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      For the Milwaukee Bucks, the Jrue Holiday Gamble Yielded a Jackpot

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      When the Bucks acquired Holiday, it was hardly clear that they had solved their problems and improved their chances of enticing Giannis Antetokounmpo to stay.The Milwaukee Bucks were in an unusual position during the last off-season.They were title contenders facing wholesale upheaval, with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s so-called supermax contract extension unsigned after they had again slunk out of the playoffs disappointingly early, despite having the best regular-season record for a second consecutive season. More

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      The N.B.A. Champion May Literally Be the Last Team Standing

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      Injuries to stars have dominated and reshaped the playoffs, raising questions about the legitimacy of winning it all this year in a weakened field.The Milwaukee Bucks were in the midst of a comeback on Tuesday against the Atlanta Hawks, who were without their best player, Trae Young. With the Bucks up two games to one in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals series, a win would have put the franchise on the brink of making its first N.B.A. finals since 1974. More

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      Teenage Ballers Can Cash in Earlier Than Ever. But at What Cost?

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      Male players as young as 16 have many options to play high-level basketball before the N.B.A. without going to college — and get paid big money to do it.In February, Ramses Melendez, who goes by RJ, announced his college decision in a video posted to his social media accounts. A 4-star forward in the class of 2021, Melendez followed a typical formula for the video: a highlight reel and then a jersey reveal. He strayed from the script for a moment, though, when he acknowledged in a voice-over that “it wasn’t easy to make this decision.”A couple of months later, an unusual phone call made that decision even more difficult.On the other end of the line was Timothy Fuller, a former college basketball coach and the director of recruiting for a new league, Overtime Elite. Backed by investors ranging from the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to the Nets All-Star forward Kevin Durant, Overtime Elite aims to be an alternative to college as a path to the N.B.A. for high-level high school basketball players as young as 16.Fuller had seen Melendez play, and he wanted to offer him a spot in the nascent league. Fuller told Melendez that Overtime would help him prepare for the pros. Fuller also told Melendez that, unlike college, the league could pay him.A lot.Melendez declined to reveal a dollar figure during a recent interview at Rucker Park in New York City, where he was preparing to play in the Omni Elite tournament. But he did say that it was in line with Overtime’s other announced deals.In May, Overtime signed Matt and Ryan Bewley, twin brothers in Florida who are rising high school juniors, to two-year deals reportedly worth at least $1 million apiece. The league has since signed another set of Florida basketball twins for an undisclosed sum, and its leaders have said that it will eventually acquire 30 players who are each making a minimum annual salary of $100,000.“The money was nice, but it wasn’t the most important factor in my decision,” Melendez said. “I want my next step to get me ready to play in the N.B.A. I asked myself: What’s the best way to get there?”This year’s N.B.A. draft, whose order was announced last week with Detroit landing the top pick, isn’t likely to feature any players from the newest alternative paths when it takes place on July 29. But the 2022 draft will be a different story, and players and coaches from middle school to college have taken notice — and taken action.For top-flight high school basketball players, recruiting has often been a high-wire walk without much of a safety net. These teenagers have to discern the trustworthiness of college coaches who text and call them relentlessly, promising playing time and a sure path to the pros. And they have to be wary of boosters and agents and other unscrupulous characters who often offer money and benefits that run afoul of N.C.A.A. rules and the law.Now the best men’s players also have to decide whether it’s worth it to forfeit their college eligibility by turning pro during or immediately after high school.Because of the N.B.A.’s so-called one-and-done rule, American players must be 19 years old and one year removed from their high school graduating class to be eligible to be drafted. But no rule says they must attend college during that year. These new leagues are hoping to lure top players away from the N.C.A.A. with something colleges can’t match: a salary.In addition to Overtime Elite, there is also the N.B.A.’s own elite developmental team, the G League Ignite, which pays top players far and above the salaries for the G League’s regular teams. There is the Professional Collegiate League, which is backed by former Obama administration officials and aims to place 96 players on eight teams this fall. Those players will be compensated up to $150,000 each and receive a lifetime academic scholarship.And there are also overseas professional leagues, from Australia to Europe to China, pursuing American high school stars.“Before it was just, ‘What college am I going to?’” said Samson Johnson, a center from New Jersey who has committed to play for Connecticut in 2021-22. “Now there’s a lot of leagues, and it’s hard to keep up with all this new information. How can you be sure what’s real? It’s risky.”Among top prospects, the G League Ignite team has become the most attractive alternative to college. The G League enjoys the N.B.A.’s backing, and it also has proved it can develop N.B.A. draft prospects.Last year, the Ignite team inked the 5-star guard Jalen Green to a $500,000 contract. Despite playing a shortened season because of the coronavirus pandemic, Green is still considered a top-five pick for this year’s N.B.A. draft in July.Seeing other players succeed in the G League was part of the reason Scoot Henderson decided to graduate from high school early and sign a two-year, $1 million deal with the Ignite.“I wanted to be myself, and I wanted to own myself,” Scoot Henderson said. “With the G League, I get to play at a high level every night.”Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesHenderson had garnered interest from a professional league in China, from Overtime and from just about every college basketball powerhouse in the country.His decision came down to college or the Ignite team, which offered money, competition and the opportunity to sign endorsements. Despite some scattered progress on names, images and likeness reforms, it remains unclear whether N.C.A.A. athletes will be able to sign endorsement deals this year.“I wanted to be myself, and I wanted to own myself,” Henderson said. “With the G League, I get to play at a high level every night. I can also run camps and sign autographs and sponsor products.”Henderson had an added benefit while weighing his options. His A.A.U. coach, Parrish Johnson, is a longtime friend of Ignite Coach Brian Shaw.But not every elite high school player is so lucky. The N.C.A.A. doesn’t allow high school players to have contacts with agents, so they have to rely on the advice of coaches and family members who are not often familiar with the nuances of professional athletic contracts.Darrell Miller’s son, Brandon, is a top-15 prospect in the class of 2022. Whenever Darrell learns about a new league, he pulls out his laptop and starts Googling. Sometimes he’ll find himself with a dozen tabs open as they’re waiting at the airport for a flight to another A.A.U. tournament.“The scary part is: You just don’t know,” he said. “These are start-ups. They look really nice. They have the coaches. They have the board members. But then you get this feeling: What if? What if that check doesn’t clear? What if my son’s stock drops? If you’re a professional athlete, you’re not allowed to make the same mistakes you can as a college kid. If you choose the wrong college, you can transfer. If you choose the wrong pro league, what’s your backup plan?”Some high school and A.A.U. coaches, who are often players’ closest confidants, are also uncomfortable with their roles.“Your biggest nightmare as a coach is to push a kid in a certain direction and have it not work out,” said Vonzell Thomas, who coaches the A.A.U. team Southern Assault. “Then for the rest of that kid’s life, whenever he thinks of you, he’ll think: That’s the guy who screwed up my life. You never want your name to come up when a kid gets asked why he didn’t make it.”Melendez discussed the Overtime offer with his parents and coaches. They looked at the contract together. Ultimately, he decided to turn the league down and stick with his decision to play at Illinois. It felt, for now, like the safer decision.“I said no because I’ve heard some N.B.A. players talk about how they regret not playing in college,” he said. “I don’t want to find myself in that situation. I didn’t want to wake up next year and feel like I’d made a big mistake. These leagues may turn out to be great opportunities, but I want to be able to see some history first. I want to make sure it works. These decisions change your entire life.” More

