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      Kyrie Irving Decides to Opt Into a Fourth Season With the Nets

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      Irving was eligible for a maximum contract extension, but he and the Nets did not reach an agreement on one. Once he officially opts in, they will have until the end of June 2023 to negotiate an extension.The latest episode of Kyrie Irving’s tenure with the Nets has reached a conclusion for the moment.Irving has decided to opt into the final year of his four-year contract with the Nets before Wednesday’s deadline, his stepmother and agent, Shetellia Riley Irving, told The New York Times.Irving will earn $36.5 million next season.“Normal people keep the world going, but those who dare to be different lead us into tomorrow,” Kyrie Irving said in a statement to The Athletic, which first reported Irving’s decision. “I’ve made my decision to opt in. See you in the fall.”Once Irving officially opts into his contract for the 2022-23 season, the two sides will have until the end of June 2023 to negotiate an extension that can be worth near the maximum salary for a veteran player. The Nets will also be able to trade Irving once he formally opts in.When the season ended, Irving affirmed his commitment to the Nets and to Kevin Durant. Given the chance to do so, General Manager Sean Marks did not reciprocate.“I think we know what we’re looking for,” Marks said. “We’ve looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves, play selfless, play team basketball, and be available. That goes not only for Kyrie but for everybody here.”Irving was eligible for a maximum contract extension this season, but he and the Nets did not reach an agreement on one.Irving returns to join Durant, the 12-time All-Star and winner of the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2014.“When I say I’m here with Kev, I think that really entails us managing this franchise together alongside Joe and Sean,” Irving said, referring to the team’s owner, Joe Tsai, after the Nets had been swept by the Boston Celtics in April in the first round of the playoffs.Irving and Durant arrived in Brooklyn in the summer of 2019, shunning the Knicks, who had created the salary-cap space to sign superstars that summer, too. The promise their union offered would be delayed: Durant was still recovering from an Achilles’ tendon injury he had sustained during the 2019 N.B.A. finals and would miss all of the 2019-20 season.The Nets were willing to wait. Both players had signed four-year deals; they would have plenty of time together.Irving returned to join Kevin Durant, a 12-time All-Star.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThat season was interrupted by the pandemic, and Irving played in only 20 games, in part because of an injury to his right shoulder. The Nets went to the league’s so-called bubble at Walt Disney World without either player and lost in the first round of the playoffs.Durant returned for the 2020-21 season, healed and just as dangerous to opponents as ever. The Nets traded for James Harden in January 2021, creating what many thought would be an unstoppable superteam.They finished second in the East and nearly made it to the conference finals, losing in seven games to the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round.Then, once again, the pandemic complicated things.Heading into the 2021-22 season, Irving chose not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite a New York City ordinance that would prevent him from playing in Brooklyn without the shot. The N.B.A. required that teams comply with local rules about vaccines.The Nets initially said he would not be allowed to play until he was eligible for all games. Seeing the toll that was taking on their record, they changed course and allowed Irving to play in arenas where he was eligible. He made his season debut on Jan. 5.Ben Simmons, acquired in a midseason trade with Philadelphia, had off-season back surgery and has yet to play for the team.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesFor a while, the Nets made it work despite Irving’s long absences. Durant, who signed a four-year extension before the season, helped lead the team to the second-best record in the East on the day Irving made his season debut.Then Durant sprained his knee, leaving Harden as the only available star. Harden grew irritated with Irving and eventually asked for a trade. The Nets sent him to Philadelphia, acquiring Ben Simmons just before the trade deadline.Simmons has yet to play for the Nets and had back surgery in May.In March, Mayor Eric Adams of New York altered the city ordinance that had barred Irving from playing in Brooklyn, just in time for baseball season, creating an exception for professional athletes and entertainers. Irving made his home debut on March 27.In all, Irving played in 29 regular-season games last season.When he played, he showed glimpses of the kind of brilliance that made him a coveted player in the past. He scored 60 points in a March 15 win at Orlando, 50 points in a March 8 win in Charlotte and 43 points in a March 23 win in Memphis.But his return did not come soon enough to give the Nets the chemistry they needed to succeed in the playoffs. More

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      For Some NBA Draftees, Making it to the Pros Runs in the Family

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      Three of the top five picks in this year’s N.B.A. draft have parents who played professionally, including in the W.N.B.A.When the Houston Rockets selected Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. with the third pick of the N.B.A. draft on Thursday, it continued a tradition of basketball as a family inheritance.His father, also named Jabari Smith, played in the N.B.A. in the early 2000s.“My dad just told me it was time to amp it up a little bit, time to work even harder,” Jabari Smith Jr. said of his father’s reaction to the draft. “It’s a new level, whole new game. Just trying to get there and get to work.”For a cadre of N.B.A. players, having a parent or being related to someone who played in the N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. isn’t particularly unusual. And many players who aren’t related to someone who played professionally have parents who played college basketball.This past season, 30 second-generation players appeared in at least one N.B.A. game — a total that represents 5 percent of the league, and is nearly twice as many players as about two decades ago.Jabari Smith Jr., center, with his father, Jabari Smith, left, and mother, Taneskia Purnell, right.