Oklahoma City Thunder

In a postseason filled with emotion, grit, and resolve, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has stood at the center of it all &ndash; he&rsquo;s calm, composed, and unrelenting. Now, two games into his first NBA Finals appearance, the Oklahoma City Thunder&rsquo;s All-NBA superstar is putting the finishing touches on a masterpiece of a season, one that could go down as one of the greatest individual campaigns in league history.
With 34 points in Game 2 of the 2025 NBA Finals, following up a 38-point performance in the series opener, Gilgeous-Alexander has the Thunder in a great position to win a title, and he has cemented his place in rarified air. His 72 combined points are the most ever in a player&rsquo;s first two NBA Finals games, eclipsing a mark previously associated with some of the game&rsquo;s all-time greats.
And he&rsquo;s not done just yet.
<h3>Elite company, historic pace</h3>
In the postseason, every possession carries weight, and every moment is magnified. But for Gilgeous-Alexander, these moments don&rsquo;t appear to faze him. He&rsquo;s not just rising to the occasion &ndash; he&rsquo;s controlling it.
Game 2's 34-point outing marked his ninth consecutive home playoff game with 30 points or more, joining only Wilt Chamberlain in NBA history to accomplish that feat. In doing so, he also notched his 11th playoff game with at least 30 points and five assists, a stat line that only LeBron James and Michael Jordan have reached in multiple postseason runs.
LeBron did it in three separate years. MJ did it in two. Shai&rsquo;s doing it this year.
His consistent brilliance has propelled him to the top of the 2025 playoff scoring leaderboard. With 516 total points, he recently passed Jalen Brunson (514) for the most points scored in this year&rsquo;s postseason. He&rsquo;s doing it efficiently, artistically &ndash; and with the kind of poise that makes it clear: this is his moment.
<h3>The MVP is carrying like an MVP</h3>
The Thunder have been one of the NBA&rsquo;s most compelling stories all year &ndash; a young, unselfish team loaded with talent, built through the draft, and molded into a contender. But in the crucible of the playoffs, every great team needs that singular force &ndash; that player who can tilt the court, break a defense, and change the game&rsquo;s emotional temperature.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is that force for Oklahoma City.
After leading the league in scoring during the regular season and earning All-NBA First Team honors, he was named the 2025 NBA MVP &mdash; a recognition of his two-way dominance and night-to-night consistency. And now, as the lights burn brighter, he&rsquo;s gone from award-winner to tone-setter.
He&rsquo;s playing with a purpose that goes beyond personal accolades. He&rsquo;s the heartbeat of a team chasing history, and he&rsquo;s doing it in the most demanding stage of all.
What&rsquo;s perhaps most impressive is how SGA has handled each phase of the journey with equal parts humility and hunger. His playoff run has been defined not just by numbers, but by moments &ndash; dagger shots, crafty finishes, fourth-quarter takeovers, and calm in chaos. He hasn't just been great &ndash; he's been inevitable.
<h3>A season for the ages</h3>
Gilgeous-Alexander&rsquo;s latest performance gave him over 3,000 total points on the season &ndash; combining regular-season and playoff scoring &ndash; another milestone in a campaign already overflowing with them.
To put this into perspective: he could complete the kind of six-for-six checklist that only a handful of players in NBA history have even dreamed of &ndash; league scoring champion, regular-season MVP, All-NBA First Team, Western Conference Finals MVP, NBA champion, and Finals MVP &ndash; all in a single season.
Each of those achievements alone is significant. Together, they form a portrait of a transcendent season &ndash; the kind of year that defines legacies and reshapes the league&rsquo;s power structure.
The Thunder&rsquo;s rise from rebuilding team to Finals frontrunner has been sudden to some, but internally, it&rsquo;s been calculated and patient. Still, without Gilgeous-Alexander, their timeline likely looks different. He&rsquo;s the player who made their future arrive early &ndash; and now, he might be the one who delivers their first title since the franchise moved to Oklahoma City.
<h3>Beyond the numbers</h3>
What sets Gilgeous-Alexander apart, especially in this Finals run, is not just what he&rsquo;s doing &ndash; it&rsquo;s how he&rsquo;s doing it.
His game is quiet but surgical. He doesn&rsquo;t overpower defenders with brute strength or dazzle with deep threes. Instead, he picks his spots, manipulates angles, and imposes his rhythm. There&rsquo;s a jazz-like quality to his game &ndash; unpredictable, fluid, yet meticulously controlled.
In clutch time, he&rsquo;s been near automatic. Whether it&rsquo;s using his footwork to dance into mid-range jumpers or drawing contact for crucial free throws, SGA has been the ultimate closer for a Thunder team that continues to rise to every challenge.
It&rsquo;s that unselfishness, combined with his relentless work ethic and stoic demeanor, that has endeared him to teammates and fans alike. There&rsquo;s an old soul quality to SGA&rsquo;s approach &ndash; a maturity that belies his age and a leadership style rooted in accountability, not noise.
<h3>The final step</h3>
Now just three wins away from basketball immortality, Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder find themselves on the brink of a championship. But the job&rsquo;s not finished.
The NBA Finals will shift to the opposing city for Games 3 and 4, where the pressure will mount, the crowd will roar louder, and the resistance will tighten. The margins will be razor-thin. But if this postseason has shown anything, it&rsquo;s that Gilgeous-Alexander has the heart, the game, and the will to push through.
This run has already carved his name into the record books. What comes next could define the start of SGA and the Thunder&rsquo;s era.
And for a Thunder team guided by youth and galvanized by Shai&rsquo;s leadership, the future isn&rsquo;t just bright &mdash; it&rsquo;s arriving right now.

