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      Pat Riley, Once Front and Center, Reigns in the Background

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      Riley’s decades in the N.B.A. have given him plenty of stories to tell. But the formerly flashy coach of the Knicks, Heat and Lakers is keeping a low profile — “the boss he thinks you should be.”The network camera was drawn to Pat Riley after Jimmy Butler’s 22-foot jumper landed like a kick to the collective groin of the Milwaukee Bucks late in Game 4 of Miami’s first-round playoff series upset. While Butler, soon to complete a 56-point masterpiece, pranced in full-throated fashion, there sat Riley, a gray-haired Buddha, arms folded across his suit jacket and tie, smiling without celebrating, blinking but not moving.No surprise, really. By this point in a long basketball life, what has Riley not already seen that would make him compromise on his veneer of calculated, unflappable control?Circulating online, the clip was another striking visual to add to the Riley collection. From the 1966 national championship game in which a Texas Western squad dominated by Black players defeated his all-white Kentucky team to his tenured role as the Heat’s president, Riley has been tethered to basketball history of tectonic magnitude.True, the 1970s version of Riley is most memorably recalled as a role player practically riding piggyback on the great Jerry West while leaving the court upon the Los Angeles Lakers’ clinching of the only title West ever won as a player. From the 1980s on, Riley moved front and center, stylishly coifed.Riley coached the Heat to a championship in the 2005-6 season, with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal leading the team on the court. Miami beat the Dallas Mavericks in six games.Rhona Wise/European Pressphoto AgencyHe has played, coached or been chief executive for a team in a championship game or series for an extraordinary seven consecutive decades — the most recent being the Heat’s 2020 N.B.A. finals loss to the Lakers. Had there been an award for most venerable personality, the man who inspired Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko look for the 1987 film “Wall Street” would have to be its inaugural designee.Riley’s run as a coach and executive is arguably the most remarkable of all, given the generational shifts he has withstood. West is a front-office Lakers legend but was a reluctant three-season coach. Phil Jackson has more than double the head coaching titles (11-5), but he took on only star-laden rosters and was a bust as Knicks president. Red Auerbach deserves credit for coaching or assembling 16 of the Celtics’ 17 title teams, but most were achieved in a nascent league in which players had no freedom of movement.Riley coached the Lakers from 1981 to 1990, winning four championships with the future Hall of Famers Magic Johnson, right, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, left.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesRiley didn’t win a championship during his four seasons with the Knicks in the early 1990s, but they made it to the N.B.A. finals in 1994, when they lost to Houston in seven games.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesRiley did inherit a championship cast in Los Angeles, but he steered it to dynastic prominence and four titles. He made the Knicks matter again in the 1990s, however tortured — his word — he remains from not getting them across the finish line in the 1994 finals. He turned Miami’s nowhere expansion franchise into a contender and three-time champion.But we likely won’t hear much, if anything at all, from Riley on himself, the injury-plagued Heat or the Knicks during their Eastern Conference semifinal series. It’s not breaking news that he has ceded the organizational microphone to Erik Spoelstra, the coach he handpicked to succeed him in 2008 and who has remained in place well beyond the four-year Miami residency of LeBron James and the franchise’s last title in 2013.As far back as 2012, I sampled the Heat locker room for a column on how Riley had stepped away from the spotlight that once couldn’t resist him. Dwyane Wade, who joined the Heat in 2003, said, “For the most part, he stays back, stays out of the way when it comes to the players, and he’s been doing that for a couple of years.”Riley rarely speaks publicly anymore, but he has come out to support Wade, right, who spent more than a decade with the Heat.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesRiley declined a request to talk about why his once-commanding voice is now seldom heard with rare exceptions — typically to acknowledge revered service, as in the recent cases of Wade’s election to the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Heat veteran Udonis Haslem’s upcoming retirement. Feelers to others affiliated with the Heat were met with a familiar refrain: Riley does not want anyone but Spoelstra and his players speaking publicly during the playoffs.Better then to consult someone whose employment doesn’t depend on him. Jeff Van Gundy, a Riley protégé who became his coaching antagonist after Riley’s stormy departure from New York in 1995, said: “He morphed into the boss that he always wanted, the boss he thinks you should be. Stay behind the scenes. Do your job.”Dave Checketts, who in 1991 hired Riley to coach the Knicks, recalled a phone conversation in which West, with whom Riley occasionally clashed during the Lakers’ Showtime era, warned him, “You’re going to have to figure out how to handle the press because Pat will lose his mind when someone says something he doesn’t want out there.”Said Checketts: “And Pat did say when he came, during hours and hours of conversation, that we needed to speak in one voice. That’s why I give him tremendous credit for what he’s done in Miami — he’s lived by what he’s espoused. And Spoelstra has been a great spokesman, too.”Six years ago, during my last extended conversation with Riley, he did veer off the agreed-upon interview topic — Magic Johnson’s brief ascension to the Lakers’ presidency. When I complimented him for refusing to tank, for remaining competitive despite losing James to Cleveland and Chris Bosh to a medical issue, Riley said:LeBron James, Wade and Chris Bosh spent four seasons together on the Heat, winning two championships. Riley was team president, after handing the coaching reins to Erik Spoelstra in 2008.Hans Deryk/Reuters“Players come and go, great players. When LeBron left, that was the most shocking thing to me — not to say he was right or wrong — and the most shocking thing to the franchise. But our culture is the same. You have your up years and your down years, but what can’t change is the way you do things.”That wasn’t necessarily the whole truth. After the Heat lost to San Antonio in the 2014 N.B.A. finals, Riley, undoubtedly referring to James’s looming free agency, told reporters: “You’ve got to stay together if you’ve got the guts. And you don’t find the first door to run out of.”James still exited, stage left. An old Riley tactic — challenging players’ manhood — fell on deaf, new-age ears. Most spiels grow old. And Riley, 69 at the time, is now a more muted 78, a stealth operator, Godfather Riley more than Gordon Gekko Riley. Yet he remains indisputably relevant, still resplendent, while watching and waiting for the auspicious occasion that will merit his last hurrah. More

