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      Pro Athletes Say They Wanted Everyday Financial Advice but Got Cheated

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      A Morgan Stanley broker entrusted to make basic long-term investments was barred from the securities industry after his dealings with Jrue and Lauren Holiday, Chandler Parsons and others.Around the time that Lauren Holiday helped the United States soccer team win the 2015 Women’s World Cup, she and her husband, Jrue Holiday, the N.B.A. player, visited the Southern California office of a securities broker who had come highly recommended for making prudent long-term investments.Experienced? The broker had two decades with blue-chip firms like Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch. Connected? He said he specialized in assisting athletes in all sports, with a client list of 70 current and former pros.But instead of pursuing a “conservative to moderate investment strategy,” the Holidays now allege, the broker, Darryl M. Cohen, steered $2.3 million of their money to “dubious individuals and entities” — and now most of the money is gone.Other athletes said they had a similar experience. Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, who also played in the N.B.A., said that Cohen and Morgan Stanley improperly diverted $5 million and $2 million of their investments and that most of that money has similarly disappeared. So Parsons, Lee and the Holidays have filed claims against Morgan Stanley with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory organization known as FINRA which oversees brokerage firms.“I feel violated and taken advantage of,” Parsons said in a statement provided to The New York Times via Phil Aidikoff, a longtime securities lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., who represents the athletes as well as another claimant, in separate cases filed last year.Jrue Holiday with his daughter, Jrue Tyler, and wife, Lauren, in 2018.Max Becherer/The Advocate, via Associated PressThe athletes’ cases are still months away from being resolved through a settlement or an arbitration hearing. Yet FINRA, the industry regulators, in a separate but dramatic step last week, barred Cohen from the securities industry. By refusing to cooperate with FINRA’s own inquiry into the “improper use of customer funds,” FINRA said, Cohen had “stymied an investigation into very serious potential misconduct.”Officials at Morgan Stanley declined to comment. But in a regulatory filing, the firm said it had terminated Cohen in March 2021 because of allegations involving “transactions not disclosed to or approved by Morgan Stanley.”When reached on his cellphone, Cohen said, “I’ll get back with you.” He did not respond to a follow-up message, and his lawyer, Brandon S. Reif, said, “No comment.”FINRA cases are typically confidential, and documents are not publicly available. Aidikoff, citing pending litigation, declined to make his clients available for interviews to elaborate on their cases. Still, the fact that the athletes wanted to go public underscores their determination to “ensure it doesn’t happen to someone else,” Parsons said, and to encourage other possible victims to come forward.Lee said in a statement that he believed Morgan Stanley would put his interests first because it had been around for many years. “I was wrong,” he said.The Holidays, who have been active philanthropists, said: “We are all susceptible to being exploited by people like Darryl Cohen. We are disappointed that a company as well known as Morgan Stanley would enable someone like Mr. Cohen to be in a position that allowed him to move money out of our accounts the way that he did.”There is no shortage of stories about prominent athletes being duped or getting entangled in risky financial schemes. An Ernst & Young report last year found that professional athletes reported almost $600 million in fraud-related losses from 2004 to 2019. The “incidence of fraud in sports is trending in the wrong direction,” the report said.But Parsons, Lee and the Holidays are different, Aidikoff said, because they simply did what many ordinary investors often do: They relied on a big-name brokerage to make low-risk, long-term decisions.Jrue Holiday, 31, won an N.B.A. title with the Milwaukee Bucks and an Olympic gold medal with the U.S. basketball team in Tokyo last year. He signed a four-year extension in April 2021 for $134 million. He met his wife, then Lauren Cheney, while they were at U.C.L.A., and her soccer career led to endorsement deals with Under Armour and Chobani.Parsons, 33, a sharpshooter whose best seasons came with the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks, retired in January, two years after he was seriously injured in a car accident caused by a drunken driver. His last contract, signed in 2016, was a four-year deal worth $94 million, and he has been active in Los Angeles real estate.Lee, 36, last played for the Mavericks, his eighth team, in 2020, after signing a four-year, $48 million contract in 2016 with the Knicks. He had a serious calf injury in 2020, but played golf last summer in Thousand Oaks, Calif., with Parsons, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and others.Courtney Lee last played in 2020, for the Dallas Mavericks.Ron Jenkins/Associated PressThe athletes apparently heard about Cohen through basketball circles, including a former N.B.A. player who had also been an assistant coach, Aidikoff said.Cohen worked alongside his father, Marc Cohen, in the same Morgan Stanley branch in Westlake Village, Calif. His father has not been accused of wrongdoing, and remains with the firm, records show.The Holidays first met the younger Cohen in mid-2015. For Parsons, it was late 2015, and for Lee, it was sometime in 2017, according to their statements to FINRA.In mid-2020, a business adviser to Parsons noticed oddities about the Morgan Stanley investments. After Parsons contacted Aidikoff’s firm, lawyers discovered that Cohen and Morgan Stanley had apparently sent checks and wire transfers from Parsons’s accounts to questionable entities, including a purported charity which built a basketball court in Cohen’s backyard.All the athletes invested in life insurance policies based on deceptive information provided by Cohen, and used an accountant recommended by Cohen. But the accountant was actually an insurance salesman. And the person who signed the athletes’ tax documents — the insurance salesman’s father — was a lawyer who had never met or spoken with the athletes, Aidikoff said.Nyjer Morgan, center, settled a claim against Cohen in 2020.Mike McGinnis/Getty ImagesCohen has been the subject of a handful of other complaints, according to regulatory records. In March 2021, Nyjer Morgan, an outfielder who played for four Major League Baseball teams, settled a claim for $125,000 over the improper use of a “liquidity access line to loan funds to outside business entities.” One former client of Cohen’s, a retired professional athlete, told The Times that Cohen had won him over through word of mouth and then by a sales pitch over dinner that included laminated reports. But a year later, when the client noticed financial transactions that looked unfamiliar — and lost tens of thousands of dollars in the process — he was alarmed, and told his agent to immediately find another broker.“It’s painful and it doesn’t leave you,” said the athlete, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reliving a difficult private experience in the public eye.Susan C. Beachy More

