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      NBA Trade Deadline 2023: Suns Get Durant as Power Shifts to the West

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      No move was bigger than Phoenix Suns’ agreement to trade for Kevin Durant. But the Lakers and Mavericks look stronger after deals of their own.It was supposed to be a quiet dinner with friends and family, who were there to celebrate Mat Ishbia’s big win — officially taking over as the controlling owner of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury.But Ishbia had his sights set on another win.An energetic 43-year-old billionaire in the mortgage industry, Ishbia kept ducking out of the room to take phone calls Wednesday evening as he and James Jones, the Suns’ president of basketball operations and general manager, worked together to make a deal for one of the greatest scorers in N.B.A. history: Kevin Durant.On his first full day on the job, Ishbia agreed to trade with the Nets for Durant, adding him to a competitive Suns lineup that already has the star guards Devin Booker and Chris Paul.In doing so, he had delivered the biggest splash in a season full of them, and he’d done so during a critical moment: the frenzied days before the N.B.A.’s trading deadline, which may have shifted the power in the league to the Western Conference.The Lakers got rid of their ill-fitting and expensive guard, Russell Westbrook. The Dallas Mavericks acquired the disgruntled but dynamic Kyrie Irving from the Nets to pair him with Luka Doncic, the star 23-year-old guard. Around the league, smaller deals tinkered with rosters and reset timelines, but no team changed as much as the Suns. Now, they are a championship contender and a potent threat to everyone else, including elite teams like the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets.It had been difficult to know what to make of the West for much of this season. While the East has two teams at the top that have proved that they can win in the playoffs — Boston and Milwaukee — the West has been a jumble of aging stars and unproven youth.Heading into Thursday, only three games separated fourth-place Dallas from 11th-place Utah. No team is dominating, not even the Nuggets, who have led the conference since Dec. 20 but have developed a reputation for stumbling in the playoffs.The Grizzlies have been firmly in second place since Jan. 1, but they are also an unproven team in the postseason. They earned the No. 2 seed in the West last year, but were challenged by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round before losing to the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champion, in the second round.A few days before Christmas, the Grizzlies’ star guard Ja Morant was interviewed by ESPN’s Malika Andrews. She asked him what teams he would have to go through to win a championship.“Celtics,” Morant said, without hesitation.“No one in the West?” Andrews said.“Nah,” Morant said, shaking his head and smiling mischievously. “I’m fine in the West.”On Christmas, the Grizzlies faced Golden State, then struggling in 11th place. Golden State didn’t have its best player, Stephen Curry, but taunted the young and braggadocious Grizzlies team on the way to a 123-109 victory.The Warriors have had a confusing season as well. Their stars — Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — are older. The team has had injury issues, most notably to Curry and the starting forward Andrew Wiggins. But every once in a while Golden State notches a signature win, like its Christmas game, that reminds everyone why this team has won four championships in the past 10 years.And now Morant’s team has more competition to worry about.After news of the Durant trade broke Thursday, New Orleans Pelicans shooting guard CJ McCollum recalled Morant’s oft-memed words.“This all because @JaMorant said he was good in the West,” McCollum posted on Twitter, adding at the end three emojis of laughter with tears.The Los Angeles Lakers traded Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team deal on Thursday.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressHours before the Durant trade surfaced, the Lakers agreed to trade Westbrook to the Jazz in a three-team trade that included a package of draft picks and players headlined by Minnesota’s D’Angelo Russell. The Lakers are in 13th place in the West but just four games away from a secure spot in the playoffs above the play-in tournament positions.With LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the Lakers’ roster, it stood to reason that a few tweaks could dramatically change their fortunes. Russell, whom the Lakers drafted No. 2 overall in 2015 but traded two seasons later, is a much better 3-point shooter than Westbrook and should help on offense. Two other players the Lakers received in the Westbrook trade — Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt — should help the team, too.The addition of Durant, one of the best to ever to play the game, could make the West a lot less open.On Wednesday, Ishbia woke up at 5 a.m. in his Detroit-area home and flew to Phoenix with his wife, three children, parents and some close friends.After meeting with some team employees, he walked onto a stage at the Suns’ arena, the Footprint Center, for his introductory news conference. He eschewed the lectern, using it only to hold a bottle of water he sipped from during questions. He paced the stage with the energy of a start-up founder giving a keynote address, using his hands to emphasize his rapidly delivered words.“I’m not going to be sitting here counting the dollars,” Ishbia said when asked if he would be willing to pay the league’s luxury tax penalties to exceed the salary cap, adding, “Money follows success, not the other way around.”He spent the afternoon at the team’s practice facility strategizing with Jones. Later, after the dinner with his family and friends, Ishbia stayed up all night working on the details of the Durant deal.Durant, 34, improves the team immediately, and dramatically. He has been out with a knee injury since Jan. 12, but his health is the only thing that has slowed him lately.He comes to a Phoenix team searching for a steady postseason identity.The past two seasons have ended with different kinds of heartbreak for the Suns. They lost to the Bucks in the finals two years ago, with Paul working through injuries. Then last year, despite setting a franchise regular-season wins record, they ended their season with an embarrassing blowout loss to the Mavericks in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.If all goes as planned, the West will now go through Phoenix. More