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      Golden State’s Stephen Curry Scores 50 in Game 7 Win Over Sacramento Kings

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      Curry’s 50 points were the most ever in a Game 7, helping Golden State survive a contentious first-round series with Sacramento.SACRAMENTO — The Golden State Warriors prepared for the finale of their first-round playoff series with the Sacramento Kings by gathering for an off-day film session on Saturday on an upper floor of Chase Center, their home arena in San Francisco, with a panoramic view of the bay.Coach Steve Kerr likes to stage his film sessions there when the space is available. Otherwise, he said, the team is stuck “in the dungeon down below,” outside its locker room. He was grateful for the open space, especially ahead of Sunday’s Game 7. It was a therapeutic experience.“I do think there has to be a sense of perspective,” Kerr said, “even if it’s just a nice view and some sunshine and a chance to breathe and relax between games. That can make a difference.”Something else can make a difference, too: Stephen Curry. No one seemed more Zen on Sunday than Curry, who led the Warriors to a series-clinching, 120-100 victory by skewering the Kings in every conceivable way on his way to 50 points — an N.B.A. record for a Game 7. He sank parabolic 3-pointers. He drove for layups. He toyed with defenders. And he sent scores of Kings fans streaming into the streets of Sacramento before the game had ended.“Sublime,” Kerr said.“Total domination,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said.“A joy to watch,” guard Klay Thompson said.Curry, Thompson and Green have spent years demolishing opponents as one of the N.B.A.’s most celebrated cores. The Kings, on the other hand, were making their first postseason appearance since 2006. They had youth and energy. The Warriors have championship DNA.“It was a great time to put it all together,” Curry said. “There’s still nerves and anxiousness and anticipation before a big night. But when we get out there, our experience takes over.”Curry had 20 points in the first half on Sunday.Kyle Terada/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConCurry, who arrived at the Golden 1 Center in an all-black ensemble, as if dressed for a wake, shot 20 of 38 from the field and 7 of 18 from 3-point range. He also had eight rebounds and six assists.“What an incredible all-time performance,” Thompson said.Golden State, the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, will face the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in a conference semifinal, starting in San Francisco on Tuesday. The Lakers eliminated the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in their first-round series on Friday.“To do this for a decade, it’s incredible,” Kerr said of his core players. “The energy that it takes to fight off challengers year after year, and have to prepare and win games, and do it over and over — there’s a reason these guys are Hall of Famers and champions.”The Warriors and Kings franchises have long been based less than 100 miles apart, but for much of the past decade they have produced very different brands of basketball — opposite brands of basketball, in fact.As the Warriors busied themselves by winning championships (four), playing in N.B.A. finals (six) and re-engineering the way basketball is played thanks to the Splash Brothers (Curry and Thompson), the Kings spent the past decade-plus scuffling through a desert of futility that had them bordering on irrelevance.Their overhaul began last season when they acquired Sabonis, an All-Star center, in a deal with Indiana. It continued over the off-season when they signed the reserve guard Malik Monk in free agency, traded with Atlanta for Kevin Huerter and hired Mike Brown, one of Kerr’s assistants, as their coach.Sure enough, led by De’Aaron Fox, their All-Star point guard, the Kings went 48-34 during the regular season, christening each victory by shooting a beam of purple light from the roof of their arena. “Light the Beam!” became a rallying cry, helping to bury — if not completely erase — the dysfunction of years past.On Saturday night, ahead of Game 7, Brown dined at a Sacramento-area restaurant with his partner’s son. A small parade of young boys approached their table to ask Brown some incisive questions about the team’s players. They asked about Sabonis’s right thumb, which he had fractured during the regular season. They asked about Fox’s broken left index finger. They asked if the first-year forward Keegan Murray would be ready to shoot in Game 7.“And one of the kids was a Warriors fan, so they started ribbing him,” Brown said. “And he was like: ‘No, I’m not! No, I’m not!’ But he had a Golden State Warriors hat on.”More than anything, Brown said, he could sense their excitement — a type of postseason anticipation that Sacramento had not experienced in years.Sacramento guard De’Aaron Fox impressed in the first playoff appearance of his career, even though the Kings lost the series. Golden State struggled to defend him because of his speed and sharpshooting.Kyle Terada/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConAs for the Warriors, their roster seemed to constantly be in a state of flux during the regular season. Curry injured a shoulder and sprained an ankle. Andrew Wiggins, their starting small forward, left the team in mid-February citing personal reasons and missed the final 25 games of the regular season.Kerr, meanwhile, struggled to strike a balance between securing a playoff berth (no sure thing) and developing young players like Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman, who was eventually traded midseason. Ultimately, Kerr kept leaning on the usual suspects — Curry, Thompson and Green, a defensive stalwart — as the postseason came into sharper focus.The Warriors welcomed Wiggins’s return for the start of the playoffs, then lost their first two games, which presented a new obstacle: Curry, Thompson and Green found themselves trailing in a playoff series, 2-0, for the first time in their careers. Perhaps they needed a fresh challenge.On Sunday, Sacramento led, 58-56, at halftime, which is when Golden State — a team known for years for eviscerating teams in the third quarter — went about its usual business. Curry sank a 3-pointer. He sliced through a mix of defenders to scoop in a layup. He drained a floater.“You can tell when he’s locked in or laser-focused,” Green said.By the time Kevon Looney, the team’s starting center, scored off an offensive rebound, Golden State led by 9.The prevailing mood of the Kings fans inside the arena was not necessarily panic, but there was certainly angst. Curry had already been in this sort of situation on so many occasions, and none of it — not the hostile environment, not the pressure of a Game 7 — appeared to bother him. In fact, he was feeding off it.“This is one of the best players in the history of the game,” Kerr said, adding: “The resilience and the work that goes into that, the focus, it’s incredible to watch.As Golden State’s lead swelled in the fourth quarter, the crowd’s angst turned to resignation.Looney capped a terrific series with a double-double, 11 points and 21 rebounds.“The guy is a flat-out winner and a machine,” Kerr said.The stage, though, belonged to Curry, which was no surprise. Another one awaits against the Lakers. After Sunday’s game, Curry was asked if anyone could stop him.“Hopefully, we never find out,” he said. More

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      Their Reputations Precede Them. And That’s the Problem.

