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      Regular People Keep Challenging N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. Players

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      There’s confidence, and then there’s thinking you can beat one of the 500 (N.B.A.) or 150 (W.N.B.A.) best basketball players in the world.Of the millions of people around the world who play basketball, fewer than 500 are in the N.B.A. at any given time. Fewer than 150 are in the W.N.B.A. Before retiring in 2012, Brian Scalabrine spent 11 seasons in the N.B.A., far more than the majority of players who have made it to that level. He won a championship as a reserve for the Boston Celtics in 2008. He is 6-foot-9 and roughly 250 pounds.Yet strangers cannot seem to stop challenging Scalabrine to one-on-one games. Last month, a video that went viral showed Scalabrine being challenged at a gym by an overeager high schooler in Taunton, Mass. Scalabrine, playing the teenager for a pair of sneakers, beat him 11-0.These high school kids bet Brian Scalabrine a pair of shoes they could beat him 1-on-1 😅 @brkicks(via joshlopesss/IG) pic.twitter.com/FX2NjbD4Sa— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 23, 2021
      Scalabrine, who averaged 3.1 points per game for his career, said this happens to him regularly, and conversations with other unheralded former players revealed that it’s the same for them. By his own account, Scalabrine, 43, looked “pudgy on television compared to some of the best athletes in the world” and wasn’t known as much of a rebounder or scorer.Even so, Scalabrine survived in the league by developing a reputation for rarely making mistakes, being versatile on defense and shooting the 3.“Being a white N.B.A. player from the suburbs, I have to level up,” said Scalabrine, who is from Long Beach, Calif., and was often referred to as the White Mamba, a play on Kobe Bryant’s Black Mamba nickname.“People don’t understand how a little bit nuts you have to be to sustain an N.B.A. career,” Scalabrine said. “Especially when you’re not that talented. You have to be ready. You have to be up for the fight. You have to be like that every day. And if you’re not, you lose your livelihood.”Scalabrine has, to some degree, invited the ongoing challenges. Shortly after retiring, he took part in a Boston radio station’s “Scallenges” promotion in which top local players played him one on one. Scalabrine won every game by a large margin.Of course, even the top players in the N.B.A. get challenged, often at youth camps they run. Those clips go viral as well, with the stars gleefully blocking shots of children and teenagers several feet shorter than them. Rarely, the challenger will win, as in 2003, when John Rogers, who was then the 45-year-old chief executive of an investment firm, beat the recently retired Michael Jordan in a game of one on one at Jordan’s camp after Jordan had beaten 20 other people in a row.But for players who aren’t, or weren’t, the face of a franchise, they get challenged in a different way, as Michael Sweetney can attest. The former Knick, who played in the N.B.A. for four seasons from 2003 to 2007, said in an interview that he was challenged “all the time.” In fact, Sweetney, 38, said it happened just a few weeks ago by two former high school basketball players who happened to be at a gym in Florida where he was working out with children at a basketball camp.Michael Sweetney playing for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden in 2005.Frank Franklin II/Associated Press“I guess they were thinking that since I was far removed and retired that, ‘Hey, I can probably challenge him,’” said Sweetney, who averaged 6.5 points a game in 233 games. “It was funny because they tried to catch me off guard.”Sweetney added: “I was like: ‘I’m just letting you know, I’m not going to take it easy. You challenge me, it’s going to be competitive. It ended up being a situation like Scalabrine. I beat one like 11-2 and the other one was like 11-1.”The two challengers were surprised, said Sweetney, who is now an assistant coach at Yeshiva University. It was another reminder: When a player makes the N.B.A., no matter for how long, he is, in that moment, one of the 500 best basketball players in the world.“Yes, I’m removed,” Sweetney said. “I’m probably not in N.B.A. shape. But you still have talent and people just think if you’re not a superstar, they might have a chance against you.“They don’t know that even the 15th guy on the bench is better than the average person walking down the street.”Scalabrine, who is a television analyst for the Celtics, has taken pleasure in reminding the public of that. End-of-the-bench N.B.A. players may even have to work harder than stars to stay in the league because one missed assignment could be the difference between having a job or not.“I can go into any gym right now and I can find some of the best players going through the motions sometimes,” Scalabrine said. “Can you imagine 15 straight years? Maybe even more like 17, 18 straight years of never going through the motions?”He said professional athletes, even retired ones, have an extra gear that an average person cannot tap into. He referred to it as the “dark place.”“I would always say things, like in a game, ‘If I miss this next shot, my kids are going to die,’” Scalabrine said. “I would say that to myself, just to get through, just to put the pressure so I can lock in and make the shot.”Many W.N.B.A. teams bring in nonprofessional men to play against in practice, which Cheyenne Parker, a 28-year-old forward for the Atlanta Dream entering her seventh season, diplomatically described as “great competition” because “they are strong and fast.”She added, with a laugh: “But skillwise? Yeah.”Parker said she was challenged often — “especially being a tall woman.” She was playing pickup last month in Chicago, where she lives, when a cocky man started trash-talking her.Cheyenne Parker, left, said unfounded confidence leads some people to think they could outplay professional athletes.Mike Carlson/Associated Press“We start the game and I get my first chance to touch the ball. I like to work on my moves during pickup so I do this nice little Kyrie move. I juked him real bad,” Parker said, referring to Kyrie Irving, the Nets star known for his ball-handling skills. “I scored it in his face. Everybody went, ‘Ohhh!’ It was funny.”When asked why amateurs were so willing to challenge journeymen basketball players, Parker said: “The same reason why a guy that I would never, ever give a chance to, still has that confidence to come and approach me and ask for my number. You know? It’s the same type of confidence that these people have to even think that they can beat a professional.”Adonal Foyle, who played in the N.B.A. from 1997 to 2009, mostly as a reserve for Golden State, said he has faced similar challenges in retirement when he goes home to the Caribbean. Basketball players are more likely to be challenged than other athletes, Foyle said, because they are more visible. They don’t wear masks while playing, and fans can sit courtside. But there’s also a misconception among amateurs that athleticism keeps players in the league, he said.