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      How LeBron James Scored a Record-Breaking 38,390 Points

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      No one thought LeBron James would overtake Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the N.B.A.’s career scoring leader when he came to the league as an 18-year-old. It didn’t seem like anyone could. The top 250 scorers in N.B.A. history Line chart showing career points for the top 250 scorers in N.B.A. history. The line for LeBron […] More

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      Lakers Agree to Trade Russell Westbrook in a Three-Team Deal

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      Westbrook, a nine-time All-Star, would head to Utah after not fitting smoothly with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Minnesota’s D’Angelo Russell will return to the Lakers, who drafted him in 2015.The Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to trade guard Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team deal, according to three people familiar with the trade who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.As part of the exchange, the Lakers will receive Minnesota Timberwolves guard D’Angelo Russell, whom they drafted No. 2 overall in 2015 then traded away after just two seasons.The agreement was first reported by ESPN.The deal will end Westbrook’s tumultuous, and brief, tenure with the Lakers. The Washington Wizards traded Westbrook to the Lakers before the 2021-22 season, giving the Lakers high hopes that he would be part of a so-called superteam with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. To acquire Westbrook, the Lakers traded multiple players who were crucial to their championship run in 2020. It didn’t pan out.Westbrook, a nine-time All-Star and the 2017 most valuable player, is versatile and athletic at his best, easily able to fill up box scores. But in Los Angeles, Westbrook struggled to adjust to coming off the bench and not being the primary ballhandler. That, along with his below-average perimeter shooting, sunk the chances of him fitting with James and Davis.The Lakers (25-30) are out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference, despite their championship aspirations. Westbrook averaged 16.2 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game off the bench for the Lakers this season.The Westbrook trade will also send to the Jazz forward Juan Toscano-Anderson, center Damian Jones and a first-round pick in the 2027 draft. The Jazz will mark Westbrook’s fifth team in five years, an unusual level of movement for a former M.V.P. still relatively close to his prime.The Jazz will send Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt to the Lakers, and they will trade Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker to Minnesota.Russell, 26, who had been with Minnesota since the 2019-20 season, has had an up-and-down career. The Lakers traded him to the Nets in 2017, before his third season. He earned an All-Star selection with the Nets in 2019 but was sent to Golden State that summer as part of a sign-and-trade deal for Kevin Durant. Only months into the 2019-20 season, Golden State traded him to the Timberwolves, where he played alongside his close friend Karl-Anthony Towns. The potential was high for yet another dynamic star pairing in the N.B.A.But Minnesota, like the Lakers, has languished in the standings — battling for a playoff spot when the expectations were to be near the top of the West, especially after acquiring center Rudy Gobert, one of the best defensive players in the league, in a summer trade with Utah.Even so, Russell averaged 17.9 points and 6.2 assists per game for Minnesota this season, one of the best of his career. Crucially for the Lakers, he will provide another shooter as they attempt to salvage their season: He is shooting 39.1 percent from deep this season. For his career, he’s at 36 percent from 3-point range.The Lakers will add multiple role players as well. Beasley averaged 13.4 points per game for the Jazz this year and shot 35.9 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. Vanderbilt averaged 8.3 points and 7.9 rebounds per game on 55.6 percent shooting from the field, mostly off the bench.Russell’s replacement in Minnesota would be Conley, who started 42 games at point guard for the surprisingly resilient Jazz this season. Conley, a 2021 All-Star, averaged a career-high 7.7 assists for the Jazz, but his scoring numbers have dipped to 10.7 points per game, his lowest output since his second season in the league. He is a more traditional point guard than Russell and may fit better next to Anthony Edwards, the third-year guard who has emerged as a franchise player for the Timberwolves. More

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      The Story of LeBron James’s 38,390 Points

