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      ‘The Interview’: Joel Embiid Believes He Could Have Been the GOAT

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      If all goes according to plan, the star-laden American men’s basketball team will romp to a gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games next month. Which means that for one of the team’s linchpins, the Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, the most complicated challenge may have been choosing to play for the United States in the first place.Embiid, who is 30, is a native of Cameroon who also holds French and American citizenship. France aggressively courted Embiid, and his decision to instead join the U.S. team led to withering criticism from the French basketball community. (Cameroon’s team did not qualify for this year’s Games.)Listen to the Conversation With Joel EmbiidThe N.B.A. star talks Philly cheesesteaks, Twitter trolling and playing for Team U.S.A. over France in the Olympics.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | NYT Audio AppBut things never go easily for Embiid. He is one of the sport’s best players but also something of a Sisyphean figure. For all his success — including an M.V.P. award in 2023 and multiple scoring titles — he has never achieved the N.B.A.’s biggest prize: a championship. The Sixers have repeatedly fallen short in the playoffs, at times in heartbreaking fashion. Then there’s the churn: During his tenure, the team has seen coaches, star players and general managers come and go. And Embiid himself can’t seem to avoid injury. (Shortly after Embiid and I spoke, the 76ers did sign another star player, Paul George. So there’s reason to hope, Philly fans!)That combination of iffy management and just plain bad luck have cast the shadow of unfulfilled potential over Embiid’s decade-long career. So in some ways, the Games are a chance for a little redemption. Although based on his past experience, Embiid told me he is expecting adversity instead.Can you talk about what it means for you to be playing for the United States? It means a lot. I’ve spent half of my life here. I’ve got a great family, great wife, my son, so it just made a lot of sense. I’ve been given the opportunity to be here and accomplish a lot. More

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      NBA Agrees to Massive Rights Deals With Disney, Comcast and Amazon

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      The agreements, set to begin after next season, could potentially pay the league about $76 billion over 11 years.The National Basketball Association’s Board of Governors has approved a set of agreements for the rights to show the league’s games, Commissioner Adam Silver said on Tuesday, moving one step closer to completing deals that would reshape how the sport is watched over the next decade.Mr. Silver declined to discuss any financial details or even the companies involved, though there have been reports for months that Disney, Comcast and Amazon were close to deals with the league. TNT, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, has shown N.B.A. games since the 1980s, but its prominent on-air personalities like Charles Barkley talked during the playoffs about how they worried that the network would lose the rights after next season, the last covered by the current nine-year TV deal.The companies are expected to pay the N.B.A. a total of about $76 billion over 11 years. On average, ESPN would pay the N.B.A. about $2.6 billion annually, NBC around $2.5 billion and Amazon roughly $1.8 billion, according to three people familiar with the agreements, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the financial details.The Board of Governors voted to approve the deals at its yearly meeting in Las Vegas. The N.B.A. must now present the deals to Warner Bros. Discovery, and once that happens, the company will have five days to match one of them to remain in the mix.“We did approve this stage of those media proposals, but as you all know there are other rights that need to be worked through with existing partners,” Mr. Silver said.Warner Bros. Discovery was expected to try to match Amazon’s offer, according to two people familiar with the company’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the negotiations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As N.B.A. TV Deal Nears, Warner Bros. Discovery Is on the Outside

