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    Kevin Durant and Westbrook Are Finding Their Way Without Each Other

    Durant’s Suns bested Westbrook’s Clippers in the first round of the playoffs, but the former teammates held their own.PHOENIX — Russell Westbrook sprinted to steal the ball from Kevin Durant, sending Durant flying to the floor on his backside.Durant winced in pain for a few moments before heading to the free-throw line at Phoenix’s Footprint Center as thousands of Suns fans in orange T-shirts held their breath. Westbrook quickly walked away from the scene, seemingly unconcerned, and waited for Durant to begin shooting.The sequence played out like two ardent foes battling in an elimination game — which, technically, it was. Westbrook’s Clippers were on their last chance to stay alive in the first-round playoff series. But it was also a matchup between two men who had spent nearly a decade together as teammates, making the N.B.A. finals in 2012 with Oklahoma City as fledgling 23-year-olds tasked with carrying a new franchise in a small city.“You know Russ is a fierce competitor, so when he sees K, it’s always about trying to play super hard,” said Suns guard Cameron Payne, who played with Westbrook and Durant on the Thunder.Payne added: “Maybe in the regular season, he’ll go help him up, but you never know with Russ. Like playing with him in OKC, he was big on how it’s 15 guys on a team, and I’m with my 15 guys, so that’s just that competing stuff I was talking about.”It was another puzzling moment in a jagged relationship.Durant and Westbrook made a thrilling run to the N.B.A. finals in 2012 but lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat.Paul Buck/European Pressphoto AgencyDurant’s Suns won the decisive Game 5 on Tuesday, 136-130, holding off a late comeback attempt from the Clippers and advancing to the second round. Phoenix will play the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals beginning Saturday. Suns guard Devin Booker led all scorers with 47 points; Durant added 31, and Westbrook had 14.Eleven years ago, Durant and Westbrook led Oklahoma City past playoff teams fronted by the future Hall of Famers Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and headed into an N.B.A. finals matchup with LeBron James and the Miami Heat. The Heat beat the Thunder easily in five games, with Miami’s experience and star power proving too much for the upstart Thunder.As swift as the loss was, it seemed to indicate that Durant and Westbrook would be back and would win championships together; they appeared too talented not to.But they didn’t. Durant and Westbrook picked up individual accolades: Each has won a Most Valuable Player Award and many All-N.B.A. honors, but they never got to another finals together. Durant left for the Warriors in 2016 after the Thunder blew a three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference finals against Golden State.In their second matchup against each other after Durant’s departure, Westbrook yelled at his teammates and instructed them not to talk to Durant. They avoided questions about each other. Even former teammates like James Harden, who played with them in Oklahoma City, said they were “grown men” who had to “figure it out themselves.”Since then, each has been on several teams. Durant won two championships with the Warriors and then headed to the Nets and now Phoenix. Westbrook has played on several teams that were supposed to have been title contenders — Rockets, Lakers, Clippers — but none has panned out. As Durant thrived, Westbrook began to be viewed as past his prime, no longer the player who could will teams to wins and average triple-doubles, and he has become the butt of jokes from fans when he struggles.But in this playoff series against the Suns, Westbrook proved he could still be a difference maker. Westbrook signed with the Clippers in February as a free agent after the Lakers had traded him to Utah, where he was released to, at best, be the third option for the Clippers behind the stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. But injuries to George and Leonard made Westbrook the first scoring option against the Suns, and he often served as the team’s best rebounder and defender.He finished the series averaging 23.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game, looking like a version of his old self, and he had the game-sealing block on Booker in the Clippers’ Game 1 win.Westbrook proved he could still be a valuable contributor in the N.B.A. He had 37 points in Game 4.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“When he’s retired, people are going to really tell the truth about how they feel about his game,” Durant said after Game 4, when Westbrook had 37 points. “Right now, the fun thing to do is to make a joke out of Russ. But the way he’s been playing since he got with the Clippers is showing everybody who he really is.”After Game 5, Westbrook reflected on Durant’s comments, with an introspective answer that sounded as if it could also serve as a pitch to teams to sign him this summer.“I just think that I am a player that makes mistakes like anybody else,” Westbrook said. “I miss shots like anybody else. I turn the ball over like anybody else. But I also do a lot of things that a lot of people can’t do, and I’ve done a lot of things people haven’t done in this league.”For Durant, this series, and these playoffs, have a different meaning in some basketball fans’ eyes: proving that he can win a title without Golden State’s Stephen Curry and as a team’s best player. Durant, however, has said that he doesn’t feel that pressure because he has “nothing to prove.”The Boston Celtics embarrassed Durant and the Nets last season in the first round of the playoffs, sweeping them without much trouble. Boston’s star forward Jayson Tatum outplayed Durant, scoring a lot while also defending Durant.And then, in the N.B.A. finals, Curry and the Warriors beat that Boston team that had easily conquered Durant’s earlier in the postseason.In Tuesday’s win, Durant disappeared for much of the fourth quarter, going scoreless for nearly 10 minutes as Booker dominated the ball and the Clippers inched closer. As the postseason continues, how the Suns win — with Durant leading the way or with Booker, or someone else — will add fodder to the discussion about Durant’s place as one of the best players ever.That was clear on Tuesday, as Suns Coach Monty Williams made sure to acknowledge in his postgame news conference. But Williams also said that he was at fault for Durant’s lack of touches at the end of the game.“I’ve got to figure out ways to get him in space so he can catch the ball freely and be able to go,” Williams said.As the game ended, Westbrook had many long embraces with Suns players and coaches on the court, but he never made it to Durant. Instead, Westbrook left the floor alone, with one hand raised to fans as he exited, while Durant did a television interview on the other end of the court. More