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      Stephen Curry’s favorite memory of playing against LeBron James isn’t from any of the three championships he won with the Golden State Warriors against James’s teams. It was from his 2009-10 rookie season, when James was in his seventh year with the Cleveland Cavaliers.They first met when James attended one of Curry’s college games for Davidson. The night before their first N.B.A. clash, in Cleveland, James hosted Curry at his home.“For me, as a rookie, it was a whirlwind of excitement,” Curry said. He added: “The fact that he’s as big as he is, as strong as he is, as skilled as he is, there’s never a time he can’t get a shot off.”James scored 31 points, most coming from near the rim or at the free-throw line. He hit just one 3-pointer.More than a decade later, James’s game looks different, though he can still dunk as if the rim insulted his honor. The N.B.A. has evolved rapidly since James entered the league in 2003, and his ability to change with it helped him break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s seemingly unbreakable career scoring record of 38,387 points on Tuesday. James has 38,390 points now.“Nobody could imagine somebody doing it,” said Drew Gooden, who played hundreds of games alongside James in Cleveland. He added: “If you would have said or told somebody in 2003 when LeBron James got drafted when he was 18 years old that he was going to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring record, they would have looked at you like you were crazy.”Drew Gooden (90) played with LeBron James in Cleveland from 2004 to 2008. He cited James’s strict diet as one of his secrets to staying in the game for 20 seasons.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE, via Getty ImagesN.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, in an email, called the record “one of the most hallowed” in all sports. Of James, he said, “His extraordinary athleticism, power and speed leave you in awe.”Over the past 20 years, James’s ascent to the top of the scoring list has impressed Hall of Fame players as he made a definitive case to join their ranks and perhaps be considered the best among them. His shots have felled the toughest competitors, yet made them fans as he blocked them from fulfilling their sports dreams. His teammates have amassed stories of the joys of playing with him — and the pain of being on the other side.At 38, James is one of the N.B.A.’s oldest players. He’s also still one of its best.“It’s not like he’s holding on for dear life just to get the award,” Curry said. “He’s still playing at a high level. So it’s pretty damn impressive.”‘Scored baskets in every way possible’Abdul-Jabbar, 75, played in the N.B.A. from 1969 to 1989 after starring for three seasons at U.C.L.A. When he broke Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in April 1984, he did so with his patented, and nearly unstoppable, shot: the sky hook.James hasn’t cultivated that kind of signature.“Now, is there a shot that you know that he got that would make you say LeBron James? No,” said George Gervin, 70, a Hall of Fame player who won four scoring titles and is known for his finger roll.Instead, Gervin said, James’s “greatest attribute will be his ability to be consistent.”James, shown here in the 2007 Eastern Conference semifinals, has developed his 3-point shooting over time. Early in his career, he focused on dunks and short-range shots.Suzy Allman for The New York TimesJames has methodically developed his game all over the floor, borrowing from the greats. During any given game, he might shoot the fadeaway from the post perfected by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, go for a logo 3-pointer like Curry or do the “Dream Shake” he was taught by its namesake, Hakeem Olajuwon.“LeBron has scored baskets in every way possible,” Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers said.Rivers, who has also coached the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers, said he recently ran into James in Los Angeles and joked, “I think you scored at least 10,000 of those points against one of my teams.”He said James responded, “‘Those Celtics points were the hardest damn points that I’ve ever had to score.’”Defenders became “more fearful” as James expanded his game, Rivers said.“When LeBron first started, you wanted to take away his right hand. His drive. His attacks to the basket,” Rivers said. “You actually would sag off and give him shots. Then he started going both ways with the ball, which made it more difficult to guard. Then he got the in-between game.”The Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo, one of the league’s best defenders, said James was “like a computer.”“He’s calculating everything that is going on at a rapid speed,” Adebayo said. “So it would be like you typing normally and you got somebody on, like, Excel saying it to the computer and the computer is just reading what they’re saying and just typing it.”Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat, right, described James as a “computer” because of how quickly he can outsmart opponents on the court.Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJames is known for his savvy, but also for his strength.