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      Half the Team Had the Coronavirus. The Wizards Are Still Recovering.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHalf the Team Had the Coronavirus. The Wizards Are Still Recovering.An N.B.A. outbreak in January swept up the Washington Wizards, sending one player scrambling to the pharmacy and another off to a hotel for 11 days of video gaming to protect his pregnant wife.Wizards guard Bradley Beal had to be removed from Washington’s lineup on Jan. 9 because of contract tracing. Washington had six games postponed in January.Credit…Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesFeb. 11, 2021, 6:24 p.m. ETFive teammates had already tested positive for the coronavirus in the 48 hours before Ish Smith, a reserve for the Washington Wizards, heard from Dr. Daniel Medina, the team’s chief of athlete care and performance, on Jan. 14. Dr. Medina told Smith that his most recent test was inconclusive and was undergoing additional analysis.Smith considered the circumstances — his teammates’ positive tests, a season interrupted — and anticipated the worst. He made an emergency run to a nearby pharmacy.“When you get an inconclusive, you’re thinking, ‘That might not be too good,’” Smith said. “I was taking NyQuil, DayQuil — and not even needing it. I just wanted to prevent any symptoms from going from 0 to 100.”Smith soon received confirmation that he had the coronavirus, becoming the sixth of seven Wizards players who would test positive over a four-day stretch of mid-January, an outbreak that forced the team to pause its season for nearly two weeks.With the team locked down, the sole nexus of communal activity was the parking lot at the practice facility in Southeast Washington — specifically, the cul-de-sac where about 50 members of the organization reported for daily drive-through testing.“That was the highlight of my day,” said Davis Bertans, a forward from Latvia who spent 11 days holed up at a Residence Inn because he did not want to infect his wife, Anna, who was pregnant, or their 2-year-old daughter, Mila. “My parents have stories about the Soviet Union. I’m going to have stories for my kids about Covid.”Ish Smith playing in a game against the Philadelphia 76ers in early January. He tested positive for the coronavirus days later.Credit…Chris Szagola/Associated PressThe team’s outbreak, which helped spur the N.B.A. to tighten restrictions on players’ social activities, came amid a surge of cases for the league and underscored the fragile dynamics of the 2020-21 season. Even as the numbers of cases and postponements have dipped dramatically — the league has reported two new cases since Jan. 20, a sharp reduction from the 27 reported over the prior two weeks — teams continue to crisscross a country gripped by a pandemic.The N.H.L. is now coping with similar challenges. The Devils on Monday announced that 19 players were absent from the team because they had entered the league’s coronavirus protocols.In a series of interviews, several members of the Wizards organization shared their firsthand view of how quickly things can come unglued.“Every team has a game plan for it,” Wizards General Manager Tommy Sheppard said, “but every game plan involves a great deal of hope. Hope is not a strategy.”It is often difficult to be certain how or when or where players become infected, but the Wizards point to circumstantial evidence: The virus appeared to be swirling around them. Before members of their team began testing positive, they had six games in five cities and faced four opponents — the Nets, the 76ers, the Celtics and the Heat — whose players would soon test positive for the virus or realize they had been exposed to it.Scott Brooks, the team’s coach, said he could sense trouble.“You’re in a movie, and you’re waiting for something bad to happen,” he said. “And you don’t know when it’s going to happen, but you know it’s going to happen.”Foreshadowing came in the form of a phone call from the league office on Jan. 9, about an hour before the Wizards were to play the Heat. Bradley Beal had to be removed from the Wizards’ lineup because of contact tracing. He had defended and shared a postgame hug with the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum the previous night, and Tatum had tested positive.Beal missed one game after spending time near Boston’s Jayson Tatum, who tested positive for the coronavirus. It was the start of weeks of virus-related trouble for the Wizards.Credit…Elise Amendola/Associated PressIt was about to get worse for the Wizards. Less than two minutes into their game against the Heat, Thomas Bryant, their starting center, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Two days later, with Beal back in the lineup, the Wizards crushed the Phoenix Suns.Brooks thought the win could be galvanizing for his team, which had gotten off to a poor start. The problem was that the Wizards would not play again for 13 days.Isolation: ‘We should’ve been playing.’It was a rapid descent into pandemic purgatory for the Wizards, who began canceling practices on Jan. 12 after their first two positive cases.Two days later, Dr. Medina called Bertans to tell him that he, too, had tested positive. After Bertans’s wife tested negative, he packed in a hurry — making sure to include his Xbox and a gaming laptop — and left for a nearby hotel.“I think I played 10 to 12 hours of video games a day,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I would be able to qualify for some sort of ‘FIFA’ world championship.”For the Wizards, it was a surreal period of boredom and anxiety, impatience and alarm.“I used to joke that the one day players never pick up the phone is trade deadline day,” Sheppard said. “But now you don’t want to call them too early in the morning because they’ll think, ‘Oh, no, I must have Covid.’ So you have to text them: ‘You do not have Covid. Pick up the phone. I need to talk to you.’”Team officials advised those who had tested positive to avoid physical activity, citing research that it could worsen symptoms. For the players who continued to test negative, the coaches organized virtual workouts: ball-handling and conditioning drills via video conference calls. “Because that’s all we could do,” Brooks said.Players who had the coronavirus were tested once a day, in the morning, while everyone else was tested twice a day. Stephen Korda, the team chef, and his staff prepared meals that were loaded into the players’ vehicles when they pulled up to the practice facility.Sheppard and his family assembled care packages — baskets with vitamins and snacks — and dropped them off at the players’ homes. Brooks called and texted them.Wizards Coach Scott Brooks said he could sense that trouble was coming for his team as a number of players across the league tested positive for the coronavirus in January.Credit…Scott Taetsch/Getty Images“Sometimes we want to treat these guys like they’re machines,” Brooks said. “No, they’re human.”On top of everything else, the city was reeling in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol while girding itself for President Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. More than 25,000 members of the National Guard had been deployed, producing a heightened sense of unease — and traffic issues for those living downtown.Bryant, the center who had blown out his knee, lived in a neighborhood that was heavily barricaded. Despite his injury, he still needed to make his way to the practice facility for testing every day. Sheppard had a staff member who lived nearby scoop him up.