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      When an athlete breaks the rules of the game, he or she may be judged on much more than that single act. Call it the Draymond Green Effect.Most times in basketball, a foul is just a foul. But sometimes, it can feel like so much more: a Rorschach test unearthing a person’s biases about the game, a window into a player’s thinking, a referendum on his entire career.Was that a malicious kick or an involuntary swing? When does an outstretched arm morph into a punch? Can an on-court act be judged on its own or must the actor be considered, too?A sequence of hard fouls across three different first-round N.B.A. playoff series — and the subsequent responses to them — has reinforced the extent to which the reputations of players, and the swirling narratives associated with them, seem to color the way the athletes, referees, league officials and fans process the action unfolding on the court.After each instance, the players’ reputations were called into action in some way — as corroborating evidence, as a shield, as a liability.It started on Monday of last week, when Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors stomped his size 15 sneaker into the sternum of the Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis after Sabonis had grabbed Green while lying on the court. Afterward, the league suspended Green for one game, invoking not only the on-court incident but his entire body of work.“The suspension was based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the N.B.A.’s statement read, evoking the veritable highlight reel of pugnacious gamesmanship in his career, but not referencing any specific previous infraction.After he was called for fouling Royce O’Neale of the Nets in a first-round playoff game, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers gave the universal signal for “Who, me?”Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressA few nights later, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers was ejected for hitting Nets forward Royce O’Neale below the waist on a drive to the basket. In the locker room after the game, Harden pointed toward his own reputation as part of his defense, mentioning that he had never before been thrown out of a game.“I’m not labeled as a dirty player,” Harden said, alluding to the public’s perception of him. He should not be judged harshly, he implied, because he is, so to speak, not that guy. (Harden, of course, has often been labeled by critics as something else: a player willing to flop to draw a whistle and earn free throws.)Then, two nights after that, Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies was ejected for hitting LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers around the groin area while trying to defend him. The next day, Brooks, too, nodded toward his reputation, speculating that it must have preceded him on the play and informed the referees’ quick-fire decision to toss him.“The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain and then that just creates a whole different persona on me,” Brooks said. “So now you think I intended to hit LeBron James in the nuts.”In sports, reputations are quickly formed and particularly hard to shed. Athletes conduct their professional lives in high definition. Their every move is broken down ad nauseam, scrutinized in slow motion, refracted through the eyes of analysts and commentators.Heightening this dynamic is the fact that history looms large in the sports world, seeming to always be front of mind. Record books and bygone statistics are invoked every day. Fans keep big wins and heartbreaking losses etched onto their hearts.“The past,” William Faulkner wrote, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”On top of everything else, the impulse to create two-dimensional characterizations about a person’s behavior, to reduce their action to moral terms, is widespread in the sports world, where fans and news media members often apply a storybook framework to the action, experts say.