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      Two Players Out of N.B.A. All-Star Game Because of Virus Protocols

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTwo Players Out of N.B.A. All-Star Game Because of Virus ProtocolsPlayers were again questioning the decision to stage an exhibition amid the pandemic after Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers were ruled out of Sunday’s game in Atlanta.Joel Embiid, left, had been named to his fourth All-Star Game. Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans was set to replace him in the starting lineup.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressMarch 7, 2021Updated 9:07 p.m. ETATLANTA — The N.B.A. All-Star Game was rocked just hours before tipoff on Sunday when the league announced it would sideline Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers after they had contact with an individual who was confirmed to have tested positive for the coronavirus.Numerous top players in recent weeks had questioned playing the exhibition at all during a pandemic, and some eight hours before the game’s scheduled 8 p.m. start, Embiid and Simmons were ruled out — with the league also saying their removals would have no impact on other All-Stars or 76ers Coach Doc Rivers and his staff.Their participation would not be affected, the league said, because those people “were not exposed to the individual in Philadelphia” before traveling to Atlanta. The Sixers’ staff earned the right to coach the team captained by the Nets’ Kevin Durant because Philadelphia held the East’s best record at the All-Star break.The news broke as numerous players were conducting video conference interview sessions from their hotel rooms. Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers and the Nets’ James Harden were among those who responded by again questioning the wisdom of staging an All-Star Game amid a pandemic, as LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and other stars had last month.“I don’t want to say we didn’t have a choice, but it’s in our C.B.A., and our C.B.A. says there has to be an All-Star Game every year,” Beal said of the league’s collective bargaining agreement. He added that “there’s still guys” with reservations, and he counted himself among that group.George said he “personally didn’t agree with the game.” Harden described Sunday’s events, which were to include a 3-point contest and a skills competition before the game and a dunk contest at halftime, as “forced.” James, who is captain of one of the teams, called the situation “very unfortunate” and said “it’s all something that we thought could possibly happen.”The N.B.A. flew the All-Star participants to Atlanta on private planes from their cities and required them to stay inside the league’s official hotel Saturday night — preferably in their rooms — after checking in by 7 p.m. Players were permitted to bring up to four guests, but it was not immediately known how many guests accompanied Embiid or Simmons. The players traveled on separate planes and without other 76ers personnel, according to two people briefed on the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Before arriving in Atlanta, Embiid and Simmons were exposed to a barber in Philadelphia who has since tested positive for the coronavirus. The Athletic first reported their exposure, which was confirmed by the two people. Having both registered negative coronavirus tests on Sunday, Embiid and Simmons returned to Philadelphia on separate private planes before the All-Star game began, the people said.The first scheduled team meetings to bring players from the two All-Star teams together were not until Sunday at State Farm Arena. Both teams were scheduled to meet with Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, and Michele Roberts, the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, within three hours of the opening tip. The schedule called for All-Star participants to leave Atlanta via private transportation immediately after the game.Ben Simmons was selected to his third consecutive All-Star Game.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated PressEmbiid, a prime Most Valuable Player Award candidate this season, had been selected to his fourth All-Star team and was to start at center for Durant’s team. Simmons, making his third All-Star team after being voted into the game as a reserve, was selected by James. Rivers chose Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans to start in Embiid’s place, but the league did not pursue replacements for either player with only hours remaining before the opening tip, opting for 11-man All-Star rosters instead of the usual 12.The 2020-21 regular season started on Dec. 22 after last season, delayed four months by the coronavirus pandemic, went all the way into October and required three months on a restricted-access campus at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., to complete.In November, the league postponed its traditional All-Star Weekend, giving Indianapolis hosting rights in 2024 instead of this year. But the N.B.A. never ruled out the prospect of resuscitating a game for 2021. The league then hatched the idea to hold several All-Star events on one day, closed to the public apart from 1,500 invitation-only guests, and staged in Atlanta so Turner Sports could broadcast it all in its backyard.Silver said in a news conference on Saturday that “economic interests” were a factor in going ahead with a scaled-down version of All-Star festivities, but he also said that tremendous global fan interest had motivated the league just as much. League officials have said that a specific projection for revenue generated Sunday could not be immediately pinpointed, but various industry estimates have forecast Turner to make more than $20 million in advertising and sponsorship revenue through Sunday’s broadcast.The league, having worked closely on the plans with Roberts and Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, the president of the players’ union, also dedicated its All-Star festivities to promoting awareness of historically Black colleges and universities, pledging to donate at least $3 million to those institutions as well as communities of color affected by the pandemic.“It’s my job to look out for the overall interest of the league,” Silver said on Saturday. “As I said earlier, I haven’t made it a secret out of the fact that economic interests are a factor. I’ll add, though, when I say ‘economic interests are a factor,’ it’s less to do with the economics of one Sunday night on TNT in the United States. It has more to do with the larger brand value of the N.B.A.“We feel we’ve struck the appropriate balance here, looking out for the interests of everyone involved,” Silver said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      N.B.A. Announces All-Star Game Plans Despite Player Objections