SGA is delivering one of the greatest playoff runs in NBA history, leading the Thunder while making MVP-level history along the way.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander delivers MVP-level heroics in first NBA Finals trip

Just over a month ago, Team USA claimed its fifth straight Olympic gold medal after beating hosts France at the Paris 2024 Olympics.&nbsp;
The team was led by brilliant and ageless superstars LeBron James and Stephen Curry, who teamed up for the first time in Team USA after countless battles in the NBA.
It was LeBron&rsquo;s 4th medal in the Olympics, having won bronze in Athens 2004 and gold twice in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, and yet just added another piece to his already GOAT-esque list of accolades as he approaches his 40-year-old season (22nd season) in the NBA. It was perhaps even sweeter for Steph, as the gold medal completed his own trophy cabinet after having achieved everything in the NBA.
What does this gold medal mean for both James and Curry at this point in their careers? Former Golden State Warrior and Los Angeles Laker Juan Toscano-Anderson believes it has cemented their place as one of the best, if not the best players ever to do it.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I think it further concretes their legacy. Obviously, they&rsquo;ve already done what they&rsquo;ve done and they&rsquo;ve been in conversations for the best player ever/ top five/ best point guard ever. I think as they continue to add accolades to their shelves, it continues to concrete the idea of them being in the GOAT status,&rdquo; Toscano-Anderson said in a one-on-one interview with BasketballNews.com.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I personally think LeBron is, you know, if not the best player to ever play one of the best players; and I think Steph is the best point guard to ever play.&rdquo;
Toscano-Anderson had the rare chance of being teammates with both superstars following his stints with both the Warriors and the Lakers, and he detailed how James and Curry are different and similar in their ways of leading their squads.
&ldquo;They&rsquo;re very similar in a lot of ways,&rdquo; Toscano-Anderson mentioned. &ldquo;Greatness doesn&rsquo;t happen by accident, I mean they lead by example. They [LeBron and Steph] spend all day at the facility taking care of their bodies and working on their game. Just the way they approach being a professional is very relative and similar.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Obviously they&rsquo;re different &ndash; they have different personalities, different guys,&rdquo; Toscano-Anderson added. &ldquo;LeBron is probably a little more like goofy and funny, and Steph is very likable and friendly as well. But I think LeBron is more kid-like &ndash; he has that side of him that a lot of people don&rsquo;t see because they only see him in the limelight from a professional standpoint where he has to carry himself in a certain way. So, they&rsquo;re both very great guys. I really enjoyed playing with both of them, and I will consider both of them friends and I still have a relationship with them both.&rdquo;
Although not with an NBA team as of the moment, Toscano-Anderson is still around the NBA circuit as he&rsquo;s about to play for the NBA&rsquo;s G League United team which will be competing this weekend at the FIBA Intercontinental Cup in Singapore. The 6&rsquo;7 forward has been a part of this newly formed team to go up against the champions of each continent and he has been enjoying the experience thus far.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot of fun,&rdquo; Toscano-Anderson said. &ldquo;We got a lot of talent &ndash; different dynamic for me as I&rsquo;m the oldest on the team (it&rsquo;s my first time being the oldest on the team). A lot of fun to see the young talent and play with some guys that I&rsquo;ve never had the opportunity to play with. Then playing with a guy that I&rsquo;ve known since college (Deonte Burton), he was my roommate in college and this has brought us again &ndash; so just a good overall experience.&rdquo;
When asked about his future basketball plans, Toscano-Anderson is hopeful to play in the NBA again.
&ldquo;If somebody offers me, playing in the NBA is always my first preference. But obviously, that&rsquo;s not completely up to me so I&rsquo;ll revisit that after the tournament.&rdquo;
Check out the full interview here:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
We caught up with former Warrior and Laker Juan Toscano-Anderson (<a href="https://twitter.com/juanonjuan10?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@juanonjuan10</a>) as his <a href="https://twitter.com/nbagleague?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nbagleague</a> United team is set to compete at the 2024 <a href="https://twitter.com/FIBAIC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FIBAIC</a> in Singapore this week ✊🏽 On playing with the NBA G League United ⬇️ <a href="https://t.co/Ng4KinU216">pic.twitter.com/Ng4KinU216</a>
&mdash; BasketballNews.com (@basketbllnews) <a href="https://twitter.com/basketbllnews/status/1834105826287779919?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2024</a>
<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</blockquote>