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    Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren Discusses Lost Rookie NBA Season

    Chet Holmgren didn’t feel like he’d arrived in the N.B.A. after the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft. And he didn’t feel like he’d arrived after starring in the Summer League, setting a record with six blocks in his debut. So in the late summer, instead of returning home to spend a few months with friends and family in Minneapolis or moving into his new home in Oklahoma City, Holmgren returned to Los Angeles, where he had trained before the draft.“I was trying to find every great player I could hoop against,” Holmgren said. “Because at the end of the day, if I want to be as good as I’m trying to be, those are the guys I’m going to have to look eye to eye with on a nightly basis for the next 10 seasons. So I was kind of just trying to go down the list.”He found his way into pickup games with Joel Embiid, whose shots he reportedly blocked several times in one session, and with Kevin Durant, who later said that the seven-foot tall Holmgren had a “rare” combination of height and “natural feel for the game” and would “be a problem” for opponents in the N.B.A. Holmgren also took on DeMar DeRozan, Jayson Tatum, who had just competed in the N.B.A. finals, and Trae Young.When he was invited to play in Jamal Crawford’s CrawsOver Pro-Am, which also featured LeBron James and the 2022 No. 1 pick Paolo Banchero, among others, Holmgren viewed it as a culmination of his personal summer star showcase. “When there’s an opportunity to compete against the best of the best,” he said, “it’s hard to pass up on that.”Holmgren spent one season at Gonzaga, averaging 14.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.Craig Mitchelldyer/Associated PressBut about a minute into the game, as Holmgren was defending James on a fast break, he planted his right foot awkwardly and came up limping. He didn’t return to the game, which was eventually canceled because the court was too wet. He traveled to Oklahoma City the next day and was diagnosed with a Lisfranc injury, which affects the ligaments and sometimes the bones of the midfoot. After days of consultations with team doctors and specialists, Holmgren and his family met with his agent, Bill Duffy, and Thunder General Manager Sam Presti to decide about surgery and shutting down what was supposed to be his rookie season.“Chet’s immediate reaction was: ‘Don’t say it out loud. It may be a season-ending injury. Just don’t say it out loud,’ ” his mother, Sarah Harris, said.Holmgren’s arrival in the N.B.A. would have to wait. Instead, he would join a long list of young big men who missed time early in their careers with injury. Some, like Greg Oden, the 2007 No. 1 pick, were never able to live up to the promise of their draft status. But many others — like Blake Griffin (2009 No. 1 pick; knee injury) or Ben Simmons (2016 No. 1 pick; foot injury) — have gone on to All-Star careers. Embiid, the No. 3 pick in 2014, didn’t make his N.B.A. debut for two full seasons after he was drafted — but has since become one of the most dominant centers in the league and a candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award.Holmgren, who had surgery and is expected to miss the entire 2022-23 season, initially struggled with second-guessing the decisions that led up to his injury.“I was questioning everything down to: Why am I playing defense in a pro-am game?” he said. “But at the end of the day, that’s just how I play basketball. If I question that, what’s the solution next time — don’t play defense? I see that as butchering the game of basketball.”To help Holmgren cope, Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault gave him a copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” That best-selling 1946 book, written by Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, emphasizes finding meaning amid suffering.“This isn’t the path we would have chosen,” Daigneault said, “and it’s not the path he would have chosen, but he’ll benefit from the way this is stretching and straining him.”It’s hardly the first time that Holmgren has faced an obstruction on his path. For the first half of high school, Holmgren’s teams at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis played without a home gym after a deadly natural gas explosion on campus. They had T-shirts printed that read, “No gym, no problem.” The back half of his high school career and his freshman season at Gonzaga — where he averaged 14.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and nearly 4 blocks per game — were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.Holmgren set an N.B.A. Summer League record with six blocks in July. He also spent time over the summer competing against star players in pickup games.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesBut for Holmgren, being sidelined has posed a novel physical and a mental challenge. He had never been forced to slow down before. Even on the morning of his first surgery, in late August, he was talking on the phone and doing doughnuts on his knee scooter as he waited to head to the hospital. And when he landed back in Oklahoma City after the procedure, he went straight to the team facility.“I mean, the best way to learn that fire’s hot is to get burned,” he said. “I don’t think anything can replace playing this year. I don’t think anybody could convince me of that. But at the end of the day, I could let this be a blessing or a curse, you know? So I got to figure out how to turn it into a blessing, how to make the most out of it.”Off the court, that meant adopting a dog, Drako, and doing charity work, like donating coats to families and hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for dozens of children in foster care.Although he’s not playing with the Thunder, he spends just about every day at the facility, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., rehabbing, lifting weights and tweaking his jumper.“Unless you’re Steph Curry,” he said, “you can always get better.”He has taken up residency in the film room, hoping to understand how he will fit into this Thunder team a year from now. He has watched the way his teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 24, endures the ups-and-downs of leading a rebuilding roster that has outperformed expectations but still finds itself in the bottom half of the Western Conference standings.Holmgren meets with Daigneault each week for at least a half an hour, when they talk about everything from philosophy to fourth-quarter situational strategy. Since Holmgren’s second surgery in December — a planned procedure to remove hardware from the first — Daigneault has noticed a new spark in him.“The more he’s exposed to the competitive experience, whether it’s shooting in pregame warm-ups or being on the bench for lineup announcements,” Daigneault said, “when you watch him in those situations, you can tell he’s ready to run through a wall — but he can’t, not yet.”Per team policy, the Thunder declined to make any team medical personnel available for interviews. But Holmgren said that he had put on muscle and weight since the summer and that he was on schedule to return to play next season.“This isn’t the path we would have chosen,” Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault said, “and it’s not the path he would have chosen, but he’ll benefit from the way this is stretching and straining him.”David Berding/Getty Images“It’s naïve to think that he’ll step back on the court on Day 1 and be back to 100 percent,” said Brian Sutterer, a sports medicine doctor in Missouri who has not treated Holmgren but has discussed Holmgren’s injury on his YouTube channel. “His foot might feel stiffer at times. He might not have quite the range of motion. And he has to learn to trust it again after a fluke injury like what he had. But there’s no reason to think he won’t be able to return to a high level of play and enjoy a long career.”Fortunately for Holmgren, all the goals he set for himself before this season are still possible in the 2023-24 campaign. He will still be eligible for the Rookie of the Year Award, and he was enticed by the potential for competing against another skinny, skilled seven-footer, Victor Wembanyama. But more than that, he was excited about helping a young Thunder roster coalesce into a championship-caliber team.“We’re winning games at the buzzer, we’re losing games at the buzzer,” he said. “We’re winning games by 4 points, we’re losing games by 4 points. It’s not like we’re losing every game by 30 points. I don’t have to try to come in and be Superman. I just have to figure out how to help make this team 5 points better and then keep building from there.” More