“Basketball players at the end of their career are like Chinese movies,” Foyle, 46, said. “You have this Silver Fox. He walks in and he looks like he’s the one from the grave. And then he starts doing karate. And you’re like: ‘Oh my goodness. I didn’t know he could do all that.’”What Scalabrine referred to as “the dark place,” Foyle calls “the stupid gene” — the switch that professional athletes have when their competitiveness is tested.“You go to the gym. You try to play with regular folks. You’re having a good time,” Foyle said. “Somebody tries to dunk over you. Immediately, you flip that switch of, ‘OK, you’re going down.’ To me, what I always worry about is not beating the other person. It is how much my body can take of this stupid gene.”Foyle said he hasn’t played pickup basketball in seven years. Instead, he prefers racquetball, where he “gets beat by 75-year-olds who see themselves as geniuses.”Adonal Foyle during a game against the Denver Nuggets in 2000.Jon Ferrey /Allsport, via Getty Images“Part of the reason for doing it is because I got hurt almost every time I went out and played pickup ball because of that stupid gene,” Foyle said. “You think you can do the things you did 15, 20 years ago and you can’t. You don’t get to turn that person off that has defined your life. I thought it was best not to enter the field.”For Scalabrine, the reason he gets his skills continually questioned goes beyond the confidence of the challengers.“Joakim Noah said it best,” Scalabrine said, referring to his former teammate on the Chicago Bulls. “He said, ‘Scal, you look like you suck, but you don’t suck.’” More

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      ‘Do I Really Belong Here?’: Korean Americans in the N.B.A. Wonder

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      A small network of Korean Americans working throughout basketball are helping one another grow professionally and feel understood personally, while hoping to add to their ranks.Early this season, Evan Scott was officiating an N.B.A. game in Portland when a member of the Trail Blazers’ coaching staff approached him during a timeout.As a second-year referee in the league, Scott is accustomed to coaches complaining about calls during timeouts.Jon Yim had sought him out for a different reason.For much of Yim’s nine years as the Blazers’ video coordinator and player development coach, he has rarely shared the court with another Korean American. Scott, 28, is believed to be the first Korean American to officiate in the N.B.A.“It was a nice little interaction to feel recognized and recognize him, as well,” said Scott, who was born in South Korea and adopted by an American family. “We talked about how there are a couple of others around the league.”Recently, a small contingent of Korean-Americans have been hired for notable positions in the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. and the G League. But for decades, Korean Americans in basketball have privately assisted younger colleagues, toiling to create more representation at the highest levels of the sport.Early in Yim’s tenure with the Blazers, he was contacted by John Cho, who worked for 19 years as the Houston Rockets’ director of basketball technology.“If you need anything, let me know,” Yim recalled Cho telling him.Jon Yim is a player development coach and video coordinator for the Portland Trail Blazers, and he says he rarely runs across other Korean Americans in the N.B.A.Abbie Parr/Getty ImagesYim extended a similar offer in 2018, when Yale Kim began working in basketball operations with the Phoenix Suns. Like many of his Korean-American colleagues, Kim finished his playing career around middle school; in Phoenix, he was suddenly asked to scout college players. To ease the learning curve, Yim advised Kim on various video scouting technologies.“You’re always kind of reaching for people to look up to,” said Kim, 28. “I technically knew it’s possible to be a Korean American in basketball operations, but until you’re exposed to those people and find out about them, that’s when it feels attainable.”In Major League Baseball, a group of Black athletes created a similar network based on mentorship and discussing shared experiences in a professional sport where their representation has fallen well below what it is in the general population.There is believed to be only one player of Korean heritage who has suited up for an N.B.A. team. Ha Seung-jin, now a popular YouTube personality in South Korea, played 46 games for the Blazers in the 2004-5 and 2005-6 seasons. From 2018 to 2019, Ji-Su Park played for the W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces, and she is expected to be in camp for the upcoming season.Recently, there have been efforts to bring more players of Korean descent into the N.B.A.Milton Lee, the Nets’ director of basketball operations from 2010 to ’14, housed the Korean guard Daesung Lee in his New York apartment while Daesung Lee trained to prepare for the 2017 G League draft. They were introduced by Kiwook Kim, a Nets season-ticket holder from South Korea.Although Daesung Lee played one year with the Erie BayHawks of the G League before returning to South Korea, renewed hope surrounds the Davidson sophomore Hyunjung Lee, who was second on the Wildcats in scoring this past season.Eugene Park, the N.B.A.’s senior manager for elite basketball talent identification, scouted Hyunjung Lee at the league’s 2017 Asia Pacific Team Camp, then invited him to the N.B.A. Global Academy program for select young talent. In the off-season, Hyunjung Lee trains in South Korea with Brian Kim, who recently coached the G League’s Grand Rapids Drive and is another Park disciple.Park, who also plays pickup basketball with Milton Lee, wrote in an email that while he holds the same standard for every player he scouts, he keeps “a close eye on grass-roots basketball competitions in Korea with the hope of identifying more Korean prospects” to potentially recruit to the Global Academy.Davidson forward Hyunjung Lee was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer in the 2020-21 season, raising hopes that he can find a place in the N.B.A.