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesSmith was one of several players drafted this year whose father had N.B.A. experience. Among them was the University of Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis, whom the Washington Wizards picked at No. 10. His father is Mark Davis, who played in the N.B.A. briefly after the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him in 1985. There was also Duke’s A.J. Griffin, picked at No. 16 by the Atlanta Hawks. His father is Adrian Griffin, who played in the N.B.A. from 1999 to 2008, and has since been an assistant coach in the N.B.A. The other was Colorado’s Jabari Walker, a late-second-round pick for the Portland Trail Blazers, the son of Samaki Walker, who played a decade in the N.B.A. and won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers.W.N.B.A. connections could also be found among top picks. Rhonda Smith-Banchero, the mother of the No. 1 pick, Paolo Banchero, played in the W.N.B.A. Banchero, who was drafted by the Orlando Magic, said his mother “stayed on me, always held me accountable and made sure I was on the right track.” The Detroit Pistons selected Purdue’s Jaden Ivey with the fifth pick. His mother, Niele Ivey, played in the W.N.B.A. and was a recent assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies. She’s now the coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.“It’s actually an amazing story to have a mother who’s been in the league,” Jaden Ivey said. “You don’t see too many stories like that, and the bond that we have is special. I thank her for all the things that she’s done for me. I know I wouldn’t be on this stage, I wouldn’t be here, without her.”Niele Ivey, left, played college basketball at Notre Dame before her W.N.B.A. career. She’s now the head coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.Photo by Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesSometimes the connection to professional basketball players isn’t parental. Midway through the first round, the Charlotte Hornets drafted Mark Williams out of Duke. His older sister Elizabeth Williams has been in the W.N.B.A. since 2015. In the second round, the Cavaliers picked Isaiah Mobley out of the University of Southern California, which will be convenient for family visits, as his brother, Evan Mobley, is already on the team. (Brothers are common in the N.B.A. See: the Lopezes, Antetokounmpos, Balls and Holidays.)In some cases, there were recognizable names who weren’t drafted but nonetheless received contracts. Scotty Pippen Jr., who played three seasons at Vanderbilt, is expected to sign a two-way contract with the Lakers. His father, Scottie Pippen, won six championships with the Chicago Bulls. Ron Harper Jr., a Rutgers alum whose father, Ron Harper, won three championships alongside Pippen, is expected to be offered a similar deal with the Toronto Raptors.But while the N.B.A.’s father-son connections were highlighted by this year’s draft class, the phenomenon is nothing new. Consider Golden State’s roster, which featured four second-generation players during the team’s championship run this year: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton II.And some of their fathers were front and center.Each player has a family connection in professional basketball: For Paolo Banchero, left, it’s his mother; for Mark Williams, center, his sister; and for A.J. Griffin, right, his father.John Minchillo/Associated PressPaolo Banchero hugs his mother, Rhonda Smith-Banchero, who played in the W.N.B.A. Banchero was the No. 1 pick in the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesAs Payton got set to check into Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals against the Boston Celtics, he spotted his father, Gary Payton, a nine-time All-Star, sitting courtside with Detlef Schrempf, one of his former teammates. Father and son made eye contact — no words needed to be exchanged.“He just shook his head,” Gary Payton II said. “I know that means it’s time. You know, go to work.”And as the final seconds ticked away in Golden State’s championship-clinching win in Game 6, Curry embraced his father, Dell Curry, along one baseline. Stephen Curry broke down in tears.“I saw him and I lost it,” he said, adding, “I just wanted to take in the moment because it was that special.”In fact, the N.B.A. finals offered up a smorgasbord of generational talent. Among the Celtics: Al Horford, whose father, Tito Horford, played for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Bullets, and Grant Williams, whose cousins, Salim and Damon Stoudamire, both played in the N.B.A. This season, Damon Stoudamire was able to keep a close eye on Williams as one of the Celtics’ assistants.Players and coaches have cited a number of factors in the steady, decades-long emergence of father-son pairings, starting with genetics: It obviously helps to be tall. But many sons of former players also benefited from early exposure to the game, from top-notch instruction from the time they could start dribbling and from various other perks. For example, Stephen Curry and his younger brother, Seth Curry, who now plays for the Nets, had access to a full-length court in their family’s backyard, complete with lights.But with certain privilege comes pressure — especially when you share a name with a famous father. Gary Payton II recalled how his father had learned to back off when it came to basketball so that his son could develop a passion for the game on his own. They simply stopped talking about hoops, and that has remained the case.“Nowadays, he really doesn’t say anything,” Gary Payton II said. “We just talk about life, family, other sports and whatnot.”But sometimes it can cause strains, like the one between Tim Hardaway Jr., a Dallas Mavericks guard, and his father, Tim Hardaway, a five-time All Star who played from 1989 to 2003. They have both publicly spoken about how their relationship was made more difficult as a result of how hard the elder Hardaway was on his son about the game.Scotty Pippen Jr., the son of the Chicago Bulls great, Scottie Pippen, was expected to sign a two-way deal with the Lakers after going undrafted.Mark Humphrey/Associated PressIt can also be a strain if your father is the coach, a situation that Austin Rivers was faced with when he played for his father, Doc Rivers, on the Los Angeles Clippers. Doc Rivers played in the league from 1983 to 1996 and is also an accomplished N.B.A. head coach. The younger Rivers called it “bittersweet.” Doc Rivers had his back as his father, but Austin Rivers told The Ringer that “everything else, man, was hell,” because it created an awkward dynamic with his teammates.A similar situation may repeat itself next season: The Knicks hired Rick Brunson, a former N.B.A. player, as an assistant coach and are expected to target his son, Jalen Brunson, one of the top free agents, as an off-season acquisition.Of course, it could work out just fine, as it did for Gary Payton. In the hours after Golden State won it all last week in Boston, he celebrated his son’s triumph by dancing through the hallways at TD Garden. More

