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    Dick Van Arsdale, 81, One of First Identical Twins in the N.B.A., Dies

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    A three-time All-Star, he played for the Knicks and the Phoenix Suns. For one season, he and Tom Van Arsdale were hard-to-tell-apart teammates.Dick Van Arsdale, a three-time All-Star who, with his brother, Tom, was half of the first set of identical twins to play in the N.B.A. after starring and confusing opponents and teammates alike in high school and at Indiana University, died on Monday at his home in Phoenix. He was 81.Tom Van Arsdale said the cause was heart and kidney failure.While the Van Arsdales had remarkably similar statistical careers, Dick was considered the slightly better player, if only by the measure of superior pro teams. He played for the New York Knicks and the Phoenix Suns during 12 N.B.A. seasons, making the playoffs four times, while Tom suited up for five teams, none of which made the playoffs during the same span.Blonde and blue-eyed, the Van Arsdale twins were the stereotypical picture of their rural Indiana roots, but on the basketball court neither was a precise positional fit at 6 feet 5 inches: not fast enough for the backcourt, not big enough for the frontcourt.Dick, who began his pro career as a forward and switched to guard, was nonetheless a rugged defender while averaging a career 16.4 points per game, exceeding 20 three times during his years in Phoenix.Van Arsdale had played three seasons with the Knicks when, in 1968, he joined the newly formed Suns, an expansion team whose general manager, Jerry Colangelo, had selected him first. Van Arsdale scored the franchise’s first points and became an organization fixture, known as the original Sun. He served as interim coach during the 1986-87 season, then as a front-office executive and later a television analyst.“We couldn’t find a better player on or off the floor to build our team,” Colangelo told The Arizona Republic in 1970. “If I could field five Vans, what I’d lack in height and rebounding, I’d offset with fight and desire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stan Asofsky, Vociferous Courtside Superfan of the Knicks, Dies at 87

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      For decades, beginning in 1959, he was a regular presence at Madison Square Garden (in two locations), befriending players and heckling opposing players and refs.Stan Asofsky was more than a rabid New York Knicks fan. He was a ticket holder with access, reflecting a time when professional sports venues were far less fortified and class-segregated. When one didn’t have to be Spike Lee, or Taylor Swift, to walk in a celebrity athlete’s world.Or play. During the 1960s, Mr. Asofsky delivered crisp bounce passes to Cazzie Russell, a young Knicks forward, while Russell practiced jump shots at the 92nd Street Y, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Then they would shower and walk a few blocks south to the hot-dog emporium Papaya King, so Russell could rehydrate with a glass of tropical juice.“He wasn’t getting enough minutes, and he wanted the workout,” Mr. Asofsky told me in 2009. “I said, ‘Come to our Y.’ He said, ‘Are there ballplayers there?’”Mr. Asofsky, who died on Sept. 12 at 87, was more than a prideful gym rat with a bum knee, not to mention a superfan; he could also be an accommodating friend: He once set Russell up on a blind date, with a woman who worked with Mr. Asofsky in CBS’s publishing division, as he recalled in the 2009 interview, for a book I was writing about the Knicks’ glory days.Certainly seat location helped in the creation of the insider persona that Mr. Asofsky developed alongside Fred Klein, his front-row companion for a half century at two Madison Square Garden locations.Long before there was such a thing as celebrity row, where Mr. Lee has stretched his vocal cords and enhanced his exposure as a premier filmmaker, Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein were the arena’s best-known baiters of Knicks’ opponents and referees alike.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      One Potential Key to Knicks’ Season: Friendship

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      Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo have been buddies since college, a situation that those who study the workplace say can foster success.Researchers who study social networks in workplaces have found that having friends at work can make employees more productive and successful, not to mention happier. Friends can hold one another accountable in ways that acquaintances can’t, and a friend can help a new employee understand the workplace more quickly.So it was when Donte DiVincenzo signed with the N.B.A.’s New York Knicks in July. He didn’t need to figure out on his own how to get to know Julius Randle, one of the team’s leaders, or how to decode Coach Tom Thibodeau’s idiosyncrasies. He had a pair of tour guides already there: his college teammates Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson.“You’re kind of just thrown right into the fire of them making jokes and them talking about things that you weren’t up to speed with,” DiVincenzo said while preparing for a recent game at Madison Square Garden. “It’s almost like you skip that introduction phase.”The Knicks have exceeded expectations this season. Even after losing Randle to a shoulder injury, they finished the regular season in second place in the Eastern Conference and begin their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. Some basketball pundits think this could be the year they reach the conference finals for the first time since 2000, when Brunson’s father, Rick, was a Knicks bench player.At the center of the Knicks’ success are Brunson, Hart and DiVincenzo — buddies since their teenage years who excel on the court together. It is a testament to their basketball skill, but those who research the workplace say it shows that when employees have friends among their peers at work, the whole organization can benefit.“There are some truths about joining a company and feeling more connected because of the people that you’re with day in and day out,” said Jon Clifton, the chief executive of Gallup, who has studied workplaces.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Overlooked Championship Team’s Final Stop: The White House