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      Lakers Pass N.B.A. Trade Deadline Unchanged and Uncertain

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      For a team still searching for cohesion around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the buyout market may not be enough to vault into title contention.The Los Angeles Lakers were not in a great place ahead of the N.B.A. trade deadline on Thursday. They had disgruntled stars, a losing record and a general air of dysfunction a couple of months before the playoffs were scheduled to start.The bad news? Nothing changed once the trade deadline passed. Same disgruntled stars. Same losing record. Same general air of dysfunction.As some stiff winds of change swept through the N.B.A. on Thursday, the Lakers continued hobbling forward as constructed, which does not bode well for their future. It is an indictment of a franchise that still employs LeBron James and Anthony Davis, two stars who are part of a hodgepodge cast of aging and ill-fitting pieces.Exhibit A: Russell Westbrook, whose inconsistent play at age 33 has landed him on the bench in crunchtime situations. If the Lakers were looking to trade him this week, there was an obvious problem: Who would take him and his contract? He is making $44 million this season, with a player option worth $47 million next season.In a post-deadline conference call with the team’s beat writers, Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka did not offer specific details but said he was “aggressive in a lot of conversations trying to improve this team.” Nothing panned out.As for Westbrook’s future?“Russ is a big-hearted individual. He wants to win,” Pelinka said. “And he knows that with players as impactful and influential as Anthony and LeBron are, it’s going to require sacrifices in his game and how he plays.”On Wednesday night, Westbrook sat out the Lakers’ loss to the Portland Trail Blazers with what the team described as a stiff back. Afterward, Lakers Coach Frank Vogel said Westbrook had been engaged with his teammates on the bench. That might have been the only bright spot for the Lakers, who are 26-30 ahead of their game against Golden State on Saturday.“I do know this has been an extremely difficult and challenging season for all of us,” Vogel said, “so there is a toll.”Those words preceded a dizzying trade deadline for a whole bunch of teams not named the Lakers. At the top of that list: The Nets agreed to send James Harden to the 76ers as part of a deal for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond. Other big names were on the move, including Kristaps Porzingis, whom the Dallas Mavericks traded to the Washington Wizards for Spencer Dinwiddie. The Boston Celtics beefed up their backcourt by trading for Derrick White. The Charlotte Hornets acquired Montrezl Harrell from Washington for a late-season push.While the Lakers could still be active in the buyout market, it seems impossible to envision a way in which they could reinvent themselves as a realistic championship contender. They were limited at the trade deadline after having already sacrificed so many assets, including future draft picks, in their deals for Davis and Westbrook.On Wednesday night, the eve of the trade deadline, James said he was tired.“I just want to get some wine and get up tomorrow,” said James, who helped deliver a championship to the Lakers just two seasons ago. “I feel good about what tomorrow has in store, and we’ll see what happens.”He added: “But other than that, I’m kind of just focused on what we can do to be better.”It is a long list. Entering Thursday, the Lakers ranked 17th in defensive rating, 22nd in offensive rating and 26th in turnovers. Westbrook has committed 224 turnovers this season, more than any other player in the league.Russell Westbrook leads the N.B.A. in turnovers.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt was only August when the Lakers acquired him from the Wizards in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Harrell and draft picks. While James seemed to acknowledge his role in recruiting Westbrook to the Lakers — “It was exciting helping put this team together this summer,” James said before the start of the season — Westbrook seemed thrilled about returning to Los Angeles, where he grew up and played in college at U.C.L.A. He went so far as to call it a “blessing.”It was not difficult, though, to anticipate problems before the experiment began. The Lakers, with the oldest roster in the league, were built to compete for championships — eight years ago. In fairness, James said it would be a process to form chemistry. (It would not, he famously said, be “peanut butter and jelly” right away.) But a process usually leads to some form of improvement, and the Lakers, if anything, have regressed recently, having lost six of their last eight games.James and Davis have been limited because of knee injuries — Davis missed a huge chunk of the season, and there are broader concerns about the state of James’s 37-year-old body — but Westbrook is a shadow of the player who won the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Award with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017.In 55 games with the Lakers, Westbrook is averaging 18.3 points per game — the fewest he has averaged since his second season in the league in 2009-10 — while shooting 43.5 percent from the field and just 29.8 percent from 3-point range.At the same time, he has started to gripe about his diminished role.“You never know when you’re coming in, you never know when you’re coming out,” he said this week.On Wednesday, James compared the trade deadline to being in a fog.“We’re all trying to see what’s on the other side of it,” he said.On Thursday, the fog dissipated. The view was unpleasant. More

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      N.B.A.’s Warriors Disavow Part-Owner’s Uyghur Comments