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      The N.F.L.'s Carl Nassib Broke a Barrier. Will Others Follow?

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      The number of publicly out L.G.B.T.Q. athletes in men’s biggest pro leagues lags far behind that in women’s sports. Will Carl Nassib’s announcement change that?Congratulatory posts flooded social media on Monday when Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib announced on Instagram that he is gay, becoming the first active N.F.L. player to do so.Jerseys and T-shirts bearing his name were the top sellers among all N.F.L. players on Monday, according to Fanatics, the league’s e-commerce partner. Stars like Giants running back Saquon Barkley — who played with Nassib at Penn State — and Arizona Cardinals defensive end J.J. Watt quickly voiced their support for Nassib on Twitter. Well-known advocacy organizations praised his declaration as monumental.“I think people are going to see what I’ve seen for years, that sports are a lot more accepting than people give it credit for,” said Cyd Zeigler, the co-founder of Outsports, a news website that covers L.G.B.T.Q. athletes and issues in sports.Yet Nassib said in his post that he had “agonized” over the decision to go public about his sexuality, after keeping it to himself for 15 years. That he is the only active player who is publicly out in one of the four major American men’s pro sports leagues suggests the height of the barrier that male athletes face openly acknowledging a gender or sexual identity that doesn’t conform with those traditionally tolerated in locker rooms.Other gay athletes who have gone public with their sexuality have said they felt pressured to suppress it — and may still despite currents in society shifting to more acceptance — for simple yet powerfully prohibitive reasons. In locker rooms, on fields and on courts, male athletes are taught to embrace heteronormative standards of masculinity.In February 2014, the N.B.A. became the first of the four major American sports leagues to have an openly gay active player when Jason Collins, who had come out publicly the previous spring, joined the Nets. John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)“I think it’s men and the machismo culture that pro sports are played, in particular,” that has inhibited men who identify as gay, bisexual, or queer from coming out, said Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.Still, some male athletes ventured to do so despite concerns about their safety and backlash from teammates and fans. In February 2014, the N.B.A. became the first of the four major American sports leagues to have an openly gay active player when Jason Collins, who had come out publicly the previous spring, joined the Nets. He retired from playing later that year.Michael Sam, who had been an all-American selection during his college career as a defensive end at Missouri, announced that he is gay weeks ahead of Collins’s signing, in the lead-up to that year’s N.F.L. draft. The Rams selected him in the seventh, and last, round, and an overjoyed Sam cried and kissed his boyfriend on national TV in one of the most visible displays of gay male sexuality in the history of sports.But the Rams cut Sam before the end of training camp. The Dallas Cowboys then signed Sam to their practice squad, but he did not play in a regular season game. He retired from football in 2015.When Michael Sam was selected in the seventh round of the 2014 N.F.L. draft, he kissed his boyfriend on national TV in one of the most visible displays of gay male sexuality in the history of sports.ESPN, via Associated PressIntermittently, a handful of other notable male professional athletes made announcements about their sexuality throughout the years only after their sports careers had ended. But in the mid-aughts the stream of male former players to publicly come out as gay quickened, seeming to herald a shift in sporting culture. Athletes like the former N.B.A. player John Amaechi (2007) and retired N.F.L. players Wade Davis (2012) and Kwame Harris (2013) publicly announced that they are gay in memoirs, magazine cover articles and, in Harris’s case, in a CNN interview.Major League Soccer has had two active openly gay players — Robbie Rogers, who came out in 2013, and Collin Martin, who did so in 2018.In Major League Baseball, Glenn Burke, an outfielder who spent four seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics in the 1970s, is known as the first player in major league history to come out to his teammates during his career. He came out publicly in 1982, three years after his last major league game. Burke, who died of AIDS complications in 1995, was supported by some teammates but was largely met with discrimination.The momentum for other gay male N.F.L. athletes to come out while they were still playing may have dwindled when Sam’s career fizzled out before it began. Nassib’s announcement may have been more readily accepted — publicly, at least — among his peers because he is already a dependable veteran.Nassib has already played five seasons in the N.F.L. and has kept a relatively low profile at an unglamorous, but important, position. Drafted by the Cleveland Browns, he has appeared in 73 games, starting in 37 of them while recording 143 tackles.Being labeled a “distraction” has long been a stigma assigned to players who espoused any view or identity that stood out from their teammates, but there’s an upside to Nassib’s increased fame, Zeigler said. His visibility could offer more chances to discuss topics surrounding L.G.B.T.Q. athletes.