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    Need a Restaurant Recommendation? Ask an N.B.A. Player.

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    The best basketball players on the planet travel regularly, embrace local cultures and have deep pockets — making them very credible reviewers of restaurants across the country.Pick a city, any city, on the National Basketball Association’s 30-team circuit, and Kelly Olynyk, a forward for the Utah Jazz, has deep knowledge of the local restaurant scene.If you are searching for top-tier sushi in Boston, where he spent his first four N.B.A. seasons, he recommends Fuji at Ink Block in the South End. In Charlotte, N.C., he will most likely suggest the smoked wings at Rooster’s Wood-Fired Kitchen. Whether you are craving the best Italian in San Francisco or in pursuit of tasty treats in Indianapolis — Mr. Olynyk knows a place. He is a 6-foot-11 human version of Yelp.“You have spots in each city that you love and know you can count on,” said Mr. Olynyk, 32, after eating at thousands of restaurants over the 10 years he has played professionally on five N.B.A. teams. “But part of having an interest in different cultures and cuisines and restaurants is trying new ones.”In a league that consists of 28 cities, roughly 450 players and 1,230 regular season games each year, N.B.A. business travel is frequent and first-class. Teams fly private and stay in five-star hotel chains like the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton. But they also eat, a lot, and by embracing local culture and institutions with their deep pockets, they have become very credible restaurant authorities.Karl-Anthony Towns, of the Timberwolves, at Fratelli’s Pizza & Cafe in his hometown, Piscataway, N.J. Mr. Towns grew up eating Fratelli’s pizza. When they started dating, he told his girlfriend: “‘All you need is a cheese slice and I promise you it will change your life.”via Karl-Anthony TownsN.B.A. players are larger-than-normal humans (average height is 6-foot-6) with equally large salaries (average annual pay is $8.32 million), a combination that results in voracious appetites and often in reservations at the country’s most renowned restaurants. Each player also receives a $133 food per diem for days on the road.“Sometimes, if we’re only in a city one night, I’ll go to two dinners,” admitted Mr. Olynyk.The 2023-24 N.B.A. season just tipped off on Oct. 24, and in a typical season, each team plays 41 games on the road, visiting each opposing market (that includes 27 U.S. cities and Toronto) at least once. There are additional preseason and playoff games also to consider. The Golden State Warriors, for example, traveled to Los Angeles — home of the Lakers and Clippers — seven times last season. That means many meals and time to bond.“We travel so much around the country that going out to restaurants has always been the greatest way to bring everyone together,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, a three-time N.B.A. All-Star center with the Minnesota Timberwolves.Regardless of which teammates or coaches they choose to dine with, players take notice of the food, service and settings: Word-of-mouth recommendations between players are a major part of N.B.A. restaurant culture.“We’re a brotherhood, so you’re going to definitely have some honest reviews from your 449 brothers,” said Mr. Towns, 27.Rudy Gobert, a Timberwolves teammate, frequent gives Mr. Towns tips on lesser-known eateries with little fanfare on Yelp, Tripadvisor or other recommendation websites. Mr. Olynyk, of the Jazz, enjoys introducing his younger teammates to top restaurants in different cities (and picking up the bill), much as his former teammate Rajon Rondo did for him, treating Mr. Olynyk to Strega Italiano in Boston when Mr. Olynyk was a rookie with the Celtics.“It’s kind of like a rite of passage,” Mr. Olynyk, a native of Toronto, said.Kevin Love, a veteran forward for the Miami Heat, grew up in Portland, Ore., a city known for its creative dining scene. As his basketball career — one that has included five All-Star selections and a championship ring with the Cleveland Cavaliers — has advanced, his food knowledge has improved and his network of fellow food lovers has expanded (The Times documented his passion for travel in 2019).“Having a love for food, as well as wine, has brought me into a number of circles where I’ve made really good friends with restaurateurs, chefs and people who have similar interests,” said Mr. Love, 35, who is a partner (along with his former teammate Channing Frye) in Chosen Family Wines, a wine brand based out of Willamette Valley, Ore. “That’s a fun world to be in.”He has leveraged connections in the restaurant industry to organize team dinners, key to building team camaraderie. Before the Heat visit New York City, Mr. Love will call area restaurants and design unique dining experiences for his teammates.