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      The Golden State Warriors distanced themselves from a minority stakeholder, Chamath Palihapitiya, who said “nobody cares” about the Uyghurs, the ethnic group that has faced a deadly crackdown in China.The N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors on Monday distanced themselves from a partial stakeholder in the team after he said “nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs,” the predominantly Muslim minority that has faced widespread repression in China’s western Xinjiang region.Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire venture capitalist who owns a small stake in the Warriors, made the comments on an episode of his podcast “All-In” that was released on Saturday. During the podcast, Mr. Palihapitiya’s co-host Jason Calacanis, a tech entrepreneur, praised President Biden’s China policies, including his administration’s support of the Uyghurs, but noted that the policies hadn’t helped him in the polls.Mr. Palihapitiya replied: “Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, OK. You bring it up because you really care, and I think it’s nice that you care — the rest of us don’t care.”Later in the podcast, Mr. Palihapitiya, the founder and chief executive of the venture capital firm Social Capital and a former executive at AOL and Facebook, called concern about human rights abuses in other countries “a luxury belief.” He also said that Americans shouldn’t express opinions about the violations “until we actually clean up our own house.”On Monday, the Warriors minimized Mr. Palihapitiya’s involvement with the team.“As a limited investor who has no day-to-day operating functions with the Warriors, Mr. Palihapitiya does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don’t reflect those of our organization,” the team said in a statement.In recent years, China has corralled as many as a million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities into internment camps and prisons, part of what Chinese authorities say is an effort to tamp down on extremism. The sweeping crackdown has faced a growing chorus of international criticism; last year the State Department declared that the Chinese government was committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its use of the camps and forced sterilization.Mr. Palihapitiya’s comments could be the latest chapter in what has become a fraught relationship between the N.B.A. and China, where the league hopes to preserve its access to a lucrative basketball audience. In 2019, a team executive’s support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong prompted a backlash from China in which Chinese sponsors cut ties with the league and games were no longer televised on state media channels. The league later estimated that it lost hundreds of millions of dollars.On Monday, Mr. Palihapitiya, 45, who was born in Sri Lanka, moved to Canada when he was a child and now lives in California, said in a statement posted to Twitter that after re-listening to the podcast, “I recognize that I come across as lacking empathy.”“As a refugee, my family fled a country with its own set of human rights issues so this is something that is very much a part of my lived experience,” he said. “To be clear, my belief is that human rights matter, whether in China, the United States or elsewhere. Full stop.”Nevertheless, his original comments were condemned by several public figures who have spoken out against China’s human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region.Enes Kanter Freedom, a Boston Celtics player whose pro-Tibet posts caused the team’s games to be pulled from China in October, said on Twitter that “when genocides happen, it is people like this that let it happen.”“When @NBA says we stand for justice, don’t forget there are those who sell their soul for money & business,” he said.Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican who has often criticized the N.B.A. for its approach to China, tied the league to Mr. Palihapitiya’s comments.“ALL that matters to them is more $$ from CCP so NBA millionaires & billionaires can get even richer,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.The discussion of human rights took up the largest portion of the 85-minute podcast episode. After Mr. Palihapitiya said that he did not care about the Uyghurs, David Sacks, a co-host, suggested that people cared about the Uyghurs when they heard about what was happening in Xinjiang, but that the issue was not top of mind for them.Mr. Palihapitiya then dug in.“I care about the fact that our economy could turn on a dime if China invades Taiwan; I care about that,” he said. “I care about climate change. I care about America’s crippling, decrepit health care infrastructure. But if you’re asking me, do I care about a segment of a class of people in another country? Not until we can take care of ourselves will I prioritize them over us.”He continued: “And I think a lot of people believe that. And I’m sorry if that’s a hard truth to hear, but every time I say that I care about the Uyghurs I’m really just lying if I don’t really care. And so I’d rather not lie to you and tell you the truth — it’s not a priority for me.”Mr. Calacanis said it was “a sad state of affairs when human rights as a concept globally falls beneath tactical and strategic issues that we have to have.” Mr. Palihapitiya countered that it was a “luxury belief.”“The reason I think it’s a luxury belief is we don’t do enough domestically to actually express that view in real, tangible ways,” he said. “So until we actually clean up our own house, the idea that we step outside of our borders with us sort of morally virtue signaling about somebody else’s human rights track record is deplorable.”The N.B.A. is heavily invested in not attracting the kind of messy blowback it received in 2019, when Daryl Morey, then the general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted in support of Hong Kong protesters. China removed N.B.A. games from state media channels, with games returning to air a year later.LeBron James, perhaps the league’s biggest star, faced widespread backlash when he appeared to side with China, saying Mr. Morey “wasn’t educated on the situation at hand” in Hong Kong. More

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      Pelicans Choose to Remain Upbeat, Not Beaten Down

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      New Orleans guard Josh Hart is assembling his most complete pro season under a new coach who is relentlessly positive, and for a team that is still missing Zion Williamson.BOSTON — Josh Hart has experienced quite a bit. He won a national championship at Villanova. He played alongside LeBron James with the Los Angeles Lakers. He reached great heights and scrambled for minutes. But Hart got a dose of something new at the start of this N.B.A. season with the New Orleans Pelicans: relentless positivity.It hardly mattered that the Pelicans had lost 12 of their first 13 games, or that they were scuffling through a series of blowouts, or that the team’s fans seemed preoccupied with the one player — Zion Williamson — who was absent from the lineup. No matter the circumstances, Willie Green, the team’s first-year coach, was going to remain upbeat.“I think he was almost overly positive,” Hart, a fifth-year guard, said in an interview. “But this is a new group with a lot of young players, and we knew it was going to take time.”That process, as evidenced by the Pelicans’ 104-92 loss to the Celtics on Monday in Boston, is continuing. But there has been progress. Since their brutal start, the Pelicans have gone 15-16 behind the efforts of unsung players like Hart, who, at 6 feet 5 inches, defends and rebounds, and has joined his teammates in focusing on what they can control.“Obviously, we want Z to get back as quickly as he can and get 100 percent,” Hart said of Williamson. “But we can’t sit here and be like, ‘We’ve got to keep the ship afloat in hopes of a Zion grand return.’ That’s just not the mentality to have. The mentality is: We’re not going to have him for the season. That’s how we’re looking at it, and we’ve all got to step up and hoop and take advantage of our opportunities. And if he comes back? Perfect, we’ll be even stronger.”Williamson, a first-time All-Star last season and one of the N.B.A.’s most explosive players (when in uniform, which is increasingly rare), has had a series of setbacks since he had off-season surgery to repair a fracture in his right foot. A planned return to practice in December was abandoned when he reported soreness. Medical imaging revealed what the team assessed as a “regression” in the healing process, and he has since been rehabilitating in Portland, Ore. He has yet to play in a game this season, and there is no timetable for his return.“He’s still recovering, still trying to get healthy,” Green said on Monday.It is a credit to Green and his players that the Williamson story line has not ballooned into something bigger. Winning a few games has helped. But so, too, has Green’s approach.“I go back and forth sometimes myself on how much positivity I should show,” Green said. “But there have been studies. If you show people positive ways in which to do things versus the negative, their growth is tremendous. And it just happens to be a part of who I am. It’s not like I’m not holding them accountable. But I would prefer to be positive.”After a brutal start to the season, Coach Willie Green’s Pelicans have gone 15-16 behind the efforts of unsung players like Hart.Mary Schwalm/Associated PressHart said he did not feel especially valued last season under Stan Van Gundy, who was then the team’s coach. At times, Hart said, it felt like his only job was to stand in the corner and shoot the occasional 3-pointer. As the losses piled up, so did the bad vibes, Hart said. (He recalled a teammate being yelled at for calling a timeout after he dived for a loose ball.)Van Gundy was fired after the Pelicans went 31-41 in his lone season as the team’s head coach. Hart, meanwhile, waded into restricted free agency after having missed the team’s final 25 games with a hand injury. Still, he was hopeful that he would receive interest from teams around the league. Those lucrative offers never materialized. He wound up signing a three-year extension with New Orleans. The deal could be worth as much as $38 million, but it comes with a big caveat: Only the first year is guaranteed.“I know it’s very easily tradable,” Hart said, “so that’s always in the back of your mind.”Hart had been hoping for more security, and, for the first time in his adult life, he took a break from basketball over the summer. He got married. He spent some time away from the game, banking on the belief that distance would give him fresh perspective. He also began preparing to play for yet another head coach — his fourth in five seasons. Hart acknowledged that cycling through so many philosophies and management styles can take a toll on a young player, especially one trying to find his niche.“Some coaches are positive, and some are negative,” he said. “Some keep it real with you, and some kind of don’t.”Hart said he was still feeling “skeptical” about his place in the organization when he met Green for the first time over dinner before the start of training camp. Green, a former assistant with the Warriors and the Suns, said he approached the meeting with an agenda. First, he wanted to listen: What had happened with Hart over the summer? What were his frustrations? How could he help? Second, he wanted to convey that he loved Hart’s competitive nature — “He has made every team he’s played for better,” Green said — and viewed him as a leader.“I walked away feeling encouraged that he wasn’t going to limit me or put me in a box, that he was going to let me play the game the way I love to play it,” Hart said. “For a basketball player, that’s what you want to hear — that you have the confidence of your coach.”Hart is assembling his most complete season as a pro, averaging 13.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists while shooting a career-best 51.5 percent from the field.“I believe in them,” Green said of his players. “Even when it doesn’t look great, I know we’ll get there.” More