“Tons of people are going to be talking about this over the next couple of days, then again when he shows up for his first game and then again when he intercepts the ball and runs it back for a touchdown,” Zeigler said. “Teams and players can handle a couple of extra cameras. This will be here for a while.”Layshia Clarendon, who openly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, in January became the W.N.B.A.’s first player to have a top surgery while active.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressMen’s pro teams in America have lagged behind women’s, where L.G.B.T.Q. stars in team and individual sports have publicly identified themselves and still been celebrated. W.N.B.A. stars Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Elena Delle Donne are among the league’s current players who have come out as lesbian and Layshia Clarendon, who openly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, in January became the league’s first player to have a top surgery while active.The outspoken United States Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who is engaged to the W.N.B.A’s Sue Bird, said after a Women’s World Cup match in 2019 that “you can’t win a championship without gays on your team.” That year’s World Cup included more than three dozen players and coaches who are gay, in fact, and the winning United States team had at least one couple among its members.In the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the highest-caliber mixed martial arts promotion, the best female fighter of all time, Amanda Nunes, is an out lesbian.In contrast to L.G.B.T.Q. male athletes, their out peers in women’s American sports leagues have enjoyed more acceptance from the public and from their heterosexual teammates in recent years. Rapinoe and Bird are among the most popular and marketable female athletes in the world. In Nunes’s last fight in March, she brought her infant child and fiancée inside the octagon after defeating her opponent.According to Taylor Carr, chief of staff at Athlete Ally, an advocacy organization for L.G.B.T.Q. athletes, that could owe to a greater sense of camaraderie in women’s sports brought on by other collective social fights. Female athletes have for decades fought for equal pay, and the W.N.B.A. prominently led in many social justice causes, including a successful campaign by Atlanta Dream players to oust the team’s owner, the Republican former senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, after she opposed the Black Lives Matter movement the league’s teams were supporting.“When you have all of these people in women’s athletics who are sending very clear signals about what they believe, it makes you feel like ‘I have the ability to compete and live as my personal self,’” Carr said. “I am not just an athlete, I can bring my entire self to the court.”The U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe, center, who is engaged to the W.N.B.A’s Sue Bird, right, said after a Women’s World Cup match in 2019 that “you can’t win a championship without gays on your team.” Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThere are signs of Americans’ growing acceptance of L.G.B.T.Q. people, a cultural shift that may encourage other gay, bisexual and queer male athletes to come out publicly. Seventy percent of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted this year said they support same-sex marriage, a 10 percent jump from 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize those unions. Nearly 6 percent of respondents in a 2020 Gallup poll identified as L.G.B.T.Q., a 1 percent jump from 2017.It may take longer for that sea change to erode homophobic attitudes in male sports leagues, particularly the N.F.L. Players have previously faced backlash for offensive comments, some made in the immediate aftermath of a high-profile athlete publicly identifying as gay.The former Miami Dolphins receiver Mike Wallace posted on Twitter after Collins’s announcement in 2013 that he didn’t understand why with “all these beautiful women in the world and guys want to mess with other guys.” Wallace later apologized and deleted the post.San Francisco running back Garrison Hearst apologized in 2002 for using a slur and saying he wouldn’t want a gay player as a teammate after the retired Minnesota Vikings player Esera Tuaolo publicly came out as gay that year. Hearst’s comment elicited public apologies from the 49ers’ team owners and then-head coach Steve Mariucci, but no penalty from the league.For its part, the N.F.L. has made efforts to publicly support L.G.B.T.Q. inclusivity. The league sponsored a float in the 2018 and 2019 New York City Pride Parades, participated in promotional efforts during Pride Month in June like changing official social media avatars to include rainbows, and supported the You Can Play Project, which provides resources to encourage inclusivity in youth sports.Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of football operations, wrote an essay last year in which he argued that the N.F.L. was ready to welcome its first openly gay player. The league’s official social media accounts, including the Raiders’, responded to Nassib’s video with heart icons.Lapchick, who has studied gender and hiring practices in major sports leagues for over 25 years, noted football’s changing cultural landscape. “If you told me five years ago that the N.F.L. and individual teams would use hearts in their communications, I wouldn’t have guessed that,” he said. “Especially among men, there was a fear of coming out, and he broke that fear. I think the reaction will show other N.F.L. players that they can do this, too.”Andrew Das More

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      ‘It Hurts’: Season Is Over Before Nets See How Good Big Three Can Be