“We create these schema, these cognitive shortcuts, to read the world, and we’re quick to label individuals as friend or foe,” said Arthur Raney, a professor of communication at Florida State who has researched how emotions shape the sports viewing experience. “We do that with folks on the street, and we do that with entertainment and sports and politics and everything else.”Raney added, “And once those frames, those schema, are set, they then serve as a lens for our expectations of the future.”There will always be tension, then, around questions of whether an athlete’s reputation is fully justified.Ndamukong Suh, a defensive tackle in the N.F.L. with a long history of major penalties, cautioned people not to pass judgment too quickly. Here, he attended the league’s boot camp for aspiring broadcasters.Kyusung Gong/Associated PressNdamukong Suh, a longtime defensive tackle in the N.F.L., developed a reputation as a dirty player after a seemingly countless log of bad hits, fines and suspensions. Suh has pushed back against this characterization at various points in his career — though it is questionable whether anyone might be convinced otherwise.“Before you pass judgment on somebody, always take the time to get to know them, meet them, have coffee with them, whatever it may be and then be able to go from there,” Suh said in 2019.Many might similarly scoff at the claims of innocence of Brooks, who led the N.B.A. with 18 technical fouls in the regular season and made headlines earlier in the playoffs for taunting James (“I don’t care. He’s old.”) — essentially casting himself as a villain without anyone’s help.Still, when humans are involved in adjudicating behavior in sports, there will always be unanswerable questions about how those decisions are made. Did a player’s bad reputation lead officials to call more penalties or fouls on borderline plays? How many more fines and suspensions does a player earn after developing a reputation as someone who deserves them?“Generally, officials at the highest level do not hold grudges, but in a preconscious, mythic way are influenced by narratives,” said Stephen Mosher, a retired professor of sports management at Ithaca College.Reputations can be suffocating. Dennis Rodman’s reputation as an erratic and unsportsmanlike competitor — developed with the Detroit Pistons and honed with the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls — overshadows his status as one of the greatest defensive players in N.B.A. history. Metta Sandiford-Artest, years after his involvement in the fan-player brawl known as the Malice at the Palace in 2004, when he was still known as Ron Artest, developed a reputation as a mellow veteran, but only after changing his name and publicly reckoning with his mental health.And reputations can feel problematic when they seem in any part derived from race. Raney said the potential for this was higher in sports that were “racialized” — that is, closely associated with one race. He mentioned the tennis star Serena Williams, who is Black, as an example of an athlete who may have developed an undue reputation at times because of the color of her skin in the context of her sport. A recent study in European soccer revealed the dramatic differences in the way television commentators spoke about white players (praising their smarts and work ethic) versus nonwhite players (highlighting physical traits like strength and speed) and how far-reaching the impact of these perceptions could be.“I’d look directly at the story tellers, announcers, color people, for why these perceptions carry such weight,” Mosher said.Sports leagues invite speculation about the role reputations play in competition because of the apparently subjective nature of officiating.Joel Embiid of the 76ers was neither ejected nor suspended for this very personal foul against the Nets’ Nic Claxton.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConEarlier in the game from which Harden was ejected, 76ers center Joel Embiid blatantly tried to kick the Nets’ Nic Claxton between the legs. Embiid, who has largely maintained a reputation as a clean player, was not ejected or suspended. Harden and Brooks were not suspended after their ejections, either. (The N.B.A., like other sports leagues, takes into account a player’s disciplinary history when doling out punishments.)In explaining the disparity of outcomes between Embiid and Harden, the N.B.A. has asserted that the motive mattered far less than the outcome, and that each incident, even if it felt similar to another, needed to be evaluated on its own terms. No two shots to the groin are alike, essentially.“You have to be responsible for your actions outside the realm of intent,” Monty McCutchen, the N.B.A.’s head of referee development, said in an interview on ESPN.But many people’s minds went to a similar place. What would have happened if someone else — say, Draymond Green? — had kicked out the same way Embiid had. More