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    Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Brings His Friends on Ride to NBA Stardom

    Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard, is having a career season as one of the N.B.A.’s top scorers. He’s had a little help from his childhood friends.Mark Daigneault thought he had his first day in Hamilton, Ontario, all mapped out: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the star guard he coaches on the Oklahoma City Thunder, would make his morning rounds to shoot hoops and lift weights, and Daigneault would ride along.There was only one problem.“I don’t have room in my car,” Gilgeous-Alexander told him, “because I pick up all my friends.”Sure enough, once Daigneault hopped out of his Uber at Gilgeous-Alexander’s preferred gym in nearby Burlington, Daigneault found him working on his shooting as several young men in matching Thunder T-shirts rebounded for him.Gilgeous-Alexander soon introduced Daigneault to his “super close homies,” five childhood friends whose coordinated outfits that morning were no coincidence. They knew Daigneault was in town.“We wanted to make a good impression,” said Sunday Kong, a former high school teammate.In Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander, 24, has established himself as one of the N.B.A.’s most dynamic players. On a young team with promise, he ranks among the league leaders in scoring, averaging a career-best 31.4 points a game, while shooting 50.5 percent from the field — supercharged numbers that hint at his abilities as a 6-foot-6 guard who can absorb contact at the rim and create space on the perimeter.Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging a career-best 31.4 points per game while making about half of his shots. That puts him among the N.B.A.’s elite scorers.Garett Fisbeck/Associated PressBack home in Hamilton, a small city about 40 miles southwest of Toronto, five of Gilgeous-Alexander’s pals — a crew that also includes Mark Castillanes and Maurice Montoya, two of his best friends since elementary school, and Vincent Chu, who sat next to him in ninth-grade homeroom — practically fall off their couches whenever he crosses up a defender.“Anytime I see him do something on the court, I’m like, ‘Hey, we practiced that!’ ” said Devanté Campbell, who played youth soccer with Gilgeous-Alexander.Gilgeous-Alexander is always trying to improve, said Daigneault, now in his third season as the Thunder’s coach. That makes him an ideal fit for Oklahoma City — the same place where a young Russell Westbrook became a triple-double machine, Kevin Durant honed his perimeter game and James Harden crafted his step-back jumper. Each summer, Gilgeous-Alexander devises his own to-do list.“Shai’s got every resource available to him,” Daigneault said. “If he wanted to hire a staff and move to Hawaii in the off-season, he could do it. Instead, he parks himself in Hamilton and works with friends who have been in his life forever.”In Gilgeous-Alexander’s self-styled basketball lab, where a sneaker salesman and a restaurant manager throw defensive traps at him, and a college student and an aspiring doctor feed him passes, he prepares for his future by returning to his past.“Those guys give me a sense of home,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They give me back a piece of myself that feels like so long ago.”‘I’ve got to get better’Before he was getting buckets at Madison Square Garden and walking the runways at fashion week in Paris, Gilgeous-Alexander was someone else: the new kid at Regina Mundi Catholic Elementary School.After moving to Hamilton from Toronto when he was 11, Gilgeous-Alexander met Montoya and Castillanes on his first day of sixth grade. Castillanes recalled showing him around.“Kind of quiet,” Castillanes said. “But once you got to know him, he became himself.”Gilgeous-Alexander impressed on the basketball court, Castillanes said, by being able to dribble and make layups with both hands. But as an undersized ninth-grader at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander was cut from the equivalent of the junior varsity and wound up on a team of other freshmen.“I wasn’t hurt by it,” he said. “It was more a feeling of, I’m not good enough, so I’ve got to get better.”From left, Sunday Kong, Maurice Montoya, Vincent Chu and Devanté Campbell on the outdoor court at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander’s former high school in Hamilton, Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesIn his spare time, Gilgeous-Alexander would hoop with Montoya and Castillanes at their Filipino basketball league — the start of a basketball odyssey. Gilgeous-Alexander spent his sophomore year at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School on Hamilton’s west side before he transferred again, this time to Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he sought better competition.Gilgeous-Alexander eventually landed at the University of Kentucky, where John Calipari, the team’s coach, knew he needed to be tough on him. Otherwise, Calipari was going to hear about it — from Gilgeous-Alexander’s mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, a former Olympic runner for Antigua and Barbuda.