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersPark added that more basketball employees of Korean heritage would “showcase a more complete picture of our history.”The news media and education systems in the United States have long struggled to properly characterize the depths of the Korean-American experience, the diversity of which is evident in the family histories of Park and his colleagues.Yim’s ancestors were among the first Koreans to come to the United States, arriving in 1905 and working as pineapple farmers in Hawaii. Scott was one of an estimated 200,000 children placed for adoption after wars and their resulting economic turmoil devastated the Korean Peninsula during much of the 20th century.Milton Lee said his father had escaped North Korea during the Korean War, never seeing his mother or sisters again; he immigrated to the United States and became a doctor. Arnold Lee, an assistant trainer with the Chicago Bulls, saw parallels between his family’s journey and the story told in the Oscar-nominated film “Minari.” His father was in his 20s when he visited America in the 1980s and decided to move here, looking to escape the financial uncertainty that gripped South Korea as it struggled to establish a democracy after decades of coups and military rule.“I hope others find strength in these Korean-American journeys and use that to propel out of their comfort zone,” said Marshall Cho, the boys’ basketball coach at Lake Oswego High School in Oregon. Cho, who previously worked in the N.B.A.’s Basketball Without Borders program, co-founded the Kimchi Family speaker series on YouTube to highlight the stories of Korean Americans in basketball.Rachael Joo, a professor at Middlebury College whose research focuses on how the sports media connects South Korean and Korean-American communities, called Korean N.B.A. employees “mavericks” for not having played professionally yet still breaking into a field dominated by former athletes.Because of their lack of playing experience, many Korean Americans in the N.B.A. say they have experienced impostor syndrome at various stages in their career.“Every day I feel like, do I really belong here?” said Arnold Lee, who has worked for the Bulls since 2016.Many of the Korean-American staff members interviewed said they had experienced racism within the game.Isaac Barnett, who is of Korean descent, officiated a W.N.B.A. game last season that involved Candace Parker and the Los Angeles Sparks. Barnett’s brother, Jacob, also officiates in the league.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressScott said that fans in high school gyms and pro arenas had hurled slurs at him and that he had discussed the incidents with Isaac and Jacob Barnett, brothers of Korean descent who referee in the W.N.B.A. and the G League. The three of them grew up together in Northern Virginia, and the Barnetts encouraged Scott to become a referee.Microaggressions are also common. Yim recalled being introduced to an N.B.A. general manager during the summer league and that a colleague had reported back that the executive perceived Yim as passive and soft and as someone who should be “happy you have a job.”Yim, 36, is now well-regarded around the league. At 28, he gave up a teaching career to take an internship with the Los Angeles Clippers, getting to work at 6:30 a.m. to do everything from “wiping up sweat during pickup games” to training with players.Blazers Coach Terry Stotts has called Yim an “instrumental” part of his staff, and Yim has built a strong rapport with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, Portland’s star guards.Yim is also willing to be confrontational with referees. When he approached Scott this season, he started their conversation by arguing about what he thought was a missed foul on McCollum, before offering congratulations.“I was proud of him as a Korean for being the first Korean referee in the league,” Yim said. “Seeing him do it gave me some inspiration that I could be the first Korean head coach in the N.B.A. Evan thanked me and then said, ‘When you are a head coach, I will be the first to give you a technical.’“I said, ‘That’s a deal.’” More

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      Bobby Leonard, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach, Dies at 88

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      He coached the Indiana Pacers for 12 seasons and took them to three A.B.A. titles. The governor of Indiana called him “the embodiment of basketball.”Bobby Leonard, an All-American guard for Indiana University’s 1953 N.C.A.A. basketball champions who later coached the Indiana Pacers to three American Basketball Association championships, died on Tuesday. He was 88.Leonard’s family said in a statement that he had experienced many ailments in recent years, but they did not provide the cause of death or say where he died. He had been living with his wife, Nancy (Root) Leonard, in suburban Indianapolis.Leonard was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2014 for taking the Pacers to A.B.A. titles in 1970, 1972 and 1973. He coached the team for 12 seasons, eight in the A.B.A. and four in the N.B.A. after the two leagues merged.“He has meant as much as anyone in the state of Indiana when it comes to the game of basketball,” Mike Woodson, who played for Indiana University in the late 1970s and became its head coach this season after many years in the N.B.A., said in a statement. “He played the game with great flair. He coached with undeniable passion.”Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana called Leonard “the embodiment of basketball.”Leonard was known as Slick. A 6-foot-3-inch guard, he was a fine playmaker in his seven seasons in the N.B.A. But his nickname wasn’t derived from his savvy on the court.As he once told the story to Carmel magazine, an Indiana monthly, while playing for the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s he was involved in a game of gin rummy with the team’s star center, George Mikan, on a preseason bus trip. “I blitzed him,” Leonard recalled, “and one of the players said that I was too slick. It stuck.”Leonard was an analyst and color commentator on Pacers broadcasts for some 35 years, beginning on television in 1985 and later moving to radio. He injected a colorful note with his exclamation “Boom, baby!” after an Indiana player hit a three-point shot.William Robert Leonard was born in Terre Haute, Ind., on July 17, 1932, one of three children of Raymond and Hattie Leonard. His father dug ditches during the Depression. “We used to stand in commodity lines, and they would give you a few cans of food and some flour,” he recalled in “Boom, Baby! My Basketball Life in Indiana” (2013, with Lew Freedman).Leonard was an outstanding basketball and tennis player in high school and then played for three seasons at Indiana University. His free throw with 27 seconds remaining gave the Hoosiers a 69-68 victory over Kansas in the 1953 N.C.A.A. championship game. He was named a third-team All-American in 1953 and a second-team All-American in 1954 by The Associated Press and was chosen for Indiana University’s all-century team.Leonard was selected by the original Baltimore Bullets as the 10th pick in the 1954 N.B.A. draft, but the Lakers obtained his rights