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      Houston Rockets Introduce Coach Ime Udoka

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      The Celtics fired Udoka in February after he violated team policies. Udoka said at a news conference for his hiring as Houston’s coach that he had worked on himself and become a better person.The Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta asked fans to be forgiving on Wednesday as he introduced the team’s new head coach, Ime Udoka, who had been suspended and then fired by the Boston Celtics within the past year for violating unspecified team policies.Fertitta said any critic unwilling to give Udoka a second chance was “not a good Christian person.”The Celtics suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in September, then fired him in February, after he had a relationship with a female subordinate, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.At the introductory news conference in Houston, Udoka made his first public comments since leaving the Celtics, who have declined to specify which policies he violated. Udoka was flanked by Fertitta and Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone, who also declined to provide details on what they know, including whether they had seen the report from the Celtics’ investigation.“What I would say is that we got comfortable that it was an appropriate hire and that we were comfortable in the process,” Stone said. “But just the same way, I wouldn’t talk about exactly what we did with anybody else, I’m not going to talk about it with Ime. It’s just, in my view, it’s not appropriate.”Udoka said that he had been “working on myself in a lot of different ways,” including by undergoing counseling and sensitivity training, and that he would be a better person, leader, father and coach as a result.“I released a statement months ago when everything happened and, you know, apologized to a lot of people for the tough position I put them in,” Udoka said. “And I stand by that and I feel much more remorse even now towards that.”He added, “But the situation — the matter — has been resolved and I can’t really speak much about it.”Fertitta said that he was particularly comfortable with hiring Udoka after conversations with the N.B.A. “We’re a forgiving society and everybody makes mistakes and you know, some things, maybe we shouldn’t forgive people for,” he said. “But I think what happened and his personal situation is definitely something to be forgiven for.”In a meeting with sports editors on Tuesday, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said that he was OK with teams hiring Udoka, though he said he did not know if Houston officials had seen the investigation report.Asked if the Celtics made the right decision to discipline him, Udoka said, “My part in it was to take ownership and accountability.”“I served a suspension and I had to own it, honestly,” Udoka said. “So, same thing I’ll preach to the guys. I can’t sit here and not take accountability to myself. So it was their right to go about it however they wanted to. And that’s the choice they took.”Udoka played seven seasons in the N.B.A., mostly as a reserve, before becoming a respected assistant coach for nearly a decade. The Celtics hired him to be their head coach before the 2021-22 season. His first — and only — season with Boston was a success: He helped lead the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals, where they lost to Golden State. Now, he’ll be taking over a Rockets team that has been one of the league’s worst over the last three years. But Houston has significant salary cap space at its disposal, talented young players and high-value draft picks. More

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      Adam Silver Defends N.B.A.’s Miles Bridges Suspension