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      How the N.B.A. Forgot Dwight Howard

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      Howard went from being a dominant defender “the world revolved around” to an overlooked sub on the Lakers. What happened?The people who watched Dwight Howard dominate the N.B.A. up close don’t need reminders of how great he once was.They remember when he and LeBron James were the best players in the league. They remember what made Howard a three-time defensive player of the year, an eight-time All-Star and a member of the All-N.B.A. first team five years in a row.When they saw the N.B.A.’s 75th anniversary list of the best players ever, selected by a panel of media, players and coaches, they realized someone had been forgotten: Howard.“That was kind of crazy,” said Otis Smith, the former Orlando Magic general manager, who built teams around Howard.Said Stan Van Gundy, who coached him at his peak: “Whatever the reason that he got left out, there’s something more than basketball to it.”In the decade since Howard dominated the league, he has gone from centerpiece of a finals team to disappointing star to doubted role player. The N.B.A.’s 75 best list, which ended up with 76 players because of a tie, was just one example of how Howard’s once-undeniable impact is now challenged.Howard is now part of a Lakers team hailed for being filled with players almost certain to make the Hall of Fame. During those conversations, the players cited are usually Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony. But Howard’s name is often left out, despite a list of accomplishments few can match. Among this group of Lakers, he plays the least, at around 15 minutes per game, and his legacy is questioned most often.The man who was once James’s greatest adversary has faded into the background.“Why do you think people don’t like you?” Charles Barkley, in his role as a TNT analyst, asked Howard during a studio show in 2016.After a bit of back and forth, Howard answered: “I think I was very likable in Orlando, and the way that situation ended, I think people felt I’m just this bad guy.”Howard, in a Superman cape and shirt, won the N.B.A.’s dunk contest during All-Star Weekend in 2008.Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto AgencyHe spent eight seasons with the Magic, who drafted him No. 1 overall out of high school in 2004. Despite his outsize physique, basketball acumen and talent, he faced critiques even then — often about whether he smiled too much.“Our core group, we understood each other and if it was time to not joke, we would just tell him, ‘Not right now,’ or he could sense it,” said Jameer Nelson, the Magic’s starting point guard while Howard was there. “We were winning so many games during that time it’s almost like, how can you tell somebody not to joke when you’re still winning? You’re still statistically one of the best teams in the league on both ends of the floor.”Howard led the Magic to the N.B.A. finals in 2009 after beating James’s Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. The Magic lost to the Lakers in the N.B.A. finals, and lost in the Eastern Conference finals in 2010.Then trouble started. There were rumblings Howard wanted out of Orlando. Nelson recalled trade rumors emerging about other players. Sometimes those players wondered if Howard was behind them.“It was a painful time even coming to work,” Nelson said.One day, Van Gundy told reporters Howard was trying to oust him, and Howard, not knowing what had just been said, playfully crashed Van Gundy’s news conference with a smile. The awkward moment — Howard with his arm across the shoulders of a soda-sipping Van Gundy — became a meme.“I’m not trying to run from it,” Van Gundy said in a phone interview recently. “I don’t think the incident that he and I had — we only had one — I don’t think it reflected real well on either one of us.”The Magic traded Howard to the Lakers before the 2012-13 season. The Phoenix Suns had traded guard Steve Nash to the Lakers a month earlier, and the pair appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated together with a now-infamous headline: “Now This Is Going to Be Fun.”Nash, who had won two Most Valuable Player Awards in Phoenix, broke his leg in the second game of the season. Howard struggled through injuries and clashed with Kobe Bryant, the face of the team. The Lakers went 45-37 and Howard was an All-Star again. But after the season ended with a first-round loss in the playoffs, he moved on as a free agent, leaving behind an enraged fan base.Howard chose Houston, another team that expected him to help it win a championship and that had even staged a special news conference with Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming. But this team, with a talented guard in James Harden, also wouldn’t be built around Howard.“You could tell it was different for him,” said Corey Brewer, who joined the Rockets in Howard’s second year there.There were reports of discontent between Howard and Harden.“They were just different,” Brewer said. “I wouldn’t say it didn’t mesh. Just different personalities. I don’t feel like they had any problems that I knew of. We were trying to win.”Stan Van Gundy, left, who coached Howard in Orlando, said he believes Howard should make the Hall of Fame.Chuck Burton/Associated PressWith Howard and Harden, the Rockets made it to the Western Conference finals during the 2014-15 season and lost to Golden State. Critiques of Howard’s game continued; Barkley, for example, said often that Howard never improved his game after his time in Orlando.All the while, the sport was changing, making traditional centers like Howard less effective. After one more season in Houston, Howard spent the next five years on five teams — the Atlanta Hawks, the Charlotte Hornets, the Washington Wizards, the Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers. He was also traded to the Grizzlies and the Nets, then waived before playing any games. He returned to the Lakers this season for a third stint.One evening in Washington, after a game early in his lone season there, an arena worker screamed “Brick!” when Howard missed practice free throws, according to The Washington Post and The Athletic.Howard didn’t spend much time physically with the Wizards, sidelined for most of the season after back surgery.He became seen as a player who would be a problem, who would complain about his minutes and opportunities. He was booed in Orlando and booed in Los Angeles.When the Lakers signed him in 2019, they gave him a non-guaranteed contract, which provided little security for Howard if the reunion went poorly.“He came in every day, pounded everybody, said hi to everybody, made sure everybody knew he was happy in the situation he was in,” said JaVale McGee, who started ahead of Howard with the Lakers during the 2019-20 season. “He constantly was the ultimate professional.”McGee added, when asked if showing that quality seemed important to Howard: “I definitely think it was important just because of hearsay and the way people talk about you in the league, especially G.M.s and coaches. It can really mess up your image.”Howard’s first foray with the Lakers, in the 2012-13 season alongside Steve Nash, center, and Kobe Bryant, right, ended in a disappointing first-round playoff loss.Steve Dykes/European Pressphoto AgencyThe Lakers won a championship in 2020 with Howard coming off the bench throughout the playoffs.“You look at him right now, he’s a sub,” said Smith, Howard’s former general manager. “He comes in, he adds some energy, plays some defense. But if you go back to in his prime when the world revolved around him and teams have to account for him before they account for anything else because he’s such a presence on the inside. Everyone had to adjust for that. The game has changed so much.”The way the Lakers use their centers reflects that change.Howard started this season coming off the Lakers’ bench for DeAndre Jordan, who started at center. But Jordan has only played in one game since Christmas. In that span, Howard has played in only five of eight games and averaged 13 minutes per game. Lately, LeBron James has been the Lakers’ starting center.Perhaps time has dulled his past accomplishments. Perhaps Howard’s complicated journey has affected his legacy.“I have people ask me like, ‘Oh, do you think he’s a Hall of Famer?’” Van Gundy said. “Do I think he’s a Hall of Famer? Are you kidding me?”Van Gundy rattled off Howard’s All-N.B.A. and defensive awards.“Go check and see how many people have done that,” he said. More