in a dispersal draft later that year when the Bullets franchise folded. After serving in the Army, he joined the Lakers in 1956. He played for them for four seasons in Minneapolis and one season, 1960-61, after they moved to Los Angeles.His best season came in 1961-62, when he averaged a career-best 16.1 points and 5.4 assists with the expansion Chicago Packers. He was a player-coach in 1962-63 with Chicago, which had changed its name to the Zephyrs.When the team moved to Baltimore and became the Bullets (the second franchise by that name) in the 1963-64 season, he was the full-time coach. But he resigned after posting a losing record.Leonard watched as a banner in his honor was hung during halftime of a game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis in October 2014, shortly after he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.Aj Mast/Associated PressLeonard’s Pacer teams won 529 games and lost 456. He was voted the A.B.A.’s all-time most outstanding coach by a national sportswriters and broadcasters association.A banner at the Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse honors Leonard with the number 529.In addition to his wife, Leonard’s survivors include five children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.The Pacers and three other A.B.A. teams that joined the N.B.A. before the 1976-77 season were stymied by financial burdens imposed by the league — essentially the cost of their entry. Leonard and his wife turned to TV to boost ticket sales.“If it weren’t for Slick, this franchise wouldn’t be here,” the Boston Celtics’ Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird, who had played for Indiana State in Terre Haute and later was a coach and president of basketball operations for the Pacers, told The New York Times in 2000. “I can remember in 1977, he had a telethon. I can remember being glued to the TV watching him. He was singing ‘Back Home in Indiana,’ trying to do everything to sell season tickets. I know the history behind the Pacers, and most of the history is Slick Leonard.” More

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      Injuries Are Raining on the N.B.A.’s Championship Parade

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      Pick a big-name N.B.A. star, and he’s probably been injured this season: LeBron, Giannis, LaMelo, A.D., K.D. and, now, Jamal Murray. What’s going on?Three-fourths of the N.B.A.’s regular season will be complete after Wednesday’s play, making this a natural time for you to press your favorite newsletter curator to pick a title favorite.It would be much easier to answer, sadly, if you could first tell me which of the league’s presumed championship contenders will be healthy in June or July.Prognostications didn’t seem all that daunting in December, when the Los Angeles Lakers looked like such a safe choice to back to repeat as champions, but it is a much more complex calculation at the quarter pole. The culprit: This grind of a season, marked by its numerous game postponements, endless health and safety protocols and arenas that were mostly empty for months, has been overtaken by injuries to marquee players.Late Monday, in the same game in which Stephen Curry supplanted Wilt Chamberlain as the leading scorer in Warriors history, Denver’s Jamal Murray crumpled to the floor in the final minute after a hard plant in the paint on his left leg. Tuesday morning’s grim diagnosis of a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament tear confirmed what many had feared in the moment.“Too many players getting hurt with this shortened season,” Josh Hart of the New Orleans Pelicans posted on Twitter after Murray went down.Sidelined himself by a recent thumb surgery, Hart inserted a face palm emoji into the tweet and added his hope that the league “not do this one again.”The Lakers have dealt with injuries to multiple players, most notably LeBron James, right, and Anthony Davis, second from right, but also Marc Gasol, left, and Kyle Kuzma, second from left.Elsa/Getty Images“This one” refers to a 72-game regular season stuffed between Dec. 22 and May 16 after the 2019-20 season did not end until October, because of the coronavirus pandemic’s interruption, and was followed by the shortest off-season in league history. The league and the players’ union agreed to that timeline, with a strong nudge from the N.B.A.’s television partners, which desperately wanted to start the 2020-21 season during the week of Christmas. The tight turnaround was expected to help maximize revenue after last season’s shortfall of $1.5 billion, and position the 2021-22 season to return to its usual October-through-June template. It was also designed so the league could finish the playoffs before the Tokyo Olympics in late July.But the rigors of last season’s finish in a bubble environment combined with a swift return to play this season and a compressed schedule because of the Olympics, prompted fears, like those voiced by Hart, of increased injury risk.It’s not clear that those factors are driving injuries this season, but many teams believe they are, even without supporting data. Multiple teams I’ve consulted asserted that this season’s combination of schedule density, travel demands and daily coronavirus testing that cuts into players’ rest time have increased injury risk.Teams are playing 3.6 games per week this season, compared to 3.42 per week last season, and taking 15 percent fewer flights, according to data provided by the league. An N.B.A. spokesman said, “The injury rate for this season is in line with data from the previous five seasons, including a 6 percent reduction from last season.”It is an eternal challenge for teams and those in the injury tracking business to conclusively attribute an injury to overuse. Some of this season’s most notable injuries, like LeBron James’s high ankle sprain after Atlanta’s Solomon Hill crashed into him, appeared to be freakish. The same holds for injuries sustained in hard falls by two of the league’s most prized rookies, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball (wrist) and Golden State’s James Wiseman (knee). Hart injured his thumb when he banged his right hand on the rim on a dunk attempt.Yet there are too many high-profile names on injury reports to shake the sense of crisis. A look at the teams that held the league’s top eight records entering Tuesday’s play showed that only two — Utah and Phoenix — were not dealing with major injuries.Los Angeles LakersThe Lakers, after starting the season as prohibitive title favorites, enjoyed that status for maybe two months before losing Anthony Davis (Achilles’ tendon and calf) in February and James (ankle) in March. The Lakers were 5-7 in their last 12 games without either of their twin pillars entering Tuesday’s play.The Nets’ James Harden has been out with a hamstring injury, as Kevin Durant, second from left, was