“When he played well, she would call me and say, ‘Don’t you let up on him,’” Calipari said.Gilgeous-Alexander had arrived at Kentucky with a hitch in his jump shot — Calipari compared it to Charles Barkley’s herky-jerky golf swing — and spent the early weeks of the season mostly coming off the bench. By the middle of January, he was blossoming as a starter. By June, he was the 11th overall pick in the 2018 N.B.A. draft, headed to the Los Angeles Clippers.Gilgeous-Alexander played so well as a rookie that the Thunder put him on their wish list. That summer, when the All-Star Paul George wanted to be traded to the Clippers from Oklahoma City, the Thunder insisted that Gilgeous-Alexander be included in the deal.Now in his fourth season with the Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander is the face of a franchise that should come equipped with training wheels. Although Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft, is out for the season with a foot injury, the Thunder have a core that includes Josh Giddey, 20, and Luguentz Dort, 23. Even amid his emergence, Gilgeous-Alexander has never sought to separate himself from his teammates.“I might have sworn at Lu before,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, “but me and Lu lived together, and we’re like brothers so it doesn’t count.”Luguentz Dort, left, and Gilgeous-Alexander bonded as teammates and roommates in Oklahoma City.Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports, via ReutersGilgeous-Alexander and Dort, who are also teammates on the Canadian men’s national basketball team, are candid about their bromance. When Gilgeous-Alexander was vaccinated against the coronavirus, Dort held his hand. (Gilgeous-Alexander is afraid of needles.) When they were roommates, Dort accepted the perils of sharing space with someone who was recently voted GQ magazine’s Most Stylish Man of the Year.“I don’t want to say his clothes are everywhere,” Dort said. “But he has a lot of clothes — clothes that have a lot of volume to them.”But while life in the N.B.A. is rewarding — Gilgeous-Alexander is in the first year of a five-year contract extension worth about $180 million — it can also be disorienting. So he dodges complacency as if it were a traffic cone, supplementing his time with the team by working with Olin Simplis, a high-profile skills coach.And, of course, he heads to Hamilton at the start of each off-season to work out with friends who neither expect nor ask for anything in return.‘Just something that friends do’After his first season in Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander wanted to make his summers more structured. So he hit up his buddies: Would they help him out five mornings a week?“It wasn’t even something that needed to be said,” said Campbell, who works full-time at a Kids Foot Locker and assists with a girls’ basketball league. “It was just something that friends do: If we want to see this guy grow and succeed, we need to be there for him no matter what.”Last summer, Gilgeous-Alexander would text his friends a few minutes before 7 a.m. to let them know that he was leaving his house — his hoops-centric version of flashing the Bat-Signal.“You get that text, and you know you have about 15 minutes to get ready,” said Chu, a student at Toronto Metropolitan University.Gilgeous-Alexander’s friends help him with shooting and passing drills during the summer in Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesGilgeous-Alexander would retrieve his friends, one by one, in his pale brown Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Castillanes was typically the first stop.“He always got the front seat,” Chu said.Once assembled, they often had enough time during the ride to Burlington to cram in a homespun version of “Carpool Karaoke.” In June, Jack Harlow’s album “Come Home the Kids Miss You” was on repeat. By July, they were tearing through Burna Boy’s latest tracks.“It’s a refreshing start to the day to see all your friends,” Chu said, “even when you’re mad tired.”At the gym, they would warm up and stretch, then Gilgeous-Alexander would polish his shooting for about an hour as his friends rebounded for him. He usually filled the second hour with drills — footwork, defense, passing — before transitioning into half-court games of 3-on-3 with a lopsided feel.“Shai takes all the shots,” Campbell said.His court work complete, Gilgeous-Alexander would drop his friends off so he could lift weights — in another buddy’s two-car garage. Nem Ilic, 27, who describes his work as “athlete development,” spent last summer building Gilgeous-Alexander’s lower body: lunges in the garage, weighted sled pushes in the cul-de-sac out front. (The neighbors always knew when Gilgeous-Alexander was around.)“Guys in my position, you usually have to work your way up from high school to college to the pros,” Ilic said. “And I have a unique timeline. It went straight to Shai.”In their own way, the friends are a part of it all.A poster of Gilgeous-Alexander is seen on the doors of Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School.Cole Burston for The New York Times“I think the N.B.A. is so crazy that he wants to come here and feel grounded,” Chu said, “and we’re all so grounded up here that we want to hear about N.B.A. life.”They can see Gilgeous-Alexander’s progress — and feel it, too, whenever they try to defend him on those early summer mornings.“I want to say it’s never really that much of a fun time,” Campbell said.They have busy lives of their own. Montoya, for example, manages a Hamilton-area restaurant. Castillanes recently relocated to Oklahoma City after Gilgeous-Alexander asked him if he would help manage his day-to-day life. And Kong works in public health while he prepares for medical school.“You know how they say commitment will pay off if you improve by 1 percent every day? It’s something you see in real time with Shai,” Kong said. “And it’s something I can apply to my own life.” More

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    NBA Season Preview: The Nets and the Lakers Are the Wild Cards