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      NBA Draft: Paolo Banchero Goes No. 1 to Orlando Magic

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      Banchero, a forward from Duke, helped his team reach the Final Four this past season. Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren went to the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 2.Paolo Banchero knew Thursday would be a special day, the start of his N.B.A. career.He had no idea about the plans of the Orlando Magic, the team selecting first overall in the N.B.A. draft that night. When he found out, just minutes before N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver called his name, he couldn’t believe it.“This isn’t even a dream,” Banchero said. “I feel like this is a fantasy. I dreamed of being in the N.B.A., but being the No. 1 overall pick — this is crazy.”The Magic selected Banchero, a forward from Duke University, with the top pick in Thursday’s draft. He is a 6-foot-10, 250-pound power forward, whose mother, Rhonda Smith-Banchero, played in the W.N.B.A. He was a guard earlier in his basketball career and played football and basketball at O’Dea High School in Seattle.In the minutes before his name was called, Banchero sat at a table on the floor of Barclays Center showing no emotion on his face. The Magic were on the clock and word began to spread that Banchero might be their pick. Cameras crowded around him, but he didn’t outwardly react. Only when he heard his name did his expression change.He lowered his head, looked up and smiled with tears in his eyes.“I was telling everyone I wasn’t going to cry no matter what pick I was picked,” Banchero said. “It just hit me. I couldn’t stop it.”In his only season at Duke, Banchero averaged 17.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s rookie of the year.The picks for the rest of the top five: Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren at No. 2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. to the Houston Rockets at No. 3, Iowa’s Keegan Murray to the Sacramento Kings at No. 4 and Purdue’s Jaden Ivey to the Detroit Pistons at No. 5.Three prospects were thought to have separated themselves at the top of this year’s draft: Banchero, Holmgren and Smith.Holmgren nodded and smirked subtly as he heard Banchero’s name called first. When Silver called his name, Holmgren broke out into a wide smile, stopping for handshakes and long embraces with his family members.“I got a thousand emotions to describe this moment,” Holmgren said during an interview that was broadcast in the arena in Brooklyn. “It’s surreal and everything I expected.”Holmgren, 20, is a rail-thin, seven-foot-tall center who grew up in Minneapolis and was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball in 2021. He was a high school teammate of Jalen Suggs, whom the Magic drafted fifth overall in 2021. They each spent one season at Gonzaga.Holmgren led Gonzaga to a 28-4 record and averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts. He also averaged 9.9 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game. Gonzaga entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, but was upset in the round of 16.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, left, announced Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren second. Holmgren, a seven-footer, averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesIn the days before the draft, rumors circulated in media reports that Orlando had decided to select Smith first overall. As Smith waited for his name to be called, he looked disappointed. When finally Silver announced his name, another prospect, Louisiana State’s Tari Eason, who played in the same conference, leaped out of his seat to clap for Smith.“I know it was a possibility, so when it didn’t happen, I was surprised,” Smith said of the prospect of his being selected first overall. “You know, all the guys up for the pick are great players. They bring a lot to the table. It was like I said in the other interviews: It was a coin flip. So when it happened, you know, I was just happy for them, clapped for them and just waiting to get my name called.”Smith, 19, spent one season at Auburn after a distinguished high school basketball career in Georgia. He played for the same Amateur Athletic Union team as another No. 1 pick by the Magic: Dwight Howard. Smith’s father, also named Jabari Smith, spent parts of four seasons in the N.B.A. in the early 2000s.Jabari Smith Jr. was named the Southeastern Conference’s freshman of the year and a second-team all-American this past season. Smith is a 6-foot-10 power forward with the ability to shoot from the perimeter. He made 42.9 percent of his 3-pointers and averaged 16.9 points per game at Auburn.The first surprise of the night was the selection of Murray by the Kings at No. 4, given the expectation that Banchero, Holmgren and Smith would go in some order in the top three. The spectators at Barclays Center erupted at the announcement.The first big surprise of the draft came at No. 4, when Sacramento selected the Iowa forward Keegan Murray.John Minchillo/Associated PressMurray is the highest-selected Hawkeye in school history. The 6-foot-8 forward earned consensus first-team all-American honors this past season and finished fourth in Division I scoring with 23.5 points per game. He led the Hawkeyes to a 26-10 record and a first-round appearance in the N.C.A.A. tournament.Ivey spent two seasons at Purdue before declaring for the draft. He averaged 17.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game during his sophomore season.The Magic won this year’s draft lottery after finishing the season at 22-60, the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second-worst record in the league. Only the Houston Rockets, who had the third pick in this year’s draft after a 20-62 season, won fewer games than the Magic.This year marked the fourth time in the franchise’s history that it made the first overall pick. The Magic drafted Shaquille O’Neal with the first pick in 1992; Chris Webber, whom they immediately traded for Penny Hardaway, in 1993; and Dwight Howard in 2004.The pairing of Hardaway and O’Neal yielded one N.B.A. finals appearance, but no championships for the Magic. Howard also led the Magic to one finals appearance, in 2009.Later in their careers, O’Neal and Howard won championships while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers — O’Neal in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and Howard in 2020.Before Banchero, the last Duke player selected No. 1 overall in the N.B.A. draft was Zion Williamson in 2019. Banchero follows two guards — Anthony Edwards (2020) and Cade Cunningham (2021) — in earning the distinction of being the top pick. More