“I’m going to take these guys out and show them great food and introduce them to maybe a different cuisine,” Mr. Love said.He still considers Portland one of his top food destinations, naming Kann and RingSide Steakhouse (he strongly suggests the onion rings) as his hometown favorites. In New York City, where he lived in the off-season before recently moving to Long Island, Mr. Love lists as favorites Carbone, Sadelle’s, Hometown Bar-B-Que, Fini Pizza and Misi (Sean Feeney, the restaurateur, is a good friend of his), and Eleven Madison Park (Daniel Humm, the chef and owner, is also a friend).Kevin Love, a veteran forward for the Miami Heat, has leveraged his connections in the restaurant industry to organize team dinners.Michael Dwyer/Associated Press“It’s one of the most unbelievably beautiful kitchens I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Love said of Eleven Madison Park.For many N.B.A. players, supporting minority-owned businesses can be as important as finding establishments with Michelin stars. Mr. Towns, of the Timberwolves, will also approach local residents to seek restaurant recommendations.“I’ve always been intrigued by people and cultures,” said Mr. Towns, who has Dominican and African American roots. “And the best way to learn about people and cultures is to sit down and enjoy their food.”In Minneapolis, Mr. Towns recommends Soul Bowl, a soul food and Caribbean-inspired restaurant in the city’s North Loop. But it was Fratelli’s Pizza Cafe, in his hometown, Piscataway, N.J., where he took his girlfriend when they first started dating.“‘I got to take you home to a pizzeria that I grew up on,’” Mr. Towns recalled saying. “I said, ‘All you need is a cheese slice and I promise you it will change your life.’”“She agrees with me,” he said with a laugh.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

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      Miami Heat Face 3-1 Deficit in NBA Finals After Game 4 Loss to Nuggets

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      Only one team has come back from a 3-1 series deficit in the N.B.A. finals, but the Miami Heat seem confident they can be the second.The Miami Heat would be the first to assess their path to this late stage of the season as imperfect. Pretty much everything has posed a challenge. The injuries. The losses. Even their experience in the play-in bracket — a loss followed by a come-from-behind win — seems apocryphal, or at least true to form, now that they are facing the Denver Nuggets in the N.B.A. finals.In the process, the Heat have co-opted adversity as a part of their identity. Adversity has hardened them and made them more resilient. Adversity has fueled their postseason run. Adversity has improved them as players and helped them bond as a team. Adversity has them competing for a championship.Bam Adebayo, the team’s All-Star center, cited the “ups, downs, goods, bads” of the season as if they were inseparable qualities, as if none could exist without the others. Coach Erik Spoelstra has taken to occasionally describing his team as “gnarly” in the most complimentary way possible.“That’s a Spo term,” Adebayo said at a news conference earlier this week, adding: “A lot of you in here probably never thought we would be in this position right now.”The Heat were able to get Denver’s Nikola Jokic, center, in foul trouble, but he still scored 23 points.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConThe problem, of course, is that a steady diet of adversity takes a toll, and the Nuggets are a full meal. So much talent. So much size. So much depth. And not even the Heat, who have made a habit of navigating their way out of bleak situations, could match them on Friday night as the Nuggets pulled away for a 108-95 victory in Game 4 that has them on the cusp of their first N.B.A. title.The Nuggets have a 3-1 series lead. Game 5 is Monday in Denver.“It’s going to be a gnarly game in Denver that is built for the competitors that we have in our locker room,” Spoelstra said, adding: “We get an opportunity to play a super competitive game in a great environment.”Spoelstra was notably upbeat, but that was nothing new. Count the Heat out at your peril.“Our whole season hasn’t been easy,” Adebayo said. “It just seems like we won’t quit.”They refused to quit after slipping into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the East. They refused to quit after losing two rotation players, Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, in their first-round series with the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Herro broke his hand, and Oladipo tore a tendon in his knee.The Heat wanted adversity? They flourished, eliminating the Bucks in five games.They wanted more adversity? They nearly blew a 3-0 series lead to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals before returning from the abyss to win Game 7 — in Boston — and advance. Afterward, Mike McDaniel, the coach of the N.F.L.’s Miami Dolphins, sent Spoelstra a text in which he described tough times as an opportunity, not that Spoelstra needed to be reminded.“We share very similar thoughts about finding strength in adversity,” Spoelstra said.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said he did not expect his team to get much sleep after Friday night’s loss.Rich Storry/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConNow, the Nuggets are loading the Heat up with more adversity than they can handle. Ahead of Game 4, Heat forward Kevin Love acknowledged that the team’s “room for error is so small.”Duncan Robinson, Love’s teammate, pledged that their “urgency should be and will be at an all-time high.”In the first quarter of Friday’s game, the Heat channeled that urgency by ditching their zone defense and matching up in man-to-man, which limited the Nuggets’ outside looks while cluttering up the two-man, pick-and-roll game that Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray like to run.Before long, the Nuggets established themselves. Sensing some space between himself and his defender, Jokic stepped back from 27 feet and made a 3-pointer. Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon sliced to the rim.Early in the second half, Jokic dribbled straight at Adebayo, bumping up against him — once, twice, three times — before flipping the ball up and in with his left hand. A nifty bounce pass from Gordon to Murray led to a layup, a 10-point lead and a Spoelstra timeout. Some fans left in the fourth quarter.“Some correctable things we’ve got to do,” said Jimmy Butler, who led Miami with 25 points. “But it’s not impossible. We’ve got to go out there and do it.”The Nuggets got something that approximated a usual effort from Jokic, who collected 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists while dealing with foul trouble. But he got ample help from the likes of Gordon, who scored 27 points, and Bruce Brown, who finished with 21 points off the bench.Many of the Heat’s more unsung players have struggled in the series, and that hurt them again on Friday. Gabe Vincent finished with only 2 points, and Max Strus went scoreless. Miami wound up leaning on the veterans Kyle Lowry, who scored all 13 of his points in the first half, and Love, who made three 3-pointers.Butler, left, and Kyle Lowry have faced the pressure of the N.B.A. finals before. Butler’s Heat lost to the Lakers in 2020, and Lowry’s Raptors beat the Warriors in 2019.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAfterward, the Heat seemed cognizant of their new reality — that nearly everyone would be counting them out. Spoelstra called it “the narrative” that he said he was certain would circulate over the weekend. Butler, indicated that he did not care.“We don’t have no quit,” he said. “We are going to continually fight, starting tomorrow, to get better, and then we are going into Monday to do what we said we were going to do this entire time and win. We have to. We have no other choice. Otherwise, we did all this for no reason.”He added: “We’ve done some hard things all year long, and now it’s like the hardest of the hard.”The challenge before them is great, though not insurmountable. The Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the 2016 N.B.A. finals, shocking the Golden State Warriors, who had set a record by winning 73 games during the regular season. Still, Cleveland is the only team to recover from that deep a hole in the finals; 35 other teams have tried and failed.Spoelstra said he told his players in the locker room “to feel whatever you want to feel” after the loss. He did not expect them to get much sleep, and that was probably a good thing. He wanted them to stew on what had happened, and then refocus on the hardest-of-the-hard task ahead.“Our guys love this kind of deal,” Spoelstra said.The Heat wanted adversity? They definitely have some now. More

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      The Heat, a Long Shot in the Playoffs, Pull Even with Long Shots

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      Miami, usually outgunned by the Denver offense, made 17 3-pointers to even the N.B.A. Finals series at one game apiece.Michael Malone is generally the kind of coach who would leave a negative Yelp review after vacationing in Shangri-La. But his worry was warranted this time.On Saturday, the day before Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals, Malone lamented his team’s poor defense in the first game of the series against the Miami Heat. The Nuggets had given the Heat looks at a lot of wide-open 3-pointers — a bad sign, Malone said, even though good shooters like Max Strus and Duncan Robinson kept missing and Denver won the game.On Sunday, Strus and Robinson combined for six of Miami’s 17 3-pointers. On a night when the Heat mostly seemed outmatched, their 3-point shooting helped them steal a victory on the road to tie the series at one game apiece. Somewhat appropriately, they won by 3 points: 111-108.“There was miscommunication, game plan breakdowns, personnel breakdowns,” Malone groused afterward. He added: “We got lucky in Game 1. Tonight, they made them.”The Heat have frustrated all of their playoff opponents this year by making jump shots they had missed during the regular season. Most teams over the last decade have focused on generating points from the most efficient shots: 3-pointers, free throws and shots at the basket. Miami has followed that trend to an extent, but it was one of the worst 3-point shooting teams during the regular season and had been more likely to grind out points — led by Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo — by focusing more on midrange baskets.That’s likely a doomed strategy against Denver, an offensive juggernaut. The Heat cannot match the playmaking of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon. For the Heat to win, they have to remain hot from 3-point range, just as they have been during the postseason.