to imagine him delivering more — or the tension fading fast after Olshey insisted that the Blazers’ early exit and regular-season defensive rating of 29th were not “a product of the roster.” Olshey’s unwillingness to take any blame for Portland’s fourth first-round exit in five seasons had people buzzing leaguewide about his blame-free stance.The Scoop @TheSteinLineJune 7Luka Doncic on signing the looming $200 million contract extension he will be offered this summer: “I think you know the answer.”Early estimates have the rookie extension this off-season for Luka Doncic crossing the $200 million threshold over five years and the Mavericks, league sources say, naturally intend to offer it to Doncic once free agency begins in August.June 5The Magic have interest in former Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts, league sources say, after Orlando and Steve Clifford parted ways today.Stotts is also said to be drawing interest from Indiana as the Pacers decide whether to retain or replace Nate Bjorkgren after Year 1. Stotts coached Portland to eight straight playoff berths and one conference finals, exiting after a disappointing first-round loss to Denver.Corner ThreeLuka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks had a painful collapse against Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers. How painful is a matter of opinion.Ashley Landis/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: This Dallas fan finds the 2007 first-round loss by the top-seeded Mavericks to No. 8 Golden State much more painful than the loss to Miami in the 2006 finals. How many upsets have we seen where No. 8 beats No. 1? — Mark CunninghamStein: I expected some Mavericks fans to quibble with my recent assertions, both in story form and on Twitter, that Dallas’s collapse(s) in its first-round series against the Clippers would land in the same ZIP code as the Mavericks’ fold in the 2006 finals against Miami after winning the first two games.You’ve surprised me, though. I haven’t received any other messages (to my knowledge) that dredged up the Mavericks’ first-round pratfall in 2007 against the We Believe Warriors — which put Dirk Nowitzki in the uncomfortable position of having to accept the league’s Most Valuable Player Award after Dallas had been eliminated from the playoffs — as their low point.It’s a good reminder that these sorts of sporting heartbreaks can hit everybody differently.I noted in the piece I wrote after the Mavericks lost Games 3 and 4 at home to the Clippers, probably better than I did in a subsequent tweet, that the pain inflicted by any first-round series outcome can’t really compare with a defeat in the N.B.A. finals. Yet I am holding firm on my contention that the leads Dallas just squandered against the Clippers amount to another all-timer collapse, no matter what round they occurred in, because it wasn’t just a 2-0 series lead that slipped.The Mavericks won the first two games of the series on the road, then took a 30-11 lead at home in Game 3 that had the Clippers’ Nicolas Batum feeling as though Los Angeles was “one or two plays away to almost get swept.” Then the Mavericks responded to their two home losses by winning Game 5 at Staples Center to set up a chance to close the series out at home with just one more win.For all the shortcomings of Luka Doncic’s supporting cast, which have become a frequent talking point given the Mavericks’ inability to capitalize on Doncic’s historic production in the series, Dallas should have been able to advance to the second round if it was capable of winning three games on the Clippers’ floor. It will go down as a slice of ignominy that I suspect will endure, even if Doncic goes on to reach the same sort of championship heights Nowitzki did.On the historical front: Golden State’s upset of Dallas in 2007 was the first upset for a No. 8 seed against the top seed since the N.B.A. instituted a best-of-seven format for the first round in the 2002-3 season. Memphis did it to San Antonio in 2011 and Philadelphia repeated the feat in 2012 against Chicago — but only after the Bulls lost Derrick Rose to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Game 1. Q: Don’t show interest in Terry Stotts unless you’ve let Nate Bjorkgren go. — Wes Johnson (Indianapolis)Stein: This Pacers fan responded with dismay to the reports over the weekend, including one from me, that Indiana had interest in Stotts after he was ousted by the Portland Trail Blazers — but before Indiana actually had an opening. I totally get the dismay, too. It can be a cold, cold league sometimes, and this is definitely one of those times.Bjorkgren has been in limbo since reports of friction in his first season as Pacers coach surfaced in early May. It was difficult to imagine then how Bjorkgren, as a rookie coach whose most notable prior head coaching experience came in the G League, could survive such open discussion of behind-the-scenes tumult.Kevin Pritchard, Indiana’s president of basketball operations, only added to the uncertainty in a virtual news conference on May 24 when he said he was “not committing either way” about bringing Bjorkgren back for Year 