Former Golden State Warrior and Los Angeles Laker Juan Toscano-Anderson shares his view on LeBron and Steph as all-time greats. it has cemented their place as one of the best, if not the best players ever to do it.

Former Warrior and Laker says LeBron ‘the best ever’; Steph ‘the best PG ever’

Every year, there&rsquo;s a huge debate surrounding the NBA&rsquo;s Most Valuable Player race. There&rsquo;s no clear-cut criteria for MVP, which begs the question:&nbsp;
How do you define Most Valuable Player?
We asked our BasketballNews.com staff to share their thoughts.
Ethan Fuller: The MVP award should recognize the best regular-season performance. That means the best statistical season, with some extra weight put on winning -- not necessarily the best player on the best team. The MVP award doesn't have to go to the best player in basketball. If that were the case, LeBron James would have swept the decade -- and that's not really an award to savor. If a player is putting up monster numbers on a playoff team that clearly needs them, they're an MVP candidate.
Nekias Duncan: For me, MVP is the most impactful player on the floor for a great team. There is a statistical baseline that should also be reached &mdash; this is what knocks a guy like, say, Rudy Gobert down a peg or two for me &mdash; but it&rsquo;s a blend of impact, traditional stats, and wins.
Moke Hamilton: Ahhh, the age-old debate about the MVP award. I think, over the years, it&rsquo;s changed. When Steve Nash won his two MVP awards, that&rsquo;s around the time that we began hearing people use &ldquo;team success&rdquo; as the major barometer for value. Personally, I&rsquo;d define the MVP as a two-way matrix that measures an individual&rsquo;s productivity with the success of their team. In other words, the more incredible the player&rsquo;s statistical production is, the less I&rsquo;d be concerned about their team's success. I&rsquo;d have no problem voting for Bradley Beal if he averaged 42 points per game, so long as the Wizards made the playoffs. On the other hand, I&rsquo;d be hard-pressed to not vote for Chris Paul if he led the Suns to, say, 68 wins and the West&rsquo;s top record -- even if his statistical contributions weren&rsquo;t &ldquo;incredible.&rdquo; (For what it&rsquo;s worth, if I had a vote this year, my top three would be Nikola Jokic, Chris Paul and Joel Embiid, and I think I&rsquo;d be inclined to give it to Paul, though I wouldn&rsquo;t make my final decision until the regular season ends). Again, for me, it&rsquo;s an equation that takes both the team&rsquo;s success and the player&rsquo;s statistical contributions into account.
Alex Kennedy: The NBA will never provide a clear definition for MVP because they love the fact that we spend so much time debating who deserves the award every year. Since everyone is grading from their own rubric, there are typically a handful of candidates that have a compelling case for the award each season. For me, I define MVP as a combination of individual production, team success, and availability.&nbsp;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Chris Sheridan: I have always made "value" the operative word when voting for NBA postseason awards. "Value" is quantified in different ways in different years, but the default is something along the lines of: The player whose team was much, much better than everyone expected, and he was the main reason why.
Spencer Davies: Defining MVP should be simple: what does the team look like when that player is not on the floor? Forget the statistics and the record; if you&rsquo;re an MVP talent, those two things should come along with it. The key word here is &ldquo;valuable,&rdquo; meaning the player that has the most value to his particular team. Think of it like this -- if you took away that individual&rsquo;s contributions and production, would the squad be in the same position? Another note I&rsquo;d like to make on the MVP debates: it should not matter who the player&rsquo;s teammates are, whether they are stars or not. It is wrong to disqualify a player who&rsquo;s on a super-team if they&rsquo;re performing at the highest level. (No, I&rsquo;m not suggesting James Harden should win the award. But should he be considered? Sure.)
Jonathan Concool: In today&rsquo;s NBA, I think numbers play a big role in determining the league&rsquo;s MVP. If you look at recent MVPs, each had absurd per-game averages, so I think statistics have a lot of say in today&rsquo;s MVP races. The Thunder were the West's sixth seed in 2016-17, but Russell Westbrook still won MVP because of his stats (31.6 PPG, 10.7 RPG, 10.4 APG). I think MVP used to be awarded to the most impactful player in the league, like when Steve Nash beat out Kobe Bryant for the 2006 MVP award. Bryant clearly had better numbers, but it was hard to overlook Nash&rsquo;s impact that year. To me, the team&rsquo;s record, the number of games played, and the individual performance all factor into the MVP decision.
Mark Gunnels: For me, a MVP is someone who elevates his team past expectations. For example, a guy like Chris Paul should get more MVP consideration because the Suns are top-two in the West when most people had them barely making the playoffs before the season
This article was originally published on April 24, 2021. Check out our other roundtables including:
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/which-active-nba-player-head-coach-someday-retire-roundtable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Which active NBA player would make a great coach someday?</a>
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-biggest-draft-steal-of-last-10-years-roundtable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who's the biggest draft steal of the last 10 years?</a>

Every year, there’s a debate surrounding the NBA’s MVP race. Since there’s no clear-cut criteria, how do you define Most Valuable Player?

NBA Roundtable: How do you define Most Valuable Player?

SlamBall co-founder Mason Gordon spoke to Alex Kennedy about the sport's return, the new season on ESPN and much more.