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      Injuries kept the Nets from knowing what they could really look like once their stars — Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden — were playing well together.Whether Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving could collaborate, share the basketball and play good enough defense to bring a championship to New York’s less heralded N.B.A. franchise were unknowns that nagged at the entire league.Now, after being eliminated by the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Nets cannot hush their skeptics until next year. After a 48-24 season and playoff ride that lasted only two rounds, the biggest questions about their three stars remain unanswered.Injuries overrode potential basketball issues and neutralized the Nets’ status among Las Vegas oddsmakers as title favorites. Durant, Harden and Irving shared the floor for only 43 seconds in the Bucks series. In Game 7, with only Durant as a dependable offensive option and Irving in street clothes, Milwaukee outlasted the Nets, 115-111, in overtime at Barclays Center, which inflicted a searing pain of its own.“It hurts,” Coach Steve Nash said, lauding the efforts of Durant, who scored 48 points in 53 minutes in Game 7, and Harden, who also played all 53 minutes, despite a hamstring strain. “I hurt for them more than anything.”The N.B.A.’s 75th season will be remembered for its Covid-19 protocols, game postponements and empty arenas for months. But the Nets became the league’s biggest on-court story after their acquisition in January of Harden from the Houston Rockets. Five years after General Manager Sean Marks was hired to rescue a franchise devoid of elite talent and draft picks, Marks built a legitimate contender by assembling one of the most impressive offensive threesomes in league history.The trouble for the Nets was not their defensive shortcomings, the depth they sacrificed to make the trade with the Rockets, the lack of available practice time during the coronavirus pandemic or Nash’s inexperience as a first-year coach. It was this: In the regular season, Durant, Harden and Irving were healthy enough to play together for only 202 minutes across eight games. Their 130 minutes together in a five-game dismissal of the Boston Celtics in the first round proved to be their only burst of continuity as a unit. Milwaukee won three of the final four games of the series after Irving’s nasty right ankle sprain in the first half of Game 4.These playoffs were supposed to be the Nets’ chance to shift a slice or two of cultural relevance to Brooklyn from Manhattan in a city teeming with Knicks fans. In the end, neither Marks nor Nash really came away knowing what the Nets could really look like when whole.Some key moments that brought the Nets to this point:Durant and Irving Sign OnEntering the 2019-20 season, there was much speculation about where Durant and Irving would end up. Earlier in the previous season, Irving had committed to staying with Boston long-term, while Durant seemed to be on his way to another title with Golden State. As the world found out after their seasons unraveled — Durant’s through an Achilles’ tear in the 2019 N.B.A. finals — they wanted to play together.The Nets had enough salary cap flexibility to sign them, as well as their friend DeAndre Jordan. The Knicks had the same wherewithal, but Durant and Irving chose the Nets and took Jordan, who finished the 2018-19 season with the Knicks, with them.Nets officials made the moves knowing Durant would probably miss his entire first season as a Net while recovering from the Achilles’ injury. Irving wound up playing only 20 games in his first season in Brooklyn because of shoulder problems. Both are now halfway through four-year deals.Nash’s HiringSteve Nash had a 48-24 record and was the Eastern Conference’s coach of the month in February in his first season as a Nets and N.B.A. coach.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets shook the N.B.A. again by hiring Nash as coach in September 2020. He had no coaching experience, even at the assistant level, but he won two Most Valuable Player Awards and was one of the best point guards in league history.He was essentially chosen by Marks, his former Phoenix Suns teammate, who felt he had the gravitas and communication skills to manage the Nets’ two mercurial stars. Harden would not arrive until a few weeks into Nash’s first season on the bench. The Nets also brought in Mike D’Antoni, Nash’s former coach in Phoenix, to lend veteran guidance.“I wasn’t hired to come in and be a tactical wizard,” Nash said on a podcast hosted by the N.B.A. sharpshooter JJ Redick.Hiring Nash, who is white, nonetheless elicited criticism, given the dearth of Black coaches in the N.B.A., whose player pool is estimated to be nearly 80 percent Black. Nash’s hiring came after Jacque Vaughn, who completed the 2019-20 season as the team’s interim coach and had the Nets playing unexpectedly well without Durant and Irving in the N.B.A.’s so-called bubble in Florida. Vaughn, who is Black, stayed on as an assistant alongside D’Antoni and Ime Udoka. On ESPN, Stephen A. Smith called Nash’s hiring “white privilege.”