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      N.B.A. Draft Preview: A Deep Field Could Yield Surprise Stars

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      Fans may have heard of Chet Holmgren and Shaedon Sharpe, but others are ready for their shot: “I knew if I got good enough, the N.B.A. would find me,” one said.When the Orlando Magic hand their draft card to N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, on Thursday night at Barclays Center, they’ll settle a debate that has raged in draft circles for the better part of a year: Who should be the No. 1 pick?The front-runner is Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, a rail-thin but nail-tough seven-footer who can shoot, dribble, pass and defend with aplomb. But there are equally strong cases to be made for the Auburn big man Jabari Smith, who spent this past season sinking seemingly impossible shots, and for Duke’s Paolo Banchero, a creative shotmaker who is as polished in the paint as he is on the perimeter.“All three guys are incredibly talented,” said Jonathan Givony, founder of the scouting service DraftExpress an N.B.A. draft analyst at ESPN. “This draft has really great players at the top and really good depth, too.”Here are five more prospects to know.Nikola Jovic doesn’t mind being compared to Nikola Jokic. After all, Jokic is a two-time most valuable player, he said.Darko Vojinovic/Associated PressNikola Jovic6-foot-11, 223 pounds, forward, Mega Mozzart (Serbia)People ask Nikola Jovic about Nikola Jokic all the time. And it makes sense. Jovic and the Denver Nuggets star have quite a bit in common: They’re both Serbian big men who played for the same club, Mega Mozzart, and only a single letter separates their last names. But the comparison doesn’t bother Jovic, who is expected to be the first international player taken on Thursday.“People bring that up all the time,” he said. “I’m really cool with that. I think it’s pretty funny also because the chances of something like that happening are really low. At the same time, I feel good because people are comparing me to a two-time league M.V.P.”As a boy, Jovic wanted to be a professional water polo player. He spent his summers with his mother in Montenegro and loved swimming in the Adriatic Sea. When he was 13, his father introduced him to basketball. What started as a backyard hobby soon became an obsession and a profession. “I was getting bigger and bigger,” Jovic said, “and it was pretty easy to see that basketball would be a better choice than water polo.”Although many N.B.A. teams track European stars from their early teenage years, Jovic didn’t become a big name on draft boards until he broke out at the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in Belgrade in March 2021. Offensively, he could develop into a floor-spacing 4 who can shoot 3s, lead fast breaks and make smart passes. He said he is willing to remain in Europe after being drafted, but he hopes to land with a team that wants him to play right away.“Even if I need to play in the G League, that’s cool,” he said, referring to the N.B.A.’s developmental league. “But right now, I think the perfect fit for me is the N.B.A.”Dominick Barlow has gone from overlooked three-star prospect to a potential first-round pick.Kyle Hess/Overtime Elite, via Associated PressDominick Barlow6-foot-9, 221 pounds, forward, Overtime EliteWhen N.B.A. evaluators visited Overtime Elite this year, it was with an eye toward the future. The start-up league has potential top-10 players in the 2023 and 2024 drafts. But one player from the 2022 draft class took advantage of all that extra scouting attention and has worked his way from being an unheralded 3-star high school prospect to a potential first-round draft pick: Dominick Barlow.“The fact that this was OTE’s first year intrigued scouts,” Barlow, 19, said. “And once the scouts were in the building, they were able to see what I could do.”Barlow played for Dumont High School, a small public high school in Dumont, N.J. He didn’t land with a powerhouse Amateur Athletic Union program until the summer before his senior year, when a coach for the New York Renaissance spotted him playing at a public park. He surprised most basketball insiders in September when he left a prep program and declined several high-major offers to sign with Overtime Elite. It offers a six-figure salary to boys’ and men’s basketball players who are at least in their junior year of high school.Barlow hopes his story inspires other overlooked players to keep working. “I came in as a 3-star kid, and I’m leaving as an N.B.A. draft pick. Some 5-star kids struggle with getting to the N.B.A. one year after high school,” he said.Keegan Murray, who played for Iowa, was described as the “most productive player in college basketball this year.”Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressKeegan Murray6-foot-8, 225 pounds, forward, IowaWhen Keegan and Kris Murray were going through the recruiting process for college basketball, the twin brothers told every coach that they weren’t a package deal. Their father, Kenyon, had played college basketball at Iowa in the early 1990s, and he encouraged them to each find their own path.Their father’s faith and knowledge helped the brothers remain buoyant even when they ended their high school careers with just one scholarship offer, to Western Illinois, a Summit League school that has never been to the Division I N.C.A.A. tournament.“Having a D-I player be your coach and teach you everything and guide you through the recruiting process is really helpful,” Keegan, 21, said of his father, who was an assistant on his high school team in Iowa. “He told us we were going to be pros, and we believed him.”After declining the Western Illinois offer and decamping to Florida for a year at a prep school, Keegan and Kris signed with their father’s alma mater, Iowa. Keegan showed remarkable efficiency as a freshman and started garnering N.B.A. draft buzz, but he wasn’t considered a top-flight talent until this past season. As a sophomore, Murray was the top scorer among Power 5 conference players, he had the second most rebounds in the Big Ten, and he shot 55.4 percent from the field and a solid 39.8 percent from 3.