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      Miles Bridges, the former Hornets forward, was credited 20 games toward a suspension for domestic violence. Silver said he felt the move seemed fair since Bridges had not played this season.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday defended the unusual disciplinary approach for forward Miles Bridges, who was suspended for 30 games for domestic violence but will miss just 10 games in which he is eligible to play.Bridges, 25, was a restricted free agent but did not sign with a team or play during the 2022-23 season after his arrest in California in June, when he was accused of hitting his girlfriend in front of their children. He pleaded no contest to a felony domestic violence charge in November, but it wasn’t until April 14, after a league investigation, that the N.B.A. announced his punishment: a 30-game suspension, with credit for 20 games because he did not play this season. Typically, players are credited for games only when they are eligible and available to play.On Tuesday, Silver said the league and Bridges had a “mutual agreement” that he would not play during the 2022-23 season — though Silver was careful to say that Bridges was not suspended. Silver said crediting Bridges for 20 games toward the penalty seemed like the right thing to do because he missed a year of income and N.B.A. play. The league also confirmed that Bridges would lose 30 games of pay, even though his suspension would keep him out of just 10 games if he signed a new contract.But if Bridges’s absence this season was supposed to be a form of punishment, it did not appear that way: In December, he joked around with players in Los Angeles at a game between the Lakers and Charlotte Hornets, whom he played for last season. And in February, he told The Associated Press that he might return to play in March. He was sentenced to a year of counseling, and community service. Representatives for Bridges did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Bridges’s punishment has been criticized by some reporters and by fans on social media.The fairness and accountability in the N.B.A.’s disciplinary process has been called into question this season after a series of incidents in which players received different punishments for similar offenses, or were punished more severely than they or their peers felt was fair. League officials said they weigh several factors in meting out penalties, including a person’s past behavior, which may lead to different outcomes. More

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      Houston Rockets to Hire Ime Udoka After Suspension by Boston Celtics

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      Udoka took the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season, but he was abruptly suspended in September for violating team policies.The Houston Rockets plan to hire Ime Udoka, the former Boston Celtics coach who was suspended for workplace misconduct, according to a person who was familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them publicly.The news was first reported by ESPN.The Celtics abruptly suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in late September after an investigation into his conduct by an independent law firm. According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate. The Celtics have declined to release details about Udoka’s conduct, other than to say that he had violated “multiple” team policies. In February, the Celtics fired Udoka, one of the people said.Udoka had taken the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season in his first year as a head coach, after spending nine years as an assistant.Since his suspension, Udoka has been linked with several teams for potential head coach openings. In particular, reports that Udoka was a front-runner for the Nets job surfaced within hours of Steve Nash’s dismissal in November. Udoka had been a Nets assistant in the 2020-21 season. Instead, the Nets hired Jacque Vaughn, one of Nash’s assistants, as their coach.Udoka would succeed Stephen Silas, who went 59-177 in Houston.Darren Abate/Associated PressWith the Celtics, Udoka developed a reputation for being willing to hold players accountable. His approach gained him the respect of the team, and some of the top players continued to publicly support him after his suspension. Forward Jayson Tatum told reporters in February that Udoka was “probably like my most favorite coach I’ve had and that’s not a knock on anybody.” Guard Jaylen Brown told The Ringer in an interview published in March that he was “a little bit shocked” by Udoka’s suspension.“So, whether you stood on this side or this side, they was going to find wrong from a coach that I advocated to bring here to Boston,” Brown said. “I wanted to see him back on his feet here, no matter what it was. I don’t think that’s the wrong thing to feel.”The Celtics replaced Udoka with one of his assistants, Joe Mazzulla, and finished the regular season with the second-best record in the league. The team leads the Atlanta Hawks, 3-1, in their first-round playoff series.The Rockets were one of the worst teams in the N.B.A. this season at 22-60. They ranked near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense. In three seasons as Houston’s head coach, Stephen Silas went 59-177. On April 10, the Rockets declined his option for next season.The Rockets have several talented young players, including Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green. In addition, the Rockets are projected to have enough salary cap space to sign at least one star to a maximum contract this summer, and they have a bevy of future draft picks. Houston, Detroit and San Antonio each have a 14 percent chance to land the No. 1 pick in June’s N.B.A. draft. Victor Wembanyama, the highly rated French prospect, is widely expected to be picked first overall. More

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      A Decade After Sacramento Showed Up for the Kings, the Kings Return the Favor