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      As W.N.B.A. Players Call for Expansion, League Says Not Now

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      Many players and fans want bigger rosters and more teams, but the W.N.B.A. said it can’t “expand for expansion’s sake” without the money to support it.On Oct. 17, Lexie Brown became a W.N.B.A champion. She and the Chicago Sky defeated the Phoenix Mercury to win the first title in franchise history. Yet, four months prior, Brown was sitting at home wondering if she would ever find her way back into the league.Brown expected to play for the Minnesota Lynx during the 2021 season, but the Lynx waived her on April 17. Days later, she arrived in Chicago for training camp.“You have to deal with things like that,” Brown said. “Keep your mental, stay professional, stay ready for your number to be called.”The Sky cut Brown at the close of training camp in May, signed her again, cut her again, then signed her for the remainder of the season on June 14.“It’s been a very hard last few months for me personally,” Brown said in June, “but I think that Chicago is where I wanted to be. And even though it took a lot of nonsense for me to end up on Chicago, I’m really happy to be here.”The hassle can pay off — Brown did win a championship, after all — but it can take its toll.Each season, players are caught in a revolving door of contracts for 144 W.N.B.A. roster spots. Many people inside and outside the league believe now is the time to expand team rosters or teams in the league, or both. With only 12 teams and 12 roster spots on each team, the W.N.B.A. is harder to get in, and stay in, than the N.B.A., especially with most players’ contracts not being guaranteed. The relatively low salaries also push players to make tough choices about when and where to play.The W.N.B.A. is seen as the gold standard for women’s sports leagues because of the level of competition and many of the benefits players have gained through collective bargaining. But Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the players’ union, is among those striving for more.“I like where the league is now as far as people garnering attention around it,” said Ogwumike, a 10-year veteran forward for the Los Angeles Sparks. “I don’t like where it is with rosters, number of rosters, number of teams. And it’s not to say that, you know, it’s anyone’s fault. It’s just, like, we want to see growth.”‘We need more teams’Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the players’ union, helped secure higher salaries and other benefits during contract negotiations but also wants to see the W.N.B.A. add teams.Ashley Landis/Associated PressOgwumike led the players’ union as it reached a landmark collective bargaining agreement that took effect in the 2020 season and will last through 2027. The agreement introduced a team salary cap of $1.3 million, an increase of 30 percent. Many saw it as a step in the right direction regarding pay equity. But it also illuminated another concern.“The $300,000 increase in the salary cap was not significant,” said Cheryl Reeve, the head coach and general manager of the Minnesota Lynx. “It was highly lauded that we were doing better for the players. And, yeah, for the supermax players, there’s separation now.”The minimum player salary for 2020 increased by about $15,000, to $57,000, and the supermax for veterans rose by about $100,000, to $215,000. The figures increase each year.Teams that are looking to carry experienced players to make a deep playoff run now must play what Reeve called “salary cap gymnastics.”“I’m doing far more general managing during a season than you want to do, and that was brought on, in our case, by injuries,” Reeve said.The Lynx signed Layshia Clarendon to a contract for the remainder of the 2021 season on July 2 after three hardship contracts. The game of catch-and-release was necessary for Minnesota to remain within its team cap as the Lynx dealt with injuries and other player absences.Clarendon started the season with the Liberty, and had tweeted on the season’s eve, “My heart breaks for players getting cut (yes, it’s part of the business) but particularly since there are ZERO developmental opportunities.”Seven days later, after playing three minutes total in one game for the Liberty, Clarendon became such a player after being waived by the Liberty.That opened the door for the Lynx. To alleviate the burden caused by player injuries, the W.N.B.A. can grant hardship contracts for teams with fewer than 10 active players. Each replacement for an injured player requires a new, prorated contract from the salary cap. Teams often must choose between cutting injured players to free roster spots or keeping them and competing with fewer active players.Terri Jackson, the executive director of the players’ union, said the union had “made our position known” about adding injured reserve spots and expanding rosters during the last round of contract negotiations, but could not agree on terms.Ogwumike said the players wanted to create a more “robust league.”“I think the ideas are there,” she said, adding, “but, most certainly, we need more teams.”‘Not enough for me to survive on’Diana Taurasi sat out the 2015 W.N.B.A. season to rest after playing for a Russian team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, which paid her $1.5 million.James Hill for The New York TimesTo that end, some within the W.N.B.A believe a developmental league is a logical evolution.The N.B.A.’s G League is a proving ground for unsigned players and also a way for developing players signed to N.B.A. teams to get playing time. Each N.B.A. team can have up to two players on two-way contracts who split time between both leagues. Teams can also call up other G League players on short-term contracts as needed if they have the roster space.Jacki Gemelos, a Liberty assistant coach and former W.N.B.A. journeywoman, said “an extra two roster spots would be huge.”