The return of SlamBall: Co-founder Mason Gordon discusses new season

Mal Mundy's Hoop Fest Tour hosts some of the premier showcase and identification events throughout the year. Most are open to all, but 42 of Louisiana's best hoopers met up on the last Sunday before school starts for a Statement Session. Chris Dodson caught up with the man on a mission in between games.
Mal Mundy's Hoop Fest Tour attracts scouting services, media outlets, coaches and the best talent in the Gulf South region. The young prospects get to compete against the best competition and get direct feedback from college coaches. The growth of Hoop Fest has been so impressive, I had to try and get a few moments with the man who has made it all run smoothly from the start.
The impressive growth of these events is largely because Mundy stands on the brand printed on the front of the jerseys, but also because he's devoted to helping these athletes get their name on the back of a college uniform. The reasoning for committing time at the end of the summer was straightforward: &ldquo;To bring exposure to Louisiana and help players get recruited,&rdquo; Mundy explained.
Mission accomplished.
The Statement Session was barely wrapping up and the offers were starting to roll in. Over 30 college coaches made the trip down to South Side High's Youngsville, LA, gym to check out over 40 of the state's best prospects. It was a tough grind getting to this point, but the hard work is paying off.
"It has gotten better each year," Mundy said. "We try to bring something different each year to make the event better. In the first year of the session, only 30 players were invited. We&rsquo;ve expanded to 42 players.&rdquo;
The expanded rosters help local colleges working on smaller budgets. Xavier&rsquo;s AJ Williams admitted that this event is huge for a small school with an NAIA budget.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s big for recruiting for us here at Xavier, because we get a chance to see the player up close and build some true relationships with these players," Coach Williams said. &ldquo;This event that Mal has been putting on for the state, which includes college coaches, is such a blessings to give the kids an opportunity to see what it&rsquo;s like to compete at a high level and being able to get coached by college coaches.
"Being able to evaluate your game against the top kids in the state is huge. [It] helps you know what you need to add to your game or how you measure up against the top guys at your position. If you&rsquo;re the best, come play against the best in the state.&rdquo;
Coach&nbsp;Micah Hagans (Bonnabel) complimented Mundy's efforts too.
&ldquo;The opportunity to play not only in front of college coaches but to actually be coached by college coaches is a one-of-a-kind experience," Coach Hagans said. "Every year, I see kids attend this event and walk away with offers from the coach they just played for. It also puts them in an environment with other top kids. Everyone in the event is a top kid. You have to bring it, just to have a chance to be noticed. From my standpoint, [it's great] being able to network with college coaches and build relationships that will last throughout my career. It also gives us as coaches a chance to see our kid in a super competitive environment.&rdquo;
Mundy is more than just a Louisiana talent magnet. Now, four years into this venture, he is starting to move into local legend status. People know that the Hoop Fest Tour is worth the trip, whether you're a fan, scout, coach or player. The event's atmosphere keeps us all young and the exposure is invaluable. Players don't have to pay to play, but it was invite-only. Quality is key to the operation, and the student-athletes notice.
Jaylen Peters, the most impressive prospect in the gym for long stretches according to <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/statements-made-la-hoops-fest-scouting-reports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our scouting report</a>, was impressed.
&ldquo;It's great to have all this talent from Louisiana and you see where you stack up against everybody.&rdquo; Peters said, before adding his thoughts on how Louisiana prospects are perceived. &ldquo;I think a lot of people think all we do is play hard. A lot of dudes out here are actually skilled. Just as much hoops IQ as everywhere else.&rdquo;
Clayton Blackledge, who had to log heavy minutes as the only true big man, was more than appreciative of the opportunity, especially since he's still looking for a college home.
&ldquo;I didn't get as many today, but I want to work on my mid-range,&rdquo; Blackledge said, who was perhaps a bit too tough on himself considering the just-met-my-teammates showcase situation. &ldquo;Missed a few on defense&rdquo; and &ldquo;cardio got me&rdquo; were the two biggest personal knocks, but Blackledge did &ldquo;hit a couple nice ones though&rdquo; that got some attention.
And that's all Mundy wants: attention on the young local talent. Not one to dwell on too much admiration, Mundy was humble when asked what might go underappreciated with his efforts: &ldquo;When you have this amount of talent and Louisiana top players all under one roof, it is easy to attract college coaches to watch.&rdquo;
Be sure to check out <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/statements-made-la-hoops-fest-scouting-reports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chris Dodson's scouting report</a> from the Hoop Fest Tour.

Mal Mundy's Hoop Fest Tour hosts showcase and identification events throughout the year. Chris Dodson caught up with Mundy.

