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      ‘We’re Hungry’: The Liberty Aim High in a Bounce-Back Season

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      The Liberty had the worst record in the W.N.B.A. last year. But the return of Sabrina Ionescu and the addition of league veterans could turn things around.Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins and his staff reviewed last season’s film looking for answers beyond the box scores and advanced analytics. Why was their defensive rating so low? Who was getting burned on screens? It was a trying year for a first-year head coach and his team, which ended with the second-worst winning percentage in W.N.B.A. history and a 2-20 record.The Liberty were young and inexperienced, playing as many as six rookies. Sabrina Ionescu, the 2020 No. 1 overall pick, severely sprained her ankle in her third game and missed the rest of the season. Key contributors such as Rebecca Allen, Marine Johannes and Asia Durr opted out of playing.Wins weren’t everything for a franchise rebuilding without Tina Charles, the 6-foot-4 center who had led the team in scoring every season since 2014. The Liberty made strides reinventing their style of play. On offense, the focus was on spacing and 3-point shooting. On defense, players were instructed not to over-help on picks. The Liberty shot 41.5 percent of their field goals from 3-point range, the most in W.N.B.A. history, after shooting 28.2 percent of them from there the year before.While expectations were tempered then, the franchise will introduce four veterans new to the team in its debut season at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.Here’s what you need to know:Best Addition: Natasha HowardSpotlight on Offense: Sabrina IonescuSpotlight on Defense: Betnijah LaneyThe Rookie: Michaela OnyenwereBiggest LossesReason for OptimismCause for ConcernBest Addition: Natasha HowardNatasha Howard, acquired in a trade with Seattle, was a major off-season addition because of her defense and on-court leadership.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Liberty tried to speed up their rebuild by trading the 2021 No. 1 pick, a 2022 first-round pick from the Phoenix Mercury and their own 2022 second-round pick to the Seattle Storm to acquire Natasha Howard. A 6-2 forward, Howard is a three-time W.N.B.A. champion and was a starter during the Storm’s 2018 and 2020 title runs, but her career year was 2019.With Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart sidelined with injuries, Howard, alongside guard Jewell Loyd, carried Seattle while notching career highs across the board. She averaged 18.1 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.2 steals a game and won the Defensive Player of the Year Award after blocking 1.7 shots per game. She has proved she can lead a team. With the Liberty, she will have that opportunity again.Spotlight on Offense: Sabrina IonescuAll eyes will be on Ionescu, the 5-11 University of Oregon sensation. She will run a free-flowing offense designed around her passing ability and shooting range.In 80 total minutes before her injury, Ionescu scored 55 points on 19-of-42 shooting, including a highlight-filled 33-point game in which she sank six 3-pointers and had seven assists and seven rebounds. That was without running sets with a player as accomplished as Howard. How will teams guard their quickness and savvy in a pick-and-roll?“I don’t know,” the Liberty assistant coach Jacki Gemelos said. “How does one guard a pick-and-roll with other duos in the league like Chelsea Gray and Candace Parker, or whoever? You just kind of got to cross your fingers and: ‘Let’s hope they just don’t score this play. Let’s try and get the ball out of their hands.’ It’s going to be scary. And again, as a spectator, as a coach, I’m looking forward to it as well.”Spotlight on Defense: Betnijah LaneyBetnijah Laney, right, won the Most Improved Player Award with the Atlanta Dream last season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressBetnijah Laney was the Liberty’s biggest free-agent signing of the off-season, which is an improbable designation for someone cut by the Indiana Fever eight months earlier.Over 22 games with the Atlanta Dream last season, Laney more than tripled her scoring average from the previous season in just 7.7 additional minutes. She posted 17.2 points per game on 48.1 percent shooting from the field and 40.5 percent shooting from 3-point range. She won the Most Improved Player of the Year Award and earned all-defensive first team honors.“I think Betnijah’s whole setup is going to be just so different from Atlanta,” Gemelos said. “I think she’s going to have more people setting her up. It’s going to make things a lot easier for her.”Gemelos was Laney’s teammate with the Chicago Sky in 2015.“To see how her game has developed from then until now, it’s just scary,” Gemelos said. “She’s just one of those players who can play multiple positions. She’s fearless offensively and defensively. I would let her guard anyone in the league, and I’d be completely confident that she’s going to get the job done.”The Rookie: Michaela OnyenwereMichaela Onyenwere, a rookie out of U.C.L.A., has the shooting touch to contribute from distance and the strength to get to the rim.Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesForward Michaela Onyenwere, the No. 6 pick in this year’s draft, should find a place in the Liberty’s rotation. At U.C.L.A., she had 19.1 points and 7.2 rebounds a game in her senior season. She has the shooting touch to contribute from distance and the strength to get to the rim. If she can relieve Laney as a defensive stalwart who crashes the boards and stretches the floor, she’ll make a considerable first-year impact.Biggest LossesKia Nurse, Amanda Zahui B. and the No. 1 pickTwo Liberty mainstays won’t be at Barclays. Kia Nurse was traded to the Mercury, and Amanda Zahui B., who spent five years with the Liberty at center, signed with the Los Angeles Sparks in free agency.Nurse showed promise in a breakout sophomore campaign that included an All-Star selection. Zahui B. started 20 of the team’s 22 games last season, averaging career highs in points (9) and rebounds (8.5).Reason for OptimismThe roster is much improved.It’s reasonable for fans to doubt the franchise with the worst record last season will be able to rebound quickly, but the roster has drastically improved.Sami Whitcomb, a two-time champion with the Storm who was part of the Howard trade, is solid from 3 (38.1 percent last season). Even better is Rebecca Allen, who made 42.6 percent of her 3-pointers in 2019 and is back after opting out last season. Plus, Jazmine Jones, who was named to the all-rookie first team last season, can build off her stellar campaign. She averaged 10.8 points a game off the bench.Laney is confident that the inclusion of new veterans will make a difference.“We’re hungry,” she said, adding, “We’re not going to back down and roll over for anyone.”Cause for ConcernCan a franchise turn around this quickly?Though a significant roster overhaul can be a good thing, it won’t be an easy transition. Hopkins will have to teach his system to different groups in waves. Howard, Allen and Kiah Stokes, for example, are latecomers because of overseas commitments.Best OutcomeThe Liberty make the playoffs.If the new team gels, the Liberty could set its sights on the postseason.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Liberty aren’t likely to compete for a championship, but if Ionescu can play consistently at the level she showed in her 33-point game last season, Laney can keep shooting well and Howard can thrive as a go-to scorer the way she did in 2019, the Liberty can be in the playoff hunt.Worst OutcomeToo many new pieces slow development, and the team returns to the W.N.B.A. basement.With players arriving late, and so much change from last season’s group, maybe the transition into a 3-point-heavy offensive system won’t go to plan. Precision is everything, and despite shooting so many 3-pointers last season, the Liberty made a league-low 27.7 percent of their looks from distance. They also scored the fewest points per 100 possessions by a mile, finishing 11.7 points per 100 possessions below the next-worst team, Atlanta.This offense isn’t foolproof.Ionescu for Rookie of the Year (Again)?Hopkins isn’t trying to start a fire over the discussion, but if Ionescu plays to her potential, she won’t have the chance to win the Rookie of the Year Award despite playing just two full games and leaving her third with an ankle injury.“She’s a rookie,” Hopkins said when asked. “I mean, she played two games and had to leave the bubble. She didn’t even get to spend the whole season with us. She’s by all accounts in her fourth week of being a W.N.B.A. player. Yeah, I feel strongly about that one. I don’t think it’s fair that she doesn’t get to be in contention.”Hopkins added: “So she never gets to be in contention for rookie of the year? What experience did she get? I don’t believe she was going to be on people’s ballots last year after playing two games. I don’t think anybody would have thought that was reasonable. So why do we think it’s reasonable that she doesn’t get to play her rookie year now?” More

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      The N.B.A.’s Play-In Tournament Isn’t the Problem