“His area of attack is at the top of the floor,” said Mike Brown, who coached James for five seasons in Cleveland. “Everybody knows it, but nobody can stop it.”Diana Taurasi, who holds the W.N.B.A.’s career scoring record, said James was “probably still the most dangerous man in transition.”Gooden said he “took it for granted” that he had played with James. That is, until 2008, when Cleveland traded Gooden to Chicago and he tried to make the Cavaliers regret it the first time he faced off with James.“I jumped right in LeBron’s way, and it was like a freight train hit me,” Gooden said. “He came across with two elbows. All his elbows went across my face. Basically, he got an and-one. And I came out of the smoke with a bloody, busted lip. And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s what everybody’s been having to deal with.’”More passer than scorer?James’s points are often an afterthought to his skill as a passer.“He never set out to be a scoring leader,” Golden State forward Draymond Green said. “He’s never been viewed as a scorer. I think that’s more impressive than anything.”James passed Magic Johnson for sixth on the career assists list in December and passed Mark Jackson and Steve Nash to become fourth in January.Jeff Green, who was James’s Cavaliers teammate in 2017-18, said James’s passing “allowed me to get a lot of buckets.”James has led the league in assists only once, in the 2019-20 season. But Erik Spoelstra, who coached James to two championships with the Heat, said he believed that James could have done it any time he wanted to.James has said he thinks of himself as a passer more than a scorer. He rose to No. 4 on the career assists list in January.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“The skill that I thought was most fascinating with him, with his size and skill and his vision, is his passing,” Spoelstra said.Some think the most momentous play of James’s career wasn’t even on offense.Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said: “In terms of memorable, it’s not points he has scored. It’s his chase-down block of Andre in the finals.”Late in Game 7 of the 2016 N.B.A. finals against Golden State, James, then with Cleveland, flashed the length of the court to block a crucial shot by Andre Iguodala, helping the Cavaliers complete an improbable championship run.“I never got mad about that,” Iguodala said. “Like, people think it hurts me when they say, ‘You got blocked by LeBron.’ That was an amazing play. Even in real time, I was like, ‘Geez, bro, that was incredible.’ ”‘A grown man playing among kids’During James’s rookie year, he averaged fewer than three 3-point attempts a game. Last season, he averaged eight a game — a reflection of the N.B.A.’s shift to emphasize 3-point shooting and his willingness to go with the tide. It’s also a reflection of graceful aging to preserve his legs.Abdul-Jabbar rarely missed games because of injury and James largely had not either, until recent seasons with the Lakers. James is known for a diligent diet and exercise regimen that has allowed him to stretch his career and remain dominant past the typical N.B.A. retirement age.“The reward for doing that is he’s a grown man playing among kids now,” Gooden said.As James’s game has drifted toward the perimeter, his drives to the basket — and the foul shots they often draw — have become less common. Instead, he’s become a better shooter, with more of his points coming from 3-point range.Still, Silver said he had always been struck by “the sheer force of his dunks.”In 2012, when James was with the Heat, he jumped over the 5-foot-11 John Lucas III for a dunk against Chicago.“It happened so fast that I didn’t know he actually jumped over me until it was on the Jumbotron and we called the timeout and the crowd was going crazy,” said Lucas, who was an assistant coach on James’s Lakers team last season. “My phone was blowing up at halftime.”James dunked over the head of Chicago Bulls guard John Lucas III in 2012.Wilfredo Lee/Associated PressLucas even has a picture of himself getting dunked on hanging in his house.“That picture is going to be in the Hall of Fame,” Lucas said. “I have a great sense of humor.”Malik Monk, who played with James on the Lakers last season, said he often teased Lucas about the dunk. “He said he wanted to punch him,” Monk said.James has spent a career making once-in-a-lifetime athleticism look casual, which is why his career-best 61-point performance against the Charlotte Hornets in 2014 seemingly blends in with last season’s 56-point explosion against Curry and Golden State, not to mention his scoring at least 40 points against every N.B.A. team.But James’s greatness is far from casual. He has been a symbol of consistent dominance for decades — just as Abdul-Jabbar was. When James entered the league straight from high school, he did so with unprecedented hype. He had already been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. His high school games were on national television.As Rivers put it: “LeBron is one of the few people in the history of sports to overachieve from a position that was impossible to overachieve.”Decades later, perhaps the most remarkable fact about James’s career is that his scoring at age 38 is at least as good as it’s ever been — meaning the story of his offensive prowess has not been fully written. More