Statements Made: A Louisiana Hoopin' Sunday With Mal Mundy

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) &mdash; There was plenty of debate in the weeks leading up&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-draft-2023-wembanyama-updates-00f52206057df4b872898010243d3bd8">to the NBA draft</a>&nbsp;over whether the Charlotte Hornets preferred Alabama&rsquo;s Brandon Miller or the G League Ignite&rsquo;s Scoot Henderson with the No 2 pick.
In general manager Mitch Kupchak&rsquo;s mind there was never a debate.
&ldquo;Brandon was our favorite all along,&rdquo; Kupchak said. &ldquo;There was a lot of spirited discussion in the last three days, which I welcome. ... But I think he&rsquo;s the player that is the best player.&rdquo;
Miller gives the Hornets&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F7obl-vfp4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an athletic 6-foot-9 wing</a>&nbsp;with a smooth shooting stroke who can knock down shots from the perimeter. He averaged 18.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game last season for the Crimson Tide, who entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed before making an early exit.
But the Southeastern Conference&rsquo;s player of the year as a freshman comes with some baggage.
Miller is tied to a case that led to former Tide player Darius Miles and another man&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-darius-miles-fatal-shooting-indictment-jamea-harris-887b6419c4b576da778b710a58b8acf7">being indicted</a>&nbsp;on capital murder charges.&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/Nate-Oats-Brandon-Miller-Alabama-Basketball-4efc92362b106b01ab0d0a2ee9a4ea6c">A police investigator testified in February</a>&nbsp;that Miles texted Miller to bring him his gun that night. Miller hasn&rsquo;t been charged with wrongdoing, though&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-darius-miles-murder-charge-533386c46d0822a56878b3d3d07717c9">the ongoing case</a>&nbsp;brought&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/sports-alabama-crimson-tide-top-25-college-basketball-today-darius-miles-a32a922ed4e9a483dde15bd24445ce83">intense scrutiny</a>&nbsp;during the second half of the season for&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/brandon-miller-alabama-ncaa-tournament-security-guard-7104ab515dfaf81ae09abf94f0bd3165">Miller and the Alabama program</a>.
Kupchak said the Hornets conducted an extensive background check on Miller, including a trip to Alabama about two weeks ago.
&ldquo;We are comfortable with Brandon on and off the court,&rdquo; Kupchak said.
Miller has said he can&rsquo;t discuss the case.
On much a lighter note, Miller made news last week when he said he considered Paul George his personal GOAT, or the greatest of all-time.
He didn&rsquo;t back off that Thursday night even after being drafted by&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/charlotte-hornets-sale-michael-jordan-527087d134136ef38cae1da8d1c95b01">outgoing Hornets majority owner and six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan</a>, considered by many the best player ever.
&ldquo;I think I made it clear that Paul George is still my GOAT, but Mike is definitely up there when in his prime,&rdquo; Miller said with a laugh. &ldquo;Mike does everything. We wear his shoes and he jumps from the free throw line. But Paul George is my GOAT.&rdquo;
Miller appears to be a better positional fit for the Hornets than Henderson, who would have joined a crowded backcourt that includes LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier, last year&rsquo;s leading scorer.
As a wing, Miller has a good chance to see significant playing time.
Gordon Hayward, who has struggled with injury issues, is in the final year of his contract and it&rsquo;s unclear if the team will try to re-sign restricted free agent Miles Bridges, who missed all last season while dealing with a domestic violence case. Bridges will&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/miles-bridges-suspension-charlotte-hornets-ca37e404209b6298ced4c1a46d5d59d6">serve a 10-game suspension to start the season</a>&nbsp;after&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/charlotte-hornets-nba-sports-los-angeles-miles-bridges-cfb86b443b52ad43038886363feeedc4">pleading no contest last November</a>&nbsp;and being sentenced to serve three years of probation.
Miller feels he should benefit from playing with Ball, who is an above-average ball distributor.
&ldquo;Melo is my guy,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;I think with Melo, as good of a point guard as he is, I just kind of fill in the place (on the court). And I know he is going to be the big brother for me away from home.&rdquo;
The 20-year-old Miller is also considered a much better shooter than Henderson, addressing an area of concern for Charlotte.
The Hornets finished 29th in the league last season on 3-pointers at 33%. Miller shot 38.4% from beyond the arc at Alabama. Henderson shot just 27.5% from deep last season for the Ignite, although the 3-point line is deeper in the G League.
At the Spectrum Center in downtown Charlotte, the Hornets&rsquo; decision to take Miller over Henderson was greeted with a mixed reaction by about 5,000 fans gathered for a draft party.
Before the pick, fans cheered loudly when Henderson was shown on the big screen.
Miller joins a Hornets team that hasn&rsquo;t reached the postseason in an NBA-worst seven straight seasons and finished with the fourth-worst record in the league last season at 27-55. Charlotte managed to move up two spots in the lottery, barely missing out on the No. 1 pick and Victor Wembanyama.
Kupchak said a handful of teams showed significant interest in trading up to the No. 2 spot, but added &ldquo;we never got to the point where we seriously considered moving the pick.&rdquo;
The Hornets selected 19-year-old guard Nick Smith Jr. from Arkansas with the 27th overall pick. Smith had been projected as a potential top-five pick before a knee injury caused him to miss 19 games last season.
Charlotte also added James Nnaji, a 6-foot-11 center from FC Barcelona, and UCLA guard Amari Bailey in the second round.