2. The working assumption in league circles since that statement was that the Pacers were trying to determine through back channels if they had a shot at hiring a proven coach, like Stotts, before determining Bjorkgren’s fate.The Pacers clearly don’t want to let Bjorkgren go and then strike out on top targets, which would only add to their drama while Nate McMillan, abruptly ousted by Indiana after last season, has the Atlanta Hawks unexpectedly competing for a spot in the Eastern Conference finals. It is not inconceivable that Bjorkgren could end up staying, perhaps with a reshuffled staff, but the optics are undeniably unseemly.Q: Cheers to all the N.B.A. intelligentsia who fooled us into thinking Nets-Bucks was going to be a series. — @yagofidani from TwitterStein: Count me among the guilty. I thought Milwaukee took a significant step forward by sweeping Miami in Round 1. I thought the Bucks, with the additions of Jrue Holiday and P.J. Tucker, were as well suited to guard the Nets as anyone. I certainly thought that losing James Harden to a hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1 would hurt the Nets more than it has.It’s too soon to write off the Bucks as the series shifts to Milwaukee for Game 3 on Thursday, but the prospect of the Nets losing four of five games — to anyone — is difficult to imagine when they are moving the ball the way they are. Ditto when Blake Griffin looks reborn as a role player and defender, and when the unheralded Bruce Brown and Mike James have been so solid.The lingering nature of hamstring injuries is such that the Nets have to brace for the idea that Harden could miss the rest of the series, or longer, but they are functioning as well as possible without him. I will leave it to someone else to predict that a loud home crowd is enough to inspire the Bucks to disrupt that.Numbers GameJaVale McGee, center, is tied with Danny Green for the most championship rings among current players still alive in this year’s playoffs. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images0None of the eight franchises remaining in the N.B.A. playoffs have won a championship since the league’s 16-team playoff format was instituted in 1983-84. Seventeen of the N.B.A.’s last 22 championships have been won by the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio, Golden State and Miami, as neatly noted here by my former N.B.A. bubble neighbor Ben Golliver of The Washington Post.8Only eight players left in the playoffs have won an N.B.A. championship ring, according to my pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, but none with their current team. Philadelphia’s Danny Green and Denver’s JaVale McGee have won three rings each. The Nets’ Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard and Rajon Rondo of the Los Angeles Clippers have two rings apiece. The Nets’ Kyrie Irving, Philadelphia’s Dwight Howard and the Clippers’ Serge Ibaka are one-time champions.3The first round of this season’s playoffs was just the third time since the N.B.A. expanded to four playoff rounds in 1975 that both teams from the previous N.B.A. finals failed to reach the second round. It also happened in 2007 (Miami and Dallas) and 2015 (Miami and San Antonio), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.4-0Coach Tyronn Lue improved to 4-0 in Game 7s after the Los Angeles Clippers beat Dallas in Sunday’s series decider. The Clippers are just the fifth team in league history, in 31 tries, to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first two games at home, and Lue’s willingness to make major adjustments was a key factor. Lue essentially removed his starting point guard, Patrick Beverley, from the rotation after the first two games, and went small by installing 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum as his starting center in Game 4. Lue also restricted his original starting center, Ivica Zubac, to three minutes in Game 7 after Zubac had been repeatedly torched on defensive switches throughout the series by the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.10,982The Clippers, who operated with the league’s smallest building capacity of the 16 teams that reached the first round of the playoffs, hosted a crowd of just 7,342 fans for their Game 7 win over Dallas. The Mavericks hosted the league’s biggest crowd of Round 1 for their Game 6 defeat on Friday night with a chance to close out the series: 18,324 fans (10,982 more than the Clippers).355The N.B.A. has announced that 355 players have applied for early entry into the N.B.A. draft. Only 60 players will be drafted on July 29.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More