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      Though stars like LeBron James and Luka Doncic have complained about the pre-playoff hurdle, the stress of the play-in matters less than injuries and the compressed season.The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, who lashed out about the All-Star Game staged in Atlanta in March, has a new source of league office ire. James said on Sunday that the forces behind the N.B.A.’s forthcoming playoff play-in tournament “should be fired.”Weeks before James voiced his displeasure, it was Mark Cuban, after voting for the play-in as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who blasted the concept as an “enormous mistake.”I say they’re both wrong, and see the race to set up the N.B.A.’s play-in round from May 18 to 21 as the most invigorating aspect of a dour, draining, pandemic-skewed season.The idea here, though, is not to dwell on James or Cuban, two of the league’s most outspoken figures. They were offering emotional reactions to their teams’ increasingly unpleasant circumstances in the standings. Both surely know how self-serving it sounded to attack the play-in format only after their teams faced an acute risk of having to participate in it.Zoom in on what’s happening among the top 11 teams in each conference, and you will see that the format change is doing its job — and promisingly so. More teams are playing more games that mean something than we’re accustomed to with just under two weeks left in the regular season. A system that gives the No. 9 or 10 seed a last-ditch pathway into the playoffs — but only if one of those teams can win two play-in games in a row — has spawned new levels of jockeying for seeding position. That’s good for the game at large, even if it has, in Year 1, complicated matters for the injury-ravaged defending champions in Los Angeles.Adam Silver, in his seven-plus years as commissioner, has emphasized finding ways to make the regular season matter more. He has also sought to discourage teams from shifting into the familiar late-season mode of resting veterans and focusing on youth development to foster losing and improve draft position, better known as tanking. The combination of the play-in and changes to the lottery odds starting in the 2018-19 season is making a difference on both fronts. Before the 2019 draft, the team with the lowest winning percentage had the highest odds to get the No. 1 pick. The three worst teams now share an equal shot at the top spot.Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks said he didn’t “see the point” of playing the whole season if a play-in tournament could keep a team out of the playoffs.Nelson Chenault/USA Today Sports, via ReutersEntering Tuesday’s play, 24 of the league’s 30 teams were still in playoff contention because of the added play-in slots, although the chances seemed unrealistic for Chicago in the East and Sacramento in the West. In both conferences, in addition to the usual grappling for the No. 1 seed, there are fevered races to secure a top-six seed and avoid the play-in round, as well as crowded races to clinch a spot in the 7-to-10 range to extend the season.The play-in scenario calls for the No. 7 seed in each conference to play one game against No. 8 at home, with No. 9 playing No. 10 at home. The winner of 7 vs. 8 claims the No. 7 seed. The loser of that game plays the winner of 9 vs. 10 at home for the No. 8 seed, with the loser of 9 vs. 10 eliminated. The seventh- and eighth-seeded teams in each conference thus have to win just once to clinch a playoff berth. No. 9 or No. 10 must win two games in a row to advance.The Mavericks’ Luka Doncic lamented last month that he didn’t “see the point” of playing an entire season if “maybe you lose two in a row and you’re out of the playoffs.” That was what prompted Cuban’s “enormous mistake” comment, but on Monday he said that he had “no problem” with the play-in and that he welcomed the competitive boost it could lend to a standard 82-game season. Cuban’s dismay, he said both last month and Monday, is contained to this season because of the stress it heaps on already stressed teams. He contended that additional games with seeding implications compound the burden on teams chafing from cramming 72 regular-season games into five months while coping with daily coronavirus testing and extensive league health and safety demands.But the benefits, at least for fans, have been plentiful. There is a newfound incentive for teams to finish no lower than sixth, both to avoid the play-in and to gain several days of additional rest before the first round of the playoffs. The seeding scramble also features highly watchable players vying for play-in berths: Washington’s duo of Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook, New Orleans’s Zion Williamson, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball and, most of all, Golden State’s scorching hot Stephen Curry. The prospect of stars like Curry, Portland’s Damian Lillard and maybe even Williamson headlining bonus high-stakes broadcasts presumably excites network executives as much as the possibility of an early Lakers exit scares them.In Washington’s case, Beal and Westbrook have been at the forefront of a 13-3 surge that has enabled the Wizards to overcome a 17-32 start and compete for something after a coronavirus outbreak in January essentially shut down the franchise for two weeks. As a counter to Cuban’s complaint, San Antonio’s bid to stay alive for a playoff berth despite a second-half scheduling crunch has been boosted by the play-in path. The Spurs must play 40 games in 67 days in the season’s second half, but they have clung to 10th in the West, ahead of Williamson’s Pelicans.Young players like New Orleans’s Zion Williamson, left, and Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball, right, have added intrigue to the races for lower seeds.Derick Hingle/Associated PressTanking has not been eradicated by the play-in chases, but there is certainly less of it. The numbing regular-season discourse about individual awards (and little else) has been mercifully balanced by a heightened focus on the playoff ladders and how meaningful, just to give one example, Boston’s regular-season finale against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on May 16 could be. Even fears that adding play-in berths would lead more teams to stand pat and thus chill the trade market proved mostly unfounded; deadline day on March 25 delivered a record number of trades (16).The most compelling argument against the play-in tournament is the one Cuban raised — that this wasn’t the season for such experimentation. I suppose, for some, it’s a step too far after the tight turnaround from last season, which carried into October, and all the virus-related demands that cut into players’ rest, rehabilitation and practice time.Yet the bulk of the additional stress is a byproduct of the league’s decision, in conjunction with the players’ union, to start this season on Dec. 22 and play 72 games in a compressed period. The rising concern among teams’ medical staffs about increased injury risk because of game density and scheduling logjams caused by game postponements would probably have manifested with or without the play-in wrinkle.As for suggestions that the East and West No. 7 seeds deserve more protection than the play-in system affords, based on their season-long body of work, let’s push back. The lowest seed to win a championship since the league adopted a 16-team playoff format in 1983-84 was sixth-seeded Houston in 1994-95 — when the Rockets were defending champions and traded for Clyde Drexler at midseason. The playoffs do not revolve around No. 7 seeds. If they can’t win one play-in game at home, when given two chances, how much playoff damage were they going to do, anyway?What no one envisioned was three of the four teams that reached last season’s conference finals tumbling into play-in territory, which is why the issue has caused so much angst. Miami (No. 6) and Boston (No. 7) in the East, among the teams that have been hit hardest by Covid-19 disruptions, might have to go the play-in route just to get back to the playoffs. The Lakers began the season as overwhelming championship favorites and duly started 21-6, but their subsequent struggles have played out in the most daunting way. James and Anthony Davis, as we warned, have not been able to make seamless returns from their long-term injuries.The Lakers will not look capable of a lengthy playoff run, even if they can avoid the indignity of a play-in game or two, until the health of their two stars improves. For all the attention on James’s harsh critique of the play-in games, he said something else on Sunday to suggest he had a firm grasp of the Lakers’ larger seeding plight.“If I’m not 100 percent, or close to 100 percent, it don’t matter where we land,” James said.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeA reader writes in with the hottest of hot takes: Stephen Curry isn’t that good.Mark Mulligan/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be condensed or lightly edited for clarity.)Q: To answer the question posed by last week’s newsletter, Russell Westbrook is not appreciated because he does not win. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson could have averaged 15 points, 15 rebounds and 15 assists per game every season if that was their goal. Westbrook is a pretty amazing player, and a deserved All-Star, but teams looking to win it all don’t seem to be interested in him. — Noel MacDonald (Petaluma, Calif.)Stein: This is a popular sentiment about Westbrook, and there are some minds he will probably never change until he is part of a championship team, no matter what he achieves statistically.That Westbrook has been traded twice since winning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2016-17 only amplifies the argument. Yet when Westbrook has gotten triple-doubles, his teams have won handily, so I would dispute the blanket statement that Westbrook “does not win.”Westbrook has 178 career triple-doubles in the regular season and a 134-44 record in those games, good for a winning percentage of .753. That equates to a 62-20 record in a typical season.Oklahoma City, Houston and Washington, then, have clearly benefited from his triple-doubles. Detractors are bound to say Westbrook could be chasing them in every game and hurting his team when he doesn’t achieve them, but I don’t think Westbrook is motivated by triple-doubles above all else. Teammates probably wouldn’t respect him the way they do if that were happening.All of these layers, and everything we covered last week, are why I’m so curious to see the reaction when Westbrook breaks Oscar Robertson’s career record for triple-doubles (181). Maybe this will be the moment that the league at large stops to appreciate someone who plays as ridiculously hard as Westbrook does, season after season after season, even if his résumé lacks a championship. Or maybe not.Q: Stephen Curry is great, but he’s the third-best Warrior ever. He’s not better than Rick Barry, and he’s not better than Wilt Chamberlain. Unless Curry adds another dimension to his game, he will not crack the top 10 or 15 all time. — @michaelbookit from TwitterStein: This is another bold opinion (or you were just trying to get a Twitter rise out of me). Whether or not I can persuade you to reconsider your stance, I strongly disagree.Chamberlain’s greatest successes as a player were as a 76er and as a Laker. Although the statistics he posted as a Warrior remain difficult to fathom, like the 50.4 points per game he averaged as a Philadelphia Warrior in 1961-62, his time in the Bay Area lasted less than three seasons. The Warriors even missed the playoffs in Wilt’s first San Francisco season.Barry has long been one of the game’s underappreciated stars, and his all-around excellence in leading Golden State to an unforeseen championship in 1975 cemented him as one of the game’s greats, but Curry’s résumé has it all. Three championships, five consecutive trips to the N.B.A. finals, back-to-back M.V.P. awards, longevity with one franchise, massive popularity with fans and seemingly limitless shooting range that changed the game — Curry really has no peer here.Q: I have assumed that teams that qualified for the playoff play-in round but did not advance further would not be considered teams that reached the playoffs this season. Then on Friday, according to the league’s official standings, Philadelphia was shown to have clinched a playoff berth when the 76ers had 10 games left on their schedule — but only an 8½-game lead over No. 7 Miami. Didn’t that mean that the Sixers conceivably could have still slipped to seventh?