earlier this season.Corey Sipkin/Associated PressBrooklyn NetsThe Nets have been widely billed as the most potent offense in N.B.A. history since acquiring James Harden from the Houston Rockets on Jan. 14. The problem: They’ve scarcely had an opportunity to illustrate their true capabilities, because Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have logged only 186 minutes together across seven games. Durant, who missed 23 consecutive games because of a strained left hamstring, and Irving have been in the same starting lineup only 14 times — and Harden injured his hamstring as soon as Durant came back. The Nets have been winning and scoring freely all season despite the injuries and Irving’s absences for personal reasons, but it’s difficult to gauge this team’s ceiling when we still haven’t seen the full squad.Milwaukee BucksGiannis Antetokounmpo has missed five consecutive games and seven of the past 12 with left knee soreness. Coach Mike Budenholzer said on Sunday that there was no timetable for Antetokounmpo’s return, which was unsettling enough, but it is also the first time in that Antetokounmpo, who won the last two Most Valuable Player Awards, has been forced to sit out more than two consecutive games.Philadelphia 76ersNow that the star center Joel Embiid is back after missing 10 games with a bone bruise on his left knee, Philadelphia appears to be the most fortunate contender on a list all would prefer to avoid. Not that the 76ers plan to gloat — not with Embiid’s injury history or when the Sixers are still waiting for the newly acquired George Hill to make his debut after thumb surgery.Los Angeles ClippersThe Clippers’ Paul George was named the Western Conference player of the week on Monday, but he began this month with an admission that it would be a “day-to-day process” to cope with a toe injury on his right foot that sidelined him for seven consecutive games in February. The Clippers have also been without their starting center Serge Ibaka for the past 15 games because of a back injury, and the point guard Patrick Beverley is expected to miss at least a month after surgery on his fractured left hand last week.Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers has come back from a toe injury with strong play, leading to player of the week honors recently.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressDenver NuggetsPerhaps sensing the Lakers’ vulnerability, Denver shed its reputation for caution when it comes to making trades by acquiring Aaron Gordon from Orlando at the trade deadline last month. The Nuggets won their first eight games with Gordon, collapsed in a home loss to Boston on Sunday in mystifying fashion, then watched in horror on Monday night in San Francisco as Murray — fresh off missing the previous four games with right knee soreness — sustained a catastrophic left knee injury that almost certainly changed the trajectory of Denver’s season.Murray was the fourth player to tear his A.C.L. this season, after the Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie, Orlando’s Markelle Fultz and Washington’s Thomas Bryant. The N.B.A. has averaged roughly three A.C.L. tears per season since 2005-6, according to data maintained by Jeff Stotts on his In Street Clothes website.“We are still in the collecting phase regarding the effects of the compressed schedule at this point of the year,” Stotts said. “I am concerned we will see more soft-tissue injuries here in April. They appear to be on the rise from the rest of the season.”As a huge fan of playoff suspense, as opposed to postseasons in which one juggernaut is seen as untouchable, I would normally celebrate how wide open this championship chase looks heading into the regular-season stretch run. When so much of the uncertainty is tied to injury, it doesn’t feel right at all.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeMarc Stein has a collection of Buffalo Braves trading cards.Marc Stein for The New York TimesYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Do you think Jeremy Lin’s high profile in speaking out against the rise in hate crimes affecting Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders is hurting him with the N.B.A.? — Tom GardnerStein: I know Lin has many fans who are dismayed that he has not been signed by an N.B.A. team, not even on a 10-day contract, but I don’t think teams are holding his activism against him. It would be shameful if they are; Lin should be applauded and supported in his efforts to bring more attention to anti-Asian racism.Lin hasn’t played in the league since the 2018-19 season, and a more likely obstacle to his getting back to the N.B.A. are questions about his mobility at age 32. But even that is probably not the biggest issue. Many teams, especially when trying to fill a roster spot with player on a 10-day contract, are hesitant to bring in an established player for a limited role. Doing so invites daily questions about the player’s status — as the New Orleans Pelicans found out after Coach Stan Van Gundy benched Isaiah Thomas for two consecutive games in the midst of Thomas’s 10-day deal that expired Monday.The Los Angeles Clippers’ DeMarcus Cousins, another former All-Star who recently signed a 10-day deal, has faced the same challenge. Teams are wary about how players accustomed to major roles will adapt to playing limited minutes, and they know they are going to face heightened scrutiny from the news media about how a player like Thomas, Cousins or Lin is being used. It’s much easier for teams, like it or not, to target players whose presence — and their subsequent release if things don’t work out — won’t cause a fuss.Lin tried to mitigate such thinking and prove his willingness to accept any N.B.A. role by spending nearly 45 days in the recent N.B.A. G League bubble at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. He also posted strong shooting percentages in his stint with the Santa Cruz Warriors (50.5 percent from the field; 42.6 percent on 3-pointers) and still has a month to attract interest.Q: There is no doubt that the Lakers are at risk to slip further in the standings, but the answer to what’s wrong with them is simple: injuries. Your contention that the Lakers’ roster moves have not “panned out” is reactionary.As difficult as the Lakers’ last two months have been, they are much better equipped to withstand the absence of their two best players with Dennis Schröder, Montrezl Harrell and Marc Gasol on the roster. They have also maintained the league’s top-ranked defense without LeBron James and Anthony Davis, even though we hear so much about the lack of rim protection compared to last season’s Lakers.I’m obviously willing to concede that this season is in jeopardy, because the Clippers, Utah, Denver and Phoenix have all improved, but the culprit isn’t the roster construction. It’s the injuries. — Jordan Baldridge (New York)Stein: You