“And they’d drive off before anyone could stop them,” Sheppard said. “It was like they were robbing a bank.”A drive to the facility that would normally take Brooks about 15 minutes was now sometimes taking him nearly two hours — a minor inconvenience given the circumstances, he said, except for one night when nearly everyone in the organization seemed to arrive at the same time. Cars circled the block.“And I’m thinking, ‘I need to use a restroom,’” he said.Yet testing was a strange reprieve, a break from the collective monotony of their lives. Brooks would honk and wave at players from his car. Smith would take the “long route” from his home in Alexandria, Va., where he was heeding the team’s advice to take it easy.Smith and Bertans said their symptoms were mild, though Bertans lost his sense of smell.“I have no clue how bad my hotel room must have smelled,” he said.Davis Bertans, right, spent more than a week in a hotel to try to avoid spreading the coronavirus to his wife, Anna, who was pregnant.Credit…Ned Dishman/NBAE, via Getty ImagesIn other ways, the experience felt familiar: Having been through a pair of knee surgeries, Bertans knew how to cope without basketball, and he’s used to being away from his family because of N.B.A. road trips.“My daughter thought I was at the gym the whole time,” he said.At night, Brooks would watch other teams play on TV.“I don’t know if it was jealousy or envy,” he said, “but it was depressing because we should’ve been playing.”Recovery: ‘We needed a therapy session.’Brooks said he spent most of Jan. 20 waiting for word from the league that the Wizards could return to practice. At around 5 p.m., aware of the issues he could have getting to the facility in time for a workout that was tentatively scheduled for 7:30 p.m., he hopped in his car and hoped for the best. He got the good news at 6 p.m.“We didn’t need a practice,” Brooks said. “We needed a therapy session.”He told his players how grateful he was to be with them, he said, then looked around and laughed. He had eight functional players, including two on two-way contracts with the Wizards’ G League affiliate, plus Russell Westbrook, who was limited because of an injury. Several others, including Bertans and Smith, remained out.For 45 minutes, the Wizards’ skeleton crew did some shooting and jogging. As Brooks made his way to a post-practice call with reporters, it occurred to him that he needed to pack that night. The Wizards were scheduled to leave for Milwaukee the next day for a game against the Bucks on Jan. 22. It seemed incomprehensible.“There was just no way,” Brooks said.Westbrook and Beal got on the phone with Michele Roberts, the executive director of the players’ union, while Sheppard called the league, which intervened and called off the game — the Wizards’ sixth straight postponement.On Jan. 21 and 22, the Wizards practiced with eight players — and Raul Neto, a backup guard, strained his groin. (“Even when we were getting healthy, we got hurt,” Sheppard said.) On Jan. 23, Sheppard signed centers Alex Len and Jordan Bell. On Jan. 24, Washington played its first game in 13 days, a 121-101 loss to the Spurs in San Antonio. It was the first of three losses in four days, all of them on the road.The Wizards have gone 3-8 since returning to play after the outbreak.Credit…Daniel Dunn/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I knew we were going to be put in a tough position where running out of gas would be a possibility,” Brooks said.Bertans had finally been freed from isolation while his teammates were gone, returning home to his wife and daughter. His first practice was an ordeal — “I could definitely tell that I hadn’t done anything for almost two weeks,” he said — and then he missed all seven of his shots in a 16-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 29.“The feel for the game was the biggest struggle,” he said.Smith was having his own problems. The league uses something called cycle threshold, a measure of the amount of virus in the body, to help determine whether a player can be cleared to return. Generally, that number needs to be at least 30, with higher numbers implying less of the virus. A week after first testing positive, Smith was registering cycle threshold values of only 28, he said.Smith would run up the stairs of his home to gauge his fitness.“Everybody is different, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a situation where I couldn’t breathe,” Smith said.His teammates and coaches were rooting for him from afar.“It reminded me of the Winter Olympics,” Sheppard said. “Americans don’t know anything about these sports, but within two days we’re all experts. It was the same thing with Ish: ‘Come on, Ish! You’ve got to get above 30!’”Smith knew he was fortunate, he said. He had medical supervision. He was undergoing daily testing. His symptoms were never serious. He thought of his siblings, who are teachers, and countless others living through the pandemic without that type of support.“I’ve got no complaints,” he said. “You just have to pick it up and keep it moving.”Smith returned on Jan. 31, scoring 13 points in a dramatic win over the Nets. Brooks celebrated with a can of White Claw.The Wizards have had more lows than highs, going 3-8 since their patchwork season resumed. Practice time has come at a premium. There is no playbook for a pandemic, Brooks said, and he can only hope that his players have endured the worst of it, and that they can build some chemistry. But there are no guarantees, not this season.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      NBA Says Teams Must Play the National Anthem

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. Says Teams Must Play the National AnthemThe announcement came a day after Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said he had told his team ahead of this season to stop playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games.The Dallas Mavericks and the Atlanta Hawks during the playing of the national anthem before Wednesday’s game in Dallas.Credit…Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesFeb. 10, 2021Updated 8:01 p.m. ETThe N.B.A. is again requiring teams to play the national anthem before games, after the Dallas Mavericks had stopped playing the anthem through their first 13 preseason and regular-season home games.“With N.B.A. teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,” Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, said Wednesday.The league office abruptly changed its stance on the matter after giving Mark Cuban, the Mavericks’ franchise owner, permission going into the season to stop playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before home games. All but 11 of the N.B.A.’s 30 teams are still playing home games without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the league had said that teams were permitted “to run their pregame operations as they see fit” because of “the unique circumstances of this season.”The Mavericks, at Cuban’s insistence, seized on that latitude to break from a longstanding tradition in American sports and remove the anthem from their pregame program. The change went largely unnoticed until an article by The Athletic called attention to it after the team’s first game with fans in attendance, which was on Monday night. Dallas gave 1,500 free tickets to frontline workers who had received at least the first of two required shots of the Covid-19 vaccine.Cuban told The New York Times on Wednesday that the Mavericks would follow the policy immediately and play the anthem before that night’s nationally televised home game against the Atlanta Hawks at American Airlines Center.