— Jeff Pucillo (Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.)Stein: You are correct that teams that get to the play-in round will not be considered playoff teams unless they win the last playoff spot in each conference.The standings, though, did not convey the full picture of Philadelphia’s situation. The Sixers clinched a playoff berth as of Friday because No. 6 Boston and No. 7 Miami still had two games against each other — and the results of those forthcoming games, no matter what they are, will ensure that either the Celtics or the Heat can’t catch the Sixers.Numbers GameThe Sixers are 32-6 when Ben Simmons, center, and Joel Embiid play together.Darren Abate/Associated Press57It’s not your imagination: Major blowouts have been increasingly common this season. A record six games in April were decided by margins of at least 40 points, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and Indiana promptly drubbed Oklahoma City by 57 points, 152-95, on Saturday, the first day of May.50When Utah scored 154 points in a 49-point rout of Sacramento last week, it was the eighth time over the past two seasons that an N.B.A. team had scored as many as 150 points in a non-overtime game. Over the prior 20 seasons, from 1999-2000 to 2018-19, it happened only four times, according to Elias.32-6Philadelphia is 32-6 this season when Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are both in uniform. The 76ers’ .842 winning percentage in those games shows the team’s tremendous potential when the two stars are healthy, but their 38 games together mean Embiid and Simmons have been available as a duo for only 58 percent of Philadelphia’s schedule.8Of Utah’s 18 losses this season, eight were inflicted by three teams: Phoenix, Washington and lowly Minnesota. The Suns and Timberwolves went 3-0 against the Jazz, who also absorbed a 2-0 season sweep from the Wizards. In another quirk, Sacramento is 10-1 against Denver (3-0), Dallas (3-0), Boston (2-0) and the Los Angeles Lakers (2-1). The Kings are 17-36 against the rest of the league and will most likely soon miss the playoffs for the 15th consecutive season.96Golden State’s Stephen Curry sank 96 3-pointers in April to establish a league record for a single month. It was not until the ninth season of existence for the 3-point line in the N.B.A. that a player reached that total over 82 regular-season games; Boston’s Danny Ainge (148), Denver’s Michael Adams (139), Seattle’s Dale Ellis (107) and Ainge’s Celtics teammate Larry Bird (98) were the first to get there, in 1987-88.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      N.B.A. Power Rankings: The Utah Jazz Are Hitting All the Right Notes

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      Once a season, Marc Stein provides a more detailed assessment of the N.B.A.’s 1-to-30 landscape than the standings do.The funky basketball calendar in use this season has thrown everyone off in the N.B.A. That includes writers unaccustomed to covering a regular season broken into halves, with the All-Star Game and trade deadline in March and a postseason that doesn’t begin until mid-May.Running my once-a-season N.B.A. Power Rankings in January made little sense this season, when opening night fell on Dec. 22. So we pushed our annual team-by-team progress report closer to playoff time — with the goal, as always, to present a more detailed assessment of the league’s 1-to-30 landscape than the standings do, measuring what is happening in the present against each team’s big-picture outlook.The rash of injuries sustained by so many high-profile players, particularly on teams expected to compete for a championship, complicated evaluations for the Committee (of One), as it was named at its inception entering the 2002-3 season. Yet there was one clear choice for the committee: The Utah Jazz had to be ranked No. 1.For all the valid questions about its playoff credentials, and how Donovan Mitchell will bounce back from a significant right ankle sprain, Utah has earned that status through its unerring solidity in a season that, because of the pandemic challenges, has made consistency such a scarce commodity.Statistics were current through Saturday’s games.1. Utah JazzDonovan Mitchell has led the Jazz to the top of the pack, where Bobby Portis and the Bucks have also established position.Alex Goodlett/Getty ImagesGolden State’s Steve Kerr warned people in January that Utah was “where we were three or four years ago.” Utah has duly held the N.B.A.’s best record for more than 80 consecutive days since Feb. 2, and is the only team that ranks in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency. The Jazz are optimistic Donovan Mitchell’s recent ankle injury was not as severe as it looked, but they also know they can’t truly hush skeptics until they perform in the playoffs more like Golden State.2. Phoenix SunsThe Suns quickly progressed from last season’s darlings in the Walt Disney World bubble to a full-fledged fascination. They are rarely mentioned as a championship contender because the team, which hasn’t made the playoffs in a decade, is virtually bereft of postseason experience beyond Chris Paul and Jae Crowder. But after Paul landed in the backcourt alongside Devin Booker, Phoenix is a tidy 34-9 since its 8-8 start and has been healthier than any other team in our top 10.3. Los Angeles ClippersThe Clippers are the healthier of the two title contenders in Tinseltown — barely. Kawhi Leonard (foot) and Paul George (toe) have been in and out of the lineup, Serge Ibaka (back) has been sidelined since mid-March, and then there’s the team’s psyche. Even during a 17-3 surge, skepticism persists about how this group will respond to postseason adversity. Last summer’s second-round collapse against Denver in the bubble was that gnarly.4. NetsAs if the Nets weren’t sufficiently fascinating with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, they traded for James Harden in January to lean into chasing a championship with little regard for defense. Yet recurring injury woes for Harden and Durant mean they will also be trying to win it all without continuity, as those two have played alongside Irving in only seven games. Some comfort for Nets fans: This team is 26-8 when only two of its three stars play.5. Philadelphia 76ersBen Simmons’s offensive struggles since the All-Star break are easier to stomach when Joel Embiid is mounting a serious push to win the Most Valuable Player Award. A 2-1 record this season against the Nets, good for the tiebreaker over them in the race for the East’s No. 1 seed, doesn’t hurt, either. The Sixers’ case to be labeled East favorites, however, is weakened by their own health concerns: Embiid has missed 19 games, Simmons 12.6. Milwaukee BucksThe Bucks have Giannis Antetokounmpo to anchor their roster for a while.Aaron Gash/Associated PressThe Committee has said often that persuading Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year, $228 million contract extension was on par with winning a championship for the small-market Bucks. They likewise improved their chances of winning the actual championship by acquiring Jrue Holiday and P.J. Tucker to flank Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. The problem: Without the No. 1 seed that it earned the previous two seasons, Milwaukee might have to beat the Nets and Philadelphia just to reach the N.B.A. finals.7. Denver NuggetsOne of the worst aspects of Jamal Murray’s tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee is that it didn’t just severely dent the Nuggets’ title hopes this season. Because the N.B.A. intends to return to its usual October-to-June schedule, Murray could miss most of next season, too. It’s such a dispiriting blow after the Nuggets, buoyed by Nikola Jokic’s ascension to M.V.P. favorite, had just made a go-for-it trade to acquire Orlando’s Aaron Gordon before losing Murray.8. Los Angeles LakersAnthony Davis can’t help the Lakers if he’s injured.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesThe Lakers’ ceiling is simply too high with LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the lineup to drop them out of the top 10. It has also been so long since we’ve seen the reigning champions’ twin pillars healthy that it’s hard, for the moment, to put them any higher. Not until Davis (who missed 30 games with Achilles’ tendon and calf issues) and James (out since March 20 with a high ankle sprain) show us they’ve truly healed.9. KnicksJulius Randle has sparked the Knicks’ unlikely resurgence, and at this point could probably be elected mayor.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersNine consecutive wins have led to an unexpected top-10 berth for the Knicks, who finished in the bottom 10 in defensive rating for four successive seasons before Tom Thibodeau’s hiring as coach. With the relentless Thibodeau getting maximum effort from an unremarkable roster, the Knicks are ensconced as a top-five defensive team. Factor in the significant improvements made by the newly minted All-Star Julius Randle and, more recently, RJ Barrett, and you have the recipe for just the Knicks’ fourth winning season in the 21st century.10. Boston CelticsJayson Tatum and the Celtics are bouncing back.