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      Like a Record, LeBron James’s Age Is Just a High Number

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      Still among the best players in the N.B.A. at 38, James is now 36 points away from the league’s career scoring record. He could break it at home on Tuesday.NEW ORLEANS — LeBron James headed into Saturday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans needing 63 points to break the N.B.A. career scoring record. It was a large number for anyone to reach in a single game, especially a 38-year-old in his 20th N.B.A. season.And yet spectators wearing purple-and-gold jerseys and T-shirts displaying James’s No. 6 flooded Canal and Bourbon Streets ahead of Saturday’s game, and then they piled into the Smoothie King Center, most of them hoping to witness N.B.A. history.Larry Unrein, a New York native who traveled to three of the Lakers’ last four games, came to New Orleans a day after his 40th birthday, hoping for a belated gift.“He could break it, dude,” Unrein said before the game. “He’s 38, and he’s playing like he’s 24. I turned 40 yesterday and aspire to take care of my body, drink tons of water and stretch.” Unrein, who skateboards in his free time, said James was inspiring him to skate into old age.An employee at the arena named Anita, who would not give her last name but said she had been working there for 10 years, was nervous that the record might be broken on the Pelicans’ home floor. “We can’t let him do it here,” she said. “It ain’t about the King tonight.”No one, really, should have thought that James, at this point in his career, would score 63 points on Saturday. (His career high is 61 points, in a game against Charlotte in 2014.) But James has provided many miracles in his career. That he is competing at such a high level at 38 seems to be just one more — a feat that is altering perceptions of athletic limits and athletic primes.James fell short of the scoring record on Saturday, finishing with 27 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists, and the Lakers (25-29) lost to the Pelicans (27-27), 131-126. James is now 36 points away from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 38,387 points from 1969 to 1989, and tickets for the Lakers’ home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night have soared in anticipation that James will break the record then.On Saturday, James made plays that explained why many supporters will always believe that another miracle is on its way. He played 40 minutes, more than any of his teammates. It was the third time in his last four games that he played at least 40 minutes, a figure, he said, that was “catching up to him.”“I’m tired as hell,” he said after the game. “But I’ll be ready to go on Tuesday.”“I think it’s historic on a lot of different levels,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said earlier this season. “For him to be at this point of his career and still able to produce at the level in which he’s producing, I just think all of us, just really being able to witness it, be a part of it — it shows his competitive spirit, his no-quit mentality.”A moment of “How is LeBron doing this at this age?” came in the third quarter, with the Lakers leading by 7 and forward Herbert Jones barreling toward the rim. James took a charge, flying onto his back from the impact of Jones’s crashing into him. Many N.B.A. players, especially stars and older players, are reluctant to take a charge, given the risk of injury or, more simply, the wear and tear on the body over a long season. Even Kobe Bryant, who was known for his toughness and mentality when he played for the Lakers, was publicly against taking charges.Bryant’s reasoning was that great players such as Scottie Pippen and Larry Bird were injured after taking many charges throughout their careers, while others, including Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, didn’t take charges and avoided significant long-term injuries.But there was James, nearly 40, taking a charge on a player listed at 6 feet 7 inches and 206 pounds.James plunged into the crowd after diving for a loose ball.Emily Kask for The New York TimesWith just under three minutes remaining in Saturday’s game and the Lakers losing by 4, James dived for a ball heading out of bounds, launching himself above courtside fans. It was the second time he had done so in recent weeks. He did not save the ball, but players of his age and status would be excused for not even making the effort. James would not excuse himself: There he was, his blue-and-pink shoes among the fans’ faces in the crowd.“I think it inspires them out there to do their jobs,” Ham said this season about the impact of James’s play on his teammates.James aggressively attacked the basket throughout the night, bumping and fighting through fouls to make layups and sprinting past players for scores. On multiple occasions, younger teammates passed up layup opportunities to give the ball to their much older, but somehow much more explosive, teammate, who threw down dunks that ignited fans, many who wore his jersey and some who wore New Orleans colors.James was not perfect. He often settled for 3-point shots, including an off-balance one late in the game, which he missed and seemed foolish to take. He finished 1 for 7 from long range. Defensively, he, like his teammates, did little to stop the Pelicans’ 42-point barrage in the third quarter, which sparked their win.As James went to the free-throw line with 18 seconds left and the Lakers losing by 6, he missed his first attempt. If the game wasn’t over already, it was effectively over after that.But Anita, the stadium worker, wasn’t buying it. She thought James was too good to miss a free throw. This had to be part of a script: “He’s just doing that,” she said, “so he could get that record in L.A.” More