“We are good with it,” Cuban said.Most players and coaches regularly knelt during the national anthem to protest social injustice while the league played out the last three months of the 2019-20 season at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., last summer. Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, said in December that the league did not intend to enforce its rule that players stand for the national anthem. The league’s 29 teams apart from Dallas had mostly played recorded versions of the anthem before games.“I recognize that this is a very emotional issue on both sides of the equation in America right now, and I think it calls for real engagement rather than rule enforcement,” Silver said in December.In a statement released through the Mavericks, Cuban said: “We respect and always have respected the passion people have for the anthem and our country. But we also loudly hear the voices of those who feel that the anthem does not represent them. We feel that their voices need to be respected and heard, because they have not been.“Going forward, our hope is that people will take the same passion they have for this issue and apply the same amount of energy to listen to those who feel differently from them.”Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, on Wednesday called for Cuban to sell the franchise to “some Texas patriots” and said that the Mavericks’ decision not to play the anthem was “a slap in the face to every American” and “an embarrassment to Texas.” Cuban has also sparred publicly with Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who has been critical of Cuban’s support of N.B.A. players’ kneeling during the anthem.The Mavericks never announced the policy to stop playing the anthem but quietly let visiting teams know on game days that their players could expect to proceed straight to the introductions of starting lineups.New Orleans Pelicans Coach Stan Van Gundy expressed support on social media for the Mavericks’ original decision to forgo playing the anthem.“This should happen everywhere,” Van Gundy posted on Twitter before the league said the anthem would again be required. “If you think the anthem needs to be played before sporting events, then play it before every movie, concert, church service and the start of every work day at every business. What good reason is there to play the anthem before a game?”For 16 years when Donald Carter owned the Mavericks, singers performed “God Bless America” before home games at the old Reunion Arena. The Mavericks began playing the national anthem after the team was purchased by Ross Perot Jr. on May 1, 1996. Cuban bought the Mavericks in January 2000.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      In the N.B.A., Money Speaks Louder Than Stars

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballIn the N.B.A., Money Speaks Louder Than StarsWith tens of millions of dollars at stake, the All-Star Game is unlikely to be derailed by pushback from the league’s biggest stars about the health risks or the need for a break.The N.B.A.’s biggest stars are speaking out against the All-Star Game, but money has the megaphone for now.Credit…Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFeb. 10, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ETDavid Stern was in his final full season as the N.B.A. commissioner in 2012-13 when LeBron James won his fourth and most recent Most Valuable Player Award. Eight years later, James is in his 18th season and a leading candidate in the race to receive the Maurice Podoloff trophy from Commissioner Adam Silver.James can still do many things in his supposed twilight years with the Los Angeles Lakers. He remains the game’s most high-profile figure and, by playing at an M.V.P. level at age 36, is constantly reminding us that basketball has its own answer to the N.F.L.’s time-defying Tom Brady.It would appear not even James, though, can stop the N.B.A. from staging an All-Star Game next month in Atlanta.He couldn’t have come out much stronger against the concept than he did late last week, blasting the N.B.A.’s plans to stuff three days’ worth of All-Star events into a one-shot Turner Sports extravaganza on March 7. League and players’ union officials are nonetheless expected to soon announce that those plans have been locked in.It is reminiscent of how the season started — and another illustration of the louder-than-ever say held by the N.B.A.’s broadcast partners at such challenging financial times for the sport’s various stakeholders.Players largely left the summer bubble expecting the 2020-21 season to be contested exclusively in 2021, starting no earlier than January and perhaps as late as March. Opening night was then suddenly moved up to Dec. 22 at the strong urging of the league’s two national broadcast partners, who wanted to preserve two valuable television properties: Disney’s five-game Christmas slate on ESPN and ABC, and Turner’s traditional Tuesday night doubleheader to start the season.As James said in a postgame session with reporters on Thursday, many players assumed there would not be an All-Star Game during the extended break scheduled from March 5 to 10. Those players were surprised when it emerged in late January that the league and the union were working on a one-night-only window for All-Star festivities that would enable TNT to air the event, the jewel of its annual N.B.A. coverage.The 2020 All-Star Game in Chicago, for example, attracted 7.3 million viewers for TNT. That was better than the viewing figures for any of the Christmas games on Disney-owned channels.The big difference between December and now is that no one has pinpointed the financial impact of a modified All-Star program. League officials maintain that it’s difficult to project figures for All-Star festivities in terms of basketball-related income, which owners and players split nearly 50/50. The New York Times was among the news outlets to report in December that starting the season before Christmas, rather than in mid-January, was expected to generate at least $500 million more in revenue.Chris Paul, left, has been working with the league to plan for the All-Star Game as president of the players’ union.Credit…Ralph Freso/Associated PressTwo estimates I was provided by industry insiders pegged the value of Turner’s All-Star coverage at $30 million to $60 million — money that the N.B.A. would have to make up to Turner later if the game was not played. You can safely assume that the overall potential loss (with B.R.I. added) would be much higher, given the way players of considerable stature, such as Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers, have talked about what’s motivating the league to take the health risk of bringing together the top players during the coronavirus pandemic.“It is what it is at this point,” Leonard said. “We all know why we’re playing it — there’s money on the line.”Leonard seemed to grasp better than most that, 11 months into the N.B.A.’s new reality (and the world’s), trade-offs for the big picture are a constant.Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Nets’ James Harden are among the marquee players who have joined James in publicly questioning the All-Star plans, contributing to an uncharacteristic swirl of pushback for Silver from the league’s stars. Phoenix’s Chris Paul, the players’ association president, said in response that “guys are entitled to their feelings” — but Paul insisted that “decisions are being made” with “the full body of players in mind.”Translation: More than 400 players who won’t be invited to participate in the resuscitated All-Star gathering are counting on those who do take part to ensure TNT can proceed with its usual showcase event and insulate them from a costly financial hit.The league’s deals with Disney and TNT, worth $24 billion over nine years, do not expire until after the 2024-25 season, but it is never too soon in coronavirus times to re-establish oneself as an exemplary partner. The N.B.A., for all the criticism it has absorbed in recent days, is certainly on a winning streak there, from conceiving a bubble to safely usher the 2019-20 season to a conclusion … to engineering that bubble at Walt Disney World as opposed to Las Vegas or any other interested city … to this All-Star save.I’m told Phoenix was proposed as a potential venue for March 7. Holding it in Atlanta instead would put the game in TNT’s backyard, eliminating travel for its coverage crews.Yet it’s the opposite for the participants, and that’s the unsettling part — even after the N.B.A. announced zero positives in leaguewide coronavirus testing last week. The All-Stars face extra travel to a function steeped in fraternization between players at a time when teams, in their day-to-day existence, are strongly discouraged from postgame interactions of any kind. There’s seemingly no way to avoid describing this game — an exhibition — as risky.The All-Star Game “has been an important tradition throughout the history of the league and remains one of our top events for global fan interest and engagement,” Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman, said in a statement to The Times last week. “The health and safety of everyone involved is at the forefront of our discussions with the players’ association.”The league and the union have been adamant that the game will feature a significant philanthropic component to benefit historically Black colleges and universities as well as Covid-19 relief efforts. The broadcast itself is certain to amplify a league campaign that urges fans to take the coronavirus vaccine as it becomes available and features Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Gregg Popovich in commercial spots.Murmurs persist that some All-Stars will seek to opt out of playing what has been a mandatory assignment for those selected, according to the league’s bylaws, but all signs indicate the game will go ahead.James surely knows it, too. Don’t forget that, dismayed as he was about a game that “I don’t even understand” and a trip that will take 24 All-Stars “into one city that’s open,” he also said he would be there if selected.Even for the face of the N.B.A.’s player empowerment era, even when he’s playing Brady-esque ball, there are limits.Corner ThreeKobe Bryant, left, and Shaquille O’Neal, right, won three championships in eight seasons together in Los Angeles.Credit…Matt Campbell/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYou 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.(Responses may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: Who you got? Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant? Or LeBron James and Anthony Davis? I know you’ve covered both duos. I bet you go with Kobe and Shaq. — Chris Williams (Laguna Beach, Calif.)Stein: We’ve seen James and Davis together for less than a season and a half. As fearsome as they look as a tag team, even after winning a championship on their first try and quickly establishing the Lakers as this season’s title favorites, I can’t put them ahead of the twosome at the center of the N.B.A.’s last three-peat.Not yet.But I reserve the right to change this vote down the road.For all their success together, O’Neal and Bryant had to settle for three titles in eight seasons. They dominated every aspect of the league for nearly a decade, with their drama as much as with the on-court havoc they caused, but the partnership was dissolved in acrimony when the Lakers decided it was untenable to keep orbiting the team around O’Neal and traded him to Miami in July 2004. There will always be a sense that these two divorced prematurely and could have won more together.James and Davis so far have a harmony that O’Neal and Bryant scarcely achieved. It’s still the honeymoon phase, with no guarantee things stay this way, but the Lakers also have their two biggest stars under contract together through 2022-23. The outlook is rather rosy — as long as they stay healthy. (Davis, as we speak, is nursing some nagging discomfort in his right leg and foot.)It’s important to remember the circumstances when making your assessments. O’Neal hadn’t won an N.B.A. championship and was still reasonably young himself, at 24, when he was paired with Bryant, then the most ambitious teenager in basketball history. James and Davis not only have games that mesh together beautifully, as offensive fulcrum and defensive anchor, but they came together when they were clearly ready to team up.James is in the later stages of his career and, with his legacy secure, has willingly ceded a chunk of the spotlight to Davis that might have been much harder to share in his 20s. Davis couldn’t carry New Orleans to glory as the face of that franchise and has clearly reveled in the boost he gets from James’s presence to unlock his full potential.Q: Why did the Nets feel compelled to give away so much in the James Harden trade? Couldn’t this transaction have gone forward without including Cleveland and Jarrett Allen? — Tom Cartelli (Milford, N.J.)Stein: No chance.The three future first-round draft picks that the Nets parted with were the headliner trade assets they used to win the Harden sweepstakes, but they were not going to have any shot at constructing a workable deal without including both Caris LeVert and Allen. Rather than keep Allen, Houston routed him to the Cavaliers for another first-round pick (Milwaukee’s 2021 first-rounder) and to reduce the Rockets’ luxury-tax bill.Harden’s incoming $41,254,920 salary required the Nets to send out a minimum of $32,923,936 to make the salary-cap math work. Allen’s $3,909,902 salary didn’t make much of a dent into that figure, but combining him with another blossoming talent in LeVert at $16,203,704, those three first-round picks and the rights for Houston to swap first-rounders in four additional drafts enabled the Nets to outbid Philadelphia and Boston.Q: Given the potential voter fatigue with the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo this season and Luka Doncic’s Mavericks off to a slow start, could we see someone in his 30s win the Most Valuable Player Award for the first time in 15 years? Steve Nash was the last to win the award in his 30s in 2006. — David Anderson (Raleigh, N.C.)Stein: You’re onto something for sure. Denver’s Nikola Jokic (26 on Feb. 19) and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (27 in March) are at the forefront of the M.V.P. race with roughly one-third of the regular season complete, but there are more 30-somethings in the conversation than players in their 20s.The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (36), Golden State’s Stephen Curry (33 in March) and the Nets’ Kevin Durant (32) would be in my top five with Jokic and Embiid if voting ended today.The duel between Curry (57 points) and Doncic (42 points, 11 assists and 7 rebounds) Saturday night in a 134-132 victory for Dallas was one of the games of the season so far — and reminded you that Curry is back to his best after missing almost all of last season with a broken hand.