At 36, with his team’s future in doubt, James faces basketball mortality.His season was not finished — not yet, anyway — when LeBron James grabbed a seat at the far end of the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench on Tuesday night in Phoenix. He would occasionally approach a teammate or an assistant so that he could lean in close for a one-sided conversation. But he otherwise seemed resigned to the reality of the situation.The Lakers were getting routed by the Suns in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series, and James — such an indomitable force throughout his 18-year-old career, but now facing an early summer — was oddly powerless to stop it.Perhaps there was hope, in some distant corner of Lakerland, that he could muster more of his familiar magic to help the team avoid elimination two days later in Los Angeles. Instead, the Lakers were bound for more of the same: more offensive fireworks from the Suns, more disappointment, more questions about their future.The surprise was not so much that the second-seeded Suns won the best-of-seven series, clinching a trip to the Western Conference semifinals with their 113-100 victory in Game 6 on Thursday night. Rather, it was the way in which they did it — by winning the final two games of the series against the defending N.B.A. champions so convincingly.For the Lakers, it was a gloomy coda to their brief reign atop the league.“It’s been draining,” James said, referring to the past 18 months. “Mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally draining.”Devin Booker of the Suns is one of the younger players threatening James’s throne.Harry How/Getty ImagesBy any objective measure, the Lakers faced their share of obstacles. Their run to last season’s championship came in the middle of a pandemic and stretched into October. The 2020-21 season started about two months later. Despite the short break, the Lakers got off to a strong start, going 21-6 before injuries slowed them down. They eventually slipped into the playoffs as a No. 7 seed, and only after playing their way in.“I just think the whole thing was a challenge, to play all the way into October and start the season as quickly as we did,” Coach Frank Vogel said. “It was going to be an uphill battle.”There is a big “what if,” of course: What if Anthony Davis, the Lakers’ All-Star power forward, had remained healthy against the Suns? The Lakers had a 2-1 series lead when Davis strained his groin in Game 4. Sensing weakness, the Suns pounced to even the series. Davis was in street clothes for Game 5, which the Suns won by 30 points, and then spent only 5 minutes 25 seconds on the court in Game 6 before he left in pain, done for the night and for the season.Davis is extraordinarily talented and helped fuel the Lakers’ championship, but nobody is accusing him of being the sturdiest player in the league. Prone to injuries for much of his career, he missed about two months this season with a calf strain, and his problems in the playoffs cost the Lakers at the worst time.“We had the pieces,” Davis said. “We just couldn’t stay healthy. A lot of that is on me.”James, 36, was not immune to injury, either. He sprained his right ankle in March and missed a total of 26 games before the playoffs. On Thursday, he tried to tow the Lakers back from a 29-point deficit, helping cut it to 10 in the fourth quarter. He finished with 29 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, but acknowledged that his ankle was still bothering him. He said he was looking forward to a full off-season.“It’s going to work wonders for me,” he said, indicating that he would not play in the Olympics.The brightest star in the series was the Suns’ Devin Booker, who, at 24, has officially arrived as one of the league’s premier players. On Thursday, he scored 47 points and shot 8 of 10 from beyond the 3-point line. When James made his first trip to the playoffs, with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2006, Booker was 9 years old. After Thursday’s game, James autographed his jersey and gave it to him.“I love everything about D-Book,” James said. “He continues to make the jump.”While the Suns go about preparing for the Denver Nuggets in the next round, the Lakers will begin the hard work of addressing where they go from here.Just five players — James, Davis, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma and Marc Gasol — are under contract for next season, and Montrezl Harrell has a player option. (In a contractual quirk, the Lakers also owe Luol Deng, who last played for the Lakers in 2017, $5 million.) The big earners, though, are James, Davis and Caldwell-Pope, who, combined, are due nearly $90 million — a sum that, because of salary-cap restrictions, will limit the Lakers’ ability to make significant moves in free agency. The Lakers are unlikely to undergo any extreme makeovers. And they could wind up paying a hefty luxury tax if they re-sign some of their own free agents.James said he had faith in Rob Pelinka, the team’s general manager.“I will have some input,” James said, “but he always asks my input.”No one is about to feel sorry for the Lakers. Davis forced his way to Los Angeles. James is starring in a major motion picture this summer. And the Lakers, with all the inherent advantages as a big-market franchise, won it all last fall. So spare the tears.But the road does seem a bit uncertain for them, and for James in particular. One of the game’s great competitors, he was the sixth-oldest player in the league this season. (Worth noting: The two oldest players, Udonis Haslem and Anderson Varejao, combined to appear in six games and score 17 points.) In two of the last three seasons, James sustained serious injuries after avoiding them for most of his career. No athlete is immortal.Now James is fighting the inevitable effects of age while trying to ward off a group of up-and-comers like Booker — “Young guns,” James called them — who are determined to seize their rightful share of the stage. Perhaps they already have. James was asked whether their presence would motivate him to come back stronger.“I don’t need motivation from anybody in this league,” he said. “I motivate myself.” More