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      The company’s TNT channel and the N.B.A. have long been inextricably linked, but that may end after next season. Plus, Charles Barkley is retiring.Warner Bros. Discovery executives thought they had given the National Basketball Association a proposal it would accept.In April, after months of negotiations, the company made an offer to pay billions of dollars to the league for the rights to continue showing its games on TNT, as well as its Max streaming service. TNT has shown N.B.A. games since the 1980s, and its “Inside the NBA” is widely considered one of the best-ever sports studio shows.But with the end of Warner Bros. Discovery’s exclusive negotiating window looming, the N.B.A. insisted on changing the package of games the company would receive, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private dealings. Warner Bros. Discovery balked, and while the two sides have continued negotiating, the company now finds itself on the verge of losing the rights to televise the sport with which it has become inextricably linked. And on Friday night, the beating heart of “Inside the NBA,” the Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, said he would be retiring from TV after next season.“The first thing anybody thinks about when you say TNT is the N.B.A.,” said John Skipper, the former president of ESPN.Media companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery, were prepared for bruising negotiations with the N.B.A. Sports rights remain an extremely valuable commodity for traditional TV networks, and companies increasingly also see them as a way to attract more subscribers to their streaming services.The league made clear it wanted a sizable increase on the roughly $2.66 billion in total it receives annually, on average, from Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN under its current rights agreements, which went into effect in 2016. Executives at those companies knew if they wanted to retain N.B.A. rights they would have to pay more for fewer games so that the N.B.A. could create a third package of games to sell.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The N.B.A. Sees Its Future in Africa

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      The league has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to cultivate an immense potential fan base on the continent and develop future stars.On an outdoor basketball court surrounded by seashell-scattered sand last month, a man coached a group of teenage girls through a drill. The staccato pounding of their dribbles alternated in the hot air with a tinnier sound in the distance: men hammering nails into wood while a bleating white billy goat looked on.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryThe coach, Abibou Sall, 34, instructed his players to dribble along the sideline, first with their left hands, then their right. Don’t look down at the ball, he told them, wanting the girls to learn to trust their hands.Sall is a physical trainer for the Pikine Basket Club, which practices at the Jacques Chirac Center. About 600 children play basketball at this recreational center in Pikine, a suburb bordering Dakar. The youngest players, ages 6 to 7, are introduced to the game on mini hoops. The oldest are 18. Sall is also a die-hard fan of the National Basketball Association.It is a picture that would delight the N.B.A. — a devotee of its league teaching basketball to youngsters on a continent in which it sees tremendous economic opportunity.Recently, after finishing with his club duties, Sall had been staying up late to watch the playoffs — the games often start after 11 p.m. local time — even after his favorite player, LeBron James, was eliminated in the first round.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Miniature Secrets of Championship Rings

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      As sports fans enjoy the legacy-defining moments of this month’s N.B.A. finals and Stanley Cup finals, Jason Arasheben is studying like a college student before exams.Arasheben, a celebrity jeweler whose clients include the rappers Drake and ASAP Rocky, is investigating the history of the contending teams, the connections to their cities and any other interesting facts that could be infused into an extravagantly bejeweled ring. He is also scouring his personal contacts for anyone who could facilitate a meeting with the wealthy owners of the winning franchises.“You just have to start connecting the dots,” said Arasheben, the chief executive of the Jason of Beverly Hills jewelry house near Los Angeles. “Billionaires talk to other billionaires.”In the past few years, Arasheben has established himself as a go-to jeweler for title-winning teams — carving out a corner of the market long dominated by Jostens — by creating dynamic rings that include reversible faces and detachable compartments.“He’s reimagined what the championship ring is all about,” said Eric Tosi, the chief marketing officer of the Vegas Golden Knights, who won the Stanley Cup last year.“Every team that wins a title no matter the sport is going to get a ring,” Tosi continued. “But how can you stand out? How can you do something that’s never been done before? He’s done that.”

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      Chet Walker, N.B.A. Champion and Movie Producer, Dies at 84

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      A vital member of the 1966-67 champion Philadelphia 76ers, he later produced a TV series based on the life on the point guard Isiah Thomas’s mother.Chet Walker, one of the N.B.A.’s most understated stars of its developmental decades, who was a vital member of the 1966-67 champion Philadelphia 76ers and who later became an Emmy Award-winning movie producer, died on Saturday in Long Beach, Calif. He was 84.The National Basketball Association confirmed the death, saying it came after a long illness. Walker, who played in seven All-Star games during a 13-year professional career, was a starting forward on the 76ers’ title team, which won 68 regular-season games and broke the Boston Celtics’ championship stranglehold.On a team often included in discussions of the N.B.A.’s greatest, Walker was the third-leading scorer, averaging 19.3 points per game and 8.1 rebounds, while fitting seamlessly with the future and fellow Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer and Billy Cunningham.Walker, a 6-foot-7 inch forward, was known for pump-faking defenders into a vulnerable position for his patented jump shots and drives along the base line, where, he calculated, it was difficult to double-team him.A prideful but publicly modest man, Walker asked Cunningham, one of his presenters at his 2012 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, to speak of his career exploits.As a member of the Chicago Bulls, Walker helped to establish Chicago as a viable city for professional basketball.Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Charles Barkley Has Thoughts on the Future of ‘Inside the NBA’