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said shooting long balls gave his team its best chance against the Nuggets.Kyle Terada/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConOn Sunday, Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra said that the Heat had been “more intentional” in their offense, suggesting that the plan had been to lean into their 3-point shooting.“That doesn’t guarantee you anything either,” Spoelstra said. “But at least you give yourself the best chance.”The Heat have seized on their chances this postseason, shown by their unlikely run to the N.B.A. finals as a No. 8 seed. Kevin Love, who joined the Heat midseason, said he wasn’t aware of the team’s 3-point struggles until he came to Miami.“I always feel like there’s something to closing the door to the regular season,” Love said, adding: “You just kind of get to reset. And I think guys felt that. They just had another level of confidence and understanding that if we go out there and just be ourselves and play free and play fluid, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win.”During the regular season, Miami ranked third in shots taken between 10 and 14 feet from the basket, and 10th for shots between five and nine feet. That’s not to say the Heat didn’t shoot enough 3s: They were 10th in attempts per game. They just didn’t make them.In the second quarter on Sunday night, the Nuggets led by as many as 15. The game was on the verge of turning into a blowout. But Kevin Love, who hadn’t played in the last three games, hit a deep shot to keep the Nuggets within sight. Miami shot 8 for 17 from 3-point range in the first half — which helped the Heat stay within 6 points of Denver at halftime.Nikola Jokic’s 41 points and 11 rebounds weren’t enough to hold off the Heat.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Heat continued to bomb 3’s and tied the game relatively early in the third quarter. Denver still led going into the fourth quarter, but the 3s helped the Heat keep the game within reach, allowing for a comeback.In the final frame, it was Robinson’s turn. His two 3s in the opening minutes cut the Nuggets’ lead to 2. Miami’s eventual victory was its seventh of this postseason run after being down by at least 10 points. It has matched the 2022 Golden State Warriors and the 2011 and 2012 Heat for the most double-digit comebacks in one postseason in the last 25 years.While the Heat do have some strong shooters, they do not include the team’s best players, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. In addition, guard Tyler Herro, one of the team’s best shooters, has missed almost the entire playoff run with a right hand injury.Miami’s offense often centers on Adebayo grabbing the ball at the elbow and using his passing skills, or Butler driving the baseline and using shot fakes and strength to create space for himself.In the playoffs, Miami flipped a switch. Suddenly, its 3-pointers have begun to fall at an elite clip. Entering Game 2, the Heat had been the best 3-point shooting team in the playoffs at 38.7 percent. In the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics, the Heat shot 43.4 percent from 3 over seven games.Asked if he had knew why the Heat suddenly improved their shooting, Cody Zeller, Miami’s reserve center, said he thought that the regular season “was inaccurate.”“The playoffs are more accurate as far as how good of a shooter our guys are,” Zeller said. “We haven’t been surprised by guys making shots in the playoffs. We’re more surprised by not making shots during the regular season.”The 3-pointer, which teams are more reliant on than ever, is a high variance shot. Offenses can create many open looks, but players are still shooting a ball into a circle that is 10 feet off the ground. You’re more likely to miss than make them. But if a team gets hot over a couple games, it doesn’t matter what the other team does defensively. The Celtics saw that and so did the Nuggets in Game 2.The Nuggets have more offensive weapons than the Heat. For the Heat to keep pace, the answer is to keep shooting more and more 3s.“In terms of the shooters, that’s pretty simple: Let it fly. Ignite. Once they see two go down, it could be three, it could turn into six just like that,” Spoelstra said Saturday, while snapping his fingers.“Let it fly. Ignite,” Spoelstra said after the game. Max Strus took his advice in Game 2, hitting four 3-pointers.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressIn the regular season, the ideal tactic to defend the Heat was to focus on Butler and Adebayo and gum up the middle, forcing the ball to the perimeter. After all, during the regular season, the Heat shot 34.3 percent — a low-ish number — from 3 on shots considered open, according to the N.B.A.’s statistics. No N.B.A. defense can take away everything from an opposing offense.Strategies are generally to push teams toward what they’re not great at. The Celtics did just that, and Miami made them pay at a rate of 42.1 percent on open 3-pointers.The temptation when a team goes cold on its deep shots is to focus more on getting shots near the rim. In Game 2, the Heat rarely went to the rim, only shooting 10 times in the restricted area.Miami heads home with the series tied at one game each. Once again, the Heat won a playoff game they weren’t expected to win on shots they weren’t expected to make.“That’s what this game is,” Butler said. “Make or miss game. Make or miss league. We made some shots. They didn’t.” More