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      The surprising Kings are pushing Golden State in their first-round N.B.A. playoff matchup. Sacramento fans have waited a long time for a team that matched their fervor.The long-term fate of the Sacramento Kings was still unclear. In 2013, Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern persuaded a new owner to buy the team, a last-minute change that kept it from moving to Seattle.But the Kings’ home was still a dumpy suburban stadium that no longer fit the modern N.B.A. Without a new arena, leaving would always be in the cards.A year later I flew to Sacramento as the City Council convened for a tense vote on whether the city should pay roughly half the cost, $255 million, for construction of a new downtown arena now known as the Golden 1 Center.Kings fans showed up in force, as they always do, despite the team having just skidded to its eighth consecutive losing season. They held aloft placards imploring the Council to say yes. Angry critics were also on hand, dead set against spending taxpayer funds on a sports team’s arena.The Council voted to allocate the money. The Kings stayed put, with the new owner, Vivek Ranadive, promising fans that the team was in it for the long haul. “This is your team, and it is here to stay!” he said.Nine years later, and after a league-record 16 seasons without being in the playoffs, Sacramento’s team is finally making waves in the N.B.A. postseason. Who knew it would take this long?And who could have guessed that the young and suddenly transformed Kings would be going toe to toe against dynastic Golden State, which now calls its home San Francisco, a city that has always viewed Sacramento as a cow town.The Kings of 2023 brim with fast-break speed and precision that conjure memories of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson a decade ago, at the start of a run that brought Golden State four N.B.A. championships and six N.B.A. finals appearances.Of course, the Kings look like the Warriors’ doppelgängers: They have been molded by Mike Brown, who was Steve Kerr’s consigliere for years at Golden State, poached by Sacramento last May.After calling a timeout when there wasn’t one left in Game 4 on Sunday, Stephen Curry was consoled by Golden State Coach Steve Kerr.Darren Yamashita/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConIn playing the Warriors to a 2-2 series standoff so far, Sacramento has been so competitive and irritating that it pushed Draymond Green into giving a retaliatory stomp to Domantas Sabonis’s chest in a Game 2 loss from which Green was ejected (and for which he was suspended from Game 3, which the Warriors won).Game 4 — a 126-125 Warriors victory on Sunday that the Kings could have won on their final possession — was so tight that Kerr left Curry in for 43 of the game’s 48 minutes, including the entire fourth quarter. When was the last time Curry was so pressed in the first round?Kings fans have showed up with a fervor that matched that of Sabonis, Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox. They rushed to defend home court, purchasing nearly every available seat at Golden 1 Center, then set out to invade on the road. At Chase Center, in San Francisco, the Warriors barred Kings fans from bringing in the clanging cowbells that hark back to Sacramento’s agrarian roots and became a sanctified symbol of the Kings’ success in the early 2000s.As the series heads back to Sacramento, think about how long Kings fans have waited to show up in the playoffs. Much has been made of the franchise’s streak of 16 seasons without a playoff appearance. But it has been 19 since the Kings came out on top in a playoff series and 21 seasons, since early in the George Bush the Younger administration, when the team was a genuine playoff threat.Ask Kings die-hards about the loss to the Lakers in seven games in the 2002 Western Conference finals, and you will soon see the bugging of eyes and curses aimed at Robert Horry, who is to Sacramento what Bucky Dent is to Boston. The fans possess two qualities in spades: remarkable loyalty and plenty of pent-up frustration.The crazy cool part of this Kings season is how stunningly surprising it has been.In the long, hard seasons after Ranadive saved the team, Sacramento kept journeying into the dark corners of the N.B.A. wilderness.The team churned through coaches and was run by a revolving door of upper management, which seemingly had no clue. (The decision to draft Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic with the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2018 characterized the head-scratching moves.)Critics frothed against Ranadive, claiming he was a meddling owner in over his head. The N.B.A.’s best practice says you hire basketball executives and let them choose the coach. The Kings did it the other way around.Among all the hoopla about the upstarts from California’s capital city, remember this: It was just last year when the Kings won only 30 games while losing 52, yet another season of frustration, and one that prompted the city’s largest newspaper to run an article with a headline that blared:“Basketball Hell: How Vivek Ranadive Turned Sacramento Kings Into N.B.A.’s Biggest Losers.”Now, the series heads back to the Kings’ home arena for what promises to be a madhouse Game 5 on Wednesday night, the vision conjured at that City Council meeting all those years ago finally fulfilled.Now, the only hell connected to the Kings is the one they are giving the Warriors. More

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      Draymond Green’s Suspension Could Sink Golden State. Again.