“Well, I did skip the line, frankly,” Nash said at his introductory news conference. “But at the same time, I think leading an N.B.A. team for almost two decades is pretty unique.”The Harden BlockbusterHarden entered this season as a disgruntled member of the Rockets. He wanted out after D’Antoni and Daryl Morey left the team without an established coach and its top front-office executive, and Harden pushed for a trade to the Nets to reunite with Durant, his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate. It was an audacious move for someone with three years left on his contract — and it cemented the Nets as league villains when it worked.Harden reported late to training camp to apply pressure on the Rockets to trade him. Appearing to be in less than optimal shape made his disinterest palpable during the eight regular-season games he played. The Nets, off to a 6-6 start, ignored Harden’s checkered playoff résumé and the rampant skepticism that one ball would not be enough to satisfy three high-volume scorers, and proceeded with trade talks.In January, the Nets acquired James Harden, pictured shooting over Giannis Antetokounmpo, but he strained a hamstring and missed more time than he had in any previous season.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn a four-team trade, Marks agreed to surrender control of the Nets’ top draft pick through 2027 to the Rockets and deal two young fan favorites, Caris LeVert (to Indiana) and Jarrett Allen (to Cleveland), to land Harden. As a bonus, the trade kept Harden from landing alongside center Joel Embiid in Philadelphia, after the 76ers offered the Rockets a deal involving Ben Simmons.The deal remains a gamble for the Nets. Every year without a championship will increase the scrutiny and pressure. Management must decide whether to pursue contract extensions with Durant, Harden and Irving that would cost hundreds of millions in salary and luxury tax or risk seeing any of the three opt for free agency after next season under their current contracts.“This is just the start of our journey,” Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner, said on Twitter after the Game 7 loss. Known as one of the league’s wealthiest owners alongside the Los Angeles Clippers’ Steve Ballmer, Tsai certainly has the financial might to keep the core together.Irving’s AbsencesDuring the pursuit of Harden and after his arrival, Irving missed seven games in January for personal reasons. Marks said Irving’s sudden unavailability and the acquisition were “completely separate.” Yet the Nets felt it was urgent to maximize Durant’s championship window and made the trade with that in mind, according to two people familiar with the club’s thinking who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Kyrie Irving, left, who was out since Game 4 with a right ankle sprain, supported his Nets teammates from the bench in Game 7 against the Bucks on Saturday night.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets knew they wouldn’t have a training camp to try to assimilate Harden into the team, but figured that by bringing in a durable player, they would almost always have two elite players on the floor. It also became clear, soon after Harden’s arrival, that he was best suited to be the team’s playmaker, according to one of the people. Clear, even, to Irving.“We established that maybe four days ago now,” Irving said in February. “I just looked at him and I said, ‘You’re the point guard and I’m going to play shooting guard.’ That was as simple as that.”Cries that Harden was a luxury item for the Nets faded fast. The team went 29-8 in the regular season in games that Harden played and 12-11 without him.InjuriesHealth woes began almost immediately; Spencer Dinwiddie was lost to a season-ending knee tear just three games in. Dinwiddie averaged a career-high 20.6 points per game the season before, and he was expected to be yet another scoring threat on a team full of them.Durant overcame his Achilles’ tear in a big way, ending his season with 49 points against Milwaukee in Game 5 and 48 points in Game 7. But he wound up playing in only 35 of the Nets’ 72 regular-season games because of a hamstring injury. Harden, who was dealing with his own hamstring injury, missed more time in the regular season (21 of the final 23 games) and playoffs than he had in any previous season.The Nets were rocked in April when LaMarcus Aldridge, a former All-Star they had signed after he negotiated a buyout with the San Antonio Spurs, retired at age 35 because of a longstanding heart condition. Nash used a franchise-record 38 starting lineups in those 72 games and four separate ones in the Bucks series, leaning upon the well-traveled Jeff Green; Blake Griffin, a former All-Star who joined the team in April; and Griffin’s former Detroit Pistons teammate Bruce Brown.For the playoffs, the Nets finally seemed healthy — for one round. Harden missed all but the opening minute of the first four games of the Milwaukee series and lacked explosion or lift in his legs when he volunteered to return for Game 5 after Irving’s ankle sprain. Green’s plantar fascia strain kept him out of the first three games with the Bucks.“It’s been a really difficult year,” Nash said. “We’ve had a lot thrown at us.”Even with the injuries and Milwaukee’s stars healthy, the Nets came within an inch of advancing to the next round. With one second left in regulation in Game 7 and the Nets down by 2 points, Durant made a contested shot from the right wing that appeared to be a 3-pointer for the win. But his toe was on the 3-point line, and it counted as a long 2, sending the Nets to overtime instead of to the Eastern Conference finals.“My big ass foot stepped on the line,” Durant said. “I was just seeing a little screenshot how close I was to ending their season on that shot. But it wasn’t in God’s plan, and we move on.” More