The Los Angeles Lakers, the defending N.B.A. champions led by LeBron James, struggled with injuries all season.The Los Angeles Lakers’ brief reign is over.The Phoenix Suns eliminated the Lakers from the N.B.A. playoffs on Thursday night with a 113-100 victory in Game 6 of their first-round series, ending LeBron James’s hopes of hauling the Lakers to back-to-back championships.It is the first time that James, 36, has exited the playoffs in the first round — and it was a young, up-and-coming team that hastened his departure.The second-seeded Suns, who are making their first postseason appearance since 2010, leaned on the inside-outside combination of Devin Booker, 24, and Deandre Ayton, 22, throughout the series.“I just know they wanted to be in these types of games,” Monty Williams, the Suns’ coach, said before Thursday’s game. “And I think they haven’t run from the moment, run from situations.”Both players, Williams said, got a taste of the spotlight last season, when the Suns won eight straight games in the league’s bubble — a run that left Phoenix short of qualifying for the postseason but made the team’s young core eager to achieve more.The Suns will now face the Denver Nuggets in the conference semifinals. The Nuggets eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday.Devin Booker led the suns with 47 points.Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Lakers, who were hindered by injuries throughout the regular season, seemed to come unglued against the Suns after Anthony Davis, their All-Star power forward, strained his groin before halftime of Game 4. The Suns went on to win that game and then crushed the Lakers on Tuesday in Game 5 to seize momentum.Frank Vogel, the Lakers’ coach, said before Thursday’s game that Davis “very much” wanted to play. Davis tried: He was in the starting lineup but was running gingerly from the tip and appeared to aggravate his injury while trying to block one of Booker’s layups early in the first quarter. Davis promptly went to the bench and never returned to the game.The Suns, meanwhile, were volcanic, shooting 10 of 13 from beyond the 3-point line in the first quarter en route to a 22-point lead heading into the second. Booker finished with 47 points and shot 8 of 10 from 3-point range.Since joining the Lakers before the start of the 2018-19 season, James has experienced highs and lows. His first season with the team unraveled when he injured his groin on Christmas Day, and the Lakers missed the playoffs. Last season, he engineered a resurgence, joining Davis to lead the Lakers to their 17th championship. For James, the run was a crowning achievement: his first title with the Lakers, and his fourth overall with three teams.As expected, the Lakers entered this season with big goals but struggled. After a strong start that seemed to position him as a candidate to win his fifth N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award (and his first since 2013), James missed a total of 26 games after he sprained his ankle in March. And Davis, who has been hobbled by injuries throughout his career, was sidelined for about two months with a calf strain.The result was that the Lakers, who had been considered among the preseason favorites to win another title, were seldom whole, and they limped into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the West.Still, the Lakers were not an ideal first-round matchup for the Suns — and the task became even more challenging for Phoenix when Chris Paul, the team’s starting point guard and veteran leader, injured his right shoulder in the first game of the series. Paul played through the pain, though, and was terrific in Phoenix’s Game 4 win, a turning point for a franchise on the rise. More
His coach had been inclined to sideline him as he deals with a shoulder injury. But he talked his way into the lineup and helped Phoenix tie its series with the Lakers.LOS ANGELES — A little over a week ago, Chris Paul christened the Phoenix Suns’ first trip to the postseason since the 2009-10 season with a bit of style. Paul, who is 6 feet tall, does not dunk often, but he rose to the occasion during warm-ups for the opening game of the Suns’ first-round series with the Lakers, leaping for an alley-oop as his teammates — and thousands of fans in Phoenix — celebrated in unison. It felt like a party. The city brimmed with hope.Why not? Rather than merely being back in the playoffs, the Suns had returned as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. Now, anything seemed possible: a deep run, a chance at a championship. And Paul, of course, had been central to the