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      As His CNN+ Show Debuts, Rex Chapman Fears His Own Success

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      With 1.2 million Twitter followers and a new show debuting Monday, the former N.B.A. player appears to have an enviable life. But he’s haunted by what happened the last time he was famous.Sitting in a Midtown Manhattan cafe after shooting B-roll for his new show on CNN+, Rex Chapman says he knows that he’s living a dream, and it’s making him uncomfortable. “I struggle with it,” he said.Chapman, a former pro basketball player now best known as a Twitter personality, loves doing the show, which debuts Monday on CNN’s new streaming service. The show is not the problem. Simply titled “Rex Chapman,” it features him in conversation with a diverse array of people who have faced challenges, as he has, and who now try to make the world better, as he says he is trying to do.Chapman has interviewed Jason Sudeikis in London, the N.B.A. forward Kevin Love in Cleveland, the actor Ben Stiller in New York City and the paralyzed former college football player Eric LeGrand in New Jersey. After this conversation, he was going to the bar next door to meet the comedian, writer and talk show host Amber Ruffin.So why the struggle?“People dream of doing this,” said Chapman, whose height (6 feet 4 inches), gleaming bald head and bright blue glasses make him conspicuous. “They dream of having their own show. I struggle with whether I deserve it or not.”He explains: “I’ve been through some things,” he said. “And I’ve put myself through some things. And, uh. …”He hesitated, his voice catching.“I’ve got four kids,” he went on. “Sitting here talking to you is probably easier than many of the conversations I have with my kids.”His son and three daughters — Zeke, Caley, Tatum and Tyson — range in age from 29 to 21. “And,” Chapman said, “not a day goes by that I don’t think about disappointing them.”Chapman, now 54, was once the best high school player in his home state of Kentucky, a superstar at the University of Kentucky, the first-ever draft pick (No. 8 overall) of the expansion Charlotte Hornets and a member of the U.S. national team. He estimates that he made $40 million in 12 seasons in the N.B.A.Chapman, who played with the Suns, Heat, Wizards and Hornets during a 12-year career, taking a shot in a game against the Seattle SuperSonics in 1999.Dan Levine/AFP via Getty ImagesBut the attention and scrutiny that came with success never felt right. When he was 10 years old, he quit swimming after other kids made fun of his Speedo. When he was 15 and a high school basketball star, students from another school stopped him in a mall, asked for his autograph and then tore it up in front of him.Love and success seemed to lead to pain.That feeling intensified in the N.B.A. After some injuries and surgeries, he ended up addicted to opioids, exacerbating his long-running gambling addiction. Retirement from basketball led to deeper addiction. Chapman burned through money. By his 40s, he was crashing on couches and shoplifting goods to pawn for cash. His wife, Bridget, divorced him in 2012.At the height of his addiction, Chapman was consuming about 10 OxyContin and 40 Vicodin pills per day, chewing them to get them into his bloodstream quicker.“At some point, I had just resigned myself to the fact that my life’s just going to be as a drug addict,” he said, adding an expletive for emphasis.In September 2014, he was caught shoplifting more than $14,000 worth of electronics and was arrested. His sister, Jenny, took him in, and with the help of friends persuaded Chapman to go to a rehab center in Louisville, Ky., where his college roommate, Paul Andrews, was an executive. “Saved my life,” Chapman said.After Chapman got clean, he began speaking in public about recovering from addiction. He found work covering Kentucky athletics on the radio for a regional media company around 2016. The company pushed him to be more active on social media, particularly on Twitter, but Chapman resisted. “The landscape was just toxic. Everybody hating each other,” he said.A dolphin video changed everything: “I saw a video one day of a school of dolphins swimming out to sea, and a guy on a paddle board coming in, and a dolphin jumped up and hit him in the chest and knocked him off. And I said to myself, ‘That’s a charge,’” Chapman said, adding another expletive. (The account that first shared the video is now suspended.)Chapman and his production crew filming B-roll for his new show.