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      The all-Black Tennessee A&I basketball team won three back-to-back national championships at the height of the Jim Crow era, but were never invited to the White House. That changed on Friday.When Vice President Kamala Harris greeted Dick Barnett on Friday, he was concise in his response.“Finally.”At long last, six surviving members of the all-Black Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University in Nashville visited the White House, the culmination of a decades-long effort, led by Mr. Barnett, for recognition.The Tennessee A&I Tigers were the first team from a historically Black college or university to win any national championship, and the first college team to win three back-to-back championships, in 1957, 1958 and 1959. The former teammates — Mr. Barnett, George Finley, Ernest Jones, Henry Carlton, Robert Clark and Ron Hamilton — took part in a private ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with Ms. Harris, who paid tribute to the team during a round-table discussion.“There’s so much that we have accomplished as a nation because of the heroes like those that I’m looking at right now,” Ms. Harris said, adding, “I, like so many of us, stand on your broad shoulders, each one of you.”The Tennessee A&I Tigers in 1957.Live Star EntertainmentHenry Carlton stands outside the White House on Friday with, seated from left, Robert Clark, Ernest Jones, George Finley, Ron Hamilton and Dick Barnett.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesEven though nine players from the Tennessee A&I championship teams went on to play professional basketball, their accomplishments quickly receded in the Jim Crow South.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Sit Courtside at Madison Square Garden

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      Close to the action at a Knicks game, a writer gets some advice from Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live.”Madison Square Garden went very quiet when my face appeared on the giant screen above center court. The silence was noticeable. A few seconds earlier, Kenan Thompson’s face had brought down the house.It wasn’t like anyone gasped or got angry — no one seemed taken aback. It was just that no one knew who the hell I was. And why should they? I’m not famous. I had no right to be up there in the first place.Still, it was hard not to take it personally. Eighteen thousand people — New Yorkers, no less — had decided to silence their cheers. Eighteen thousand people had agreed, as one, to reject me.The chyron below my face on the GardenVision screen read: “Actor.” That hurt, because I no longer think of myself as just an actor. It also hurt because the subhead read: “‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow.’” Solid movie — I mean no disrespect — but it’s just that I die within the first three minutes.At 4:45 p.m. that day, my manager, Harry, sent me a text: “Is boyfriend still here?”I thought he wanted to hang out with us, which I didn’t feel like doing, so I considered lying. I let my typing bubbles go … and I let them go away. Harry texted again: “I have two extra courtside tickets to the Knicks game.” Honesty is the way, etc.I’ve done my fair share of sitting courtside. I know that sitting courtside is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I can’t think of a more annoying fact, but I’ll come clean: I’ve sat courtside upward of 30 times. What can I say? I’m a good guest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Annie Hamilton’s Courtside Adventure at Madison Square Garden

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      For a fleeting moment, she was the queen of Madison Square Garden.Madison Square Garden went very quiet when my face appeared on the giant screen above center court. The silence was noticeable. A few seconds earlier, Kenan Thompson’s face had brought down the house.It wasn’t like anyone gasped or got angry — no one seemed taken aback. It was just that no one knew who the hell I was. And why should they? I’m not famous. I had no right to be up there in the first place.Still, it was hard not to take it personally. Eighteen thousand people — New Yorkers, no less — had decided to silence their cheers. Eighteen thousand people had agreed, as one, to reject me.The chyron below my face on the GardenVision screen read: “Actor.” That hurt, because I no longer think of myself as just an actor. It also hurt because the subhead read: “‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow.’” Solid movie — I mean no disrespect — but it’s just that I die within the first three minutes.At 4:45 p.m. that day, my manager, Harry, sent me a text: “Is boyfriend still here?”I thought he wanted to hang out with us, which I didn’t feel like doing, so I considered lying. I let my typing bubbles go … and I let them go away. Harry texted again: “I have two extra courtside tickets to the Knicks game.” Honesty is the way, etc.I’ve done my fair share of sitting courtside. I know that sitting courtside is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I can’t think of a more annoying fact, but I’ll come clean: I’ve sat courtside upward of 30 times. What can I say? I’m a good guest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      My Rick Pitino Story