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      Was The NBA Season Too Much Too Soon After the Bubble?

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      A rash of injuries leads LeBron James to question the league’s packed schedule.The Los Angeles Lakers will not play another game until October, but LeBron James was apparently not ready to stop dunking. Fresh off the maiden first-round playoff exit of his career, James responded to a cresting wave of injuries sustained by marquee stars with a social media scolding of the N.B.A.In response to a sobering bulletin about the Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, who is out indefinitely after sustaining a knee sprain in the Clippers’ second-round series against the Utah Jazz, James took to Twitter. He offered commiserations to fans about the record-setting eight current All-Stars who have missed at least one game this postseason — and criticized league officials for not doing more in this pandemic season to “protect the well being of the players.”By more he meant less: James said he issued clear warnings about the increased injury risk attached to wedging a 72-game regular season between Dec. 22 and May 16, with the playoffs timed to end right before the Tokyo Olympics, compared with starting in mid-January and possibly playing fewer games. The 2019-20 season, remember, strayed into October and spawned the shortest off-season in league history after a four-month interruption imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.“They all didn’t wanna listen to me about the start of the season,” James wrote. “I knew exactly what would happen.”Self-serving? Yes. Vague? Yes again. There was an undeniable whiff of convenience to James’s remarks, as a rationalization for the swift end to the Lakers’ title defense, along with a lack of clarity. James did not specify to whom, when or where those warnings were registered. He was also surely aware that the 2020-21 schedule was mutually agreed upon by league officials and the National Basketball Players Association, and that starting later, as James had hoped, very likely would have cost both parties significant television revenue by falling shy of the 72-game threshold.Yet the soliloquy, above all, amounted to a loud and powerful “told you so” from James that drowned out the disclaimers. It carried more bite than his recent blasts about the N.B.A.’s decision to stage an All-Star Game in Atlanta in March, followed by protests against the playoff play-in tournament that his Lakers, after long-term injuries felled both James and Anthony Davis, had to win to make the playoffs after slipping to No. 7 in the West.Beyond the uncomfortable spotlight he brought to a dampened N.B.A. postseason increasingly known for who isn’t able to play, James said what so many of his fellow players have surely been thinking — using his biggest-in-the-game megaphone. The rant highlighted a prime concern in front offices and among medical staffs throughout the league: What cost, present and future, did the stacking of two pandemic seasons with such a short turnaround impose?The players’ union agreed to that timeline after learning that the N.B.A.’s television partners pushed for it. The players, who essentially split annual profits and losses evenly with team owners, were told that starting in December rather than January would result in a difference of roughly $500 million in revenue, after last season’s shortfall of $1.5 billion. No less important to the league office was the opportunity to wrap this season up in time to return to its usual October-through-June arc in 2021-22.In retrospect? It was a giant ask. The physical and mental toll of last season’s restart in the Florida bubble, combined so soon with the rigors of a season in home markets governed by strict Covid-19 protocols and daily testing that ate into rest and recovery time, had teams fearful from the start of a spate of soft-tissue injuries. Player stress and training time lost, with fewer practices and a second-half crush of games to make up earlier postponements, only increased those fears.As the number of injured stars became a dominant second-half story line, whether truly a byproduct of the compressed schedule or purely bad luck in some instances as seen with the ankle injuries sustained by James and the Nets’ Kyrie Irving, more questions surfaced. One of the biggest: How will the franchise cornerstones who shoulder such demanding loads rebound next season?“I don’t know if people do get the question you asked,” the Philadelphia 76ers coach, Doc Rivers, told me. “There’s so much stress on those guys. Some guys log heavier minutes — they have to do more.”Joel Embiid after falling hard in the fourth quarter of Game 5 against the Atlanta Hawks. Embiid has been playing through a meniscus tear in his right knee.Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersRivers’s All-Star center, Joel Embiid, is one of those guys. Embiid has been playing through a small meniscus tear in his right knee and, after a roaring start to Philadelphia’s second-round series against Atlanta, was unable to prevent the top-seeded Sixers from falling into a 3-2 deficit entering a Game 6 on the road.Those eight All-Stars who have missed at least one playoff game include Embiid. The number will swell to nine if Phoenix’s Chris Paul, who this week entered the league’s health and safety protocols, has to miss any of the upcoming Western Conference finals.As I’ve been writing since April, there is little charm to be celebrated from the uncharacteristically wide-open nature of these playoffs when the suspense largely stems from game- and series-changing absentees.“Injury rates were virtually the same this season as they were during 2019-20, while starter-level and All-Star players missed games due to injury at similar rates as the last three seasons,” said Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, citing the league’s internal data. “While injuries are an unfortunate reality of our game, we recognize the enormous sacrifices N.B.A. players and teams have made to play through this pandemic.”While true that one of the sport’s eternal struggles is conclusively attributing an injury to overuse, and that no one on the outside can conclusively say a 60-game schedule would have kept stars safer than 72 games, internal data that isn’t made public has obvious limitations. Thanks to James’s blasts, much more attention has been placed on the numbers dispensed by the Elias Sports Bureau. It heaped the loudest pressure yet on the league to prove that 72 games across five months before the playoffs, even with reduced travel, wasn’t an injury accelerant.Kevin Durant uncorked a performance for the ages (49 points in 48 minutes) on Tuesday to haul the Nets to the brink of the Eastern Conference finals despite Irving’s absence and James Harden’s limited effectiveness on an injured right hamstring. Hours after the Clippers and Suns lost Leonard and Paul on a wretched Wednesday, Atlanta tried to bring the focus back to basketball with its remarkable Game 5 comeback against the 76ers — or, depending on your perspective, Philadelphia’s unfathomable fold.These are the things we should be dissecting. The Leonard-less Clippers’ Game 5 win in Utah, inspired by Paul George right after the Sixers squandered a 26-point lead to the Hawks, was another.Over and over, sadly, injuries have changed the conversation. They affect every postseason, true, but the intrusions have seemingly been a constant since March 20, when James (high ankle sprain after Atlanta’s Solomon Hill collided with him) and Charlotte’s newly named Rookie of the Year Award winner LaMelo Ball (fractured wrist after crashing to the floor) were hurt on the same day.Elias circulated last week that this season’s 27 All-Stars combined to miss a higher rate of games (13.7 games per player and 19 percent overall) than in any previous season. Michele Roberts, the executive director of the players’ union, declined to comment on Wednesday when asked if James had indeed raised his concerns about such developments in consultation with union officials before the season.“I speak for the health of all our players and I hate to see this many injuries this time of the year,” James said as part of his rim-shaking social media post.On this occasion, and this topic, they were comments heard — and felt — by an entire league. More

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      It’s a New Series as the Injury Bug Returns to Bite the Nets