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAn 8-3 surge helped the Celtics shed their status as the most disappointing team in the league and rejoin the hunt for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Jayson Tatum has bounced back strongly from having Covid-19, though he said he has had to use an inhaler before games for the first time in his life. Also: Jaylen Brown continues to have a breakout season, Kemba Walker looks more like himself lately after persistent knee trouble and Danny Ainge, Boston’s under-fire team president, upgraded the roster with Evan Fournier and Jabari Parker, albeit after striking out on bigger targets.11. Atlanta HawksNate McMillan has guided the surprising Hawks.Derick Hingle/Associated PressPutting Nate McMillan in charge has made such a difference that he may actually snag some votes for the Coach of the Year Award without coaching the whole season. Since McMillan replaced Lloyd Pierce on March 1, Atlanta is 19-7, with a finally healthy Bogdan Bogdanovic (21.5 points per game in April) and Clint Capela (38 double-doubles this season) emerging as key contributors who prevent the opposition from loading up on Trae Young. Capela merits much more support than he’s getting to be named defensive player of the year.12. Dallas MavericksThe good news: The Mavericks have one of the league’s easiest remaining schedules, according to Tankathon. The troubling news: They appear to need the help, judging by disturbing home losses to the Knicks and the Kings right after Luka Doncic stole a game against the Grizzlies with a stunning 3-point fling at the buzzer. Despite Doncic’s usual dominance, Kristaps Porzingis has missed 20 of 59 games and Dallas squandered repeated opportunities to capitalize on Portland’s recent funk before finally swiping the West’s No. 6 seed.13. Miami HeatFor all the understandable focus on the Lakers’ injury woes and the challenges posed by the shortest off-season in N.B.A. history, Miami has been coping with the same problems since losing to Los Angeles in last season’s finals. A steady stream of their own roster disruptions and struggles for various members of the Heat’s supporting cast might have already cost them the opportunity to seize the East’s up-for-grabs No. 4 seed now that teams around them are heating up.14. Golden State WarriorsStephen Curry has regained his M.V.P. form at age 33.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressHe tends to resist such compliments because he believes there’s always another gear to hit, but Stephen Curry is playing the most spectacular basketball of his life at age 33. He’s averaging 38.2 points per game in April and should get the short-handed Warriors to the play-in tournament, even though he is routinely enveloped by the thickest of defensive swarms with Klay Thompson still sidelined.15. Memphis GrizzliesIn a loaded West, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see the Grizzlies fail to match last season’s ninth-place finish. A defiant Ja Morant, helped by a resurgent Jonas Valanciunas and under-the-radar coaching savvy from Taylor Jenkins, has kept Memphis in the playoff hunt. Jaren Jackson Jr., widely regarded as Memphis’s second-best player before injuring his knee at the end of last season, only just returned to the lineup last week.16. Charlotte HornetsGordon Hayward is healthy and helping the Hornets.Doug Mcschooler/Associated PressThe Hornets are Knicks Southeast, meaning they’re the other feel-good story in the Eastern Conference — with much less fanfare compared with what’s happening in Gotham. After initial fears that he might miss the rest of the season, LaMelo Ball is nearing a return from a broken wrist that should cement him as the league’s rookie of the year. Gordon Hayward, when healthy, has lived up to his four-year, $120 million contract. And Coach James Borrego has held this team together through its numerous injuries.17. Portland Trail BlazersThe Blazers survived the extended injury absences of Jusuf Nurkic (10 weeks) and CJ McCollum (eight weeks), largely thanks to frequent offensive detonations from Damian Lillard. But a recent slide has put Portland at risk to land in the playoff play-in round — just like last season — after a lengthy stay in the West’s top six. Defenses are swarming Lillard with greater success as the season wears on, while Portland’s porous defense has dipped to a lowly 29th.18. San Antonio SpursGregg Popovich, who turned 72 in January, is getting the most out of a team that wasn’t expected to do much — to no one’s surprise. DeMar DeRozan has expanded his game, as a playmaker and leader, to supplement San Antonio’s top-10 defense. No team, though, faced a more unenviable second-half schedule, with the Spurs required to play 40 games in 67 days after they were hit by a coronavirus outbreak in February.19. Washington WizardsBradley Beal’s insistence on staying with Washington and delaying potential trade conversations until the off-season is making more and more sense. Russell Westbrook’s recent renaissance (13 triple-doubles in his past 15 games) and improved team defense have established surging Washington as a likely qualifier for a playoff play-in spot. None of that seemed plausible during the team’s 3-8 start and subsequent coronavirus woes.20. Toronto RaptorsA list of teams most disrupted by the coronavirus must include Washington, Miami, Boston, Memphis and Dallas — and it must be topped by Toronto. The Raptors have spent this entire season in Tampa, Fla., with several players and coaches sidelined by health and safety protocols, and appear increasingly unlikely to avoid a trip to the draft lottery just two years removed from a championship run.21. Indiana PacersMyles Turner, a fearsome shot blocker, is out with a toe injury.Aj Mast/Associated PressFew teams illustrate the wacky nature of this pandemic season and a leaguewide erosion of home-court advantage better than the Pacers. They are an unsightly 11-17 at home, yet have clung to a spot in the East’s top 10 with a 17-14 road record. The challenge now is hanging on for three more weeks to advance to the play-in round after losing the imposing Myles Turner, who leads the league in blocked shots, to a toe injury. The All-Star forward Domantas Sabonis (back) is also ailing.22. New Orleans PelicansIn Year 2, Zion Williamson made his first All-Star Game, established himself as a ridiculously efficient offensive force and more than met the lofty expectations he generated coming out of Duke. Trouble is, for all the damage Williamson does inside overpowering opponents and shooting 61.8 percent from the field, New Orleans is fading out of contention for the West’s final play-in spot. Stan Van Gundy’s hiring as coach hasn’t had the desired impact.23. Chicago BullsBulls fans eager to see a big swing from the new front-office regime led by Arturas Karnisovas finally got one at the trade deadline when Chicago acquired the All-Star center Nikola Vucevic to team with Zach LaVine. Ending the fans’ wait for a return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016-17, when the Bulls still had Jimmy Butler, is proving to be trickier. Even with the productive Vucevic, Chicago is a shaky 6-11 since the trade and facing questions about the timing it chose to make a win-now trade.24. Sacramento KingsTwo nine-game losing streaks have overshadowed the productive play De’Aaron Fox has delivered since signing a $163 million contract extension in November, setting up the Kings to miss the playoffs for a hard-to-believe 15th consecutive season. More than half of that depressing drought will belong to Vivek Ranadive, who is in his eighth season as the Kings’ owner.25. Oklahoma City ThunderYou have to go back to the Thunder’s maiden season in Oklahoma City in 2007-8 for the last time they had a losing streak as long as their current 13-gamer. Check back in July, after the draft lottery, if you wish to see the Thunder thriving, since they are clearly (and understandably) prioritizing draft position these days. They have amassed 18 first-round picks, 17 second-rounders and the right to swap four more first-rounders in the next seven drafts — all part of a long-range plan like no other.26. Detroit PistonsJerami Grant gives hope to long-suffering Pistons fans.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressJerami Grant has played so well in his first season as a Piston that teams were trying to persuade Troy Weaver, Detroit’s new general manager, to immediately trade him. Some of Weaver’s roster choices have been questioned, but promise from the rookies Saddiq Bey (one Eastern Conference Player of the Week Award already to his credit) and Isaiah Stewart (17.3 points and 13.3 rebounds per game in one recent three-game stretch), on top of Grant’s progress, have long-suffering Pistons fans feeling cautiously optimistic.27. Minnesota TimberwolvesThe Timberwolves’ new coach, Chris Finch, who worked in Denver as Nikola Jokic was rising to prominence, is trying to similarly expand Karl-Anthony Towns’s game. Towns and his good friend D’Angelo Russell are finally both healthy, Anthony Edwards is a constant presence in highlight reels and Alex Rodriguez (yes, that A-Rod) is trying to buy the team. There’s a lot going on, but sadly nothing to make you forget that this will be Minnesota’s 16th playoff miss in 17 seasons.28. Orlando MagicAt this early stage, Orlando has reason to feel hopeful about its decision in March to trade away the long-tenured threesome of Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier. More telling grades will depend on how Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz recover from their serious knee injuries, but Wendell Carter Jr., acquired from Chicago in the Vucevic trade, is off to a promising start.29. Cleveland CavaliersIn early February, with the Cavaliers at 10-11, Collin Sexton wrote a piece for The Players’ Tribune titled “Back on the Map.” The team promptly lost its next 10 games and has spent the last two months mired in losing and an injury crunch. Kevin Love, one of the last remaining links to Cleveland’s glory days, has averaged 13.8 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in April, but remains difficult to trade with two years and $60.2 million left on his contract.30. Houston RocketsAfter waiting 20 years to get his first head coaching job, Stephen Silas has endured the longest of rookie seasons. James Harden’s holdout, Russell Westbrook’s trade to Washington, six roller-coaster weeks coaching Harden, Harden’s trade to the Nets — and all of that followed by copious amounts of losing, injuries and scrutiny. The indignity of it all: Houston loses its top draft pick to Oklahoma City if it falls outside the top four of the draft lottery. More