    Even for a league used to drama and headlines, the N.B.A. had a dizzying off-season.There were trade requests (Kevin Durant) and trade rumors (Russell Westbrook); injuries (Chet Holmgren) and returns (Zion Williamson). The power structure of the Western Conference could be upended by the return of Kawhi Leonard with the Clippers; the power structure of the East is again unclear.And a series of scandals at Boston, Phoenix and Golden State could have lasting implications for the league.In short: A lot is going on.Headline More

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    NBA Draft: Paolo Banchero Goes No. 1 to Orlando Magic

    Banchero, a forward from Duke, helped his team reach the Final Four this past season. Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren went to the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 2.Paolo Banchero knew Thursday would be a special day, the start of his N.B.A. career.He had no idea about the plans of the Orlando Magic, the team selecting first overall in the N.B.A. draft that night. When he found out, just minutes before N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver called his name, he couldn’t believe it.“This isn’t even a dream,” Banchero said. “I feel like this is a fantasy. I dreamed of being in the N.B.A., but being the No. 1 overall pick — this is crazy.”The Magic selected Banchero, a forward from Duke University, with the top pick in Thursday’s draft. He is a 6-foot-10, 250-pound power forward, whose mother, Rhonda Smith-Banchero, played in the W.N.B.A. He was a guard earlier in his basketball career and played football and basketball at O’Dea High School in Seattle.In the minutes before his name was called, Banchero sat at a table on the floor of Barclays Center showing no emotion on his face. The Magic were on the clock and word began to spread that Banchero might be their pick. Cameras crowded around him, but he didn’t outwardly react. Only when he heard his name did his expression change.He lowered his head, looked up and smiled with tears in his eyes.“I was telling everyone I wasn’t going to cry no matter what pick I was picked,” Banchero said. “It just hit me. I couldn’t stop it.”In his only season at Duke, Banchero averaged 17.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s rookie of the year.The picks for the rest of the top five: Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren at No. 2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. to the Houston Rockets at No. 3, Iowa’s Keegan Murray to the Sacramento Kings at No. 4 and Purdue’s Jaden Ivey to the Detroit Pistons at No. 5.Three prospects were thought to have separated themselves at the top of this year’s draft: Banchero, Holmgren and Smith.Holmgren nodded and smirked subtly as he heard Banchero’s name called first. When Silver called his name, Holmgren broke out into a wide smile, stopping for handshakes and long embraces with his family members.“I got a thousand emotions to describe this moment,” Holmgren said during an interview that was broadcast in the arena in Brooklyn. “It’s surreal and everything I expected.”Holmgren, 20, is a rail-thin, seven-foot-tall center who grew up in Minneapolis and was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball in 2021. He was a high school teammate of Jalen Suggs, whom the Magic drafted fifth overall in 2021. They each spent one season at Gonzaga.Holmgren led Gonzaga to a 28-4 record and averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts. He also averaged 9.9 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game. Gonzaga entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, but was upset in the round of 16.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, left, announced Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren second. Holmgren, a seven-footer, averaged 14.1 points per game while making 60.7 percent of his field-goal attempts.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesIn the days before the draft, rumors circulated in media reports that Orlando had decided to select Smith first overall. As Smith waited for his name to be called, he looked disappointed. When finally Silver announced his name, another prospect, Louisiana State’s Tari Eason, who played in the same conference, leaped out of his seat to clap for Smith.“I know it was a possibility, so when it didn’t happen, I was surprised,” Smith said of the prospect of his being selected first overall. “You know, all the guys up for the pick are great players. They bring a lot to the table. It was like I said in the other interviews: It was a coin flip. So when it happened, you know, I was just happy for them, clapped for them and just waiting to get my name called.”Smith, 19, spent one season at Auburn after a distinguished high school basketball career in Georgia. He played for the same Amateur Athletic Union team as another No. 1 pick by the Magic: Dwight Howard. Smith’s father, also named Jabari Smith, spent parts of four seasons in the N.B.A. in the early 2000s.Jabari Smith Jr. was named the Southeastern Conference’s freshman of the year and a second-team all-American this past season. Smith is a 6-foot-10 power forward with the ability to shoot from the perimeter. He made 42.9 percent of his 3-pointers and averaged 16.9 points per game at Auburn.The first surprise of the night was the selection of Murray by the Kings at No. 4, given the expectation that Banchero, Holmgren and Smith would go in some order in the top three. The spectators at Barclays Center erupted at the announcement.The first big surprise of the draft came at No. 4, when Sacramento selected the Iowa forward Keegan Murray.John Minchillo/Associated PressMurray is the highest-selected Hawkeye in school history. The 6-foot-8 forward earned consensus first-team all-American honors this past season and finished fourth in Division I scoring with 23.5 points per game. He led the Hawkeyes to a 26-10 record and a first-round appearance in the N.C.A.A. tournament.Ivey spent two seasons at Purdue before declaring for the draft. He averaged 17.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game during his sophomore season.The Magic won this year’s draft lottery after finishing the season at 22-60, the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second-worst record in the league. Only the Houston Rockets, who had the third pick in this year’s draft after a 20-62 season, won fewer games than the Magic.This year marked the fourth time in the franchise’s history that it made the first overall pick. The Magic drafted Shaquille O’Neal with the first pick in 1992; Chris Webber, whom they immediately traded for Penny Hardaway, in 1993; and Dwight Howard in 2004.The pairing of Hardaway and O’Neal yielded one N.B.A. finals appearance, but no championships for the Magic. Howard also led the Magic to one finals appearance, in 2009.Later in their careers, O’Neal and Howard won championships while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers — O’Neal in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and Howard in 2020.Before Banchero, the last Duke player selected No. 1 overall in the N.B.A. draft was Zion Williamson in 2019. Banchero follows two guards — Anthony Edwards (2020) and Cade Cunningham (2021) — in earning the distinction of being the top pick. More