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      LeBron James Keeps the World Watching

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      LeBron James sat in the visitors locker room at Madison Square Garden with ice on his 38-year-old knees and 28 more points to his name after his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks in overtime. James’s teammate Anthony Davis teased him about how close he was to breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record, then about 90 points away.Suddenly, James remembered something. His mother, Gloria James, was set to go on vacation soon. She might miss his record-breaking game.He called her on speakerphone, with a dozen attentive reporters close by. He asked when she was leaving, reminding her every once in a while, lest she disclose too much, that reporters could hear the conversation. Eventually, he looked around, sheepishly, and said he would call her later.“I love you,” he said. Then, just before he ended the call, he added: “I love you more.”It was typical James: He brings you along for the ride, but on his terms, revealing what he wants to reveal and no more. It is perhaps the only way someone who has been so famous for most of his life could survive the machine of modern celebrity.As he has closed in on Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 38,387 points, the very idea of what it means to be a star has shifted since James scored his first two points on Oct. 29, 2003. And James has helped define that shift. He has risen above the din of social media celebrities and 24-hour news cycles, buoyed by the basketball fans who love him or love to hate him.James, at age 38, is closing in on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record while playing with the energy of a much younger version of himself.Ashley Landis/Associated PressHe has been a selfie-snapping tour guide for this journey, with a portfolio that now extends well beyond the court. He has a production company and a show on HBO. He’s acted in a few movies and received some good reviews. His foundation has helped hundreds of students in his hometown Akron, Ohio, and a public school the foundation helps run there, the I Promise School, focuses on children who struggle academically. His opinions are covered as news, given far more weight than those of almost any other athlete.“Hopefully I made an impact enough so people appreciate what I did, and still appreciate what I did off the floor as well, even when I’m done,” James said in an interview. “But I don’t live for that. I live for my family, for my friends and my community that needs that voice.”Basketball Is the ‘Main Thing’In early 2002, James was a high school junior and on the cover of Sports Illustrated. News didn’t travel as quickly as it does now. Not everyone had cellphones, and the ones they had couldn’t livestream videos of whatever anyone did. Social media meant chat rooms on AOL or Yahoo. Facebook had yet to launch, and the deluge of social networking apps was years away.“Thank God I didn’t have social media; that’s all I can say,” James said in October when asked to reflect on his entry into the league.As a teenage star, he was spared the incessant gaze of social media and the bullying and harsh criticism that most likely would have come with it.But social media, in its many changing forms, has also helped people express their personalities and share their lives with others. It lets them define themselves — something particularly useful for public figures whose stories get told one way or another.James began thinking about that early in his career.His media and production firm, now called the SpringHill Company, made a documentary about James and his high school teammates titled “More Than a Game” in 2008. It also developed “The Shop,” an HBO show James sometimes appears on with celebrity guests, including the former President Barack Obama and the rapper Travis Scott, talking like friends in a barbershop.James has built a portfolio of movies and television shows that have expanded his influence beyond basketball.Coley Brown for The New York TimesJames likes to say that he always keeps “the main thing the main thing” — meaning that no matter what else is happening in his life, he prioritizes basketball. He honors the thing that created his fame.He led his teams to the N.B.A. finals in eight consecutive years and won championships with three different franchises. He was chosen for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award four times, and he has dished the fourth-most assists in N.B.A. history.James’s talent meant it didn’t take long for him to become the face of the N.B.A. He has mostly embraced that, capitalizing on an era when sports fandom was no longer about sitting down to watch a game so much as it was about catching small bites of the most compelling moments.“People’s interest in athletes moves very quickly, especially with the N.B.A. season,” said Omar Raja, who in 2014 founded House of Highlights, an Instagram account for viral sports moments, because he wanted to share clips of the Miami Heat during James’s time playing there with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.“LeBron’s Instagram stories would do as well as his poster dunks, and you were like, ‘This is crazy,’” Raja said.House of Highlights reposted two videos from James’s Instagram stories in May 2019. One showed James and a former teammate dancing in a yard. Another showed James and friends, including Russell Westbrook, smoking cigars. Both videos outperformed anything that happened in the playoffs.‘I Wish I Could Do Normal Things’James has used his fame to further business opportunities and build his financial portfolio. He has used it to both shield his children and prepare them for growing up in his shadow.He has used it for social activism, most notably in speaking about Black civil rights and racism. That began in 2012, when he and his Heat teammates wore hooded sweatshirts and posted a group photo on social media after the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed in Florida. The Heat decided to transfer some of their spotlight to the national conversation about racism that emerged.James wearing Eric Garner’s words “I Can’t Breathe” at a pregame warm up in 2014. Garner, a Black man, died after the police in New York put him a chokehold.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesBlack N.B.A. players have a long history of speaking out or demonstrating against racism and discrimination: Abdul-Jabbar and the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell were vocal about the racist dangers they faced in the 1960s and ’70s. But what made the actions of James and his teammates stand out was that the superstar athletes of the ’90s and early 2000s — Michael Jordan, most notably — had often shied away from overt activism.What James chooses to talk about (or not talk about) draws notice.In 2019, when a Houston Rockets executive angered the Chinese government by expressing support for Hong Kong, James was criticized for not speaking out against China’s human rights abuses. James said he did not know enough to talk about them, but some skeptics accused him of avoiding the subject to protect his financial interests in China.And in 2020, when protests swept the country after the police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both of whom were Black, the N.B.A. made social justice part of its ethos. James used many of his news conferences that season to discuss racism and police violence against Black people.The attention to James’s words separates him from others, as does the attention to his life.“I don’t want to say it ever becomes too much, but there are times when I wish I could do normal things,” James said Thursday while standing in an arena hallway in Indianapolis about an hour after the Lakers beat the Pacers there. A member of a camera crew that has been following him for the past few years filmed him as he spoke.“I wish I could just walk outside,” James said. “I wish I could just, like, walk into a movie theater and sit down and go to the concession stand and get popcorn. I wish I could just go to an amusement park just like regular people. I wish I could go to Target sometimes and walk into Starbucks and have my name on the cup just like regular people.”He added: “I’m not sitting here complaining about it, of course not. But it can be challenging at times.”James grew up without stable housing or much money, but his life now is not like most people’s because of the money he has made through basketball and business (he’s estimated to be worth more than $1 billion), and because of the extraordinary athletic feats he makes look so easy. Once in a while, as when he’s on the phone with his mother, he manages to come off like just another guy.James speaks at the opening ceremony for the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, in 2018.Phil Long/Associated PressAnother example: In October 2018, during his first Lakers training camp, James gave up wine as part of a preseason diet regimen. He was asked if abstaining had affected his body.“Yeah, it made me want wine more,” James said, relatably. “But I feel great. I feel great. I did a two-week cleanse and gave up a lot of things for 14 days.”James had also quit gluten, dairy, artificial sugars and all alcohol for those two weeks, he said.What was left?“In life?” James said. “Air.”There to See HimThe past few seasons have been challenging for James on the court. He is playing as well as he ever has, but the Lakers have struggled since winning a championship in 2020.They missed the playoffs last season and are in 12th place in the Western Conference, though they have played better recently. James, his coaches and his teammates all insist that he spends more time thinking about how to get the Lakers into the playoffs than about breaking the scoring record.Still, Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas, buzzed on Tuesday night. Because of him.Celebrities, fans and media came to watch him, just as they did when he was a constant in the N.B.A. finals.He taped a pregame interview with Michael Strahan courtside. Then he went through his pregame warm-up, shooting from different spots on the court, working against an assistant coach, who tried to defend him. He took a few seconds to dance near the 3-point line as he waited for someone to pass the ball back to him.He was in what he’s made into a comfortable place: the center of the basketball universe. More

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      LeBron James Is Reminded in Boston That a Career Is Not All Glory

