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    NBA Star Luka Doncic Debuts Foundation Focused on Youth Basketball

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    The N.B.A. star is worried that for too many youth basketball players, the sport is no longer fun. He’s trying to find ways to change that.Luka Doncic was 13 when he moved from his native Slovenia to Spain to play for Real Madrid. He didn’t know English or Spanish, but he could speak basketball fluently, and the expectations of a storied professional organization hung over him.But it was fun for him, even with that pressure, the same way it is now that he has become one of the N.B.A.’s brightest stars, playing for the Dallas Mavericks.He has noticed that it’s not like that for many players in youth programs around the world, a number of whom have quit basketball while still in adolescence.“The kids are, I think, a little bit stressed,” Doncic said in an interview.So this year, his foundation, which debuts this week with a focus on making sports an enriching part of children’s lives, hired a research organization called Nonfiction to study youth basketball in the Balkans and the United States. Over five months, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of coaches, players, parents, trainers and other basketball experts. They also surveyed more than 1,200 parents of youth basketball players and immersed themselves in eight basketball camps and training centers. They collected letters from children who wrote about the sport’s importance to them.The researchers found that youth programs in the Balkans focused on the team more than the individual. They also found that when Yugoslavia dissolved in the early 1990s, much of the government support for basketball in that region disappeared. The corporations that filled the void through sponsorships sometimes put pressure on teams to win, which led some coaches to pay less attention to player development and emphasize winning over everything else.A research organization hired by Doncic’s foundation collected letters from children saying how much basketball means to them.The Luka Doncic FoundationWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Golf

      Evian Championship: The Toll of Starting a Golf Career So Young

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      In a game full of players who turned pro in their teens, burnout is common.Asterisk Talley was faced with a tricky question after she made the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open, the second women’s major of the year. Would she have time to finish the homework that her teachers back home had assigned?“I have a bunch of homework and it’s all due today,” said Talley, 15, part of a growing number of young golfers playing at the highest level of the game.The admission spurred a raft of suggestions for excuses for why it wouldn’t get done, not least of all that she was teeing off late on Saturday, just a few shots off the lead.When asked after the second round if she was feeling any pressure, Talley responded: “Not really. I feel like I’m kind of used to it.”Women’s golf has been becoming younger for decades, and Talley is nowhere near the youngest player to tee it up in a major like the Women’s Open. Lexi Thompson, who is retiring this year at 29, was just 12 in 2007 when she qualified for her first one. (The youngest ever was Lucy Li, then 11.)At this week’s Amundi Evian Championship, Yana Wilson, a 17-year-old standout amateur from Nevada, is the youngest player in the field. Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Basket