The Charlotte Hornets preferred Alabama’s Brandon Miller over the G League Ignite’s Scoot Henderson with the No 2 pick.

Hornets select Brandon Miller with the No. 2 pick in NBA Draft

Memphis guard Ja Morant has been suspended 25 games by the NBA &mdash; his second ban in four months &mdash; and Commissioner Adam Silver made clear Friday the star must stop his &ldquo;alarming&rdquo; habit of flashing guns on social media.
The&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-longest-suspensions-league-history-3531e8f0d418a87403a0dea23c81e73a">suspension for the upcoming season</a>&nbsp;comes a month after a second video of Morant&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/ja-morant-nba-investigation-gun-7fe15dae343f85d0366a4c959d5313b3">flashing a handgun</a>&nbsp;was streamed online. The video of Morant showing a gun while sitting in the passenger seat of a car was posted after his&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/ja-morant-suspended-nba-gun-video-8cc82061f6465f96d6c5d0806d92d7d0">eight-game suspension</a>&nbsp;in March for a video in which he flashed a handgun in a Denver-area strip club.
Morant is due to make around $33.5 million this season. He now stands to lose just over $300,000 per game &mdash; or approximately $7.5 million. He also will have to adhere to certain conditions before being reinstated, the NBA said.
Silver made clear the&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-suspension-ja-morant-grizzlies-timeline-2ae7769a4a9b45efc97d6746ca55c049">two-time All-Star&rsquo;s</a>&nbsp;decision-making is &ldquo;disconcerting.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The potential for other young people to emulate Ja&rsquo;s conduct is particularly concerning,&rdquo; Silver said. &ldquo;Under these circumstances, we believe a suspension of 25 games is appropriate and makes clear that engaging in reckless and irresponsible behavior with guns will not be tolerated.&rdquo;
The league said Morant &ldquo;will be ineligible to participate in any public league or team activities, including preseason games&rdquo; during his suspension.
The Grizzlies suspended Morant indefinitely from team activities after the second video surfaced, and they said Friday they respect the punishment for this &ldquo;latest episode.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Our standards as a league and team are clear, and we expect that all team personnel will adhere to them,&rdquo; the Grizzlies said.
Morant apologized again Friday to the league, the Grizzlies, his teammates and the city of Memphis in a statement issued through his representatives. He specifically told Silver, Grizzlies owner Robert Pera and Memphis general manager Zach Kleiman he is sorry.
The guard with his own signature Nike shoe also apologized to children who look up to him for failing them as a role model. Morant made clear he&rsquo;s had time to reflect and understands the hurt he might have caused.
&ldquo;I promise I&rsquo;m going to be better. To all of my sponsors, I&rsquo;m going to be a better representation of our brands. And to all of my fans, I&rsquo;m going to make it up to you, I promise,&rdquo; Morant said.
Morant said he&rsquo;ll keep working on both his mental health and decision-making.