team’s identity, adding leadership and a dose of feistiness to a young roster.Since Paul’s pregame dunk, the series has taken on the feel of a more earthbound slog: sprains and strains, trash talk and errant shots. More than a few possessions have bordered on skirmishes. After injuring his right shoulder in Game 1, Paul has personified the series in some ways. He has played with a grimace.But after being a nonfactor in back-to-back losses, Paul resurfaced for Game 4 on Sunday in vintage form. He scored and scowled. He had running conversations with defenders and courtside fans at Staples Center in Los Angeles. He played a huge role in the Suns’ 100-92 win, which evened the best-of-seven series at two games apiece, and amazingly he nearly played no role at all.Suns Coach Monty Williams said he had essentially decided before the game to pull Paul from the lineup. Paul had been ineffective in Game 3, and Williams said he was concerned — concerned about Paul’s health and concerned that his presence could actually hinder the team. It was not a decision that Williams had taken lightly.“It was something I’d been thinking about for the past 48 hours,” Williams said.So, a few minutes before the Suns gathered as a team, Williams met with Paul and James Jones, the Suns’ general manager, and shared how he felt. Paul pushed back and argued that Williams should let him start: If it was clear in the early minutes that he was not himself, then Williams could sit him and the team could go in a different direction.“This is one of those situations where I had to trust the player, trust our relationship from over the years,” Williams said, adding: “He’s trained to be in these moments, and my final thought was: I don’t want to be the one who takes that away from him.”It was one of several conversations that Paul had before the game. He said he called his brother, C.J., and conferred with the other members of his inner circle. He also talked to teammates Jae Crowder and Devin Booker, conveying an important message to both players.“If you all feel like I’m out here looking like some trash, just tell me and I’ll get out,” Paul recalled telling them. “I had to see what I could do.”For his part, Williams said he was reassured when Paul went through a pregame workout with an assistant coach and showed improved mobility in his shoulder. It was the first time Paul had touched a basketball since the Suns’ 14-point loss in Game 3 on Thursday. The team’s training staff had recommended rest.“They say that’s the only way to treat what I have going on,” said Paul, whose injury is listed as a contusion.Paul made his first shot — a pull-up jumper from 11 feet — and was assertive in the second quarter after the Lakers had built a double-digit lead.“I’m never doubting myself,” Paul said, “but I’m like, ‘Man, it’s on me. It’s on me.’ ”He left even more of an imprint at the start of the third quarter, when Lakers center Anthony Davis remained in the locker room with a strained groin. There was Paul, racing upcourt on a fast break before dumping a pass to Deandre Ayton for a layup. There was Paul, darting through the lane for a short jumper. And there was Paul again, firing an 18-foot fadeaway to give the Suns a 14-point lead. Davis left a void, and Paul pounced on the opportunity.“Once I got a couple shots to fall and we started to play with pace, we felt like we had it,” he said.Paul, who finished with 18 points, 9 assists and 3 steals, was not totally himself by any stretch. He was still favoring his right shoulder and dribbling with his left hand whenever possible. But he was productive — more so than he had been all series — and his teammates fed off his hallmark frowny-face energy.“The game’s a lot easier when he’s out there,” Suns guard Cameron Payne said.It has been that way all season for the Suns, who have leaned heavily on Paul. His impact has gone far beyond creating open looks for teammates. “A lot of guys have changed how they work out, how they eat, just by being around Chris,” Williams said.Now in his 16th season and playing for his fifth team, Paul is still trying to reach his first N.B.A. finals. It is a hole on his otherwise crowded résumé. Helping guide the Suns there in his first season in Phoenix would be an enormous achievement. Only a couple of days ago, that dream seemed in danger of prematurely crumbling into desert dust.Now, the Lakers look vulnerable, especially with Davis’s uncertain status for Game 5 on Tuesday in Phoenix.The playoffs, Williams said, tend to push players to their absolute limit. Paul, for example, is facing another test in a career full of them.“It was a good feeling,” Paul said, “just to be out there and compete.” More