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      A basketball coach’s persistence has a newly retired journalist reminiscing about newsgathering in a different era.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Of all the gym joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.That’s how I felt last spring, when I learned that Rick Pitino had become the head basketball coach at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y., which happens to be my alma mater. The mere thought of Mr. Pitino, 70 years old and still strolling the sidelines as I watch basketball at home, newly retired, took me back to the most bizarre moment of my 38-year career at The New York Times.I’m referring to the first time Mr. Pitino and I crossed paths, in May of 1989, under the most unusual circumstances: at the beginning of a new day (2:30 a.m.) and the end of a long, winding driveway. A colleague and I could see Mr. Pitino through a large bay window. Clad in a bright red sweater, he was chatting on the phone, sitting on a sofa in what appeared to be his living room. The sound of car doors slamming behind us was enough to make Mr. Pitino whip his head around and rush out his front door to confront us.“Who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing here?” I remember him asking.To be honest, we were sort of wondering the same thing ourselves. Several hours earlier, I had just finished a long clerical shift in the Sports department at The Times when Bill Brink, the weekend editor, summoned me and a colleague to his desk.It was late, and Bill told us he had just been on the phone with Sam Goldaper, our venerable basketball writer, who told him that Mr. Pitino, then the head coach of the New York Knicks, was about to resign and return to his first love, college basketball. It was rumored that Mr. Pitino had accepted a job offer from the fabled University of Kentucky, where he had always felt that the blue grass was greener.Sam didn’t have Mr. Pitino’s phone number, but had given the Sports desk the address of Mr. Pitino’s home in Mount Kisco, N.Y., in the upper reaches of the Westchester County suburbs. Neither of us had a vehicle, so Bill wrote out a transportation slip, which allowed us to use one of the cars The Times then kept for reporters in the parking lot next door.Before we left, Bill told us to try and get a quote from Mr. Pitino. Even if he wasn’t home, the reader would still know that The Times had tried to contact him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Johnny Green, Jumpin’ Knicks All-Star, Dies at 89

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      An All-Star forward — and an all-American at Michigan State — he was known as Jumpin’ Johnny, able to soar over taller opponents for 14 seasons in the N.B.A.Johnny Green, an All-Star forward for the Knicks in the 1960s who gained acclaim for his leaping ability and rebounding prowess through 14 National Basketball Association seasons, died on Thursday in Huntington, N.Y. He was 89.His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his son Johnny Jr., who said his father had had heart and kidney problems for about a year.Jumpin’ Johnny, as he came to be known, was 6-foot-5 and about 200 pounds, but he often bested taller and huskier frontline opponents, snaring rebounds, blocking shots and hitting short-range baskets.He was durable as well; he avoided serious injuries and had some of his best seasons late in his career. He played in the N.B.A. until he was 39, retiring after the 1972-73 season.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      What the NBA May Need: a Soccer-Style Way to Banish Bad Teams