      The Young Pistons Are Trying to Bring Back That ‘Bad Boys’ Feeling

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      The rebuild in Detroit could finally turn the corner this year behind Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey.WASHINGTON — It was early in the fourth quarter, and the Detroit Pistons were attempting to come back from a double-digit deficit against the Wizards. Kevin Knox, a 23-year-old forward, committed an unnecessary defensive foul. Pistons Coach Dwane Casey’s head snapped downward ever so slightly, as if he were trying to suppress his frustration.On the next play, Knox committed another foul — this time against the star guard Bradley Beal on a step-back jumper. Beal hit the shot and the free throw. Now, Casey, in his 14th year as a head coach, was expressionless.This has been the job for him with the Pistons — being tolerant of mistakes. As much as he can let himself be. Growing pains, he calls them.“They’re going to make mistakes,” Casey said after the game Tuesday. “When you were a young writer, you probably made some mistakes in your writing. And it’s the same thing. Guys are going to make young mistakes.”The next night, the Pistons played the Atlanta Hawks much closer, but a series of mistakes down the stretch meant another loss, part of a 1-4 start to the season. Still, the kids are all right. Not good, mind you — not yet. But the Pistons are not expected to be terrible either, a shift from the last decade or so of Detroit basketball.The current roster — among the youngest in the N.B.A. — is filled with potential stars who are giving the fan base hope during a multiyear rebuild now purportedly entering its next phase. Leading the charge are Cade Cunningham, the first pick of the 2021 draft, and Jaden Ivey, the fifth pick of this year’s draft. If all goes well, Cunningham and Ivey could be the next great N.B.A. backcourt. However, that requires everything to go right — and most N.B.A. rebuilds do not.But first, don’t call it a rebuild. The Pistons brass has taken to calling the process a restoration.“Detroit’s been great,” Pistons General Manager Troy Weaver said. “My dad used to restore older cars, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”Weaver said there had been “two great iterations” of Pistons: Isiah Thomas’s Bad Boys in the late 1980s, who won two championships, and the early 2000s team with Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace, who won in 2004. Both versions were defined by a hard-nosed, not-always-pretty style of play.“We want to model that,” Weaver said. “A lot of people want to come in and reinvent the wheel. We want to stay true to what works in Detroit.”Detroit Pistons guard Chauncey Billups and teammates celebrated winning the 2004 N.B.A. championship.Paul Sancya/Associated PressAs that process continues, the team is also dealing with internal turmoil: Rob Murphy, the Pistons’ assistant general manager and the president and general manager of the franchise’s G League team, is on leave and under investigation for possible workplace misconduct, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak about the investigation. Murphy joined the franchise in March 2021, about a year after Weaver came to Detroit.When Weaver was named general manager in June 2020, he took over a franchise that had been to the playoffs only twice since 2009 and hadn’t won a playoff series since 2008. For more than a decade, the team had been directionless, led by ill-fitting sort-of stars like Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe. Weaver rapidly cleared out veterans with long-term contracts, such as the former All-Star forward Blake Griffin, and began to rebuild, er, restore. There are no players left from the team Weaver took over, a head-spinning roster turnover.“I didn’t expect it to be a whole new team,” Weaver said. “I thought it’d be a gradual process.”Cade Cunningham was the first pick of the 2021 draft.Rick Osentoski/Getty ImagesRebuilding in the N.B.A. usually comes in three phases. 1. Clear out dead-weight contracts. (Check!) 2. Accumulate high draft picks and use them on talented young players — which means losing a lot of games. (Check!) 3. Find success by trading developing players for stars (2008 Boston Celtics) or by watching those players become stars (the current Golden State dynasty).Point No. 3 is always the hardest, and many teams have failed. The Pistons have assembled a talented core, centered on Cunningham — fortuitous draft luck — and Ivey. Cunningham, a 21-year-old in his second year, has shown flashes of stardom. After a slow start during his rookie year, he averaged 21.1 points, 5.7 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game on 45.7 percent shooting over his final 20 games. He’s skilled at getting into the paint but has struggled with his jump shot. Cunningham seems to have embraced his role as franchise cornerstone, frequently being the first one off the bench to encourage teammates.“I feel like if I win games and I continue to help grow the organization, that will take us to another level and take my game and my social life in Detroit to another level,” Cunningham said.The 20-year-old Ivey has been an impactful player in the starting lineup already, averaging 16.0 points and 5.5 assists per game on 48 percent shooting in four games. He’s a creative finisher in the paint and is showing surprising 3-point shooting prowess (42.9 percent), despite not being a particularly strong shooter in his two seasons at Purdue University.Jaden Ivey has been an impactful player, averaging 16 points and 5.5 assists per game in four games.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressOther young players have shown potential, too. Forward Saddiq Bey, 23, dropped 51 points in a game last year. Center Jalen Duren, drafted eight picks after Ivey, has started his career on a strong note as well — averaging 8.2 points and 8.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game in only 21.4 minutes a game. He is the youngest active player in the N.B.A.Wins have, however, been hard to come by. Isaiah Stewart, a talented but raw 21-year-old center, is prone to lapses on defense. Against the Wizards on Tuesday, Stewart repeatedly left Kristaps Porzingis, a strong shooting big man, wide open from the perimeter, which Porzingis exploited. The next night, Atlanta’s Trae Young kept maneuvering into the paint for his patented floater, while Stewart repeatedly sagged off instead of aggressively contesting. Young finished with an easy-looking 35 points.Other young players are showing potential, too, including the 23-year-old forward Saddiq Bey.Doug Mcschooler/Associated PressLast season, Detroit finished with one of the worst records in the N.B.A. at 23-59. This year, if restoration continues according to plan, the Pistons should be significantly better.“We want to be competitive,” Weaver said. “Finally feel like we’re at ground zero. Now, we’re going to be competitive every night. We finally have enough depth to be able to do that.”But this is where rebuilding plans can go awry. Developing a young core requires patience, but the N.B.A. is a business: Detroit ranked near the bottom of the league in attendance last year, according to ESPN, and has already done a lot of losing this century.“The league is not going to wait for you just because you’re a young team,” said Cory Joseph, 31, one of the older players on the team.Coaches and general managers can feel pressure to win games — a natural byproduct of being in the world of competitive sports — but Weaver insisted that the organization was willing to be patient, regardless of the standings. There is a plan.“Every morning, you want to drink a cup of urgency, and at night you want to drink a cup of patience,” Weaver said, adding: “You’ve got to let it organically happen. And I think a lot of teams, they shortcut the process. They get impatient with process. We won’t do that.” More