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

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

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      Tiger Woods Was Driving About 40 MPH Past The Speed Limit When He Crashed

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      The stretch of road where Woods crashed in February is known for speeding and crashes.Tiger Woods was speeding when he crashed his sport-utility vehicle in February, reaching speeds of more than 80 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone on winding road near Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.Villanueva said Woods was traveling between 84 and 87 miles per hour when he lost control, crossing over a median and hitting the curb on the opposite of the road. The vehicle struck a tree at an estimated 75 m.p.h. and was sent airborne, eventually stopping in some brush.“The primary causal factor for this traffic collision was driving at a speed unsafe for the road conditions and the inability to negotiate the curve of the roadway,” said Villanueva.Woods was not cited for driving too fast and no criminal charges will be filed, Villanueva said. He added that there were no signs of impairment or intoxication, and that Woods was wearing his seatbelt.The captain of the Lomita Sheriff’s Station, James Powers, said that data was obtained from the vehicle’s event data recorder, known colloquially as the black box. The data showed that Woods had hit the accelerator throughout the crash, and that the pressure applied to the pedal was 99 percent. Powers said he believed that Woods inadvertently hit the accelerator while trying to brake.Woods has no recollection of the collision, and there were no witnesses to the crash.Woods was not cited, Villanueva said, because under California law that typically requires either an independent witness or a law enforcement officer to witness the excessive speed. He said that Woods did not receive any special treatment, and nobody would be cited for speeding in a solo vehicle collision without any witnesses.Woods had to be extracted from his S.U.V. after the crash on the morning of Feb. 23 and taken to the hospital, where he underwent several surgeries on his right leg. Doctors not involved in Woods’s care have predicted an extremely difficult recovery from his injuries.During a news conference, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva showed a depiction of the path of the crash.via Los Angeles County Sheriffs DepartmentWoods crashed his car on a windy and tricky stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard that is known for car crashes near Rancho Palos Verdes, a coastal city in Los Angeles County. According to data collected by the sheriff’s department, there were 13 crashes, four with injuries, from Jan. 3, 2020, to Feb. 23 of this year within a 1.35-mile stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard that includes the site where Woods crashed.That stretch of road is also known for speeding. Deputy Carlos Gonzalez, the first emergency responder to arrive at the scene, said at a news conference in February that he had sometimes seen vehicles going more than 80 miles per hour on Hawthorne Boulevard.According to a diagram of the collision shown by the sheriffs department, there were four areas of impact. The first two were the sides of the median, the third was the curb and the fourth was the tree. Woods’s vehicle rolled several times before coming to a stop. After he hit the tree, his S.U.V. went “airborne” where it did “somewhat of a pirouette,” according to Powers.Before the crash, Woods had hosted a golf tournament in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles.Ryan Kang/Associated PressWoods was quickly taken to Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery, and then was transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for follow-up procedures. He spent several days in the hospital receiving treatment, though there is still some confusion about the exact nature of his injuries.Dr. Anish Mahajan, the acting chief executive of Harbor-U.C.L.A., said in a statement the night after the crash that both bones in Woods’s lower right leg, the tibia and the fibula, had been broken in multiple places and were “open fractures,” meaning the bones had pierced his skin.The statement did not describe any injuries to Woods’s left leg, though Daryl L. Osby, the Los Angeles County fire chief, had said earlier that Woods had “serious injuries” to both legs.Woods underwent back surgery, his fifth, in Dec. 2020, just the latest injury to slow his golf career. He has won just one major golf championship since 2008.February’s crash is not the first time Woods’s life, and career, has been derailed by a car crash. In 2009 he crashed his S.U.V. into a fire hydrant outside his Florida home in the middle of the night. He was knocked unconscious and was taken to a hospital in an ambulance, where he was treated for minor facial injuries.But the incident is remembered mostly for what happened next and the fallout for his career. There were numerous reports of Woods’s infidelities and an apology in which he admitted cheating on his wife. He lost numerous sponsors and stepped away from golf for months. Woods and Elin Nordegren eventually divorced.Woods was also arrested in 2017 in Florida, after police found him asleep in his car on the side of a road at 3 a.m. with the engine running. Woods blamed the incident on the interaction of several prescription medicines, including Vicodin, and did not have any alcohol in his system. He eventually entered a diversion program for first-time D.U.I. offenders, and pleaded guilty to reckless driving.Captain Powers said there was no odor of alcohol, open containers or any narcotics in the vehicle or on Woods after the February crash. Woods told law enforcement investigators that he had not been drinking and had not taken any prescription pills. Investigators did not obtain or test Woods’s blood.Woods, who lives in Florida, was in Southern California to host the Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles the weekend before the crash. Genesis Motor is a luxury vehicle division of Hyundai. Woods was driving a 2021 Genesis GV80 S.U.V., which was provided to him during the tournament; he is known for always driving himself in a courtesy car at tournaments.Sheriff Villanueva said at a news conference last week that the cause of the crash had been determined, but citing California privacy laws, said it could not be released without Woods’s consent. Woods eventually waived his right to privacy and authorized the release of the report. More

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      What’s Wrong With the Los Angeles Lakers

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      Repeating as N.B.A. champion is difficult — but the Lakers didn’t expect it to be this hard.The Los Angeles Lakers braced for a season of strain after the shortest off-season in league history.They did not anticipate this.The Lakers did not envision long stretches without both LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and a regular-season slog that is testing them in new ways after the rigors of being confined within the N.B.A.’s restricted-access campus at Walt Disney World for three months last summer. James, Davis and Co. began the 2020-21 season as overwhelming title favorites, having emerged from bubble life as N.B.A. champions, but factors that raise the degree of difficulty on the Lakers’ repeat bid are starting to stack up:Davis has missed the past 23 games because of persistent Achilles’ tendon discomfort and an adjacent calf strain. There is some hope within the organization that he will return to the lineup after the Lakers’ five-game Eastern Conference swing underway, but any injury that involves the Achilles’ tendon, no matter how purportedly mild, is going to spook people until Davis gets back on the floor. Achilles’ tendon injuries remain the most feared in the sport.James has missed the past nine games after sustaining a high-ankle sprain during a game against Atlanta on March 20. The reflex assumption, because this is James, is that he will return by month’s end and duly return to elite form. Given that James is 36, and in his 18th season, we should probably also acknowledge the possibility that his recovery won’t be seamless.Sunday’s 18-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, their Staples Center co-tenants, was the first in an 11-game stretch against teams in playoff or play-in positions. The Lakers were fifth in the Western Conference standings entering Tuesday, but there is mounting worry in Lakerland that a slip to sixth, seven or worse is getting more and more unavoidable. This is the first season that teams seeded seventh through 10th in each conference will be subjected to a new double-elimination playoff play-in round.The roster moves that looked so good in November, winning raves for the Lakers’ front office, haven’t panned out. Dennis Schröder and Montrezl Harrell have not proved capable of pinch-carrying the Lakers during the regular season when James and Davis are unavailable. I believed, as resolutely as the Lakers, that they would be, but Schröder and Harrell tend to be more concerned with their own scoring than anything else. When the Lakers explored the trade market for both last month, it seemed to confirm their own uncertainty about the fit.The Lakers’ recent signing of center Andre Drummond, right, has caused some friction with center Marc Gasol, who signed with the team as a free agent in November.Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesThe Lakers’ biggest triumph since Davis went down was signing the crown jewel of this season’s buyout market: Andre Drummond. Yet it must be noted that the Lakers were desperate to go all out for Drummond in part because of a sense that their frontline was lacking. Marc Gasol, signed as a free agent in November, hasn’t replaced Dwight Howard or JaVale McGee as convincingly as the front office had projected. Gasol has since publicly acknowledged his disappointment that the Lakers felt a need to bring in Drummond.Whether it’s the injuries, or the team’s middling 10-12 record since Davis last played on Feb. 14, or mounting pressure stemming from the Lakers’ woeful 3-point shooting (24th in the league), or other factors, this group does not appear to have the same chemistry as the Lakers did in the N.B.A. bubble. Maybe these Lakers can still get there, but there is clearly much to fix in the final 22 games of the regular season.Coach Frank Vogel insisted on Monday that the Lakers were “not looking at the standings at all,” but that is easier to say than uphold when the competition looks tougher than it did last season:— The Utah Jazz readily acknowledge that they can’t hush naysayers until the playoffs, but they have also won 22 consecutive home games and remain on pace to become the first team in league history to average 17 made 3-pointers per game.— The Denver Nuggets made a clear win-now upgrade at the trade deadline by adding Aaron Gordon to their core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. and, as of this Newsletter Tuesday, would have home-court advantage over the Lakers in a first-round series as the fourth seed.— Also: One of the most important players from the Lakers’ championship run — Rajon Rondo — is suddenly a member of the Clippers via trade. After his ineffectual stint as an Atlanta Hawk, skepticism persists that Rondo, at 35, will provide the offensive organization and playmaking that the Clippers badly need. Yet he has delivered often enough in the postseason that the Lakers are respectfully wary of his becoming Playoff Rondo one more time for the Los Angeles franchise still chasing its first championship.That assessment of the competition didn’t even mention the Phoenix Suns, who missed the playoffs for the past 10 seasons but have risen to No. 2 in the West by pairing Chris Paul in the backcourt with Devin Booker, or the three powerhouses in the East: Philadelphia, Milwaukee and a superstar-laden Nets squad coping with its own serious injury issues.James and Davis remain so feared as a duo that, for all the other legitimate concerns about these Lakers that we’ve listed, getting both back in coming weeks and keeping them upright throughout the playoffs would surely fix so much. I am likewise bullish on Drummond’s potential impact when he gets the chance to finally play with the two stars and, for the first time in his N.B.A. career, focus on a complementary role that emphasizes his rebounding and defense.My issue is assuming that James and Davis will heal in linear fashion that makes everything fine once they return. Ill-advised as it is to write off James in particular, after he led his teams to the N.B.A. finals in nine of the past 10 seasons, that’s a bold leap to make given the gravity of these injuries.When I published N.B.A. power rankings every Monday during the regular season for 15 years at ESPN, I occasionally sparred with angry readers who blamed The Committee of One, as I had dubbed myself, for jinxing their team with a ranking too lofty. Perhaps I should consider, along the same lines, some responsibility for the Lakers’ woes over the past two months, because Davis started missing games shortly after I devoted my Feb. 2 weekly dispatch to his partnership with James and how flawlessly they’ve meshed as teammates.Far more likely, though, than the Lakers getting derailed by a supposed newsletter jinx is the like-it-or-not reality that ill health threatens to be the Lakers’ undoing for the second time in James’s three seasons in Hollywood.Corner ThreeThe Charlotte Hornets of the 1990s were fun behind Larry Johnson, left, Muggsy Bogues, center, and Alonzo Mourning.Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty ImagesYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: I am a lifelong Nets fan. I’m 61 now and I clearly remember the team’s pre-N.B.A. years. Julius Erving was the greatest player to ever play for the Nets, and without him the franchise would not exist. But he sometimes seems to be forgotten in Brooklyn — and so is the A.B.A.The Nets recently posted a tweet indicating that James Harden was only the second Net in team history to record a triple-double that included 40 points, along with Vince Carter, but I was sure that had to be incorrect. I looked it up online and found that Erving did this twice in the A.B.A.My question: Does the N.B.A. count A.B.A. statistics? And if so, why don’t the Nets refer to them? Looking forward to your coverage soon of the first Nets championship in 45 years! — Dave Lederer (Sharon, Mass.)Stein: Love the enthusiasm for the A.B.A., Dave. But A.B.A. statistics were not (and most likely will never be) officially combined with N.B.A. statistics, so the Nets refer to their history only since 1976-77 when they make such announcements about milestones.This wonderful page maintained by Basketball Reference with multiple career scoring lists shows how Dr. J would be No. 8 and Dan Issel would be No. 11 if A.B.A. points were added to the damage they did in the N.B.A. Yet the list posted there is purely for discussion purposes, because the N.B.A. established its policy long ago, leaving Erving at No. 72 among N.B.A. scorers and Issel at No. 148. The four A.B.A. franchises that joined the league for the 1976-77 season (Denver, Indiana, San Antonio and the Nets) were treated more like expansion teams than merging teams.The A.B.A., of course, was way ahead of its time with the early adoption of the 3-pointer and the introduction of a slam dunk contest eight years before the N.B.A., and faster-paced play in general that I sadly didn’t get to see for myself. The merger season was the first that I could call myself a truly aware N.B.A. fan; 1977 Topps basketball cards with the electric green backs still weaken me when I come across them as does the Buffalo Braves set from that season that I keep on my desk.The recent death of Elgin Baylor had me venting anew about what a shame it is that Baylor’s offensive brilliance isn’t as appreciated as it should be because television footage from the 1960s and 1970s was not as widely distributed as it should have been, compared with, say, baseball footage from past eras. When I started covering the Los Angeles Clippers in February 1994, Baylor was the general manager and I told him that, to that point, I had scarcely seen five minutes of his playing career. This was years before the advent of NBA TV, of course, so the Clippers called N.B.A. Entertainment in Secaucus, N.J., to assemble a Baylor highlight reel on VHS tape for my edification.A.B.A. footage, as you can imagine, was even more scarce, though thankfully there’s a smattering on YouTube now. I can’t remember seeing any in my formative years as a basketball fan. The red, white and blue ball was all I knew.Q: ⁦‪More watchable than the Larry Johnson-Alonzo Mourning-Muggsy Bogues Hornets of the early 1990s? — @BBH821510 from TwitterStein: I got a few responses like this on Saturday when I tweeted about the Hornets losing Gordon Hayward for at least four weeks to a sprained right foot.Just for some fun, and perhaps in a bow to the hyperbolic nature of social media, I have been referring to Charlotte this season as the Most Watchable Hornets Ever. It’s my go-to hat tip to these Hornets given how entertaining they’ve been since drafting LaMelo Ball in November, signing Hayward in free agency and combining those two with Terry Rozier, whose player efficiency rating is at a career-best 17.7.The Hornets teams that featured Johnson, Mourning and Bogues are remembered with great fondness by Charlotte’s fans and duly respected here. Charlotte also had some strong teams in the back half of the 1990s, after trading away both Johnson and Mourning — but I think it actually helps my case if you have to rewind that far, to a time long before the N.B.A. League Pass era, to come up with a counter.Q: What happens when a team forfeits a draft pick as the Milwaukee Bucks did in the Bogdan Bogdanovic case? Will there still be 60 players selected in that draft? — Yul Bessori (Israel)Stein: No. The 2022 draft will have only 59 picks after the Bucks were docked their second-rounder for that year as punishment for what the league deemed impermissible contact with Bogdanovic before free agency began in November.Not long after Milwaukee reached an agreement with New Orleans on a trade for Jrue Holiday in November, ESPN reported that the Bucks would also acquire Bogdanovic, who was a restricted free agent, from Sacramento via sign-and-trade, with the Kings poised to land Donte DiVincenzo as part of the exchange. But free agency was still more than three days away at that point, prompting the N.B.A. to investigate how the Bucks had agreed on terms. Milwaukee was essentially forced to abandon its pursuit of Bogdanovic or risk more severe penalties.Bogdanovic ultimately signed a four-year, $72 million offer sheet from Atlanta, which Sacramento declined to match, causing the Kings to lose the restricted free agent without compensation. The Bucks, though, have rebounded from their missteps about as well as they could have hoped, persuading Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year contract extension worth $228 million in December even without landing Bogdanovic. Then on Sunday they announced that they had signed Holiday to an extension, reported to be for four years and worth up to $160 million.They also made a useful addition last month by acquiring P.J. Tucker in a trade with Houston, but questions persist about the dependability of the Bucks’ bench. Milwaukee’s other problem is the competition — at least at the top of the East. The Bucks have to be wondering, even after all of their moves, if they really have enough to beat out the Nets and Philadelphia for a spot in the N.B.A. finals.Numbers GameGolden State’s Stephen Curry is close to passing Wilt Chamberlain as the franchise’s career-scoring leader.Mary Holt/USA Today Sports, via ReutersUpdated entering Tuesday’s games.44League officials can only hope that the basketball public was too focused on the Final Four in men’s and women’s college basketball to pay close attention to the N.B.A. on Saturday, when a league-record three teams lost by at least 44 points on the