“I would have been that 13th, 14th roster spot player that maybe is not necessarily good enough to make that 12 but a good culture piece,” Gemelos said, adding that the spots could be for “a specialty player, like a knockout shooter or, a really, really tall big player if you need it for certain games or even just for injury purposes.”In her brief W.N.B.A. career, Gemelos played 35 games for three franchises. For players who don’t catch on in the W.N.B.A. or who hardly see the court, there have long been few avenues to get more playing time without going overseas. A new domestic league, Athletes Unlimited, which will begin its five-week season this month, is now an option. But for most players, international leagues are their best opportunity to play, and to get paid.Even most of the highest-paid W.N.B.A. players go abroad to compete for European clubs and national teams during the off-season, and sometimes instead of playing in the W.N.B.A.Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier is one of many players who play for international teams during the W.N.B.A.’s offseason to make additional money. She played in France last year.David Joles/Star Tribune, via Associated Press“If I’m not making that much in the league, if it’s not enough for me to survive on during the year, I’m going overseas and having the summer off,” Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said on the “Tea With A & Phee” podcast she hosts with Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson.As a result, many overseas players arrive late for W.N.B.A. training camp, leave at midseason or miss the season entirely, especially in Olympic years. In the 2021 season alone, 55 players arrived late to W.N.B.A. training camp, and about a dozen players missed their home opener, according to The Hartford Courant. In the future, this will cost players 1 percent of their salary for each day they are late and full camp pay for those missing all of camp. The league wants players to stay in the United States, to minimize disruptions to the W.N.B.A. season and to reduce injury risk, but for some that is a difficult decision.A top-tier player can earn $500,000 to $1.5 million for playing overseas. Diana Taurasi sat out the 2015 season after winning a championship with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014. “The year-round nature of women’s basketball takes its toll, and the financial opportunity with my team in Russia would have been irresponsible to turn down,” Taurasi wrote in a letter to fans.Taurasi’s Russian team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, paid her W.N.B.A. salary, $107,000, according to ESPN, plus her $1.5 million overseas salary to sit out the six-month 2015 W.N.B.A. season.In 2021, Taurasi led the Mercury to the W.N.B.A finals despite an injured ankle, for a max salary of $221,450.‘Don’t expand just for expansion’s sake’Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the league would expand “down the road” but that it didn’t make business sense right now.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressReeve, the Lynx coach and general manager, said she preferred franchise expansion over roster expansion, especially since the answer, either way, is more money.“We need a greater commitment as a whole from the N.B.A. and the N.B.A. owners,” she said. “We need a greater commitment financially. We need greater investment. This league has been far too long about, you know, the revenues and expenses matching, don’t lose one dollar. And that’s not how you grow a league.”When asked for a response to Reeve’s comment, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said: “I disagree with that. I have a track record of building businesses and growing businesses, and that’s what we’re doing here.”Engelbert said she was proud that the W.N.B.A. is the longest-standing women’s domestic professional league (among team sports) and of the financial commitment of the N.B.A., including having the W.N.B.A. as part of the brand identity.“Quite frankly, I don’t think that we could be around if the N.B.A. hadn’t been so supportive over the years,” Engelbert said.The N.B.A. owns 50 percent of the W.N.B.A., and five N.B.A. owners — of Phoenix, Brooklyn, Indiana, Minnesota and Washington — also own a W.N.B.A. team outright. Engelbert declined to comment on the operating budget for the W.N.B.A.When asked about providing more support, an N.B.A. spokesman, Mike Bass, said in an email: “The N.B.A. has provided enormous financial support to sustain the operation of the W.N.B.A. for the past 25 years, and our commitment has never wavered. We’ve seen exciting growth for the league under Cathy’s direction and are confident in the ability of league, team, and player leadership to continue that growth.”Engelbert said she also knows there are “inequities in the system” regarding viewership for women’s sports leagues.“All signs and symbols point to league growth, but we’re not even close to having the economic model the players deserve,” Engelbert said.Since becoming commissioner in July 2019, Engelbert has focused on economics and the experiences of players and fans. She has brought on more investors, such as Amazon as the sponsor of an in-season tournament with a prize pool of $500,000 for the two finalists. While that has increased player compensation opportunities, as has a provision for marketing deals, it does not address the underlying concerns about limited roster spots and better pay for players overall.Engelbert said expanding the league is “part of a transitional plan,” but not now.“If you want to broaden your exposure, probably need to be more than 12 cities in a country with 330 million people,” Engelbert said. “We’re going to absolutely expand down the road, but we don’t just expand for expansion’s sake until we get the economic model further along.”Ogwumike hopes more financial commitments from sponsors will lead to the players getting what they want — bigger rosters and higher salaries — to keep the most prominent players in the W.N.B.A.“These last two drafts have shown there’s a league sitting at home, and so we have to do something about that,” Ogwumike said, referring to the number of talented players who are not drafted. “I think that it’s really just the onus is on ownership, investment, people wanting to pump more into women’s sports. We have players that are ready to be a part of this league.” More