In Los Angeles, a star absorbs a few blows as he delivers shot after shot, leading the Lakers past the Suns.LOS ANGELES — It was not an especially pleasant night of basketball for Anthony Davis. Productive? Yes. Pleasant? No.The Lakers on Thursday were playing in front of a home playoff crowd for the first time since 2013, and Davis christened the festivities by picking up his first foul 15 seconds into the game. A few minutes later, his face got in the way of one of Deandre Ayton’s elbows.In the second quarter, Davis sprinted the length of the court to chase down Devin Booker and swat away his layup — only to wrench his left knee. Davis would later describe it as “hyperextended.” Whatever the official diagnosis, he used a heat wrap at halftime and then removed it so that he could continue with his now-familiar business of torching the Phoenix Suns.Davis, the Lakers’ All-Star power forward, has not been immune to injury. He missed about two months this season with a calf strain, and the Lakers have little chance of defending their N.B.A. championship without him. On Thursday, he was hobbling throughout the second half of the Lakers’ 109-95 win over the Suns in Game 3 of their first-round series, and Frank Vogel, the Lakers’ coach, kept turning to the members of his medical staff: Were they sure this was such a good idea?Davis after he took an elbow to the face from Deandre Ayton.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesHis troubles mounted when he tried to block a Devin Booker shot.Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images“Maybe we should get him out,” Vogel recalled telling them. “And they’re saying, ‘He’s good to go. He’s safe. It’s just about playing through pain.’”Davis wound up collecting 34 points and 11 rebounds to help the Lakers take a 2-1 series lead over Phoenix ahead of Game 4 on Sunday afternoon, and the Suns — who earned the No. 2 seed with an enormously successful regular season — seem in danger of coming unglued. Chris Paul’s shoulder injury has rendered him a sad shadow of himself. His teammates are being thwarted by the Lakers’ defense, and their frustration is starting to show.Players from both teams spent the late stages of Thursday’s game barking at each other.“That’s playoff basketball,” Davis said. “Guys are going to chirp. Guys are going to talk.”But while the Lakers seemed to consume all the theatrics as fuel — Dennis Schröder, for example, did a series of push-ups after Booker knocked him to the court in the final minute — the Suns lost their composure. Booker was ejected for his flagrant foul on Schröder — Davis called it a “dirty play” — and the Suns’ Jae Crowder soon got tossed, too.The Lakers, of course, are only seven months removed from last season’s title run in the bubble, and few pundits were dismissing them ahead of their series with the Suns. Sure, they might have limped into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed after a disjointed season that was marred by injuries. But they still employ two of the best players on the planet. So what if LeBron James missed 26 games down the stretch because of a sprained ankle? So what if their lineup was seldom whole? So what if they lost 9 of 15 games in April?The doubts, murmurs and questions crept in, though, after their Game 1 loss in Phoenix. Davis, after being outplayed by Ayton, took the blame and vowed to be better. Before Game 2, he seemed uniquely determined to his teammates: quiet in a fearsome way. He delivered, scoring 34 points to help tie the series.On Thursday, the Lakers were leading by 3 at halftime when Davis (and James) went to work. After James scored the first two baskets of the third quarter by attacking creases in the lane, he fed Davis for a dunk. The Suns immediately called a timeout, but the Lakers’ run had the feel of storm clouds forming on the horizon.“Those two guys really reversed the whole course of the game,” Vogel said of Davis and James.Coming out of the timeout, Davis kept calling for the ball, and scoring, and limping, and rebounding, and scoring some more. He corralled a lob for another dunk. He faced up against Ayton and lofted a leaner over him. Davis scored 18 points in the third quarter alone, and some close observers of the Lakers were calling it the team’s best stretch of basketball of the season.“He’s just ultra-aggressive right now,” James said of Davis, adding: “When he’s aggressive, we’re all aggressive.”Jae Crowder and the Suns lost their cool, and LeBron James and the Lakers left with a 2-1 lead in the series.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressEven Davis’s mistakes came with thunderous flair. After cutting through the lane and catching a pass from James, Davis rose for an attempted dunk that caromed off the back of the rim with such force that the ball nearly grazed the video screen hanging above center court. Later, he lost one of his sneakers while drawing a foul. He otherwise remained intact.“Just a gutsy, tough performance from a great player,” Vogel said, “and we needed it.”Before joining the Lakers last season, Davis had been to the playoffs only twice, without ever taking his team past the second round. He was a great player — dominant, even — but he was not necessarily known as a winner, and his exit from New Orleans was a messy one.Davis went a long way toward repairing his reputation in the bubble, winning a championship with James while making important shots along the way. Now, he appears to be savoring the chance to make another title run, this time in arenas that are beginning to fill with fans.“We’re finding our groove at the right time,” he said. More