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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. Announces All-Star Game Plans Despite Player ObjectionsThe game and three related events will happen over several hours on March 7 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, even though the city’s mayor and top players have expressed concern about the health risks.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said the All-Star Game “will continue our annual tradition of celebrating the game and the greatest players in the world before a global audience.”Credit…Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesFeb. 18, 2021Updated 6:37 p.m. ETThe N.B.A. will host its All-Star Game on March 7 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, despite the misgivings of the city’s mayor and strong pushback from several top players because of the health risks. In announcing plans for the game and related events on Thursday, the N.B.A. and the players’ union said they would commit $2.5 million to support Covid-19 relief efforts and historically Black colleges and universities.The league had been criticized in recent weeks for planning to hold the exhibition game during the coronavirus pandemic while also requiring players and staff members to stay at home and avoid all nonessential contact outside basketball activities during the season. This week, the league postponed six games because of a virus outbreak among the San Antonio Spurs and contact tracing among the Charlotte Hornets. More than two dozen games have been postponed this season in connection with the pandemic.But the league views the All-Star Game as a key outreach to fans around the world, and there is a financial benefit, although the extent of it is unclear. By one estimate, according to a person familiar with the league’s television deal, a traditional slate of All-Star events is worth about $60 million for the league.“We made a decision beginning last summer that we were going to take the pandemic on in a full-throated way and we were going to attempt to conduct our business to the extent that it was safe and healthy for our players and our staff to the full extent we could,” Silver told ESPN on Thursday afternoon. “All-Star has been a tradition in this league now going back 70 years. We only missed one year over those 70 years and for us, it’s our No. 1 fan engagement event of the year.”He added: “It seems like no decisions during this pandemic come without uncertainty and come without risk. And this is yet another one of them. But it’s my job to balance all those interests and, ultimately, it feels like the right thing to do to go forward.”On Tuesday, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta posted a message on Twitter urging fans not to come to the city for the game. Aside from a small group of players’ guests, no spectators will be admitted to the arena, but there are concerns that fans will gather in Atlanta anyway.“Under normal circumstances we’d be grateful for the opportunity to host the N.B.A. All-Star game, but this isn’t a typical year,” Bottoms wrote. “I’ve shared my concerns w/@NBA & @ATLHawks & agree this is a made-for-TV event only & people shouldn’t travel to Atlanta to party.”What is traditionally a weekend full of events will be truncated to one day, without the typical parties, fan activities or game for rookies and sophomores. The skills challenge and 3-point shooting contest will take place before the All-Star Game, and the slam dunk contest will occur at halftime. According to the league’s collective bargaining agreement, players must participate in the All-Star Game if selected unless they are excused by Silver. The starters will be announced Thursday, and the reserves will be named on Tuesday.The league will provide private transportation for players to and from Atlanta. Each player will be allowed to bring up to four guests, but they and the players must all remain at a designated hotel — the N.B.A. is calling it a mini-bubble — when they are not at games or daily testing.Earlier this month, Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, the N.B.A.’s highest-profile star, said that holding the game would be a “slap in the face” and that he had “zero energy and zero excitement” for it. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks star and the most recent winner of the Most Valuable Player Award, said he agreed. Both are expected to be named All-Star starters.Other potential selectees have been more open to holding the game.“I understand both sides,” Julius Randle, a Knicks forward who might become an All-Star for the first time, told The New York Times last week. “And I understand the impact and the benefits it has for the league, if we do have All-Star games. It’s a tough decision. Everything this year has been tough.”Damian Lillard, who is likely be named to his sixth All-Star team, said recently: “A lot of players are saying, ‘Why are we even having a game?’ And I understand that. If they said, ‘We’re not going to have a game,’ I’d be perfectly fine with it. I just had two newborns, and I would love to spend that extra time at home with my family.”“But,” he added, “if they say we’re going to do it, I understand that because this is our job, and I understand that with the kind of money we make, you’ve got to make sacrifices.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story 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