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      Amir Johnson Is More Than an Answer in N.B.A. Trivia

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      His name was the last on a list that included LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant. But his biggest impact on basketball may be yet to come.Amir Johnson felt warm, either from the temperature in the room or the gravity of the moment. He removed his shirt.Johnson stayed nervous throughout N.B.A. draft night in 2005 as hour after hour, pick by pick, slipped past. Instead of planning for prom or making a final decision on his college destination, Johnson, at 18, was studying the television screen at his aunt’s house as his professional future hung in the balance.The N.B.A. draft cut to a commercial as it neared its end. A ticker of draftees’ names continuously sprinted across the bottom of the TV screen. Then someone screamed.The Detroit Pistons had just selected Johnson, out of Westchester High School in Los Angeles, with the fifth-to-last pick, 56th overall.The room, full of Johnson’s relatives and friends, detonated. “We had horns and everything,” Johnson recalled. He tried to stand up, but found his back glued to the plastic smothering his aunt’s couch.Johnson’s journey had started, his dream formulating in fast forward. So what if the Pistons had just defeated his hometown Lakers in the championship? Larry Brown, Detroit’s coach, was on the phone, welcoming Johnson to Detroit. Only a few months earlier, Johnson had committed to play for the University of Louisville, yearning to experience college life outside Southern California.From left, Rasheed Wallace, Will Blalock, Amir Johnson, Antonio McDyess and Jason Maxiell of the Detroit Pistons before a game against the Washington Wizards in October 2006.D. Lippitt/Einstein/NBAE via Getty ImagesThen, Johnson convened with his peers at the McDonald’s All-American Game, an exclusive exhibition for the nation’s best high school players. One by one, the top players confided in the others that they planned to skip college for the N.B.A., following in the trailblazing steps of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwight Howard.The N.B.A. closed its doors to high school players after Johnson, who was the final high school player drafted before a new collective bargaining agreement rule went into effect requiring that draft-eligible players be at least 19 years old and at least one year removed from high school.“I hope that’s on ‘Jeopardy!’ one day,” Johnson, now 34, said with a smile.The sun is setting on the careers of the prep-to-pro players who both revolutionized and modernized the N.B.A. James, 37, remains the focal point for the Lakers, where he is joined by Howard, who comes off the bench. Atlanta’s Lou Williams is the only other active N.B.A. player who joined the league from high school before the rule changed.“If you’re ready and you got the opportunity to go pro, why not?” Johnson said.When one door closes, another opens — or a few do.Today’s top high school basketball players are presented with a variety of destinations for a gap year on their way to N.B.A. riches and fame. They can opt for the traditional route of college in hopes of a status-boosting N.C.A.A. tournament run. They can play professionally overseas, as LaMelo Ball did before the Charlotte Hornets drafted him in 2020.Or, in a recent change, they can join domestic professional leagues like the Atlanta-based Overtime Elite or a specialized team like the Ignite, an incubating team for high school phenoms in the N.B.A.’s developmental G League that is paying some top players as much as $1 million over two seasons. The Ignite also have a handful of veteran players like Johnson, a good complement — in basketball and life experience — for the burgeoning stars fresh out of high school.Johnson, right, was surprised to find his G League teammates coming to him for advice — and even more surprised that he had answers.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“The N.B.A. is a privilege,” said Jason Hart, the Ignite’s coach, who played four seasons at Syracuse before bouncing around the N.B.A. “It’s not a right. We want them to cherish every day while you’re here on this journey, because this definitely won’t last forever.”The Ignite, in their second season, are rounded out by seasoned players like Johnson, Pooh Jeter and C.J. Miles, who was drafted into the N.B.A. out of high school with Johnson in 2005.The Ignite offer the talented teenagers an introduction to the N.B.A.’s circadian rhythm without everything on the line, as could be the case when Johnson joined the league.“This G League team is actually helping getting these guys ready to go play pro first, which we didn’t have,” Johnson said. “We just got thrown into the fire, and they get to learn and then go, which is dope. They can have that N.B.A. schedule where you got to wake up, and travel, and go to shootaround.”When Johnson joined the N.B.A., players could find themselves at the mercy of a franchise’s commitment to development, or its lack thereof.The Chicago Bulls, for example, acquired the big men Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry out of high school in 2001, hoping they would lead the franchise out of its post-Michael Jordan hangover. The Bulls offered playing time, but little development or direction in acquiring life skills.In Detroit, Johnson found the opposite. He joined a championship-level team of 30-year-olds with families and of established post players like Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Antonio McDyess.The Pistons, Johnson said, helped him learn life skills by helping him in apartment hunting, teaching him how to manage a bank account and helping him get his driver’s license.He received few minutes on the court but was willing and ready to listen and work, the individual effort folding into the momentum of an entire team. It was a quality that Johnson had cultivated as a youth when he participated in track and field, his original sports love.Johnson took some online classes at the University of Michigan but mostly regarded his time in Detroit as his college experience. He volunteered to leave the N.B.A. for stints in the G League, then known as the N.B.A. Development League, or D League. With the lower-level teams in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Sioux Falls, S.D., he came to know Texas Roadhouse and biscuits and could rely on constant playing time.Johnson, center, has played for many N.B.A. and developmental teams, including the Fayetteville Patriots in 2006.Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty ImagesA strong work ethic contributed to Johnson’s productive 14-year N.B.A. career in Detroit, Toronto, Boston and Philadelphia as a reliable and steadying influence.Johnson joined the Ignite last season with flickering aspirations of prolonging his playing career.Younger players, Johnson found, sought him out with questions. He surprised himself with how easily he had the answers at his disposal, like how to handle family obligations, how to establish routines and how to dress.“And if you do wrong, you’re going to be like, ‘I didn’t brush my teeth counterclockwise’ or something like that,” Johnson said. “A routine that gets your mind focused on the task is very helpful — knowing what you have to do in the morning to get your momentum going.”Johnson was elated on draft night in August when N.B.A. teams selected Ignite players like Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga.Johnson always figured he could be a player development coach if he wanted to. He now finds himself pulled to the strategy behind the game, envisioning a second career in coaching.“That passion when I was young and hungry to keep learning, it’s kind of leaning toward the coaching part,” he said.Johnson easily spots himself in the eyes of players like Scoot Henderson, who opted for the Ignite over one more year of high school.Whenever Henderson makes a mistake on the court, he rushes over to talk about it with Johnson so that it won’t happen again.Johnson said he had been “thrown into the fire” as a rookie and was hoping to help young players have a better experience.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“It just feels like a mirror,” Henderson said. “He knows what we are going through right now. He knows our thought process on everything.”Most players are used to working hard. That part is easy for anyone who is serious about the game. The leap is more of a mental leap than anything else, and Johnson is the positive voice in the ears of the Ignite players, beckoning them to continue.Entry into the N.B.A. is no longer a straight line for its younger players.Johnson has come full circle to make that transition as easy as possible for others.“They’re actually in tune with what I have to say,” Johnson said. “That changed my mind-set on wanting to give back. And when I saw those guys got drafted last year, it felt like I won a championship.” More