“He was the most productive player in college basketball this year,” Givony said, adding that he was good in transition and on defense. “Everybody’s looking for a player like him.”Keegan is projected to be a top-five pick, while Kris has decided to return to Iowa for another season. “Thinking about where I was three years ago and where I am today is surreal,” Keegan said. “I didn’t always know where or when all this hard work would pay off, but I knew it would pay off eventually.”Ryan Rollins, in blue, who played for the University of Toledo, is looking to follow the path of other mid-major players, like Ja Morant, to the N.B.A.Al Goldis/Associated PressRyan Rollins6-foot-3, 179 pounds, guard, ToledoRyan Rollins has heard people say that he should have returned to the University of Toledo for his junior season. With another year of experience, he would project as a likely first-round pick in 2023. But Rollins rejects that idea. He doesn’t see any reason to wait.“I feel like I’m one of the better players in the draft,” Rollins said. “If I don’t get picked first round, that’s fine. In the long run, I’m going to be very good for a very long time in this league. Whenever and wherever I end up going, I’ll be proud to be there.”A Detroit native, Rollins played for a prominent A.A.U. program, the Family. But the stacked roster, combined with some nagging injuries and his decision to commit to college early, kept him under the recruiting radar. “I always had the mind-set that I was where I was for a reason,” he said. “I kept working, kept trying to perfect my craft. I didn’t worry about the politics of basketball. I knew if I got good enough, the N.B.A. would find me.”Over two seasons at Toledo, he emerged as a mid-major showstopper, with a smooth handle, fluid footwork and a deadly midrange game. Now he’s likely to be a second-round pick with the potential to sneak into the first round. But he’s more worried about what he does when he arrives in the N.B.A. He hopes he can be the next mid-major player to become a superstar.He’s inspired by former mid-major players who are in the N.B.A., such as Ja Morant (Murray State), Damian Lillard (Weber State) and CJ McCollum (Lehigh University).“They went to small schools but have been able to make names for themselves,” Rollins said. “I feel like I’m next.”Shaedon Sharpe is expected to be a top-10 pick, even though he hasn’t played competitively in almost a year.Todd Kirkland/Getty ImagesShaedon Sharpe6-foot-5, 198 pounds, guard, KentuckyThere is no player more mysterious in the 2022 draft than Shaedon Sharpe. Although he’s listed as a Kentucky prospect, Sharpe never suited up for the Wildcats. In fact, he hasn’t played in a competitive basketball game in almost a year.The Ontario, Canada, native moved to Kansas to play for Sunrise Christian Academy in his sophomore year of high school, then transferred to Arizona’s Dream City Christian in 2020 for his junior season, when he was unranked in the class of 2022. Then a dominant performance with the UPlay Canada team in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League last summer made everyone take notice. The tournament is often a proving ground for future N.B.A. stars, and Sharpe averaged 22.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 28.3 minutes per game over 12 games.Sharpe graduated from high school a year early and enrolled at Kentucky this spring. Although there were rumors that he would join the team on the court, or return for the 2022-23 season, he has instead entered the N.B.A. draft. And there’s good reason: He will almost certainly be taken in the top 10.“In terms of physical ability and sheer talent, it’s all there,” Givony said. “He’s a dynamic shot maker, an aggressive defender, a smart passer.”N.B.A. teams haven’t been able to see much from him, but his 6-foot-11 wingspan, explosive athleticism and polished shooting stroke could have most N.B.A. teams outside of the top five ready to take the risk. More

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      He Saw. He Believed. Now He Can Be an N.B.A. Star.

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      MIAMI — The training drill is named after LeBron James. Most people would be better off if they just let him do it.Dribble a basketball while sprinting full court. Dunk it. Rebound. No time to catch your breath. Turn around and do it again.Ten times.Is that how to spend a morning in Miami?Mark Williams walked into a gym tucked beside the bustling Interstate 95 in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami on a recent Thursday. The glowing lights of the gym were a poor substitute for the sunny skies in South Beach, where he could have been instead. But when you’re trying to make it to the N.B.A., some things have to wait.He sat on the first row of bleachers inside the gym and exchanged his slides for splashy Nikes — a little blue, a burst of purple, a lot of neon orange. He wrangled the shoelaces and made his way to a video room, slipping his 7-foot-2 frame through the doorway. Williams, 20, is tall enough to touch a basketball rim just by shifting onto his toes.He joined a handful of N.B.A. hopefuls to watch video of a pre-draft workout by the Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo from several years ago. The message? While Adebayo, now an All-Star and all-defensive team member, did not sink every one of his shots, his energy never wavered.Williams got the message.Williams is best known for his rim protection skills, but he’s been working on his shooting.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesBaseline, sprint, dunk. Baseline, sprint, dunk. His black T-shirt and black shorts didn’t show it, but his face couldn’t hide the sweat. The LeBron James drill seemed to exhaust him. But Williams had enough in his tank to display some of the jaw-dropping athleticism that has him pegged as a potential first-round draft pick. Standing at the baseline, he jumped, rotated the ball under his legs and slammed it into the hoop.N.B.A. prospects a generation ago were largely on their own after either declaring for the draft or exhausting their college eligibility. Their agents scheduled workouts with teams before the draft, and the players, often by themselves, flew out for the visit. They did not think of altering their diet or agonize about how to answer questions from N.B.A. personnel. They often trained for the auditions of their life by joining whatever pickup games they could find.But the best players in Williams’s generation have little downtime while dangling on the cliff between childhood and adulthood, amateurism and the N.B.A. Their Thursdays are spent training. Their Mondays and Fridays, too, are at the gym. The hopefuls who sign with the same agent — in Williams’s case, Jeff Schwartz at Excel Sports Management — can become a team of their own. They may live with one another, attending workouts, recovery sessions and media training all aimed at preparing them for those fateful auditions and the complicated life that awaits an N.B.A. star.It can be an anxious time, a monthslong Christmas Eve.