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesPeople responded well to the tweet, so he shared other slapstick videos, inspiring lighthearted debates about whether a given collision was, in basketball terms, a block or a charge. In time, he began posting “feel-good stuff” — videos of dogs, babies and animals interacting adorably — and paying two people to find content for him.Chapman, who now has 1.2 million followers, later ventured into tweeting about politics, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky a frequent target.In 2019, his friend Steve Nash, the former basketball star and current coach of the Brooklyn Nets, called Chapman with an idea for a podcast about people rebuilding their lives after making terrible mistakes. Chapman was wary of seeking fame again — “I didn’t fare real well with it the first time around” — but went forward after his children told him it was OK to do the show.The podcast was called “Charges.” To make his guests more comfortable, and in the hopes of helping people, Chapman began publicly sharing more of his story. This was healing at times, painful at others. “There’s something really cathartic about it,” he said. On the other hand, he said, it never doesn’t hurt, because you’re telling a bunch of strangers the worst stuff in life.He added: “I still can’t believe it was me. But it was. So I have to deal with that constantly.”Worse, he knows his children do too. “If they had any reservations,” he said, “then I wouldn’t do any of this stuff.”In an interview, Chapman’s daughter Caley, 27, said: “After he retired, that was a dark time. But he was always still my dad. I have respect for him. I just wanted him to get better for himself. And he’s done that. So I’m proud of him.”She expressed concern that her father is too hard on himself.“He holds a lot of guilt,” she said. “But there was never anything to forgive him for. From my point of view, I just wanted him to do better. So he’s been forgiven. And I’ll continue to say that until he forgives himself.”Chapman’s son, Zeke, declined to be interviewed, but sent a statement by text.“I’m extremely proud of my dad and how he has bounced back after a very tough time for him and our family,” he said. “I’m super excited for his new show and know how hard he’s been working on it.”“Life’s weird, man,” Chapman said. “And life’s hard.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesChapman was approached about the CNN+ show late last year. Rebecca Kutler, the senior vice president and head of programming for the streaming service, sought him out because she liked his Twitter feed. Like many of his followers, she didn’t know much about his basketball life.“I found him to be an incredibly compelling human being,” she said. “He has come forward and talked about these challenges publicly, and really tried to use his experience to help others. That, along with his history as an incredible athlete, and the way that he’s been able to connect with an entire new generation of fans using social media, and sharing really uplifting content — I thought he would be a great person to bring new stories to CNN+.”The shows will range from 20 to 40 minutes per episode, with episodes to be released on Mondays.Chapman shooting an interview on Wednesday in New York.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesLeGrand, the former Rutgers football player whose spinal injury requires him to use a wheelchair, said he quickly felt a connection with Chapman when they met on campus in January. Chapman wore Nike Air Force 1s and a zip-up Jordan brand jacket, prompting LeGrand to say, “Look at you, all swagged out!” The two laughed and the conversation flowed.“When somebody else has been through a rough patch or overcome adversity in their lives, and they’ve been able to get through it and impact people in a positive way, it makes you open up,” LeGrand said. “It makes you feel that sense of comfort.”During the interview, Chapman asked what LeGrand dreamed about, a question no one had ever asked him before. LeGrand said: “When I’m dreaming, I’m always on my feet. I’m never in a wheelchair.”Chapman said he learned empathy from his mother, and from his own pain. He still wrestles with the guilt and shame of his past, particularly for not being a better father. “What they had to go through at school, and people knowing that their dad was in trouble and got arrested,” he said. Chapman said it “crushes” him.Now, he said, “I’m just trying to make up for lost time. I feel like I was gone for about 15 years.”This year, Chapman moved from Kentucky to Brooklyn, 10 minutes from his son. When his new success makes him uncomfortable, he reminds himself that it helps him be the father he wants to be for his children.“We have really no issues at this point,” he said. “Still trying to just show them a better me.” More

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      This Time, the Cavaliers’ Revival Has Nothing to Do With LeBron James

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      Two All-Stars, a surprising rookie and savvy trades have Cleveland among the best teams in the Eastern Conference. “Everybody is doing something,” one veteran said.For most of the last two decades, the Cleveland Cavaliers could be defined by two things: LeBron James or irrelevance.James, a hometown hero, breathed new life into the city upon being drafted in 2003, and made the Cavaliers a must-see attraction. And then he devastated the fan base by leaving for Miami in 2010, before returning like Odysseus in 2014 and delivering one of the most storied championships in N.B.A. history in 2016. Two years later, he left again, leaving the franchise without a clear path forward.