assembled some strong counters to last week’s piece on the Lakers and the mounting factors that have complicated their title defense, but I think we actually agree more than we disagree.I would argue that Schröder, Harrell and Gasol have been more up and down than you suggest — and that the Lakers’ aggressive posture at the trade deadline and their subsequent rush to sign Andre Drummond and Ben McLemore back that up. But that was just one item on a long list meant to convey how much more challenging this season has become for the Lakers than they anticipated.You highlighted one of the bigger worries: The Lakers’ competition looks much tougher this season. Finishing fifth or sixth in the Western Conference is so daunting because it would likely mean a first-round matchup against the Clippers or Nuggets.An even bigger problem that I contend has been glossed over: We can’t just assume that the Lakers will bounce right back to being championship favorites as soon as James and Davis return to the lineup. Their injuries were significant setbacks that have to be managed cautiously, especially in the case of Davis, who has missed more than two dozen games already. He’s going to need some time to re-acclimate and restore belief in his body.Q: How about a newsletter story sometime on those Buffalo Braves cards you mentioned? Or a picture? — Paul QuintilianStein: I’m not sure that I should subject our loyal and patient readers to the full depths of my Buffalo Braves nerddom, but hopefully there is no harm, since you asked, in enclosing a picture (shown above) of the various Braves team sets and loose singles that I keep within arm’s reach on my desk whenever I need a dose of youthful inspiration.I’ve saved as much as I could from my youth but have also made a habit in adulthood of collecting Buffalo sports artifacts from the 1970s that I coveted but that eluded me at the time. Growing up is hard.Numbers GameChicago’s Zach LaVine scored 39 points in the first half against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, and finished the game with 50.Brett Davis/USA Today Sports, via Reuters12.3I praised Ben Simmons for his sensational play in February (21 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.8 assists per game for the month) because it was a tremendous response to nearly being traded to Houston in January for James Harden. But Simmons hasn’t been the same player since the All-Star break as Philadelphia grapples with the Nets and Milwaukee for the East’s No. 1 seed. In his last 15 games, Simmons averaged just 12.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6 assists per game — and his shooting in that span declined to 47 percent compared to 57.8 percent in 31 games before the All-Star break.5With 50 points in a loss to Atlanta on Friday night, Chicago’s Zach LaVine became the fifth player in franchise history to record at least one 50-point game, joining Jimmy Butler, Jamal Crawford, Chet Walker and a certain Michael Jordan. In his 13 seasons as a Bull, of course, Jordan scored at least 50 points in 38 regular-season games.30With 30 rebounds on Saturday night against Detroit, Portland’s Enes Kanter became just the fourth player to post a 30-rebound game since Dikembe Mutombo and Charles Barkley each had one in the 1996 calendar year. The only others to reach the 30 threshold in the 25 years since Mutombo and Barkley, according to Stathead: Dwight Howard (2017-18 season), Andrew Bynum (2011-12) and Kevin Love (2010-11).7Moves at the trade deadline nudged Dallas above Washington for the most international players in the league with seven: The Mavericks acquired Nicolo Melli (Italy) to join Luka Doncic (Slovenia), Josh Green (Australia), Maxi Kleber (Germany), Boban Marjanovic (Serbia), Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia) and Dwight Powell (Canada). The Wizards have six — Deni Avdija (Israel), Davis Bertans (Latvia), Isaac Bonga (Germany), Rui Hachimura (Japan), Alex Len (Ukraine) and Raul Neto (Brazil) — after sending Moe Wagner (Germany) to Boston last month as part of a three-team trade.10Jeremy Lin is the only player who finished in the top 10 in scoring in the N.B.A. G League’s recent six-week bubble who has not spent any time in the N.B.A. this season. Playing for the Santa Cruz Warriors, Lin was seventh in scoring at 19.8 points per game but is still waiting for a 10-day contract offer. The other two players on that list besides Lin who were not already contracted to N.B.A. teams when the bubble began — Henry Ellenson and Oshae Brissett — parlayed their G League stints into 10-day deals. At 32, Lin was also the only player among those 10 older than 24.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Stephen Curry Passes Wilt Chamberlain as Warriors Scoring Leader

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      Players must be great to set their franchise’s career scoring record. But they also need to hang around.It was significant that Stephen Curry had 53 points on Monday night. It was significant that the Golden State Warriors won the game at home, over a tough Denver Nuggets squad, as they fight for a playoff spot.But long after the single-game scoring outburst and this year’s playoff race are forgotten, the night will be remembered as the one where Curry passed Wilt Chamberlain as the Warriors’ career scoring leader. His postgame total of 17,818 surpassed Chamberlain’s 17,783. Rick Barry, Paul Arizin and Chris Mullin trail them.Curry was 10-for-18 on 3-pointers, 4-for-6 on 2-pointers and 15-for-16 on free throws.“Any time you hear his name,” he said of Chamberlain after the game, “it’s kind of daunting, because you know his records are so hard to — some of them are even impossible to eclipse.”Though surpassing Chamberlain in anything is momentous, team scoring records are something of a quirky statistic. They reward great talent, naturally, but they also reward longevity at a single franchise.Curry was able to take the lead because Chamberlain, who averaged 41.5 points a game during his time with the Warriors, played only five and a half seasons with the team before being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers and then the Los Angeles Lakers. Three of Chamberlain’s seasons with the Warriors came when the team was still in Philadelphia. The Sacramento Kings’ career scoring leader is Oscar Robertson. If you don’t remember the Big O lacing them up in Sacramento, that’s because he played for the Cincinnati Royals, who didn’t arrive in California until the 1985-86, after a stop in Kansas City. Still, the record is his.The all-time leader of all-time franchise leaders is Karl Malone, who scored 36,374 of his 36,928 points during his 18 seasons with the Utah Jazz. (The other 554 points were added in a late-career cameo with the Lakers at age 40.)No player has more points for a single franchise than Karl Malone, who scored 36,374 points