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      James drew closer to the N.B.A. career scoring record ahead of games in New York, but the Celtics proved again why they have been one of his great adversaries over the past 20 years.BOSTON — LeBron James was warming up for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night when an old foe wearing shamrock-themed pajama pants strode onto the court to greet him. Paul Pierce, the former Celtics star, embraced James, who got a kick out of Pierce’s outfit.It was a warm moment that lacked any sort of discernible shelf life. A few seconds later, James appeared on the arena’s giant video screens. Several thousand early-arriving fans booed him.With LeBronapalooza revving into high gear as James approaches the N.B.A. career scoring record, his trip to Boston was a reminder of some of the less glamorous stuff — the tight games and controversial calls, the fraught rivalries and hostile crowds — that has filled out his career, shaping him and motivating him. And the Celtics have been right there throughout, providing paint for his canvas.Saturday’s game was another doozy. The Celtics’ 125-121 victory in overtime came after James justifiably felt that he had been fouled on a layup attempt at the end of regulation. A foul call would have sent him to the free throw line with a chance to win it. Instead, the officials missed it. James yelled and protested and fell to his knees. Then he seethed at his locker after another loss by the Lakers (23-27) in a season full of them.“I don’t get it,” he said. “I’m attacking the paint just as much as any of the other guys in this league that’s getting double-digit free throws a night. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.”The messy end obscured another enormous effort by James, who finished with 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. (He was 5 for 6 from the free throw line.) And it is worth emphasizing: He is regularly posting numbers like those at 38 years old, the third-oldest player in the N.B.A.Ahead of the Lakers’ trip to New York for games against the Nets on Monday and the Knicks on Tuesday, James has now scored 38,271 career points, putting him 117 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record.It is a number so large that it defies belief, a number so large that it can be difficult to conceptualize. James has scored against defenders who have long since retired, in arenas that no longer exist.How about this? When James faced the Celtics on Saturday, it had been 19 years 2 months 14 days since his first regular-season game in Boston. That game was on Nov. 14, 2003, back when TD Garden was known as the Fleet Center, when James was an 18-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers and nine games into his career. It was also when Jayson Tatum — now the face of the Celtics — was 5.James has been averaging 30 points a game this season. In Boston on Saturday night, he had 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesJames struggled in that game, a narrow loss, scoring just 10 points to increase his career total at the time to 146. Vin Baker played 36 minutes that day for the Celtics, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas led the Cavaliers with 22 points. For James, it was an inauspicious opening act ahead of two decades of tussling with the Celtics.By now, each team in the league can cite moments (plural) when James did something to destroy the collective morale of its highly paid employees. A fast-break dunk that sealed a win. A long jumper that clinched a playoff series. A pass, a defensive stop, a blocked shot.The Celtics may be able to cite more of those moments than most teams. Consider that James has won five straight playoff series against them, dating to 2011. But as a much younger player with the Cavaliers, James was stymied by them. The Celtics of the Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen era had savvy and experience, and they bounced the Cavaliers from the playoffs in 2008 and 2010.Their series in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals may have changed the arc of the league. After the Cavaliers were eliminated, James removed his jersey before he reached the visiting locker room.“A friend of mine told me, ‘I guess you’ve got to go through a lot of nightmares before you realize your dream,’” he said at the time. “That’s what’s going on for me individually right now.”James thought he had been fouled by Tatum on the final play in regulation. No foul was called, and the Lakers lost in overtime.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressAbout two months later, James emerged from a luxury vehicle at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich, Conn., to announce in a televised special that he was joining the Miami Heat as a free agent.The new-look Heat proceeded to eliminate the Celtics from the playoffs in 2011 and again in 2012, after a seven-game scrap in the conference finals. That year, the Celtics were actually home for Game 6 with a chance to clinch the series. Before the game, Doc Rivers, who was then the Celtics’ coach, instructed his players to force James to shoot from the outside. They heeded his message.“The way he was scoring, if you go by a scouting report, was the way we wanted him to score,” Rivers, now the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, said in an interview. “Like, if he had to score, it had to be from the outside. It had to be with the 3-ball. We didn’t feel like he could beat us with that. And he did.”James extended the series by collecting 45 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in a lopsided win. He shot 19 of 26 from the field and 2 of 4 from 3-point range.“That,” Rivers said, “was the moment LeBron became a champion.”The Heat went on to win Game 7, and then defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the N.B.A. finals as James won the first of his four championships.As for roughing up the Celtics, it seemed to become one of James’s favorite pastimes. During his second stint with the Cavaliers, he helped oust the Celtics from the postseason all three times he played them.So perhaps there was some relief in Boston when James decamped for Los Angeles before the start of the 2018-19 season, since it meant the Celtics would see him less often. But it also seemed fitting that he signed with the Lakers, whose rivalry with the Celtics is nearly as old as the league itself.On Saturday, Celtics fans showed up in “Beat L.A.” shirts and jeered every time James touched the ball, which was really just their way of honoring him. The game itself was basketball as theater, same as ever, all the way to the bitter end.Sopan Deb More