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      The Golden State forward’s antics are a constant threat to his team’s championship hopes.This is the bargain the Golden State Warriors have made.They live with the threats Draymond Green sometimes poses to their championship aspirations because of the benefits they enjoy when he is at his best.His energy and determination can frustrate an opponent into big mistakes, and they can lift and embolden his teammates. But he also regularly barrels toward the line between playing hard and playing dirty, and the Warriors tolerate it because he can help them win titles. With his history of rough fouls and taunts, he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt when his behavior is in a gray area, and that can cost the Warriors dearly.Now it has, again.On Thursday night, Golden State will face the Sacramento Kings in Game 3 of a first-round N.B.A. playoff series the Kings lead, 2-0. The Warriors will have to try to save themselves from falling into a nearly insurmountable 3-0 deficit without Green, whom the league suspended for Game 3 after he stepped on the chest of Kings center Domantas Sabonis in Game 2 on Monday. Green was assessed a flagrant-2 foul and ejected with 7 minutes 3 seconds left in the fourth quarter.The N.B.A. made it clear that the suspension was more about Green’s “history of unsportsmanlike acts” than what he did to Sabonis, who precipitated the events by grabbing Green’s ankle while lying on the ground. In an interview with ESPN, Joe Dumars, an N.B.A. executive vice president responsible for player discipline, said the way Green taunted the Sacramento crowd afterward also factored into the decision. As the officials reviewed the play, Green yelled to a crowd that was yelling at him, while clapping and gesturing for the fans to keep going.The N.B.A. said Green’s taunting of the Kings fans factored into the decision to suspend him for Game 3.Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated PressThe suspension might not seem fair, but it’s not an outcome that should surprise Golden State or Green.When the Warriors were in the middle of their second annual unstoppable romp to the N.B.A. finals seven years ago, Green might have cost them a championship.The league has a points system that triggers automatic suspensions related to flagrant fouls. Players are assessed two points for a flagrant-2 foul, and one point for a flagrant-1. If they exceed three points during the postseason, they are suspended for one game.In 2016, Green was assessed a flagrant-1 foul for striking a Cavaliers player — LeBron James — in the groin. Green already had three points for flagrant fouls, so he was suspended for Game 5.“We thrive off of Draymond’s competitiveness and his edge and it’s been very important for us this year,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said at the time. “And maybe that same quality has led him to this point — just his competitiveness and his passion. And that’s all part of it.”Green watched the game from a suite at the baseball stadium next door in Oakland, Calif. His team had a 3-1 series lead at the time, but lost the finals to Cleveland.It was Green’s only playoff suspension until Tuesday, but his conduct has drawn scrutiny many times.Last season, Green was ejected from Game 1 of the Warriors’ second-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies for committing a flagrant-2 foul.“I am never going to change the way I play basketball,” Green said later during that series. “It’s gotten me this far. It’s gotten me three championships, four All-Stars, defensive player of the year. I’m not going to change now.”During Game 2, in Memphis, he took an elbow to the face and had to leave to get stitches. Fans jeered at him, and Green showed his middle fingers to the crowd as he left the game.In last year’s finals against Boston, Green showed how his on-court intensity can help his team and frustrate his opponents.“He’ll do whatever it takes to win,” said Celtics guard Jaylen Brown, who called some of Green’s conduct “illegal.” “He’ll pull you, he’ll grab you, he’ll try to muck the game up because that’s what he does for their team. It’s nothing to be surprised about. Nothing I’m surprised about. He raised his physicality to try to stop us, and we’ve got to raise ours.”Golden State seems willing to live with the risks of having Green on the team as long as he helps bring home championships. He has won four, including last season.John G Mabanglo/EPA, via ShutterstockSaid Stephen Curry, Green’s teammate, during that series: “You feel him in his presence, and the other team feels his presence and his intensity. And that is contagious for all of us.”The Warriors thrive on that energy. Boston fans chanted an expletive at Green, which he admitted rattled him a bit. But after the Warriors won the championship in Game 6 in Boston, Green’s teammates serenaded him with the same chant in the postgame locker room. Their faith in Green had won out again.The problem comes when he goes too far.It has happened in games. It also happened last fall during a practice, when he punched his own teammate, Jordan Poole, in the face. Green took time away from the team and apologized. Poole reacted like someone who just wanted the whole incident to go away.It’s all part of what keeps Green under a disciplinary microscope.This week’s suspension didn’t follow the N.B.A.’s typical method for policing flagrant fouls. Green paid for his reputation.Another player might not have been suspended for what he did. The league might have considered that Sabonis grabbed Green’s leg, instigating the interaction, and felt that being ejected from the game was sufficient punishment. Golden State lost the game, after all. The N.B.A. might have given another player the benefit of the doubt, figured that he really didn’t mean to harm anyone, that he was simply looking for a place to land his foot, as Green insisted after the game.“That’s a possibility, yes,” Dumars said in an interview with ESPN.Instead, the league made a decision that imperiled Golden State’s season.“Each time he’s messed up, my hope is he learns from it and becomes better,” Bob Myers, Golden State’s general manager and president of basketball operations, told reporters on Wednesday.So far, though, the Warriors have accepted that this is who Green is. With their actions, they have accepted that they will sometimes have to suffer the consequences of his behavior because the good with Green has outweighed the bad for them. Perhaps that will start to change, if the bad begins to outweigh the good.This result was a risk the Warriors have lived with for years. More