“I think it’s just the uncertainty about where I’m going to be,” Williams said. “When I get there, got to find somewhere to live. I got to find a car. I’m going to have new teammates, so just building a relationship with them, coaches. Just not knowing what’s going to happen. I feel like I embrace the uncertainty. It’s not like I’m nervous, but I’d say that’s the biggest thing.“You don’t know what’s going to happen.”Williams thought about entering the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season at Duke, but “I just wanted to go back and really prove myself.”Mary Beth Koeth for The New York Times‘Places where people can’t see’Williams grew up in Norfolk, Va., the youngest of three children. His mother, Margaret, was a nurse, and his father, Alex, is a gastroenterologist. Mark went to golf camp as a child. He played tennis for a summer. He dominated flag football for a while. No sport held his imagination like basketball did.Mark was almost 10 years old and already nearing 6 feet tall when he started shadowing his older sister Elizabeth, who at 17 was a basketball star in Virginia. She trained with Nadine Domond, a former W.N.B.A. player, who is an assistant coach for Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. Domond indulged the curious younger brother by letting him box out and practice his footwork in the post.“I’d be messing around looking, and she would teach me little tips and tricks,” Mark said.Mark started to envision his own basketball future when he attended the McDonald’s All American Game for top high school players in Chicago in 2011. Elizabeth had been chosen for the girls’ team.Mark surveyed the tall, young players on the boys’ team and asked one of them — the future eight-time N.B.A. All-Star Anthony Davis — to sign his basketball. He considered the path players such as Davis were taking toward the N.B.A. That’s what he wanted to do, too.He enjoyed watching James, who was with the Big Three in Miami, and Kevin Durant, who was beginning to harness his talents as a deadly marksman in Oklahoma City. Both were dominant, multifaceted players who seemingly did everything possible on the court. But Williams had no local N.B.A. team to follow.He could expend most of his energy being Elizabeth’s biggest fan.Mark Williams blocked the shot of a Virginia Tech player during a game in March.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersElizabeth Williams blocked the shot of a Stony Brook player during a game in 2014.Andy Mead/YCJ/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty ImagesElizabeth finished high school in Virginia and began her 2011-12 freshman season at Duke, where she became the program’s first four-time all-American. Mark was a vocal fixture at her games. “He was super loud,” Elizabeth said. “It didn’t bother me. I loved it.”Elizabeth had figured her brother would be tall. She is 6 feet 3 inches tall, and they have a couple of uncles who are around 6-foot-9. But Mark did not simply have a growth spurt — it really never stopped. “I like being tall,” Mark said. “It’s nice. You get to see over everything, places where people can’t see.”A rising basketball star needs that kind of vision, both physically and metaphorically. Williams became a McDonald’s all-American like his sister — although the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the game — and he chose to play basketball at Duke, too. Elizabeth’s No. 1 jersey was retired at Cameron Indoor Stadium after the Connecticut Sun took her with the fourth overall pick in the 2015 W.N.B.A. draft. She’s in her eighth W.N.B.A. season, her first with the Washington Mystics. Mark has his sights set on that kind of professional path as well. But others don’t always see what we see.Williams debated declaring for the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season, but returned when he was pegged as a borderline first-round selection.“I just wanted to go back and really prove myself and make it not up for debate anymore,” Wiliams said.Williams is learning how to navigate the increased recognition that comes with playing high-stakes basketball.Al Drago for The New York TimesHe flashed dominance as a rim protector and rebounder as a sophomore and grew more confident with each game. By the time North Carolina outlasted Duke in a memorable Final Four appearance in early April, he had known for a while that he would be off to the N.B.A. “Throughout the year, I really felt like I could be a pro,” Williams said.‘Setting a tone’The voices of Kanye West, Drake and DJ Khaled blared through the speakers of Core Fitness Miami, but Williams was tuned in to Andy Luaces.Luaces owns the gym on Northeast 25th Street in the Edgewater neighborhood of Miami. It’s near a juice bar and is lined with framed jerseys of some of the professional athletes Luaces has trained, including Terry Rozier and John Wall. The space has fake grass, rows of weights and no room for messing around.“If I let people start to get away with half-ass reps, then you’re setting a tone for your gym that quality here doesn’t matter,” Luaces said.Williams watches film with other N.B.A. hopefuls. One video showed a yearsold predraft workout of the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesFueled by a bagel sandwich and a smoothie, Williams was there with four other N.B.A. prospects for an afternoon workout after the morning drills at the Overtown gym several miles south.Williams tossed a football back and forth with Ousmane Dieng, a French prospect who last played for the New Zealand Breakers, a professional men’s team based in Auckland. Luaces gathered Williams, Dieng and three others for what he called a feel-good workout. For the next hour, the group cycled through exercises that targeted their hamstrings and glutes.They started working out with Luaces at his gym a couple of months earlier. At the time, most still had lingering aches and pains from their seasons in college or overseas. Luaces had hoped to help them become healthy, stronger and faster to make their bid for the N.B.A.Now, with team tryouts on the horizon, he steered the workouts toward preserving their progress.Luaces watched closely as Williams collapsed before finishing the final repetition on a Nordic hamstring exercise. He told Williams to do it again. Williams grimaced and complied, letting out a long exhale upon finishing.Getting ready for the N.B.A. involves plenty of weight lifting and basketball, but there is more. It’s about learning to find time for balance — Williams and the hopefuls took a trip to the beach — and deciding how to craft an image. Williams picked his draft-night suit earlier that week, debating how flashy he wanted to be and what accessories he wanted to wear. He went to an Eastern Conference finals game between the Boston Celtics and the Heat in downtown Miami the day before.