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    Stephen Curry’s Golden State Is the NBA’s Newest Dynasty

    Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green won four N.B.A. championship teams in eight years.BOSTON — The N.B.A.’s dynasties share certain commonalities that have helped them tip the scales from being run-of-the-mill championship teams to those remembered for decades.Among them: Each has had a generational player in contention for Mount Rushmore at his position.The 1980s had Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics battling Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Los Angeles Lakers. Michael Jordan’s Bulls ruled the ’90s, then passed a flickering torch — a championship here and there, but never twice in a row — to the San Antonio Spurs with Tim Duncan.Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant sneaked in a Lakers three-peat at the start of the 2000s.And then there were … none. There were other all-time players — LeBron James, of course. And James’s Heat came close to the top tier by becoming champions in 2012 and 2013, but fell apart soon after.Dynasties require more than that.Patience. Money. Owners willing to spend. And above all, it seems, the ability to “break” basketball and change the way the game is played or perceived. That’s why there were no new dynasties until the union of Golden State and Stephen Curry.Curry said the fourth championshp “hits different.”Elsa/Getty ImagesDonning a white N.B.A. championship baseball cap late Thursday, Curry pounded a table with both hands in response to the first question of the night from the news media.“We’ve got four championships,” Curry said, adding, “This one hits different, for sure.”Curry repeated the phrase “hits different” four times during the media session — perhaps appropriately so. Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala had just won an N.B.A. championship together for the fourth time in eight years.“It’s amazing because none of us are the same,” Green said. “You usually clash with people when you’re alike. The one thing that’s constant for us is winning is the most important thing. That is always the goal.”Golden State has won with ruthless, methodical efficiency, like Duncan’s Spurs. San Antonio won five championships between 1999 and 2014. Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker were All-Stars, though Duncan was in a league of his own. Their championships were spread out — Parker and Ginobili weren’t in the N.B.A. for the first one — but they posed a constant threat because of their disciplined excellence.Tim Duncan, left, Manu Ginobili, center, and Tony Parker won four championships together on the San Antonio Spurs. Duncan won a fifth, in 1999.Eric Gay/Associated PressDuncan, left, Ginobili, center, and Parker at Parker’s jersey retirement ceremony in 2019.Eric Gay/Associated Press“Steph reminds me so much of Tim Duncan,” said Golden State Coach Steve Kerr, who won two championships as Duncan’s teammate. “Totally different players. But from a humanity standpoint, talent standpoint, humility, confidence, this wonderful combination that just makes everybody want to win for him.”Unlike Golden State, the influence of Duncan’s Spurs is more subtle, which is appropriate for a team not known for its flash. Several of Coach Gregg Popovich’s assistants have carried the team-oriented culture they saw in San Antonio to other teams as successful head coaches, including Memphis’s Taylor Jenkins, Boston’s Ime Udoka and Milwaukee’s Mike Budenholzer. Another former Spurs assistant, Mike Brown, was Kerr’s assistant for the last six years. For San Antonio, sacrifice has mattered above all else, whether in sharing the ball with precision on offense or in Ginobili’s willingness to accept a bench role in his prime, likely costing himself individual accolades.Johnson’s Showtime Lakers embraced fast-paced, creative basketball. The Bulls and Bryant’s Lakers popularized the triangle offense favored by their coach, Phil Jackson. O’Neal was so dominant that the league changed the rules because of him. (The N.B.A. changed rules because of Jordan, too.)Even so, Golden State may have shifted the game more than all of them, having been at the forefront of the 3-point revolution in the N.B.A. Curry’s 3-point shooting has become so ubiquitous that players at all levels try to be like him, much to the frustration of coaches.“When I go back home to Milwaukee and watch my A.A.U. team play and practice, everybody wants to be Steph,” Golden State center Kevon Looney said. “Everyone wants to shoot 3s, and I’m like, ‘Man, you’ve got to work a little harder to shoot like him.’ ”Michael Jordan, right, and Scottie Pippen, left, won six championships as the Chicago Bulls dominated the N.B.A. in the 1990s.Andy Hayt/NBA, via ESPNThe defining distinction for Golden State is not just Curry, who has more career 3-pointers than anyone in N.B.A. history. The team also selected Green in the second round of the 2012 N.B.A. draft. In a previous era, he likely would have been considered too short at 6-foot-6 to play forward, and not fast enough to be a guard. Now, teams search to find their own version of Green — an exceptional passer who can defend all five positions. And they often fail.The dynasties also had coaches adept at managing egos, like Jackson in Chicago and Los Angeles, and Popovich in San Antonio.Golden State has Kerr, who incidentally is also a common denominator in three dynasties: He won three championships as a player with the Bulls, the two with the Spurs, and now he has four more as Curry’s head coach.In today’s N.B.A., Kerr is a rarity. He has led Golden State for eight seasons, while in much of the rest of the league, coaches don’t last that long. The Lakers recently fired Frank Vogel just two seasons after he helped them win a championship. Tyronn Lue coached the Cavaliers to a championship in 2016 in his first season as head coach, and was gone a little over two seasons later — despite having made it at least to the conference finals three years in a row.The 2000s Lakers with Kobe Bryant, left, and Shaquille O’Neal, right, were the last team to win three championships in a row. Jordan’s Bulls did that twice in the 1990s.MATT CAMPBELL/AFP via Getty ImagesSince Golden State hired Kerr in 2014, all but two other teams have changed coaches: San Antonio, which still has Popovich, and Miami, led by Erik Spoelstra.In a decade of rampant player movement, Golden State has been able to rely on continuity to regain its status as king of the N.B.A. But that continuity isn’t the result of a fairy-tale bond between top-level athletes who want to keep winning together. Not totally, anyway.Golden State has a structural advantage that many franchises today can’t or choose not to have: an owner in Joe Lacob who is willing to spend gobs of money on the team, including hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury tax to have the highest payroll in the N.B.A. This means that Golden State has built a dynasty in part because its top stars are getting paid to stay together, rather than relying on the fraught decisions of management about who to keep.The N.B.A.’s salary cap system is designed to not let this happen. David Stern, the former commissioner of the N.B.A., said a decade ago that to achieve parity, he wanted teams to “share in players” and not amass stars — hence the steep luxury tax penalties for Lacob. Compare Golden State’s approach to that of the Oklahoma City Thunder, who in 2012 traded a young James Harden rather than pay him for an expensive contract extension. The Thunder could’ve had a dynasty of their own with Harden, Russell Westbrook and — a key part of two Golden State championships — Kevin Durant.Either one of the leg injuries Thompson sustained in recent years could have ended his career.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAnd there’s another factor that every dynasty needs: luck.Golden State was able to sign Durant in 2016 because of a temporary salary cap spike. Winning a championship, or several, requires good health, which is often out of the team’s control. Thompson missed two straight years because of leg injuries, but didn’t appear to suffer setbacks this year after he returned. Of course, Golden State has also seen some bad luck, such as injuries to Thompson and Durant in the 2019 finals, which may have cost the team that series.The N.B.A.’s legacy graveyard is full of “almosts” and “could haves.” Golden State simply has — now for a fourth time. There may be more runs left for Curry, Thompson and Green, but as of Thursday night, their legacy was secure. They’re not chasing other dynasties for legitimacy. Golden State is the one being chased now.“I don’t like to put a number on things and say, ‘Oh, man, we can get five or we can get six,’” Green said. “We’re going to get them until the wheels fall off.” More