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      in Tennis

      The Teenagers Are Taking Over Tennis. That Might Not End Well.

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      The U.S. Open play of Leylah Fernandez, Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu has been exhilarating. But if the past is prelude, rough seas are ahead.It has been quite a run for the teenagers at the U.S. Open, especially a bright-eyed and beguiling troika that has managed to turn the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into its personal playground.Like young stockbrokers who have yet to see a bear market, Emma Raducanu, Leylah Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz are experiencing the best of tennis life: match after match of effusive crowds that chant their names and ask for selfies, passing shots that nick the back of the line, and the freedom of swinging their rackets on a stage where they cannot lose, because no one was counting on them to win in the first place.And yet, they do not have to look far to see how quickly it can all go off the rails.“Buckle up, it’s a long ride,” Shelby Rogers, the veteran American and Raducanu’s latest casualty, said Sunday when asked what advice she could offer the trio of teenagers for when their U.S. Open runs end.Naomi Osaka had just emerged from her teens three years ago when she upset Serena Williams to win this tournament. Three years, three Grand Slam titles, nearly $20 million in prize money and tens of millions more in sponsorships later, Osaka’s tournament ended this time with a loss to Fernandez followed by a tearful announcement that she will take an indefinite leave from tennis. Iga Swiatek, the Polish star who won the 2020 French Open at 19 without losing a set, spent much of her upset loss Monday against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland screaming at her coach and the sports psychologist who travels with her.By now it is accepted wisdom that tennis has a tendency to eat its young like few other sports. Managing life as a young star on the tennis tour is a physical and mental test that trips up nearly every player at some point, especially those who break through early and then are suddenly expected to compete at the highest level nearly every time they take the court.Emma Raducanu siged autographs and took selfies after defeating Sara Sorribes Tormo over the weekend.Elsa/Getty ImagesA ranking and seeding system places a number next to their name, letting them and the world know in the starkest way who should win any given match. Guaranteed payments from sponsors can relieve the burden of playing for your next meal or plane ticket. However, those contracts are often laden with incentive bonuses for winning tournaments and climbing the rankings. There is an implicit understanding that the contract will, at best, be reduced and at worst not be renewed if players don’t maintain a certain level of proficiency.The attention, from millions of fans but also from family, cuts both ways, sports psychologists say, especially in a sport that has so many parent coaches. Fernandez’s mother has had a front-row seat for her daughter’s upsets of Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former world No. 1. She leaned over the rails and screamed when Fernandez prevailed on the biggest points. Success naturally brings that kind of enthusiasm but can also produce a fear that the love will vanish if the winning stops.Fernandez’s father, Jorge, doubles as her coach. He is at home in Florida with her younger sister, she said, but he calls every day with a game plan for the next match, “just telling me what to do in the day before, and then he trusts in me and in my game, that I’m going to execute it as much as I can.”They may not be exhibiting poise under pressure as much as they are playing without pressure, which allows them to swing freely without the fear of not living up to expectations.Carlos Alcaraz and Leylah Fernandez continued to impress with their play into the second week at the U.S. Open.Frank Franklin II/Associated PressJohn Minchillo/Associated Press“I think it’s just the young people” who can play this way, Kerber said Sunday after Fernandez bested her in three sets with blistering forehands and fearless serves at the corners of the service box. Kerber, 33, has won three Grand Slam titles and was ranked No. 1 as recently as 2017. For several years she has battled injuries, inconsistency and the idea that she should still be at the top of the sport.