“Everybody felt a little bit weird after that year,” said Cedi Osman, a fifth-year guard for Cleveland.The Cavaliers were starting from scratch and staring into the abyss. They had past-their-prime veterans and no track record of luring top free agents. But a funny thing has happened. Fast forward through some quality draft picks, a savvy trade and a key player’s unexpected resurgence, and there is a basketball renaissance in Cleveland.Four seasons after James’s exit to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Cavaliers have confounded expectations to become one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference with one of the best defenses in the N.B.A. For the first time since James left in 2018, the Cavaliers will be represented in the All-Star Game, which is this weekend in Cleveland. Rajon Rondo, the veteran point guard traded to Cleveland from the Lakers last month, said the Cavaliers this season have “a chance to do something special.”Their status as a contender was cemented last week when they acquired Caris LeVert, a 27-year-old swingman and Ohio native, from the Indiana Pacers. LeVert told reporters the team seemed to have “such positive energy everywhere.”Positive energy has been in short supply in recent years. Over the past three seasons, the Cavaliers went 60-159. The rebuilding process post-James, helmed by General Manager Koby Altman, has been bumpy.Cleveland is on its fourth head coach in four years. One of them, John Beilein, apologized to his team of mostly Black players in 2020 for calling them “thugs” in a film session. He resigned later that year midseason with a dismal 14-40 record.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver chose Jarrett Allen, center, to replace James Harden in the All-Star Game as Harden recovers from an injury.Chris Szagola/Associated PressThere was also the trade for Andre Drummond, a slow and expensive center who rebounded well but didn’t fit with the team’s quick perimeter guards, and the extension for another center, Larry Nance Jr., who never quite lived up to a contract worth more than $40 million.“We’ve taken some time and had to be really patient through some difficult times to get to where we are,” Coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who replaced Beilein, said during a news conference last week. “And when you’re talking about legacy, I think those are discussions that you have after the season or, you know, two years from now when you can look back at a total body of work and see what you’ve truly done.”The core for the Cavaliers’ resurgence has come through the draft. Point guard Darius Garland, selected with the fifth pick in 2019, was a highly-touted but risky pick given that he played in only five games at Vanderbilt because of a knee injury. The Cavaliers had drafted point guard Collin Sexton only the year before, which made the selection of Garland raise some eyebrows.The team instead started Garland and Sexton as one of the more dynamic backcourts in the N.B.A. Now, in only his third year, the 22-year-old Garland is averaging 20.1 points and 8 assists per game as a deft floor general and earned an All-Star berth. (Sexton sustained a season-ending knee injury in early November.)With his passing skills and ability to create space for himself in the paint, Garland has outplayed at least two players drafted ahead of him (RJ Barrett and De’Andre Hunter), while the No. 1 pick from that draft, Zion Williamson, hasn’t taken the floor this season because of a foot injury.Brandon Knight, who was Garland’s teammate briefly during Garland’s rookie year in Cleveland, described him as “super, super, super unselfish.”“He scores a lot, but he also gets a lot of guys involved,” Knight, 30, said. “When you get guys involved and you get guys feeling good about themselves and feeling good about touching the basketball, I think it trickles down.”When a team isn’t traditionally attractive for free agents, hitting on high draft picks is crucial. Cleveland drafted Isaac Okoro fifth in 2020, and he has become a reliable defender and open-floor finisher. The draftee with the highest ceiling might be Evan Mobley, who was picked at No. 3 in last year’s draft. Mobley, 20, is averaging 14.7 points and 8 rebounds per game and is a contender to win the Rookie of the Year Award.Isaac Okoro, ground, has become a reliable defender and finisher in his second year. The Cavaliers drafted him with the fifth overall pick in 2020.Nick Wosika/USA Today Sports, via ReutersOne of Cleveland’s best moves was the trade for Jarrett Allen last season, part of a four-team deal that landed James Harden with Allen’s former team, the Nets. The 23-year-old Allen — a strong rebounder and finisher around the rim — is now one of the best centers in the N.B.A. and was selected as an injury replacement for Harden in this year’s All-Star Game. The Nets have a worse record than the Cavaliers and traded Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers last week. They’ve looked very much like a team that could use Allen.But this year’s success for Cleveland is not just because of the young players. Kevin Love, a five-time All-Star and the only James-era holdover besides Osman, has battled injuries for most of Cleveland’s rebuilding process. Love, a power forward, signed a four-year $120 million extension to remain in Cleveland entering the 2018-19 season, after James left the second time. Before this season, it looked like a mistake for Altman. When Love did play, his body language was sour. On multiple occasions, he openly showed displeasure with teammates.Deng Adel, who played 19 games for the Cavaliers in the year after James left for the Lakers, said the early stages of rebuilding were “kind of tough” for Love.