same day: Oklahoma City (48 points to Portland), Orlando (46 points to Utah) and Detroit (44 points to the Knicks). This was just one day after Golden State trailed by as many as 61 points in a 53-point loss to Toronto.14The Raptors had won just one of their previous 14 games before blasting the Stephen Curry-less Warriors. Curry has missed six of Golden State’s past nine games with a tailbone contusion.130Curry needs 130 points to surpass Wilt Chamberlain (17,783) as the Warriors’ career-scoring leader. Getting there will make Curry the 10th player in league history to rank as a franchise leader in points and assists, joining Mike Conley (Grizzlies), Alex English (Nuggets), Kevin Garnett (Timberwolves), Michael Jordan (Bulls), LeBron James (Cavaliers), Oscar Robertson (Kings), Reggie Miller (Pacers), Isiah Thomas (Pistons), Dwyane Wade (Heat).20The Houston Rockets’ recent 20-game losing streak was twice as long as its worst stretch during the 14-68 season in 1982-83 that led to the drafting of Ralph Sampson. Those Rockets started 0-10 and never had a longer winless run after that. Houston’s 20 consecutive defeats this season marked the N.B.A.’s fifth such streak since 2000, according to Stathead. Philadelphia lost 28 consecutive games from the end of the 2014-15 season through the start of the 2015-16 season and 26 games in a row during the 2013-14 season; Cleveland lost 26 consecutive games in 2010-11 in its first season after LeBron James’s free-agent departure to Miami; and Charlotte lost 23 consecutive games in 2011-12.22Utah is a spotless 22-0 at home in 2021 after losing its first two home games of the season in December.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Jeremy Lin Talks N.B.A. Comeback and Anti-Asian Racism

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      Lin, who exploded to fame with the Knicks in 2012, said he has learned to embrace his basketball journey and his platform to speak out amid a wave of attacks on Asian-Americans.It was Room 3296 at Coronado Springs Resort, inside the gates of Walt Disney World in Florida. Jeremy Lin said he had memorized every aspect of its layout.“I know where the scratch marks on the wall are,” Lin said. “I know where the spider webs were.”Lin spent 43 days and 42 nights in that room as a member of the Santa Cruz Warriors, playing in the N.B.A. G League bubble in a bid to make it back to the best league in the world for the first time since the 2018-19 season. After a season of gaudy statistics and rock-star treatment with the Beijing Ducks in the Chinese Basketball Association, Lin bypassed millions of dollars in China to play for $35,000 in the N.B.A.’s developmental league and give scouts ample opportunity to study him.Lin, 32, finished the G League’s abbreviated season at 19.8 points per game on 50.5 percent shooting and with strong, 42.6 percent shooting from 3-point range, but missed six of the 15 games with a back injury. While he waits to see if he did enough for an N.B.A. team to sign him, Lin once again finds himself in the spotlight as a leading voice in the Asian-American community.After another G League player called him “coronavirus” on the court, Lin, who is Taiwanese-American, has been speaking out against the racism and bigotry that numerous Asian-Americans have faced since former President Donald J. Trump began referring to the coronavirus as the “China virus” last year.Lin spoke about his N.B.A. comeback bid and his activism in a wide-ranging phone conversation on Monday.(The highlights of the interview have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)On his willingness to play in the G League as a nine-year N.B.A. veteran:The more that we talked to teams, they were telling my agent: “Hey, we want to see if Jeremy’s healthy, and we want to see if Jeremy can still go. No offense to some of the leagues overseas, but we would love to see him here in front of us, in an N.B.A. system, playing under N.B.A. rules.”I know I’m an N.B.A. player. I know I’m a better shooter. I know I’m a better defender. I know I’m more well rounded as a basketball player. I know these things, but I just needed a chance to show it.Lin, with Santa Cruz, going against the Toronto Raptors’ G League team.Juan Ocampo/NBAE, via Getty ImagesOn how he was received by fellow G Leaguers:There were two instances where a player said to me, “I grew up watching you play.” I’ve never had another player tell me that, but then I was like, “OK, well, you’re 18 or 19 years old, so I understand that.”On facing younger players still trying to establish an N.B.A. foothold:Ever since I was out of the league, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to get back in. Now you can put your money where your mouth is and compete against all these hungry players. It’s the ultimate competitors’ den where everyone in there is just going at each other.I’ve been a target my whole life. Since I was a kid, I was either a target because people look at me and they’re like: “Oh, he’s not that good. I’m going to take his head off. He’s lunch meat.” Or they don’t want to be embarrassed by me. Now you add on the whole “Linsanity” thing, and I have an even bigger target, and if you watched the games, I was commanding a lot of attention from opposing teams. But it’s fun.Fans hold up New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin photos during a game against Sacramento in his Linsanity run in New York.Frank Franklin II/Associated PressOn initially not wanting to discuss Linsanity, his run with the Knicks in February 2012 that landed him on Sports Illustrated’s cover two weeks in a row:That’s how I felt about it for a few years after. But at this point I’ve come around now to really appreciating and embracing it. For a while it was kind of this phenomenon, or this shadow, or this expectation, or this ghost that I was chasing — sometimes chasing, and sometimes trying to run away from. Now it’s more like a badge of honor that I’m really proud of and what it meant to so many people.At the same time, there’s a lot more basketball left in my body. I definitely appreciate everything about Linsanity and what it taught me, but I really believe I’m a better player now than I was then. The G League validated a lot of what I felt like I was doing in my training but I hadn’t shown yet.On revealing the on-court incident in which he was called “coronavirus” and speaking out to support the #StopAsianHate campaign:With everything happening recently, I feel like I needed to say something. The hate, the racism and the attacks on the Asian-American community are obviously wrong, so that needs to be stated and that’s part of my role. I also feel like part of my role is to bring solidarity and unity, so I need to educate myself and continue to learn more and also support other groups, other movements and other organizations while also bringing awareness to the Asian-American plight.And then another part is to play basketball and play well, because I think there’s a lot of underlying stuff about Asian-Americans being quiet and passive and just, “Yeah, we’ll tell them what to do and they won’t talk back.” So for me to play basketball at the highest level is going to do more than words themselves can say.On working with the G League to handle the incident internally without naming the player who directed the slur at him — and Lin’s talks with the player:Everything’s good. It was a really cool conversation. I felt like it was handled the best way. At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. We were able to just discuss everything.I wanted to share that everybody is susceptible to these types of things and to racism, but to me that’s not the main focus. The goal isn’t like: “Woe is me. Look at this situation.” The real issues right now are the people that are dying, the people that are getting spit on, the people that are getting robbed, the people that are getting burned, the people that are getting stabbed. That’s where the attention needs to be.Lin won a championship with the Raptors in the 2018-19 season, though he hardly played during the finals.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesOn his time in Toronto and winning a championship — but playing only one minute in the 2019 N.B.A. finals:On one hand, I came out of it with a ring. I was the first Asian-American to win an N.B.A. championship, so there’s something super special about that. Even just being in Toronto, to see how the city, how the country, rallied around that team, to go to a parade with two million people — it was incredible, man.At the same time, honestly, it’s what I needed. I had a 10- to 12-game stretch where I could try to break into the rotation. I didn’t play the way I needed to play, but I learned what I needed to learn. I came off two years of injury and I realized after that stretch that I had to get surgery on my shooting arm that nobody knew about. I never said anything to anybody.It was already starting when I first got to Toronto where something didn’t feel right. It got to the point where, in the playoffs, I couldn’t even shoot a 3-pointer because there was a small bone spur in my shooting elbow. During the playoffs, no one knew, but by the end of the finals I could only shoot out to the free-throw line.So I had to do the surgery and I was struggling with that a lot, but also mentally I had a lot of trauma and fears from my prior injuries that I hadn’t appropriately resolved. And that’s what Toronto and part of the season in China last year really showed me: You’ve been approaching the injuries like it’s physical rehab that you need. You are already physically beyond where you were before you got hurt. You have to rehab the mental side.On his confidence that one more N.B.A. call will come:I’ve done what I needed to do. I took on the challenge. I went to the G League when some people thought it was crazy for me to go. I think it’s just a matter of time, and I believe it’s going to happen. We’ll see. I know I belong.The Scoop @TheSteinLineJalen Green of the G League Ignite team averaged 17.9 points per game in the shortened season.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesThis newsletter is OUR newsletter. So please weigh in with what you’d like to see here. To get your hoops-loving friends and family involved, please forward this email to them so they can jump in the conversation. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.Corner ThreeThe Malice at the Palace on Nov. 19, 2004, left the Indiana Pacers especially shorthanded the next night against Orlando.Getty ImagesYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Responses may be lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)Q: Is there anything the league can do to encourage more stars to participate in the dunk contest? It stinks for fans that the biggest stars refuse to even try. — Andrew Brotherton (Atlanta)Stein: The reflex answer here has always been for the league and its sponsors to arrange a seven-figure, winner-take-all prize for the dunk champion to persuade the biggest names to risk whatever street cred they think they’d lose by competing. I’m so pessimistic in general about the state of the dunk contest that I’m not even sure that would do it at this point.Would the fallout from a dunk contest flop really be so long-lasting in our short attention span world? It’s evident that many more players than not think that participating comes with some sort of grave risk if they perform poorly.I got my hopes up when New Orleans’s Zion Williamson was so cryptic about joining the dunk field. I thought he was just trying to build up the suspense before he entered — especially since this All-Star Game was so dependent on this year’s All-Stars filling up the individual skills competitions to reduce the number of players traveling to Atlanta. Gullible me.I think I’ve mentioned before that in my high school days, no annual event was bigger in my circle than the Saturday night every February commandeered by the dunk contest. What’s so frustrating for dunk devotees is that the 3-point contest field only seems to get stronger every year. The prospect of a poor shooting performance and the potential embarrassment apparently doesn’t trouble vaunted shooters as it does dunkers.Q: The league has been postponing games all season if a team has fewer than eight players available to suit up, but I seem to remember Indiana playing a game after the brawl in Detroit with only six players. This has probably happened on other occasions besides my Pacers example, right? — Jeff Moye (Bogota, N.J.)Stein: Even in the game you’re thinking of, Indiana had eight players in uniform. Two of them (Scot Pollard and Jamaal Tinsley) were injured and couldn’t play, but the Pacers still had to have them dressed to avoid forfeiting the game.It was Indiana’s first game after the brawl that spilled into the stands at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills on Nov. 19, 2004. The Pacers had a home game against Orlando the next night — without the suspended players Metta World Peace (then known as Ron Artest), Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson. With Reggie Miller sidelined by a broken hand and facing suspension for leaving the bench, Fred Jones and Eddie Gill each played 48 minutes as the Pacers’ lone available guards.There have been other games in which an N.B.A. team used only six players: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Portland was the last to do so in a win over Sacramento on April 10, 2019. But the league’s requirement to have eight players has been in place for decades.Leave it to my tireless historian pal Todd Spehr from Australia to inform me that the New Orleans Jazz may have been the last team to play a game with fewer than eight players in uniform on March 18, 1977. Elgin Baylor, then the coach of the Jazz, was granted special permission to dress seven players rather than the required eight because five of his players had been injured in a taxi accident that afternoon. Led by 51 points from Pete Maravich, the seven-man New Orleans Jazz beat Phoenix.Q: Has there ever been a team that had three of the league’s top 20 scorers, as the Nets do? — Meet Kachly (Mumbai, India)Stein: It’s rare, but it has happened in the modern era. Some examples are provided here even though Kevin Durant has dropped out of the top 20 because he doesn’t qualify for the league leaders now that he has played in just 19 of the Nets’ 40 games.2018-19: Golden State’s Stephen Curry (No. 5 at 27.3 points per game), Durant (No. 8 at 26) and Klay Thompson (No. 18 at 21.5).2013-14: Rudy Gay did not start the season in Sacramento, but his arrival in a December 2013 trade from Toronto gave those Kings a third top-20 scorer alongside No. 9 DeMarcus Cousins (22.7 points per game) and No. 17 Isaiah Thomas (20.3). Gay was 19th at 20 points per game.1990-91: The “Run TMC” Warriors had three players among the league’s top 11 scorers: No. 8 Chris Mullin (25.7 points per game), No. 10 Mitch Richmond (23.9) and No. 11 Tim Hardaway (22.9).1986-87: Seattle had No. 8 Dale Ellis (24.9 points per game), No. 13 Tom Chambers (23.3) and No. 15 Xavier McDaniel (23).1982-83: Denver had the league’s top two scorers — Alex English at 28.4 points per game and Kiki Vandeweghe at 26.7 points per game — with Dan Issel (21.6) at No. 18.Numbers GameCarmelo Anthony is averaging 14.2 points per game this season with Portland as he climbs toward the top 10 in career scoring.Steve Dykes/Associated Press6Only six teams had winning records against teams that were .500 or better entering Tuesday’s games. Philadelphia (13-6) and the Nets (17-3) are the lone East teams that qualify; Utah (17-8), Phoenix (13-5), the Los Angeles Clippers (11-10) and Denver (11-10) represent the West.41The Houston Rockets have not won a game for 41 days, dating to their Feb. 4 victory at Memphis. That was also the last time Christian Wood played for the Rockets before injuring his ankle. He’s averaging 22 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.343Portland’s Carmelo Anthony needed 343 more points to pass Elvin Hayes (27,313 points) for 10th place in N.B.A. regular-season scoring heading into Tuesday’s game. The only players above Anthony on the league’s scoring charts who are not in the Basketball Hall of Fame are not yet eligible: No. 3 LeBron James (35,211) and No. 6 Dirk Nowitzki (31,560).28.8With his recent Most Valuable Player Award-winning performance in Atlanta, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo improved his scoring average in the All-Star Game to a record 28.8 points per game.11Another interesting history reminder from the aforementioned @ToddSpehr35: Active rosters were reduced to 11 players from 12 for the 1977-78 season through 1980-81. The league voted to go back to 12 for the 1981-82 season. Including two slots for two-way players, teams can have rosters of 17 players and, in this pandemic season, list 15 as active for each game.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Will Tiger Woods Play Golf Again? Doctors Predict a Difficult Recovery

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Tiger Woods’s Car CrashWill He Play Again?Sheriff Expects No ChargesGolf Without WoodsCareer Highs and LowsEven before Tuesday’s crash, Tiger Woods’s career had been hampered by injuries in his neck, back, knee and lower legs.Credit…Illustration by Tim Oliver/The New York Times; Photograph by Rob Carr/Getty ImagesSkip to contentSkip to site indexWill Tiger Woods Play Golf Again? Doctors Predict a Difficult RecoveryAfter a serious car crash on Tuesday, he risks infections, bones that do not heal, and foot and ankle injuries that impede walking.Even before Tuesday’s crash, Tiger Woods’s career had been hampered by injuries in his neck, back, knee and lower legs.Credit…Illustration by Tim Oliver/The New York Times; Photograph by Rob Carr/Getty ImagesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 24, 2021Updated 9:33 p.m. ETThe serious lower leg injuries Tiger Woods sustained in a car crash on Tuesday typically lead to a long and perilous recovery, calling into question his ability to play professional golf again, according to medical experts who have treated similar injuries.Athletes with severe leg injuries thought to doom their careers have managed to come back — the quarterback Alex Smith returned to playing football last season after a gruesome leg break, and the golfer Ben Hogan returned decades ago after a car accident.But Woods’s injuries are more extensive, and his path to recovery is strewn with serious obstacles. Infections, inadequate bone healing and, in Woods’s case, previous injuries and chronic back problems may make a monthslong or even yearslong recovery more difficult, and may reduce the chances that he will play again.In the accident near Los Angeles, Woods’s lower right leg was smashed and his right foot severely injured, and his leg muscles swelled so much that surgeons had to cut open the tissue covering them to relieve pressure, Dr. Anish Mahajan, the chief medical officer at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center, where Woods, 45, was treated, wrote in a Twitter message posted on Woods’s account.Doctors also inserted a rod into Woods’s shin bone, and screws and pins into his foot and ankle. Physicians familiar with these kinds of injuries described the complications they typically bring.The injuries are frequently seen among drivers involved in car accidents, said Dr. R. Malcolm Smith, the chief of orthopedic trauma at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. Usually they occur when the driver frantically stomps on the brake as a car careens out of control.When the front end of the car is smashed, immense force is transmitted to the driver’s right leg and foot. “This happens every day with car crashes in this country,” Dr. Smith said.Such lower-leg fractures on occasion bring “massive disability” and other grave consequences, said Dr. Smith. “A very rough estimate is that there is a 70 percent chance of it healing completely,” he added.The crash caused a cascade of injuries. It smashed Woods’s shin bones, with primary breaks in the top and bottom parts of the bones and a scattering of bone fragments. When the bones in Woods’s shin shattered, they damaged muscles and tendons; pieces poked from his skin.The trauma caused bleeding and swelling in his leg, threatening his muscles. Surgeons had to quickly cut into the layer of thick tissue covering his leg muscles to relieve the swelling. Had they not, the tissue that covers swelling muscle would have acted like a tourniquet, constricting blood flow. The muscle can die within four to six hours.It is possible that some muscle died anyway, between the accident and the surgery, Dr. Smith said: “Once you lose it, you cannot get it back.” More