(The Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, in case you’re wondering, turns 30 in June.)Numbers GameAnthony Davis is struggling from the free-throw line this season.Credit…Daniel Dunn/USA Today Sports, via Reuters17The Western Conference-leading Utah Jazz (20-5) are making 17 3-pointers per game — which puts them on pace for a league record. The 2018-19 Houston Rockets made 16.1 3s per game to set the record, according to Stathead.70.2For all the justified praised we heaped on the Lakers’ Anthony Davis last week for how perfectly he complemented LeBron James, there’s no avoiding one prime area of slippage in his game this season: Davis is shooting a career-worst 70.2 percent from the free-throw line. He shot a career-best 84.6 percent last season.2Jeremy Lin of the Santa Cruz Warriors (Golden State’s affiliate) and Nik Stauskas of the Raptors 905 (Toronto’s affiliate) were the only two N.B.A. veterans allocated to the G League team of their choosing via the N.B.A. developmental league’s new veteran selection rule — which is also known unofficially as “the Jeremy Lin rule.” The G League’s 20th season opens Wednesday with 18 teams playing in a restricted-access zone at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., similar to last summer’s N.B.A. bubble.5We’re down to just five teams that have not faced a game postponement through the season’s opening seven weeks. That group includes both New York teams (Knicks and Nets), both Los Angeles teams (Lakers and Clippers) and Toronto (which is playing its home games in Tampa, Fla.).3Atlanta appears poised host to the All-Star Game for the third time. It was the host city in 1978 (when my beloved Randy Smith of the Buffalo Braves won most valuable player honors) and in 2003.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mark Cuban Says He Told Mavericks to Stop Playing National Anthem

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMark Cuban Says He Told Mavericks to Stop Playing AnthemThe N.B.A. has long required the playing of the national anthem before games, but the league gave teams permission to skip the ritual this season.Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, before a home game between his team and the Golden State Warriors last week.Credit…Jerome Miron/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFeb. 9, 2021Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said Tuesday night that he had instructed the team to stop playing the national anthem before its home games this season.“It was my decision, and I made it in November,” Cuban said. He declined to comment further.The Mavericks did not announce the new policy, but Cuban was allowed to enact it because the N.B.A. has permitted teams “to run their pregame operations as they see fit” because of “the unique circumstances this season,” according to a league spokesman.Nearly two-thirds of the league’s 30 teams are still not admitting fans to home games, as the N.B.A. grapples with the complexities of trying to stage a 72-game season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.Dallas is believed to be the only team in the league that has abandoned the anthem at home games, a decision that was first reported by The Athletic. Other teams have continued to play recorded versions of the anthem.The league rule book has required players to stand during the national anthem since the 1980s, but Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, said in December that the rule would not be strictly enforced this season. The league also chose not to enforce the rule during its restarting of the 2019-20 season in a bubble environment at Walt Disney World in Florida, where many players opted to kneel during the anthem to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement and to demonstrate against systemic racism and social injustice in the United States.“I recognize that this is a very emotional issue on both sides of the equation in America right now, and I think it calls for real engagement rather than rule enforcement,” Silver said in December.The anthem has not been played at American Airlines Center in Dallas before any of the Mavericks’ 13 preseason or regular-season home games this season. In a victory on Monday night over Minnesota, Dallas became one of the 11 teams in the league that are admitting reduced crowds — 1,500 frontline workers in the health care and food-service industries, as well as police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers.This, however, is not the first time in franchise history that the club has declined to play the national anthem before games. For the club’s first 16 years of existence, when it was owned by Donald Carter, “God Bless America” was sung instead before home games at the old Reunion Arena. The Mavericks began playing the national anthem after the team was purchased by Ross Perot Jr. on May 1, 1996. Cuban bought the Mavericks in January 2000.In an interview on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” last June, before the N.B.A. resumed the 2019-20 season, Cuban said he would support players who knelt during the anthem as a form of protest.“If they were taking a knee and they were being respectful, I’d be proud of them,” Cuban said. “Hopefully I’d join them.”Cuban did not accompany the Mavericks to the bubble at Disney World, but he said via Twitter shortly after his ESPN appearance: “The National Anthem Police in this country are out of control. If you want to complain, complain to your boss and ask why they don’t play the National Anthem every day before you start work.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Growing Chorus of N.B.A. Stars Boos League’s Virus Strategy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGrowing Chorus of N.B.A. Stars Boos League’s Virus StrategyGiannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard joined LeBron James in criticizing the league’s plans for an All-Star Game, while Kevin Durant questioned protocols.Kevin Durant spoke out against the N.B.A. on social media on Friday night after he was pulled from a game because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols. He had already played 19 minutes.Credit…Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressFeb. 6, 2021Updated 4:53 p.m. ETMultiple N.B.A. stars, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant, added their voices to the growing chorus of players criticizing the league’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly plans to hold the All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7.“We’ve got to all follow the big dog,” Antetokounmpo told reporters on Friday night, referring to LeBron James, who this week said that holding the game would be “a slap in the face” for players. Echoing James, Antetokounmpo, the reigning Most Valuable Player Award winner, said he had “zero excitement, zero energy” for the game.Following Antetokounmpo’s comments, Leonard, the Los Angeles Clippers forward, said he was not surprised by the league’s plans, but that it was “just putting money over health right now, pretty much.”