“Playing completely without pressure, in this position, it’s impossible, but I wish,” she said.Oddly, for much of the past decade, players, coaches and tennis officials generally accepted that the sport had moved beyond teenagers. Equipment that allowed for powerful shots from previously impossible angles extended points and matches, accentuating the importance of mature strength and conditioning to a degree that made it too hard for teenagers to compete at the top level of the game, especially on the men’s side.Then Coco Gauff, the rising American, started winning matches at Wimbledon in 2019, when she was just 15. Now a collection of her physically advanced peers are making their mark.Raducanu beat Rogers in her debut in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday. On Tuesday, Fernandez plays Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the quarterfinals, while Alcaraz takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada.Raducanu, who is in her first summer of playing top level competitions, impressed once again Monday. She dropped the first two games, then reeled off 11 of the next 12 games and won 6-2, 6-1, showing off her exquisite combination of graceful athleticism and smooth, lacing groundstrokes. She has lost a combined total of just four games in her last two matches. When Rogers’ last ball settled into the net, Raducanu dropped her racket, fell to her knees and covered her eyes in disbelief.Young fans waited for Fernandez after her match on Sunday.Elsa/Getty ImagesMartin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the United States Tennis Association, said in recent years the better, and more physically developed, older teenagers had begun to shun junior tournaments, instead cutting their teeth in low-level professional events, while still finding a balance between competition, training and rest.“So they come in under the radar and then they emerge on the big stage,” he said.There is nothing that can come close to guaranteeing that they will not succumb to the challenges of the game — being on the road for months on end, living up to rising expectations, and dealing with the inevitable losses and physical ailments.“It is a perilous prospect,” said David Law, a tennis commentator for the BBC who previously worked for ATP, said Sunday as he settled in for Raducanu’s match. “It can go wrong. We’ve seen it go wrong.”Law does not have to look far to be reminded of that. One of his BBC colleagues is Laura Robson, who at 18 made the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 2012 with wins over Kim Clijsters, one of the top players in the world, and Li Na, the Chinese star. She appeared on her way to greatness. Two years later she was battling a wrist injury from which she would never fully recover.Raducanu during her upset win on Monday.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFrances Tiafoe, the 23-year-old American, spoke Sunday night after his fourth-round loss to Auger-Aliassime about his efforts to work his way back from the hype surrounding his quick rise into the top 50 in 2018, when he was seen as the savior of American men’s tennis.“I thought I was just going to just keep going,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that. Same work you did to get up there, the same work you need to keep going, keep working harder.”Despite the cautionary tales, it is nearly impossible not to be swept up in the excitement of watching new talent burst onto the scene at one of the biggest showcases in sports. It is a breathless experience that tennis has long thrived on.Alcaraz, a Spaniard already burdened with the nickname “the Next Rafa,” a reference to his countryman, the 20-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal, said he knows that he has become a subject of fascination back home over the past few days.“I’m trying not to think about this,” he said Sunday after beating Peter Gojowczyk of Germany in the fourth round, his second consecutive five-set win. “Just focus on New York, on every day here.”That is a good start, said Mary Carillo, the tennis commentator and former Grand Slam doubles champion. Carillo has seen tennis crack so many rising stars, from Andrea Jaeger, who tanked matches, to Mardy Fish, who battled anxiety and mental illness at the peak of his career. Her heart sinks every time she sees players checking their phones for what is being said about them on social media as soon as they walk off the court.Survival, she said, comes down to the stuff we learn in kindergarten: Get enough sleep; don’t talk to strangers; don’t listen to what they say about you; stay away from bad people.“You really better make sure you have the right people on your ball club,” Carillo said. “People who understand your values, your ambitions, how much you can take and most importantly when you need some time to step away.” More