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      Dave Checketts, a former Knicks executive, has seen firsthand the emotional, and financial, power of relegation through his post-N.B.A. career in European soccer.Dave Checketts believed he had experienced pretty much everything in his decades-long career as a sports executive. As the Knicks’ president, he had hired Pat Riley as coach in 1991, launching a memorable decade of championship contention at Madison Square Garden. As a founding owner of an M.L.S. franchise in Salt Lake City with his company, SCP Worldwide, he had negotiated a partnership with Real Madrid that helped to produce one of the early soccer-specific stadiums in the United States and an M.L.S. Cup title in 2009.But none of Checketts’s years in the N.B.A., N.H.L. (as owner of the St. Louis Blues for a few years starting in 2006) or M.L.S. had prepared him for a Sunday in May 2022 when Burnley, the English football club, was relegated from the Premier League for the first time in six years — in a stomach-churning, one-goal defeat, at home, on the season’s final day.“For a regular-season event, I’d never witnessed anything like that,” said Checketts, who had been appointed to the club’s board of directors in 2021. “It was gripping, and then, it’s over, you’re relegated, out of the top league. Fans were sobbing. It was a funeral service. But because I was at home in Connecticut, I could look at it from a distance, also see it as business strategy.”He recalled telling his wife, Deb, “The N.B.A. needs to do this!”In a calmer state, he recognized that North American professional basketball lacks the lower-league infrastructure of European soccer to consider for promotion/relegation, among other cultural and financial disqualifying factors. But in a recent discussion, Checketts, 67, spoke with The New York Times about the increasing connectedness of global sport.This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.How did your association with Burnley F.C. come about?Our M.L.S. team was not doing well the first two years. After we started badly in Year 3, I let everybody go. There was a young partner in our firm, Alan Pace, and I asked him to be interim C.E.O. Alan fell in love with the game. When he put together the deal to buy Burnley in 2020, he called and said, “The Premier League is telling me I’ve got to have someone who’s been around professional sports.” I put money in and joined his ownership group.Burnley was relegated from the Premier League in 2022 but won promotion in 2023. Checketts said he was the promotion-relegation system as “business strategy.”Richard Sellers/PA Images, via Getty ImagesAfter relegation in 2022, you experienced promotion, the flip side, with Burnley losing only three games in the second tier, or Championship. What was that like?There was a coach who had been there for a decade, Sean Dyche, who was so popular that there was a bar there named for him. But we were losing and Alan fired him with a few games left in the relegation season. The fans went crazy on social media; it was ugly. This guy’s an American — what does he know?Then Alan hired Vincent Kompany, who’d been a star at Manchester City and was coaching in Belgium. He shed payroll, went with young players and a new attacking system. When we won the Championship, they held a parade, which I was there for. Burnley is very industrial, one of the oldest clubs in the world. The stadium seats only about 20,000, but it felt like the whole city was there, tens of thousands.J.J. Watt, one of two former N.F.L. players — Malcolm Jenkins being the other — to invest in Burnley, was at the clinching game and got to carry the trophy. Why is English football suddenly attracting U.S. celebrities? (Watt’s wife, Kealia, who played in the National Women’s Soccer League, is also an investor.)Obviously, Ryan Reynolds’s buying Wrexham and the television series has been a huge factor, as well as “Ted Lasso” on Apple. But Americans have always had a fascination with England, anything with the royal family. And look, Americans are also used to watching what they think is the best in sport. It’s not surprising that with soccer’s growth there’s a fascination with the Premier League.If promotion/relegation would never fly in American pro leagues, including M.L.S., is there any sports entity where it could be workable?I think it’s an absolutely great idea to have a power conference in college football, and there you could have promotion/relegation, where the bottom three or four would go down, but would still be able to play major college teams. It would create incredible interest. But you’d need a central power source, like a pro commissioner, and the N.C.A.A. is not that.Speaking of borrowing from Europe, the N.B.A. is launching an in-season tournament, but it already has a tournament — it’s called the playoffs. Will this work?I think if you went out on the street, even in New York City, and asked, what is this N.B.A. tournament about, I doubt many would know. It’s a separate tournament, but the results count in the regular-season standings? They’re going to Las Vegas for the championship in December?Let’s say Phoenix goes to Vegas and wins the championship. Do they go home and have a celebration? In Europe, they certainly do celebrate winning any cup.It doesn’t feel like American fans need it, but [N.B.A. Commissioner] Adam Silver is never afraid to try something new, and maybe it will stimulate some interest.As the Knicks’ president, Checketts had hired Pat Riley as coach in 1991, launching a memorable decade of championship contention.Richard Perry/The New York TimesSome of the N.B.A.’s best players now are foreign-born. Might there ever be European team expansion?In 1990, when I was general manager of N.B.A. International, we were already identifying expansion cities, but I don’t think owners are spending any time on it anymore. It’s fine to go over and play a few games for marketing. But you start complicating things with collective bargaining, television contracts, labor laws. If we were looking at it 33 years ago and it hasn’t happened yet, I doubt it’s ever going to happen. Certainly not in my lifetime.On the aforementioned subject of American fans demanding the best in a particular sport, where is M.L.S. on becoming a true major league on the international stage?[Lionel] Messi has made an obvious difference this summer, but how long can he go and what happens after that? How many guys can be given $50 million? How do you get that huge network deal? For me, the financial side was impossible to carry on. (Checketts sold his stake in Real Salt Lake in 2013.)First of all, we play in the summer so foreign players have to leave to play for their national teams. It would also help if the best U.S. players stayed in M.L.S. except you usually have a national team coach who prefers they go to Europe because the game is so much better. So it’s a difficult challenge, but you do have the World Cup coming here in 2026 and it would help if the U.S. could be really competitive. This may be a make-or-break decade. More