On May 24, police&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/morant-memphis-grizzlies-instagram-gun-welfare-check-a03aea74ced1bdcd6bd4c55500ca1ea6">conducted a welfare check</a>&nbsp;on Morant and said he was &ldquo;fine&rdquo; after cryptic messages appeared on the guard&rsquo;s Instagram account only to be deleted. A police spokesman said Morant told officers he was &ldquo;taking a break from social media.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll give me the chance to prove to you over time I&rsquo;m a better man than what I&rsquo;ve been showing you,&rdquo; Morant said Friday.
NBPA executive director Tamika Tremaglio said the players association thinks the NBA went too far punishing Morant, calling it &ldquo;excessive and inappropriate&rdquo; and inconsistent with the league&rsquo;s past discipline.
&ldquo;We will explore with Ja all options and next steps,&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://nbpa.com/news/nbpa-executive-director-tamika-tremaglios-statement-on-the-suspension-of-ja-morant" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tremaglio said in a statement.</a>
Nike also is sticking with Morant, whose Ja 1 shoe line debuted earlier this year.
&ldquo;We are pleased that Ja is taking accountability and prioritizing his well-being,&rdquo; Nike said.
Silver&rsquo;s stance is clear: Morant&rsquo;s actions, even without being charged with a crime, have severe consequences, particularly with gun violence a massive problem and the guard one of the league&rsquo;s most popular players.
&ldquo;Waving them around ... is not consistent with gun safety and is not the proper message that an NBA player, particularly one at Ja&rsquo;s level, should be sending to the tens of millions of followers he has &mdash; and particularly when it&rsquo;s an incident once again, where it&rsquo;s been streamed live on social media,&rdquo; Silver said earlier this month at the NBA Finals.
The suspension almost certainly means that Morant will not be eligible for any end-of-season awards in 2024, such as MVP and All-NBA. Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that goes into effect July 1, a player must appear in 65 games (with limited exceptions) to be eligible.
It&rsquo;s also reasonable to think Morant will miss the league&rsquo;s inaugural in-season tournament expected to start this fall and end sometime in December. The league has yet to announce if the tournament is definitely happening, nor has it released the schedule.
Silver said basketball needs to take a back seat for Morant before he can return to the NBA. Morant will have to finish a program with the league addressing the issues Silver said &ldquo;led him to repeat this destructive behavior.&rdquo;
Morant&rsquo;s eight-game suspension cost him about $669,000 in forfeited salary after the first video surfaced on March 4 on his own Instagram account.
The second video captured May 13 was widely shared online after being streamed by a Morant associate. That was the same friend&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/memphis-grizzlies-indiana-pacers-nba-sports-temetrius-morant-691ebf33edbf85aef5db428406c8976e">Morant said in February had been banned</a>&nbsp;from the Grizzlies&rsquo; home arena for a year over a confrontation with members of the Indiana Pacers organization a week earlier.