“I saw A-Rod at the game last night,” Williams told Luaces, referring to the former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.Some fans asked Williams for selfies at the game. His height has always made him noticeable, but he also has a quick smile. Now he stands out by name, especially after the Final Four run. Williams hopes he can stir some of the same inspiration in children that his 2011 run-in with Davis spurred in him.The best big men in the N.B.A. are able to dunk and shoot from outside.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesHis oldest sister Victoria Oloyede has a 2-year-old son named Tristan. “He’s a lot of fun,” Williams said. “Being an uncle is fun.”Just before leaving the gym to spend an hour in physical therapy next door, Williams asked Luaces if he had a tape measure.Luaces found one in a drawer. Williams held out one long arm and asked Luaces to measure his wrist. He planned to buy a new bracelet soon.“I would go 8 ½ or 8 ¾,” Luaces said. “Are you a bracelet guy?”“He’s about to be,” Dieng chimed in.‘Something I never experienced’Williams returned to the Overtown gym for another hour of shooting to close the day’s sessions. The final workout was shorter and looser, designed to develop a shooting rhythm and confidence by seeing the ball repeatedly splash home.Andrew Moran, a skills coach who works with Williams, sees him as more than a dunker and rim protector and said that N.B.A. teams would be surprised by the fluidity and accuracy of his outside shot.Ten years ago, a 7-foot-2 center wouldn’t need to spend months working on 3-pointers. But the demands are different now. The best big men are shooters — Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns — so prospects want that edge.And in this enlightened era of load management, they also want to rest sometimes.Williams has been projected to be drafted in the middle-to-late first round. The N.B.A. invited him to attend the draft in person.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesAfter dunking and sprinting and activating his glutes, Williams planned to spend the rest of the day recuperating, possibly starting on a new show. He recently finished “Ozark” on Netflix.“It was crazy,” he said of the show’s final season.He thinks about how he would fit on various N.B.A. teams, the combinations cycling through his mind. He is projected to be drafted in the mid-to-late first round. Williams said he didn’t care where he went.Elizabeth will be at Barclays Center for the draft on Thursday after getting permission from the Mystics to miss a game to attend with her parents and sister.Mark is ready. He can already see it. “I’m looking good in my suit, and then when Adam Silver calls my name, it’ll just be surreal,” Williams said, referring to the N.B.A. commissioner. “It’ll be, I don’t know. I can’t even put into words that feeling. It’ll just be something I never experienced. A life-changing moment.”On most evenings, Williams asks himself if he had a good day before drifting to sleep. Soon, he will be living the dream. More

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      N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver misses Game 6 of the finals after testing positive.

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      If Golden State wins the N.B.A. championship on Thursday, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, will not be there to hand over the trophy. Silver is missing his second straight game because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols.Silver tested positive for the coronavirus before Game 5 and has mild symptoms, according to a person familiar with the test result who was not authorized to publicly disclose the details.Golden State is facing the Boston Celtics in the N.B.A. finals, and just needs to win Game 6 in Boston on Thursday for the title. Silver, who has been the commissioner since 2014, normally would be expected to lead the championship trophy presentation. Instead, the ceremonial task will fall to the league’s deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum, if Golden State wins.If Boston wins, Game 7 will be Sunday in San Francisco.The league has loosened its virus protocols in recent months, limiting testing and shortening isolation periods for players who have tested positive, in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Players are not required to be vaccinated.Boston’s Al Horford missed the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinals because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols. More

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      The Celtics Got Lucky By Not Getting What They Wanted

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      Other teams’ superstars kept getting traded, and the Celtics wanted in on the action. Boston (mostly) missed out, and is probably better off for it.Moments after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals ended last month, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown embraced each other.“They said we couldn’t play together,” Tatum said with a wide smile.That had been the most pressing issue facing the Boston Celtics since Tatum, 24, and Brown, 25, were handed the reins to the team before the 2019-20 season. That year — Tatum’s third and Brown’s fourth in the N.B.A. — they led the team to within two wins of reaching the finals. Since then, they have faced questions about whether Boston could be a championship-caliber team built around them.Those questions were at their loudest earlier this year — dominating TV panels and podcasts — when the Celtics were 18-21 and on pace to miss the playoffs. Instead, a remarkable turnaround propelled the Celtics into the finals, against Golden State, for the first time since 2010.