for the Utah Jazz in 18 seasons with the franchise.Robert Sullivan/A.F.P., via Getty ImagesNo one has scored more N.B.A. points than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has 38,387. He ranks first on the Milwaukee Bucks’ career list despite leaving after six seasons (with Giannis Antetokounmpo in hot pursuit). Abdul-Jabbar is also in good company on the Lakers list, behind only Kobe Bryant and Jerry West, who spent their entire careers in Los Angeles.The only players in the overall scoring top 10 not to lead a team are Shaquille O’Neal, whose prime years were divided among the Magic, Lakers and Heat, and Moses Malone, who played for seven N.B.A. teams (and two in the A.B.A.).Even though O’Neal, Malone, and now Chamberlain are not among them, the roster of franchise scoring leaders are virtually all great players. Only two of those who are eligible are not yet in the Hall of Fame. And one of those, Walter Davis of the Suns, who made six All-Star teams and tallied 19,521 total points, maybe should be.Perhaps the most forgotten team leader (could it be because of his common name?) is Randy Smith, who poured in 12,735 points for the Clippers franchise, mostly when they were the Buffalo Braves. Just a seventh-round draft choice, he wound up being known as the Iron Man for playing in 906 consecutive games (a record later broken by A.C. Green).At the bottom of the team leaders chart are the Nets, who have suffered from not keeping their superstars around. Buck Williams left after eight seasons, Vince Carter after four and a half. Julius Erving remains the most famous Net for many, though he played with them for just three seasons, all in the A.B.A. Nevertheless, he’s seventh on their career scoring list.At the top of that list is Brook Lopez, whose 10,444 points for the Nets were 4 more than Williams. Lopez won’t be adding to that total, as he was traded away in 2017. More

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      Twins, Timberwolves and Wild Postpone Games After Shooting

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      With the Minneapolis area on edge, M.L.B., N.B.A. and N.H.L. teams decided they could not play on Monday following the shooting of Daunte Wright.Professional baseball, basketball and hockey games in Minnesota were postponed on Monday in response to tension and unrest after a police officer shot and killed a Black man during a traffic stop north of Minneapolis.The Minnesota Twins postponed their afternoon game with the Boston Red Sox and were quickly followed by the N.B.A.’s Minnesota Timberwolves calling off a game against the Nets and the N.H.L.’s Minnesota Wild postponing a match against the St. Louis Blues.With the region on edge as the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer facing murder charges in the death of George Floyd, continues in Minneapolis, the Twins said it would not have been appropriate to play. The police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., where the latest shooting took place Sunday, said that the victim, Daunte Wright, 20, was shot accidentally by an officer who had intended to use a Taser.“Our community’s been through a lot, and we have a trial taking place just blocks away from Target Field,” said the Twins team president, Dave St. Peter, in a video news conference with reporters. “Emotions across our community, emotions across our organization, are raw.”He added that baseball seemed “a little less important” now, and that the Twins prioritized safety and compassion over holding the game as scheduled.“Make no mistake, part of the decision here today is out of respect for the Wright family, but there’s a big part of this decision that’s also rooted in safety and consultation with law enforcement about unknowns, about what will, or could transpire within the broader community over the next several hours, based on the news that has come out of Brooklyn Center this morning,” St. Peter said.“Once you understand that information, for us the decision becomes a lot easier. The right thing to do is always to err on the side of safety for our players, for our staff, for our fans.”Outside of Minnesota, Aaron Hicks, who had previously played for the Twins, asked to sit out of Monday’s game between the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays. Another Yankees player, Giancarlo Stanton, was considering sitting out as well.“I would say that Aaron is hurting in a huge way,” Manager Aaron Boone told reporters. “I think in a way felt like it was probably the responsible thing to take himself out and knowing that it was going to be hard for him to be all in mentally in what’s a high stake, difficult job to go out there and perform for the New York Yankees.”In a statement, the N.B.A. said the decision to postpone Monday night’s game was made after consultation with the Timberwolves organization as well as local and state officials.Last spring, after the killing of Floyd, several N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players became active participants in the protests that broke out around the country.Last August, after the N.B.A. had resumed its season on the Walt Disney World campus near Orlando, Fla., some N.B.A. players took their demonstrations further after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. Blake, then 29, was partially paralyzed after being shot multiple times in the back by police while trying to enter his vehicle.With emotions high after the shooting of Jacob Blake, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for a playoff game on Aug. 26, 2020.Kevin C. Cox/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBefore a playoff game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic, George Hill, then a guard for the Bucks, persuaded the rest of his teammates to sit out the game. This created a cascade effect: The other games on tap that night were postponed as well, as well as those in other leagues, like women’s basketball, baseball and soccer. Naomi Osaka, a Black tennis star, threatened to leave the Western & Southern Open, which pushed officials to delay the tournament by a day.Two days later, the N.B.A. and its players’ union announced an agreement that would convert some team arenas into polling sites and lift the player-inspired work stoppage. Some of the league’s top players, including LeBron James and Chris Paul, consulted with former President Barack Obama on a path forward.In discussing the Twins’ postponement on Monday, Manager Rocco Baldelli said some players were shaken by the incident in Brooklyn Center.“We have some guys that I would put in the category of passionate,” Baldelli said, “and were really damaged and hurt by everything that was going on today.”The Twins and the Red Sox were scheduled to play four games through Thursday, and this is Boston’s only scheduled trip to Minnesota this season. The teams play a series in Boston in late August, but St. Peter said the Twins have not considered moving the series to Fenway Park.The N.B.A.’s announcement did not say when the Timberwolves and Nets would make up the lost game. The Wild’s game against the Blues has been rescheduled for May 12. More