“We all know why we’re playing it,” said Leonard, a four-time All-Star. “It’s money on the line. There’s the opportunity to make more money.”The All-Star events are a chance to showcase the N.B.A.’s top talent. There is also a financial benefit, although how much is unclear. This year, the league, in conjunction with the players’ union, is planning to hold the 3-point contest and the skills competition on the same day as the game to condense an affair that typically lasts days. The N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement requires those selected for the All-Star Game to play if they are healthy.Nonetheless, a condensed schedule does not eliminate the added health risks of an event bringing together the game’s best players from across the country for an exhibition — and presents a sharp contrast to rules that bar players from sharing hugs and handshakes after games to help reduce the chances of infection spread.The league’s protocols appear to be wearing on some players, including Durant of the Nets, who was pulled from a game on Friday night in a strange spectacle that played out on TV and social media. About 20 minutes before the Nets were to tip off against the Toronto Raptors, the Nets announced that Durant would not start the game because of the league’s virus protocols. Just after the game started, the Nets announced that Durant had been cleared to play. But then, after Durant played a little more than 19 minutes, he was pulled from the game and ruled out because of the protocols.Shortly after leaving the game, Durant posted on Twitter, “Free me.” He had appeared frustrated on the TV broadcast as he walked out of the arena after being removed from the game, tossing a water bottle to the side as he walked into the tunnel.The N.B.A. then released a statement saying that Durant had tested negative for the coronavirus three times in the past 24 hours but had “interacted” with someone who first had an inconclusive test result before the game on Friday, then a positive result during the game. An inconclusive test, according to the N.B.A.’s protocols, does not necessarily require quarantine, so Durant was allowed to play. But when the positive result came in, the league pulled Durant “out of an abundance of caution.”In response to the statement, Durant tweeted: “Yo @nba, your fans aren’t dumb!!!! You can’t fool em with your Wack ass PR tactics.”Mike Bass, a spokesman for the N.B.A., told The New York Times that the All-Star Game “has been an important tradition throughout the history of the league and remains one of our top events for global fan interest and engagement. The health and safety of everyone involved is at the forefront of our discussions with the Players Association.”The players’ union declined to comment, but Chris Paul, the Phoenix Suns guard and president of the players’ union, told reporters on Friday: “Guys are entitled to their feelings, their decisions, everything. I think the job for the union has been to try to make sure our players are healthy and safe.“This is something that was a decision by the league, and we are definitely day in and day out trying to figure it out,” he added. “But we’ve got 450 players that we are always trying to get insight from. It’s tough, but we are trying to figure it out right now.”Paul also said that he had previously spoken to James about the topic.The league has struggled to contain virus outbreaks this season. The N.B.A. has postponed 23 games in connection with infections and contact tracing, and has stationed security guards on the court before and after games to discourage players from socializing. Only five of the league’s 30 teams have not had a virus-related postponement.On Jan. 12, the league and the players’ union announced new health protocols to deal with a rash of game postponements. Among the new rules, players and staff have been directed to remain at their homes or hotels when on the road except for team activities and essential tasks. After a recent game between the Miami Heat and the Nets, a security official interrupted Nets guard Kyrie Irving’s attempt to exchange jerseys with the Heat’s Bam Adebayo — much to the bafflement of Irving. (Irving slipped a jersey to Adebayo after their next game two days later.)Others players have weighed in on the All-Star game as well. On Friday, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics, who was selected to his first All-Star team last season, said: “I feel like, for the most part, they have done a great job of trying to keep us safe,” referring to the league, “though you can’t control everything. But I do understand the concerns about it, especially in Atlanta.”His teammate Kemba Walker, a four-time All Star, told reporters on Friday that he agreed with James.“He’s a smart man,” Walker said. “He’s been around. He’s a leader. A lot of things he says are correct. He feels the way he feels. I’m probably going to be on vacation.”Earlier in the week, De’Aaron Fox, the top guard on the Sacramento Kings, said holding the game would be “stupid.”“If we have to wear masks and do all this for a regular game, then what’s the point of bringing the All-Star game back?” Fox told reporters. “Obviously, money makes the world go ’round so it is what it is.”For the moment, the N.B.A.’s virus-related game postponements have died down. The most recent one was on Monday, when the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets were supposed to play in Denver. Two days later, the league said in its weekly report that no new players had tested positive for the coronavirus. The week before there had been one case, a sharp reduction from the 27 reported over the two weeks prior. In January, several teams were missing multiple players because of infections and contact tracing, but now most teams are no longer missing anyone for that reason.N.B.A. players — like much of the country — are under enormous mental strain, as Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors said in a podcast interview that was posted on Friday. He said this season has been particularly difficult with longer days as a result of daily testing and restrictions in the league’s protocols.“Even on off days, you have to go to the facility and test,” Green said. “And so even just seeing that facility that day, although you may not even go in and work out, but you drive into that facility every day. Mentally, it’s exhausting and so it’s been a very tough season to say the least, and I think a lot of guys are struggling with it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      LeBron James Doesn't Want an All-Star Game

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.B.A. All-Star Game Would Be ‘Slap in the Face,’ LeBron James SaysJames has “zero energy and zero excitement” about flying to Atlanta in a pandemic for an exhibition game.“I don’t even understand why we’re having an All-Star Game,” LeBron James said.Credit…Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressFeb. 5, 2021, 7:33 a.m. ETAs the N.B.A. finalizes arrangements to stage an All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers issued a strong rebuke of the whole concept, calling the idea “a slap in the face” for players who thought the annual midseason showcase would not take place this season.Speaking after he led the Lakers with a triple-double in a nationally televised victory over the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night, James said he had “zero energy and zero excitement” about flying to Atlanta in the midst of a pandemic for what amounts to an exhibition game.While James acknowledged that the N.B.A. players’ association consented to the proposal, he said he had been eagerly anticipating the league’s scheduled break from March 5 through March 10, given that the Lakers and the Miami Heat faced the shortest off-season (72 days) in league history after meeting in last season’s N.B.A. finals in October.