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      Luka Doncic Is Scoring More and Playing When He Doesn’t Have To

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      Even in pickup games, Doncic is showing a leap compared with last season, which ended with a disappointing exit in the Western Conference finals.LOS ANGELES — Jared Dudley, an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, put together a pickup game earlier this month when his team had an official day off.He invited players who usually don’t see much time on the floor, including Jaden Hardy, Theo Pinson and Frank Ntilikina, as well as A.J. Lawson, who had been on the team for less than a month. The goal was to get them a few extra minutes to play, and to let Dudley and other coaches help them build up the informal dynamics of working together.As Dudley organized the game, Luka Doncic noticed. “I want to play,” he said.Dudley was stunned because, in his experience, star players rarely add on to their workload in this way.He wondered if it was a good idea because Doncic had played 43 minutes (and scored 43 points) the previous night in a loss to the Clippers. But the team’s medical staff approved, so he let Doncic play.“Just loves to hoop,” Dudley said.Doncic’s passion has shown in the games that count, too.It had been clear since Doncic was drafted into the N.B.A. in 2018 that he was a special player. But five seasons in, he seems to have taken a superstar leap. Entering Friday, Doncic led the league with 33.7 points per game and was fifth in assists per game with 8.8. By his own evaluation, he came into the season more prepared than he has in seasons past, perhaps motivated by losing to Golden State in the Western Conference finals last season.“Until you win the championship, I think it always has to push you,” Doncic said. “And it will for me for sure.”On Jan. 11, when Doncic insisted on playing in the unnecessary pickup game in Los Angeles, he was in the midst of an astounding stretch of basketball.The next day he scored 35 points against the Lakers, which put his average over a 10-game stretch to 40.2 points. During that span, he scored 60 points against the Knicks, put up 51 against the San Antonio Spurs and had 50 against the Houston Rockets.Doncic scored 51 against the Spurs in a Dec. 31 game.Ronald Cortes/Getty ImagesAgainst the Knicks, Doncic also had 21 rebounds and 10 assists, making him the first player in N.B.A. history to have 60 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a game.“The history of the game is written by the players, and it was written again tonight,” Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said after the Knicks game. “For a player, Luka, doing something that’s never been done before, it’s hard to do.”Kidd added: “Elgin Baylor, Wilt, he was in that class, and then he separated himself and made his own class.”The Mavericks needed every bit of his performance. They won that game by only 5 points in overtime. Doncic scored 18 in the fourth quarter, adding 7 in overtime, which outscored the Knicks entirely.“This kid doesn’t quit,” Kidd said.Doncic passed 50 points in a game for the first time last season, when he had a 51-point effort against the Clippers in February.This season, the Mavericks need him to score more. They lost the reliable scorer Jalen Brunson in free agency when he signed with the Knicks, and have had to weather injuries to other key players.Doncic also spent the summer playing with the Slovenian national team, then returned to Dallas prepared to take a big step.“I was way more ready than last year at the start, so that was really the most important thing,” Doncic said.Dudley saw that in numerous ways. Doncic was in better shape. He was more aggressive in early games. He leads the league in first-quarter scoring, averaging 11.4 points during that period.“He plays the whole first quarter now because we can play him at a higher rate,” Dudley said. “We believe defensively he can keep up with that. And shooting at such a high percentage. I think as confidence grows, he knows what he is as a player, he knows no one can stop him.”Dudley, who played the final stretch of his N.B.A. career with LeBron James on the Lakers, sometimes uses James as an example for Doncic. He knows Doncic will respect learning about James, because he was one of Doncic’s favorite players growing up. James and Doncic traded jerseys during Doncic’s rookie year, and Doncic has that jersey hanging in his house in Dallas.The maturity he shows in his play makes it sometimes jarring in moments when that lapses.“He’s way wiser than his age; he acts like he’s been here before,” Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith, 29, said. “But, you know, sometimes you forget he’s only 23 years old. You forget until he does something crazy like kick the ball all the way up into the stands. Then you’re like, OK, all right. He’s 23.”Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith have bonded over pickup games.LM Otero/Associated PressTo be fair, Doncic hasn’t been fined for kicking the ball into the stands since 2019. But he does have a quick temper on the court. He has been assessed 10 technical fouls this season, though one was rescinded.“Off the court, I’m not an angry person,” Doncic said with a smile.Finney-Smith has seen that up close.They became friends even though they came from very different places and started their N.B.A. careers in very different ways. Finney-Smith grew up in Portsmouth, Va., and joined the Mavericks as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Two years later, the Mavericks drafted Doncic, who had played professional basketball in Europe since he was 16, with the No. 3 overall pick.That off-season, Finney-Smith and Doncic spent a lot of time together and bonded over pickup games.“We worked out with each other a whole week straight, even on the weekends, and played ones all night, all day,” Finney-Smith said. “Played full court one-on-one.”Then, as now, Doncic just loved to hoop. More