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      Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson's N.B.A. Returns Prompt Divergent Questions

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      Thompson’s comeback restores the Warriors’ backcourt, one of the most symbiotic connections in sports. Irving’s return raises concerns about the Nets’ lineup disruptions.It is a tale of two returns.Kyrie Irving is back with the Nets — well, on a part-time basis at least — after spending the season sidelined for reasons of his own making: the stubborn refusal of a Covid-19 vaccination.Klay Thompson will soon suit up for the Golden State Warriors after 30 months in which unlikely injuries pried him away from basketball. Thirty months, two and a half seasons, of hard and sometimes heartbreaking rehab.Thompson’s comeback brings us the opportunity to marvel again at one of the most symbiotic connections in sports. From 2012 until his initial injury in 2019, Thompson and Stephen Curry, his close friend and backcourt mate, offered steady lessons in combined greatness: ballet-like cutting and passing, orbital jumpers from every angle — all of it performed in remarkable tandem.We finally get to see Klay and Steph, Part II.Thompson’s return does bring about questions, but they are as simple and straightforward as his pull-up 3-pointers. Will he return to the All-Star form that helped lead Golden State to three N.B.A. titles? And if so, how long will it take?Stephen Curry, left, has kept the Warriors atop the standings, but nothing will feel quite right until Thompson is back in the mix.Jeff Chiu/Associated PressIrving’s comeback is another matter altogether. His return is a gamble. First, it sends a dubious message about personal responsibility during a public crisis. It also leaves the Nets in a muddle. The team is close to realizing its significant dreams, even as it now operates under the shadow of Irving’s most recent act: Here one game, gone the next.Few in basketball have ever been as elusive as Irving is when he winds through opposing teams and slices down the court — a fact underscored by Irving’s return to the Nets on Wednesday, when he scored 22 points and helped lead the team back from a 19-point deficit to defeat the Indiana Pacers, 129-121.Irving is just as hard to pin down off the hardwood. There may not be an N.B.A. point guard as fine at getting his teammates involved with pinpoint passing. But he also has a reputation for a history of being an erratic personality who can just as easily implode teams. (See: Boston Celtics; Cleveland Cavaliers.)Irving’s belief that the earth is flat? That was once a funny sideshow that he couldn’t quite explain in any manner that made sense.His refusal to be vaccinated during a pandemic that has killed at least 5 million worldwide and more than 830,000 Americans, with many of the hardest-hit communities being the Black and Brown neighborhoods that Irving takes pride in helping? That’s a perplexing travesty.What a difference three months makes in this troubled world. In October, Nets officials were adamant they would not allow Irving on their team so long as he refused to abide by New York City mandates requiring workers at venues as large as the Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden to inoculate against the virus.Why bother if Irving could play only when the team was on the road?“Each member of our organization must pull in the same direction,” General Manager Sean Marks said.Of course, the Nets waffled. Like almost every team in the N.B.A., they’ve been trotting out patchwork lineups filled with minor-league replacements because Covid-19 protocols have sidelined so many regulars. Never mind that by this week, every player kept from the team because of positive coronavirus tests had returned — the Nets had cover to reverse course on Irving.Brooklyn made a business decision, altering its stated principles, even as New York City finds itself swamped by another surge fueled by another coronavirus variant in this plague. Irving is back, adding to the bottom line that really matters in sports: winning and the heady financial rewards that come with it.The Nets, already gifted with Kevin Durant and James Harden, are chasing a championship and Irving’s return brings with him not questions of wonder and potential, but of logistics.With Irving, left, James Harden, and Kevin Durant, the Brooklyn Nets’ big three has the talent to win a championship.Darron Cummings/Associated PressDoes Kyrie Irving give the Nets the best chance to win a championship if he can’t play at home, in Manhattan against the crosstown Knicks or in Toronto versus the rival Raptors because vaccination is a requisite for entering Canada?The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 6The global surge. More