“I don’t even understand why we’re having an All-Star Game,” James said.Earlier on Thursday night, the N.B.A. notified its teams that it expects to have “finalized agreements” with the players’ association by next week on holding the All-Star Game as well as a dunk contest, a 3-point contest and a skills competition — all on March 7. Those plans were conveyed in a memo issued to the league’s 30 teams, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.A typical All-Star weekend includes even more events and can stretch across four days, but next month’s proposed trip would still require participants and various team and league employees to be in Atlanta on March 6 and 7. The All-Star functions are likely to take place at the Atlanta Hawks’ State Farm Arena, according to two people familiar with the negotiations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.Negotiations between the league and the union on a modified All-Star proposal have been ongoing for more than two weeks, but the prospect of bringing representatives of numerous teams to interact in one place — given all the coronavirus-related disruptions that the league has faced during the first six weeks of the season — had been criticized as needlessly risky even before James’s blasts.“If I’m going to be brutally honest, I think it’s stupid,” De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings said on Wednesday.Noting that the N.B.A. has instituted countless health and safety regulations to limit potential coronavirus exposure, including rules aimed at curtailing postgame fraternizing between teams, Fox added: “If we have to wear a mask and all this for a regular game, then what’s the point of bringing the All-Star Game back? But, obviously, money makes the world go round, so it is what it is.”The league does not have a separate television contract for its All-Star festivities, but All-Star programming is regarded as the jewel of Atlanta-based Turner Sports’s annual N.B.A. coverage. Having at least one night of All-Star events to broadcast would give Turner an opportunity to recoup some prime advertising revenue, and holding the game in Atlanta means Turner’s coverage crews won’t have to travel.The Phoenix Suns’ Chris Paul, the president of the National Basketball Players Association and one of James’s longtime friends, has been described as one of the strongest backers of an All-Star weekend boiled down to one day in Atlanta — with both the league and union determined to ensure that the game benefits historically Black colleges and universities and Covid-19 relief efforts.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Car Rides. Meals. On-Court Play? Tracing the Virus in the N.B.A.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesU.S. Travel BanVaccine InformationTimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCar Rides. Meals. On-Court Play? Tracing the Virus in the N.B.A.A surge in coronavirus cases and game postponements has led to tighter rules about player interactions, on and off the court. But it’s not always clear where the outbreaks began.The N.B.A. is working to keep players from shaking hands and hugging before and after games as virus infections persist.Credit…Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 20, 2021, 6:59 p.m. ETLast Tuesday, the N.B.A. and its players’ union tightened their coronavirus protocols — mandating that players spend at least the next two weeks almost exclusively at home or at their hotels on the road when not playing basketball.Three days later, the Washington Wizards held a news conference saying that six of their players had tested positive for the coronavirus and that the team did not have enough players to practice. That same day, Karl-Anthony Towns, the Minnesota Timberwolves star whose mother died of Covid-19, said that he, too, had tested positive.Almost one month into the season, the N.B.A. has struggled to contain the coronavirus while playing outside of the restricted campus at Walt Disney World in Florida where it finished last season. Stars have been sidelined. Several teams, including the Wizards, Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns, have postponed multiple games. Some, like the Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat, have taken the floor with skeleton crews, missing most of their top players because of contact tracing. More than 40 players have tested positive since training camps began in early December — 27 of them in the past two weeks. Only nine of the league’s 30 teams have not had a game postponed at least in part because too many of their players could have been infected.And starting Wednesday, team security were to be stationed at midcourt before and after games to remind players not to hug each other.The protocol shifts signal the difficulty in trying to play a contact sport indoors during the winter, when health experts said the pandemic would be at its worst. The N.B.A. was praised for being among the first major sports leagues to stop play when the pandemic reared its head last March and for finishing its season in the summer. But now some are openly wondering whether the league should be playing at all.Even so, the league remains confident that its health and safety protocols are strong enough to withstand the outbreaks and that the postponements won’t threaten the integrity of its season. The players’ union declined to comment.“I think it’s in line with where we thought we could be given how serious the pandemic was getting,” David Weiss, a senior vice president of the league, said of the postponements in an interview.He added: “This exact time period is when we thought it was going to be difficult.”The N.B.A. only scheduled the first half of its season, which was shortened to 72 games from the usual 82, in part because it predicted some postponements. In nearly 160 pages of protocols sent to the league’s 30 teams before the season, the N.B.A. said it was “likely” that some players and personnel would test positive and that it “may be necessary” to later modify the guidelines.The Boston Celtics have played shorthanded and postponed games because of the virus and injuries.Credit…Maddie Meyer/Getty Images“Your protocol is only as good as the people are able to follow it,” said Dr. Cindy A. Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida. She said not being in a bubble, as the league was during the summer, matters more than whatever the rules may be.“The protocols could be great,” she said. “They’re relying, though, on individuals again. But now they’re relying on individuals with a lot less oversight. And they’re relying on people to understand what puts them at risk in getting Covid. We’re not good at that. I think we’ve proven that as a country.”George Hill, a guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder, told reporters last week in response to the tighter protocols: “I’m a grown man, so I’m going to do what I want to do. If I want to go see my family, I’m going to go see my family. They can’t tell me I have to stay in the room 24/7. If it’s that serious then maybe we shouldn’t be playing. It’s life. No one’s going be able to just cancel their whole life for this game.”The league’s contact tracing protocols, positive tests and injuries have at times left several teams without the minimum eight players required to compete. Those who test positive must isolate for at least 10 days or test negative twice more than 24 hours apart. Exposure to someone who has tested positive may also require a quarantine, depending on the setting and timing of the interaction. The N.B.A. uses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines to define close contact as being “within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period” in the two days before a positive test or the appearance of symptoms.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Harden Reunites With Durant, Far from the Hearts of Sonics Fans