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      The Nets Could Have Had It All With Dr. J

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      As great as today’s Nets look with their starry threesome, they could have dominated the N.B.A. much, much sooner — in the 1970s, behind Julius Erving.Kevin Loughery and Julius Erving share a city, Atlanta, a golf club and an emotional connection to a basketball allegory told inharmoniously in three distinct parts — what was, what might have been and what now has become.In other words: the history of the Nets, from Long Island to New Jersey to Brooklyn.Inevitably, wistfully, Loughery’s conversation with Erving centers on Part 2, the potentially grand Nassau Coliseum stage that was dismantled just before the curtain was to rise on the N.B.A. debut of Erving and the Nets.“I always talk to him about what we might have done,” Loughery, who coached the developing legend of Dr. J. to two A.B.A. titles and stayed on to guide the remains of the Nets after the financially troubled franchise sold the rights to Erving, the world’s most electrifying player, to the Philadelphia 76ers on the eve of the 1976-77 season.Loughery added in a telephone interview: “What haunts you is that when we had him in the A.B.A. he was the best he ever was. The last A.B.A. series against Denver, when we won that second title, that was the best series I’ve ever seen anyone play.”That’s quite a mouthful, coming from an 81-year-old basketball lifer who once shared a backcourt in Baltimore with Earl Monroe and who coached seven pro teams, including one in Chicago that unveiled a rookie named Jordan.There is also an evolving symmetry to this ancient history. Forty-five years after their infamous selling of the rights to the Doctor, the Nets finally have become what they were poised to be in 1976: the sport’s sexiest team, with an opportunity to be its best.Kevin Loughery, who coached Erving in the A.B.A., said Dr. J “was the best he ever was” before he even got to the N.B.A.Associated PressAlas, Brooklyn’s assemblage of a superstar-laden lineup has occurred during a time of fan-less arenas only now welcoming crowds still enfeebled by the menace of Covid-19. Selling out America with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving for now remains the dream it was for Loughery and Erving.On the eve of that 1976-77 season, Erving was holding out for a contract upgrade and the league office was holding its breath after scheduling the Nets for a nationally televised opener against Golden State in Oakland. The arena sold out weeks in advance, but the sale of Erving’s rights to Philadelphia two days before the game by the owner Roy Boe — and after the Knicks absurdly let themselves be outbid for a homegrown player who would have altered their history — persuaded CBS to show a late-night movie instead.Erving was electrifying in the A.B.A., where he won two championships with the Nets.Associated PressHoping to make a splash, or at least save face, the Nets had acquired Nate Archibald, an explosive, New York-bred guard who was known as Tiny, one month earlier. Archibald had a bigger annual salary than Erving, which stiffened Erving’s resolve, despite his not wishing to leave Long Island, where he’d grown up.“It’s tough to play Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in the frontcourt,” Loughery memorably told reporters when the news reached California that Erving was gone. He and his players were gutted, even if they came to realize that Boe’s inability to pay millions both for league entry and to the Knicks for territorial rights limited his options to one.Still, Loughery has for decades wondered: what if? “I don’t know if we would have been a championship team, but we would have been very, very competitive,” he said.Rod Thorn, who returned to Loughery’s side that season as an assistant after a one-year absence to coach the Spirits of St. Louis, offered a more certain revisionist take.“History in New York basketball would have been changed,” he said. “We played and won exhibitions against N.B.A. teams. Every building was sold out for Doc. We also would have had a couple years’ window to add more pieces.”Instead, Archibald played 34 games for the Nets and blew out an Achilles’ tendon. The team moved to Piscataway, N.J., to play in a college gym. Loughery and Thorn shared long drives from their homes on Long Island, epitomizing the detour into a competitive ditch.The Nets and the 76ers had more peculiar chapters to co-author. Two years later, they played what may have been the weirdest game ever, when the N.B.A. upheld a Nets protest of technical fouls — the referee Richie Powers called three each on Loughery and Bernard King, one more than the limit for ejection.The game was replayed more than four months later from a point in the third quarter, but before then the teams made a four-player trade. In the final box score of the suspended game — won by the 76ers — three of the players appeared on both sides.Thorn later made what until further notice remains the most beneficial deal in the Nets’ N.B.A. history. As team president in 2001, he acquired Jason Kidd, who inspired successive runs to the finals. Thorn left New Jersey in 2010, joining the 76ers’ front office, essentially trading places with Billy King.Jason Kidd turned the Nets into an Eastern Conference powerhouse in the early 2000s.Ray Stubblebine/ReutersBilly King took over as Nets general manager in July 2010.Bill Kostroun/Associated PressThat put King at the Nets’ helm as they finished out their New Jersey run in April 2012 by hosting, of course, the 76ers.Now Thorn watches from afar as Sean Marks, who succeeded King with the Nets, plays personnel chess, building on his big three by reeling in the former All-Stars Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge with the ease of signing escapees of the G League.Skeptics worry about Durant’s health, Irving’s reliability and their sensitivity to criticism. Loughery has reservations about the perimeter defense of Harden and Irving. But Thorn has come to believe that the Nets will be fine as long as they remain in Harden’s soft hands.“I’ve changed my opinion of him,” he said. “He dominated the ball so much in Houston, but he’s been a fantastic playmaker for them.”As fate would have it, the Nets are challenging for Eastern Conference supremacy with the 76ers, along with Milwaukee. On Wednesday, they go to Philadelphia to confront a formidable group coached by a man nicknamed Doc (Rivers). On the Nets’ plus side, their owner, Joseph Tsai, is rich beyond belief. Lincoln and Washington didn’t make the cut. More