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    Oklahoma City Thunder Lose by an NBA-Record 73 Points

    In a 152-79 loss, a rebuilding Oklahoma City team took record-setting lumps from the Memphis Grizzlies.Bookmakers took a look at the Grizzlies-Thunder game in Memphis on Thursday night, weighed all the factors, and decided that the Grizzlies should be 9-point favorites.Yeah, I think they covered.The Grizzlies led by 15 after a quarter, 36 at the half, and 51 after three quarters on their way to a 152-79 win. The 73-point margin of victory was the largest in N.B.A. history.Even an arithmophobe could find some amazing numbers in the box score.The Thunder, for instance, were outscored by 56 points when Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (2 points on 0-7 shooting) was on the floor. Oklahoma City was outrebounded, 53-26, and had two steals against 19 turnovers.On the plus side, they made 82 percent of their free throws, better than the Grizzlies’ 72 percent. Good thing too, or it might have really turned into a blowout.The happier-looking Grizzlies numbers included 27 points on 9 of 11 shooting for Jaren Jackson Jr. and nine assists in 21 minutes for Tyus Jones. Santi Aldama put up a plus-52 despite coming off the bench.“Tonight’s not necessarily who we are,” Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault said. Not necessarily, he said. Yikes.He went on the philosophize a bit. “When you compete, you have exposure to the highs and lows of competition. And competition comes with great joy. It also comes with grief and frustration and anger.”Tre Mann had 12 points in 27 minutes for the Thunder. Oklahoma City was outscored by 47 points when he was on the floor. Brandon Dill/Associated PressIn the Thunder’s favor, they were missing their leading scorer, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who entered the concussion protocol on Thursday. Still, the Grizzlies were without their own star, Ja Morant, who has a knee injury.The Thunder have now lost eight straight and sit 6-16 in what was always expected to be another rebuilding year (last season they were 22-50). They still have a better record than the Pelicans, Rockets, Magic and Pistons (4-18!). But none of those teams, not even the Pistons, has lost by 73.The Thunder now have three nights off before a game on Monday at … the Pistons. Get your tickets now.The previous record blowout was set by the 1991-92 Cavaliers, who beat the Heat, an eventual playoff team, by 68, 148-80. “I don’t know what we played, but it wasn’t basketball,” Glen Rice of the Heat said afterward.That eclipsed an earlier record margin of 63, which was set in 1972 by the eventual champion Lakers, who beat the Warriors behind 30 points from Gail Goodrich.Going back still further, on Christmas Day in 1960, the Syracuse Nats of Dolph Schayes and Hal Greer beat the Knicks, 162-100.Ty Jerome, a former Virginia player who started Thursday’s game for Oklahoma City, tried to find a silver lining on Thursday night. “My sophomore year in college, we were the first seed to ever lose to a 16 seed,” he told The Oklahoman after the game. “Like, that’s way more embarrassing than this N.B.A. game.” More

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    Oscar Robertson Wants Westbrook to Break His Triple-Doubles Record