“For the most part, he was still definitely a good teammate,” said Adel, who now plays for the Boston Celtics’ G League affiliate. He added: “It kind of gets frustrating, especially for where he’s at in his career. You know, you could kind of tell he kind of wants to win.”After the trade for Allen and the drafting of Mobley, it seemed that there wouldn’t be room for Love. But in the summer, his agent put a stop to chatter that Love would try to negotiate a buyout. Instead, Love came back to training and told reporters he would be a “positive force.” Now, this year is among the best in his eight seasons in Cleveland. He’s averaging 14.2 points and 7.3 rebounds per game off the bench and shooting 39.2 percent from 3. Love is fitting in instead of fitting out, just as James once publicly preached for him to do.“He’s a great mentor for us — for young players and especially the way he’s playing this year,” Osman said. “I mean, we’re really looking up to him. Offensively. Defensively. He’s crafty. He’s trying to help us. You know, everybody is doing something.”Kevin Love, center, is in his eighth season with Cleveland, and playing some of his best basketball in years off the bench.Ken Blaze/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMentorship has also come from other sources. The veteran point guard Ricky Rubio came to Cleveland in a trade from Minnesota in the off-season and helped the team get off to a fast start with his steady hand in setting up the offense. But, in December, a knee injury ended his season, and he was traded in the deal for LeVert. Rondo has filled Rubio’s role.If the Cavaliers make a deep run this postseason, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise. They have dynamic scorers (Garland, Allen), quality veterans with championship experience (Love, Rondo), and complementary shot-creators (Okoro, Osman). Especially this year, where there is no clear-cut favorite for the title, the Cavaliers have a real chance of making the N.B.A. finals. And they seem to enjoy playing with one another.“A lot of times you can’t predict this type of stuff, man,” Knight said. “So the ingredients just work and there’s really not an answer for it.”He added, “When you get a group of guys that are just unselfish and don’t care about which guy’s getting the points, all those type of things, I think it just works out.”Of course, the Cavaliers still have a lot of work to do. The Eastern Conference is tightly packed and one losing streak could mean being exiled to the play-in tournament — and, perhaps, out of the playoffs. But this year has been an undeniable step forward. If nothing else, Cleveland is shooting for something bigger, to be defined by more than a past association with LeBron James.“We’re trying to build something,” Osman said. “It’s all about these Cavs right now.” More

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      Team U.S.A. Names Replacements for Bradley Beal and Kevin Love

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      Beal and Love are out of the Olympics for health reasons. The Spurs’ Keldon Johnson and the Nuggets’ JaVale McGee will join the men’s basketball team.The U.S. men’s national basketball team added to its roster Keldon Johnson of the San Antonio Spurs and JaVale McGee of the Denver Nuggets after two other players were no longer able to participate in the Tokyo Olympics for health reasons.Bradley Beal, a guard expected to be one of the primary scorers for the United States, will miss the Olympics after being placed in the coronavirus health and safety protocols. Kevin Love withdrew from the competition on Friday because of a lingering calf injury.Team U.S.A. also canceled Friday’s exhibition against Australia and placed forward Jerami Grant in the coronavirus protocols as the team faces multiple challenges in the lead-up to the Olympics, which begin next week. Gregg Popovich, Team U.S.A.’s coach, told reporters that he expected Grant to still participate in the Olympics.Beal started all three exhibitions and averaged 10.3 points per game on 10-for-21 shooting. He finished second in the N.B.A. in scoring this season with 31.3 points per game for the Washington Wizards.“Since he was a little kid, this has been a dream of his, and he was playing great,” Popovich told reporters, adding: “For him and his immediate family, it’s devastating. We just feel horrible about it.”The men’s team has had a shaky beginning to defending its three consecutive gold medals. Team U.S.A. opened with exhibition losses to Nigeria and Australia before blowing out Argentina.Top players like LeBron James (Lakers), Jimmy Butler (Heat), Kyrie Irving (Nets) and James Harden (Nets) declined to participate in the Olympics following a condensed off-season last year. Forward Jayson Tatum (Celtics), who is on the roster, is dealing with right knee soreness. Also on the team: Bam Adebayo (Heat), Kevin Durant (Nets), Draymond Green (Golden State), Zach LaVine (Bulls) and Damian Lillard (Trail Blazers).Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton and Phoenix’s Devin Booker are expected to join the team after the completion of the N.B.A. finals. The best-of-seven series is tied at two games apiece, with Game 5 on Saturday in Phoenix. More