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      The Bucks tied their playoff series with the Nets, 2-2, as Kyrie Irving left with an injured ankle, joining James Harden on the Brooklyn sideline.MILWAUKEE — When the Nets settled into their hotel in the city’s Historic Third Ward last week, their 2-0 series cushion against the hometown Bucks looked especially cushy. A lead that reached as high as 49 points in the Nets’ Game 2 rout — without the injured James Harden — had the entire N.B.A. discouraged.By the time the Nets flew back home on Sunday night, after a second consecutive road defeat and the loss of another superstar, they were abruptly forced to contemplate the possibility that fielding a full-strength team is a luxury this season might never afford, no matter how lavishly the roster reads.Kyrie Irving’s right foot bent sharply in Sunday’s second quarter after he converted a layup and came down on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s right foot. Antetokounmpo had positioned himself for a rebound but left little landing space, and Irving was soon ruled out for the rest of the game with a sprained right ankle. It all meant that Kevin Durant would have to try to keep up with the emboldened Bucks alongside a rather limited supporting cast, while Harden stood throughout the game to shout instructions from the bench in street clothes.Nets guard Kyrie Irving grabbed his leg after being injured in the second quarter. Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMilwaukee predictably pulled away for a 107-96 Game 4 victory that evened this best-of-seven, second-round series at two games apiece and which, coupled with the uncertainty of Irving’s status, erased any notion of comfort that the Nets once felt. Irving left Fiserv Forum on crutches and with his right foot in a walking boot after X-rays were negative, according to a person briefed on Irving’s status but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.“It was a big adjustment tonight to play without him and James,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said, referring to Irving and Harden. “But we’ve had that type of year.”Even by the standards of this injury-laden Nets season, in which Durant, Irving and Harden have scarcely been able to play together since Harden arrived in a four-team trade in mid-January, Sunday afternoon’s events had the jarring feel of a new low. That was the unavoidable takeaway without even factoring in the fire alarm after the final buzzer that forced all arena occupants, including both teams, to be evacuated for what the Bucks termed “precautionary reasons.”The Nets’ original aim for this Milwaukee trip was to win at least one game and set up Game 5 on Tuesday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn as a closeout opportunity, enabling Harden to essentially take the series off after aggravating a right hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1. With the series now tied, in what was billed in many corners as a matchup that could well produce the N.B.A.’s next champion, Nash found himself fielding questions about the urge to restore Harden to the lineup on Tuesday.“I think it’s an independent case,” Nash said, swatting down the idea that Irving’s prognosis would influence Harden’s timetable. “I don’t want James to be rushed back.”The other factor, beyond Irving’s setback, that prompted such questions: Milwaukee had begun to cause problems even before Irving’s exit and looked a lot more like the team that swept the Miami Heat in the first round. Antetokounmpo had the standout box-score line with 34 points and 12 rebounds, but P.J. Tucker was the Bucks’ unquestioned spark, easing the pressure (at least temporarily) on the Bucks’ under-fire coach, Mike Budenholzer. After scoring just 9 points in the first three games of the series, Tucker sank three 3-pointers from the corner, his well-chronicled favorite spot, and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds.He might have been even more effective at the other end, imposing his physicality on Durant in precisely the manner the Bucks envisioned when they acquired him from Houston in a March trade. Durant led the Nets with 28 points and 13 rebounds but needed 25 shots to reach his scoring total. When Tucker was the primary defender, Durant shot 3 for 12.Hounded by the Bucks’ P.J. Tucker, the Nets’ Kevin Durant led the Nets with 28 points but needed 25 shots to reach his total.Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDuring a verbal confrontation between Tucker and Durant in Milwaukee’s narrow Game 3 victory, Antjuan Lambert, a personal security guard for Durant who was hired by the Nets when they signed him, came onto the court and shoved Tucker. The Nets were notified on Saturday that Lambert had been barred by the league office from any further on-court involvement in the series.Sunday actually brought a positive start for the Nets, with Jeff Green being cleared to make his series debut after missing the first three games with a left plantar fascia strain. Green immediately drew a charge upon entering the game late in the first quarter, putting Antetokounmpo in early foul trouble, but the Nets’ hopeful vibe was soon doused by the sight of Irving hobbling to the locker room after he spent several minutes on the floor recovering from the painful landing.When the Nets finally surrendered in the fourth quarter, pulling Durant with 4 minutes 28 seconds remaining and the hosts leading by 99-84, Milwaukee’s crowd, which included the Wisconsin native J.J. Watt of the Arizona Cardinals, broke into a “Bucks in six” chant.You’d have struggled to find anyone, with or without local ties, who believed that outcome would be possible after Milwaukee’s humbling 125-86 defeat at Barclays Center last Monday in Game 2. In these playoffs, though, injuries continue to wield the largest influence. Health woes for star players were unrelenting throughout the second half of a harried regular season conducted in pandemic conditions — and remain so.Remember the warning we got from Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers at the start of the second round?“It’s going to be the battle of the fittest by the end of this thing,” Rivers said. He was unsure at the time how well his star center, Joel Embiid, would fare trying to play through a slight meniscus tear in his right knee in the 76ers’ second-round series against Atlanta.Embiid, for now, is thriving. For the Nets and especially Durant? Suddenly nothing is slight about their shortage of playmakers or the load he’ll have to carry. More

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      ‘I Surely Can Stand in Front of Men and Lead Them’