    “There’s no doubt about it,” Robertson said. “I hope he gets it.” And he hopes people will stop criticizing Russell Westbrook, the Wizards guard, for not yet winning a championship.In his first N.B.A. game, in October 1960, Oscar Robertson registered 21 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for the Cincinnati Royals against the Los Angeles Lakers. In his second N.B.A. season, Robertson averaged 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists per game for Cincinnati.Such numerical assemblages — reaching double figures in those three categories — are known in basketball parlance as triple-doubles. Yet Robinson established a league record, with his 181 triple-doubles across 14 seasons, without any fanfare. The term was not coined until the early 1980s, when the Lakers’ Magic Johnson began routinely posting Oscar-esque lines in box scores.“Honestly, I was totally unaware of it,” Robertson said this week.Nearly 50 years removed from Robertson’s final season with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1973-74, there is a hyperawareness of triple-doubles, thanks largely to Russell Westbrook of the Washington Wizards. In 2016-17 with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Westbrook became the first player since Robertson to average a triple-double for a full season, prompting Robertson to travel to Oklahoma to personally congratulate Westbrook.Robertson was traded to Milwaukee from Cincinnati in 1970, and won a championship with the Bucks the next season.Manny Rubio-USA TODAY SportsWestbrook has amassed 178 triple-doubles in his career and, with seven games left on Washington’s schedule entering Wednesday’s play, has a chance to surpass Robertson this season. In a phone interview with The New York Times, Robertson, 82, said he was rooting for Westbrook to do so and discussed the criticism that he, like Westbrook, faced in his Royals days until he teamed up with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Milwaukee to lead the Bucks to their only championship, in 1971.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.So if they didn’t call them triple-doubles, what did people say about your big statistical performances?Not very much. In those days, they focused on scoring and the blocking of shots. There wasn’t much publicity associated with it. It wasn’t thought of until they went back into the archives and saw what I had done. I was even surprised myself.Over the first five seasons of your N.B.A. career, you averaged a triple-double (30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, 10.6 assists). Did you personally look at those numbers with any added reverence?I never thought about scoring. I never thought about rebounding. I never thought about assists. I only thought about winning. And we didn’t have such a great basketball team at Cincinnati, so we struggled a little bit. They were waiting on me to, I guess, save the franchise. But you need a team to do those things.What was the secret to being a good rebounder at 6-foot-5?In high school, I played inside and outside. So when I got into the college ranks, I went to the forward position. I just had the fundamentals to be able to play in or out. I always thank my coaches from high school for helping me build those attributes. I just knew how to box out. For me, it was just playing basketball.Cincinnati’s Robertson juggling for possession of the ball against Detroit’s Gene Shue and Chuck Noble in 1961. Bettmann/Getty ImagesWestbrook gets a lot of criticism because he hasn’t been part of a championship team in the N.B.A., and I imagine you faced something similar during your time in Cincinnati. What do you remember about the years before you won a championship with Milwaukee?I think this happens with great basketball players, like Westbrook and myself. I was with Cincinnati for many years, but we never made any notable trades to get better players. If you look back through the history of basketball — and I always tell people this — every team that’s won a championship has made key trades. Boston got Bill Russell. Red Auerbach was very astute at getting older starters from other teams to play off the bench for him. A lot of the teams I played for, they didn’t want to do that.When you look back, how jarring was it to be traded from Cincinnati to Milwaukee in 1970?It was fine. I just resented the fact that the Cincinnati basketball family felt that I hadn’t done anything in 10 years, and all I had done was make All-Pro 10 straight years. But they wanted to trade Oscar Robertson. I just did not want them to try to destroy my credibility and what I had done for the city of Cincinnati. When I went to Milwaukee, I assessed my situation, and I’ll never forget, I told my wife, “I’m not going to be the scorer I was in Cincinnati.” And she said, “Why?” I told her I have to get these other players involved in the game. For us to win, we’ve got to get the other players to make a contribution offensively.Is it accurate to classify you as a Russell Westbrook fan?I totally enjoy the way Westbrook plays. He’s a dynamic individual. They’ve moved him around to different teams and I don’t know why, because I think he’s one of the star guards in basketball. I guess they thought that when he went to Washington that he would not be that effective, but, man, he’s done a tremendous job.“I think he’s one of the star guards in basketball,” Robertson said of Westbrook.Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty ImagesAnd you’re rooting for him to break your record for career triple-doubles?There’s no doubt about it. I hope he gets it. I think he’s one of the elite guards in basketball, and I think it’s ridiculous that some sportswriters criticize him because he has not won a championship. Players don’t win championships by themselves. You’ve got to have good management. You need to get with the right group of players.Look at Brooklyn: Who could have done this years ago? How things have changed. It seems now that what’s happening in basketball, and I haven’t seen it happen in football yet, is players will get together and say, “Let’s go and play for this team so we can win.” Years ago, you wouldn’t have thought of doing that.Who else do you enjoy watching in today’s N.B.A.?I like to watch a lot of players, really. LeBron [James], of course. [Stephen] Curry. I like [James] Harden. There are so many great basketball players — including the kid out of Portland: [Damian] Lillard. Curry is probably one of the finest shooters ever, but so is Lillard. He can really shoot the basketball from far out. It’s almost effortless.Long-distance shooting has taken over the modern game. You’re OK with that?It’s a different type of basketball. It’s a players’ game. And it’s a fans’ game — they love this. I’ve always said this: 3-point shots are like 7-footers used to be — they can get a coach fired. If you have 3-point shooters and they don’t make those shots, “That’s it, Coach.” The name of the game is to outscore your opponents. That’s what it’s about. If you can shoot 3-point shots and you can win the basketball game, it’s great. If you start missing those shots and you don’t make the adjustment and start doing some other things, you’re going to be in trouble. More