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonJames Harden Traded to the NetsThe N.B.A.’s Virus CrisisThis Is for Stephen Curry’s CriticsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of The TimesHouston, Seattle Feels Your LossWith whipsawing trades and other player movement routine in the N.B.A. these days, it’s hard to be loyal to teams and players.Kevin Durant, then of the Seattle SuperSonics, scoring off the Knicks in 2007 during his rookie season.Credit…Barton Silverman/The New York TimesJan. 15, 2021Updated 7:39 p.m. ETSEATTLE — If you’re a fan of the Seattle SuperSonics, jilted long ago despite decades of loyal love, you’re seriously happy for the last great talent from your team.That would be Kevin Durant.After a year spent rehabilitating a torn Achilles’ tendon, Durant now seems to be living his best life in Brooklyn as the leader of the Nets. His odds of winning a third N.B.A. title received a significant boost when a blockbuster trade reunited him this week with James Harden, his close friend and former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate.Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving on the same team? Scintillating, so long as they end up on the same page.But if you’re a die-hard Sonics fan — and yes, count me in that group — the happiness felt for one of basketball’s transcendent superstars comes with a flip side.We see Durant and are forced to reckon with all the unfulfilled possibilities.Recall that the slim, do-everything forward spent his rookie season in Seattle. He was only 19, but he led the team through a dreary and uncertain 2007-08 season. He wasn’t just good, he was prodigiously good; so full of talent and joy that watching him made the doomsday talk of the Sonics’ possible relocation drift away.Then reality hit. April 13, 2008. The last game played at the old KeyArena: a win sealed by a Durant jump shot.Soon the team moved to Oklahoma City, where it began anew as the Thunder. (Pardon the crankiness, but they’ll always be the Tumbleweeds to me.)It’s been 12 years, but the stinging questions remain.What would have happened to Durant and our team if the Sonics had never left?And how much should fans expect their devotion to be mirrored by professional sports leagues, team ownership and the players we most admire?I’m typical of many in Seattle. The Sonics will always be in my blood. I’m comfortably middle-aged, but I can close my eyes and remember my first N.B.A. game: the bright colors and sharp sounds and even the smells of buttered popcorn and roasted peanuts in the old coliseum nestled near the Space Needle.I was 6, and the Sonics were playing Jerry Sloan and the Chicago Bulls. I can still feel my father’s humongous hands as he led me to our seats.A few years later, when my parents divorced, my father kept our connection close through the Sonics. We went to dozens of games, seated almost always near the rafters. We saw Julius Erving’s first appearance in Seattle — all that grace and power and coolness.We were there in 1978 when the Sonics lost to the Washington Bullets in the N.B.A. finals.In 1979, we watched Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Dennis Johnson and my dad’s friend Downtown Freddie Brown as the team won its only league championship.Years later, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton formed a powerful, legendary duo, but our hearts were always with those 1970s teams.One more memory, this one bittersweet. When my father was dying, far too early at age 75, we rode together in an ambulance to a nearby hospice. I held his hand again as he spoke of our most cherished times. “The Sonics,” he said. Then he recalled, one last time, the glorious, arcing accuracy of Fred Brown’s jump shot.That’s love.I know I’m hardly alone. We bond over teams, over remarkable wins and searing losses and athletes who remain ever young in our mind’s eye.Fans all over the country, who root for all kinds of teams and players, know that love. It is steadfast, faithful and rooted deep into our souls.We also know the risk. There are no guarantees that devotion will be rewarded with loyalty in return. (Just ask the Houston fans who have stood behind Harden since 2012.)Two years after my father’s death, the Midwestern ownership group that had bought the Sonics moved Seattle’s first big-time professional sports team of the modern era to Oklahoma.The fact that the team had been a vital part of one of America’s greatest cities for 41 years did not matter. Nor did the fact that Seattle was known to have one of the most passionate fan bases in sports.Nothing mattered but the bottom line. The N.B.A. wanted a fancy new stadium, and taxpayer money to fund a big chunk of it. Seattle’s political leaders balked. There was no compromise.The city lost the Sonics and the one player everyone imagined as a franchise cornerstone. The one player who could have brought another title and forged more remarkable seasons, maybe for a decade or longer.We have never relinquished our passion for Durant. He matured during an era of constant player movement that seemed to be foretold by the uprooting of the Sonics. He came to personify the modern superstar. He bounced from team to team to team, winning an M.V.P. and world titles and never quite content in one place. But to us he’s still the wide-eyed teen who conjured our last flash of basketball brilliance. We can’t let go.It helped that he never forgot the city that birthed his N.B.A. career. When his Golden State Warriors came to Seattle for an exhibition in 2018, he wore a vintage Shawn Kemp jersey and gave the sold-out crowd all they could ever want to hear. “I know it’s been a rough 10 years,” he said. “The N.B.A. is back in Seattle for tonight, but hopefully it is back forever soon!”Will that ever happen? To pine for it is to be whipsawed between hope and despair.Whenever N.B.A. commissioner Adam Silver utters a single sentence that could be divined as giving a nod toward the Sonics’ return — as he did recently when he spoke of league expansion as “Manifest Destiny” and gave a tip of the hat toward Seattle — the local news goes into overdrive with stories about a possible return.Contractors are rebuilding the old KeyArena, soon the home of the N.H.L.’s Seattle Kraken, an expansion team. They have gutted the old structure. Close to $1 billion will go toward increasing its size and prepping it for multiple sports — pro basketball included. The whole endeavor is led by Tim and Tod Leiweke, brothers connected to the N.B.A. and Silver for decades who make no secret of their desire to have an expansion team playing in their gleaming new edifice.Does all this mean the Sonics are coming soon? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.So Sonics fans keep holding tight to the one last superstar to have played for our team.He’s doing his thing in Brooklyn now.And we’re still dreaming of the future.I can see it now, in two years or maybe five, the SuperSonics back at long last. The first big free-agent signed to herald their return? Kevin Durant.Sorry Brooklyn, there’s no such thing as loyalty in the N.B.A., but at least you would still have your team.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More