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      Next season could be the last for TNT’s influential and beloved studio show, and Charles Barkley, for one, will not be going quietly.The future of “Inside the NBA” was already a sensitive topic when Charles Barkley stepped into an elevator in Minneapolis after Game 3 of the Western Conference finals late Friday night. Barkley’s on-air candor as an analyst is a key reason that the studio show has become so influential and beloved among basketball fans and around the league.But these are tense times for the show and those who work on it. Warner Bros. Discovery has not secured the rights to continue broadcasting N.B.A. games on TNT beyond next season. Without those, the long-term future of “Inside the NBA” is uncertain. So when Barkley, who had already batted away several attempts by security and public relations officials to prevent him from doing an interview, ushered me into an elevator filled with his co-workers, not everyone was happy.Kenny Smith, Barkley’s on-screen foil, voiced his irritation. But Barkley, as he has done throughout his decades in the public eye, made clear that he wouldn’t be muzzled.“Hey, man, I can talk to who I want to,” Barkley said to Smith, using an expletive. Others in the elevator shifted uncomfortably.“You should do that out there,” Smith said, suggesting the interview be done outside the elevator.Barkley turned to me: “Don’t worry about him.”“She should clear it through Turner,” Smith said. “She should do it the right way.”Why was it so important for him to talk, I asked Barkley, even if others around him didn’t want him to? He nodded to the impact the uncertainty has on staff members who work on the show. And not just the well-known, on-air personalities: Barkley, Smith, Shaquille O’Neal and the host, Ernie Johnson.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bill Walton, N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Broadcasting Star, Dies at 71

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      He won championships in high school, college (U.C.L.A.) and the pros (Trail Blazers and Celtics) before turning to TV as a talkative game analyst in the college ranks.Bill Walton, a center whose extraordinary passing and rebounding skills helped him win two national college championships with U.C.L.A. and one each with the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics of the N.B.A., and who overcame a stutter to become a loquacious commentator, died on Monday at his home in San Diego. He was 71.The N.B.A. said he died of colon cancer.A redheaded hippie and devoted Grateful Dead fan, Walton was an acolyte of the U.C.L.A. coach John Wooden and the hub of the Bruins team that won N.C.A.A. championships in 1972 and 1973 and extended an 88-game winning streak that had begun in 1971. He was named the national player of the year three times.Walton’s greatest game was the 1973 national championship against Memphis State, played in St. Louis. He got into foul trouble in the first half, but went on to score a record 44 points on 21-for-22 shooting and had 11 rebounds in U.C.L.A.’s 87-66 victory. It was the school’s ninth title in 10 years.Walton — not yet known for his often hyperbolic, stream of consciousness speaking skills — refused to say much after the game. As he left the locker room, he told reporters, “Excuse me, I want to go meet my friends. I’m splitting.”He played one more year at U.C.L.A. before being selected by Portland first overall in the 1974 N.B.A. draft. He weathered injuries, two losing seasons under Coach Lenny Wilkens and criticism over his vegetarian diet and his red ponytail and beard before winning the 1977 championship under Coach Jack Ramsay.“I think Jack Ramsay reached Walton,” Eddie Donovan, the Knicks general manager, told the columnist Dave Anderson of The New York Times. “Of all the coaches in our league, Jack Ramsay is the closest to being the John Wooden type — scholarly, available. I think Walton responded to that.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More