“We definitely thought about and had conversations about trading for a number of the great players that were sort of thought to be available over the past 10 years,” Wyc Grousbeck, the owner of the Celtics, said in an interview. “It’d be wrong to say we never engaged in trade talks with player X, Y or Z.”But, he added, “we valued our guys more than, apparently, the market did.”The trend in the N.B.A. over the last 15 years — though it didn’t originate then — has been to chase the creation of so-called superteams at the expense of developing continuity and nurturing young players. The 2007-8 Celtics, who brought in Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to complement Paul Pierce through blockbuster trades and won a championship, were a prominent example of this.Since then, several teams have emptied their cupboards of draft picks and young players to acquire big-name stars — as the Celtics did — in a leaguewide arms race to compete for mercenary championships. This has coincided with the player empowerment movement, where top players have tried, often successfully, to be traded to teams with other stars.This has left the players’ new teams on edge, wondering if giving up all the picks and young players will be worth it.The Celtics tried to get in on the trend — they traded for Kyrie Irving and signed Gordon Hayward to a big free-agent deal just after drafting Tatum in 2017 — but today’s team is the result of yearslong investment in young players. The Celtics are on the doorstep of a championship with a foundation that goes against what has become conventional wisdom about team-building in the N.B.A. Whether as a result of luck or shrewd front office work, or both, the Celtics’ approach is paying off.In recent years, the All-Stars Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Ben Simmons, James Harden, Anthony Davis and Paul George have been among those to engineer trades. Irving forced a trade out of Cleveland to land in Boston.Almost every time a star was rumored to want out of their situation, the Celtics would be linked to the trade talks. Few teams could offer young players as talented as Boston’s or as many draft picks, some of which Boston acquired in a heist of a deal with the Nets as they created their own superteam in 2013.Grousbeck declined to comment on what deals Boston came close to making. In at least one case, the star seemingly made the decision for the Celtics. Davis’s father, Anthony Davis Sr., publicly said that he didn’t want his son playing in Boston — a signal that even if Davis were traded to Boston, he wouldn’t re-sign once his contract expired, making it less worthwhile for the Celtics to part with their top players in a deal.Brown, left, and Tatum were drafted one year apart. Their growth over the past five years, especially this season, has made Boston a top contender in the Eastern Conference.Elsa/Getty Images“I think that what happens is you want to trade draft capital if you get the right deals and if you feel like you’re close enough to winning,” Danny Ainge, who was Boston’s president of basketball operations from 2003-21, told Sports Illustrated recently. “None of us know what would have happened in different circumstances.”In some cases, superteam gambles worked — at least in the short term. The Toronto Raptors won the championship in 2019, led by Leonard; the Lakers won a title in 2020 with Davis. But the Nets won just one playoff series with Harden before he forced a trade to the Philadelphia 76ers in February. To get Harden from Houston, the Nets had given up the 24-year-old center Jarrett Allen, who made his first All-Star team this year with Cleveland.The Nets’ one series win with Harden came against Boston in the first round of the 2021 playoffs, with Brown out injured. The Celtics, left behind in the superteam arms race, seemed adrift. Some of their recent first-round draft picks, like Romeo Langford (2019) and Aaron Nesmith (2020), looked like misses. Irving and Hayward were gone. Kemba Walker, a former All-Star whom the Celtics had signed to a maximum contract to replace Irving, had been injured and playing poorly. Suddenly, Boston looked like a team that had, unlike the Raptors and Lakers title teams, held on to its young players for too long.The day after the Celtics were eliminated from last year’s playoffs, Boston simultaneously announced that Ainge was stepping down as team president and that Brad Stevens would replace him. Stevens had been the team’s head coach for eight seasons, but he had no front office experience.Grousbeck said he pitched Stevens on replacing Ainge, citing Stevens’s tenure with the team and a “personal bond” that he had with ownership. At the news conference announcing the move last June, Stevens said he had discussed the possibility of taking over the position with both Ainge and Grousbeck, and that he told Grousbeck: “I love the Celtics. I want to do what’s best for the Celtics.”One of Stevens’s first moves was to hire Ime Udoka as coach, Udoka’s first leading role after nine years as an assistant. Grousbeck said he wasn’t worried about the inexperience of Stevens and Udoka in their new jobs.“I went to Ime and Brad before the season started and specifically said in person, ‘I’m not stressed about how this season starts,’” Grousbeck said.There are countless examples of professional sports owners preaching patience but not practicing it. As the season progressed, the Celtics mostly kept the faith that they could win with Tatum and Brown as their centerpieces.“Now, did I start worrying in the first half? Yes, I did. But I kept it to myself,” Grousbeck said.Marcus Smart, left, has been a vocal leader for the Celtics and critical as a defender. He was named the defensive player of the year this season, the first guard to win the award since Gary Payton in the 1990s.Winslow Townson/Getty ImagesAfter their 18-21 start, the Celtics went 33-10 and earned the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Most of the players in their finals rotation were drafted by the Celtics and are 25 and younger, including Tatum (24), Brown (25), Robert Williams III (24), Grant Williams (23) and Payton Pritchard (24). Marcus Smart, 28, was drafted by the Celtics in 2014 and named the defensive player of the year this season.This would appear to leave the Celtics in strong shape for years to come. They’re in the finals and many of their players haven’t hit their primes. But championship windows can be slim. After this year, the N.B.A. will have crowned at least five different teams as champion in seven years. The Celtics might end up regretting not trading for Davis or another big name if they don’t win a title this year. After all, just one year ago, when the Celtics looked to be locked into mediocrity, the Phoenix Suns came within two wins of a championship, only to slink out in the second round of this postseason despite being the West’s No. 1 seed.But if Boston wins, perhaps the next team will think twice before striking a deal when the next Harden or Simmons tries to force a trade. The Celtics aren’t quite the model of patience — a stroke of luck, it seems, felled their superstar trade negotiations — but what they have appears to be working just fine.Not that Grousbeck is interested in taking a victory lap.“I don’t think anybody needs any advice from us about building a team,” Grousbeck said. More