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      With women being mentioned for open head coaching vacancies, the N.B.A. seems primed to break one glass ceiling in sports.It’s about time.The N.B.A. sits poised to be the first American men’s professional sports league to hire a woman as a head coach.The bond is there, boosted by the league’s growing group of assistants who are women and its siblinglike connection to the W.N.B.A.The N.B.A.’s players have shown a clear willingness to be led by women. Just ask Michele Roberts, the head of their powerful union.Job openings are plentiful. There are head coach postings in Orlando, Indiana, Portland and Boston.This time around, there are women among the candidates, and that’s a sea change not just for the N.B.A. but for all of sport.It’s bound to happen. If not this year, then hopefully in the next few.Will a woman running an N.B.A. team from the bench shatter the glass ceiling? Not quite. Not until women are regularly hired for such positions.More than that, true advancement will come only if trailblazing in the men’s game is just one of many opportunities for women to coach at any level — including college basketball and the W.N.B.A.Still, think of the powerful message that would be sent by that first N.B.A. hire: The leadership of a billion-dollar franchise and some of the most famous male athletes on the planet entrusted to a woman.“It would be huge,” Dawn Staley said. “We just need the right situation.”She has the bona fides to speak up.Enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame after a stellar playing career, Staley, 51, is now the head coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic team and the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team, a perennial power. She is also one of the most prominent Black women in coaching.“There are a lot of women good enough” to lead an N.B.A. team, Staley said.Kara Lawson was an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics during the 2019-20 season before departing to become head coach of the Duke women’s basketball team.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressBecky Hammon is one. She’s got insider credentials, having spent several years as Gregg Popovich’s assistant in San Antonio. In the N.B.A., that’s like being at the right hand of God.Duke’s Kara Lawson is another. She was a favorite of Brad Stevens, the former coach of the Celtics and their current president of basketball operations, during her stint as an assistant in Boston, and is reportedly on the team’s radar.What about Staley herself? A bold tactician and motivator, she is more than capable of making the leap. That’s why I sought her wisdom.When we spoke, she made it clear she wasn’t campaigning for an N.B.A. job. She treasures her team at South Carolina, which she has led to three Final Fours since 2015 and a national title in 2017.“I come with a lot of credentials,” she said. “I surely have the confidence. I surely can stand in front of men and lead them. First-team All-Stars. M.V.P.s. I’m OK with that.”More than OK, given the firm tone in her voice as she said that.What about the absence of N.B.A. experience?“I haven’t coached in the league,” Staley said, forthright. “But you know what? I’m a quick learn. I’m a quick learn.”It’s a frequent jab when talk of great female coaches helming men’s teams gets too serious — as if there haven’t been plenty of men who have led N.B.A. teams without spending time in the league. (Case in point: Stevens, who took over the Celtics after a coaching career spent entirely in college.)That common criticism prompted me to wonder what other red herrings could be thrown in the path of a female hire. What will it be like, I asked Staley, for the first woman to break through in the N.B.A.?The first woman will no doubt have plenty of supporters, she said. But there will also be knuckle-draggers who still believe that no matter what the sport, a woman cannot effectively lead male stars.“A lot of people would be out there, just waiting for you to make a mistake, waiting for you to be wrong,” she said. “There’s a whole dynamic that men, white or Black, just don’t have to think about. It’s a female thing. The expectation will be so much greater than the male coach. So much greater.”Female coaches at every level and in every sport are used to unfair scrutiny of everything from their looks to the way they speak to their strategies. The trailblazing coach will face obstacles that bring to mind those of other “firsts” who broke down barriers in sports.The city and fan base will also need to be prepared to embrace change — particularly, given the tangle of racism and sexism in America, if the coach is a Black woman.Being the first has a deep resonance that can spread far and wide, but there’s nuance to the battle for equality that women are fighting on all fronts.We can take a cue from Staley, who in our conversation noted repeatedly how happy she is at South Carolina. She sees herself in women’s college basketball for the long haul, teaching, cajoling and “getting young women ready to go to the W.N.B.A., so our W.N.B.A. can be around for another 25 years.”And a cue from the recently retired Muffet McGraw, the other Hall of Famer I spoke with last week.Muffet McGraw, center right, said women leading N.B.A. teams is “not something I even care about.” Late in her 33-year career at Notre Dame, she decided to hire only assistants who were women.Jessica Hill/Associated PressWomen leading N.B.A. teams, she said, is “not something I even care about.”“I want women coaching women,” she added. When it comes to men’s pro basketball, “I want to see those women going off to the N.B.A. and being great assistants and then coming back and taking over women’s jobs in college and the pros.”Her candor was no surprise.In her 33 years of coaching women’s basketball at Notre Dame, McGraw won a pair of national championships and turned her team into a venerable power. She also gained a reputation for speaking out about the need to have women in positions of leadership and for backing it up: As her career evolved, she decided to hire female assistants only.McGraw pointed out how much work remained to be done. In 1972, at the dawn of Title IX, the landmark law that created a pathway for gender equality on college campuses, 90 percent of the head coaches in women’s college sports were female. Then, slowly but surely, as the fame in women’s sports increased, along with the pay, men began taking over.By 2019, the numbers had dipped to around 40 percent in the highest division of college sports overall — and around 60 percent in Division I women’s basketball.It’s hardly better in the W.N.B.A. Despite its reputation as a bastion of empowerment, the 12-team league has only five female head coaches.There are too few female coaches at all levels and all sports, from elementary age through high school and beyond. “Why is it,” McGraw wondered, “that when your kid goes out to play soccer and they are age 5 and 6, it’s so rare to see someone’s mom coaching the team? And then you get older, it’s almost always a guy. So it’s no wonder that there’s a stereotype in there. You’re led to believe that when you think of a leader you think of a man.“That has to change.”Glass ceilings are everywhere for women. Shattering them in men’s professional basketball would be an important start in shattering them all. More