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant has been suspended 25 games by the NBA — his second ban in four month.

NBA suspends Ja Morant 25 games for 2nd video involving a gun

Rick Adelman, a Hall-of-Fame coach and one of only 10 coaches in NBA history to have won more than 1,000 games, is the recipient of the 2023 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Basketball Coaches Association announced today.
&ldquo;Rick Adelman&rsquo;s NBA coaching career has been highlighted by innovation, integrity, and excellence,&rdquo; said Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle, who is also the NBCA president. &ldquo;His teams always played to their strengths, and Rick always found subtle ways to reinvent NBA basketball to help his players thrive. His quiet, unassuming nature belies his impact as one of the great NBA coaches of all time.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I am honored to receive the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award,&rdquo; Adelman said. &ldquo;To be included with the past winners is special. Chuck was a great coach and respected by all those who coached against his teams. To receive an award like this I have to thank all those who helped me along the way, in particular my assistant coaches and front offices. I would also like to thank the players I had through the years. Their effort and cooperation made everything I did possible. Good players make coaching much easier.
&ldquo;This event makes me think of Michael Goldberg, who was a big help to all coaches and especially to me. He was a good friend who I miss. Thanks to the National Basketball Coaches Association, Coach Rick Carlisle and David Fogel. I also want to thank the Selection Committee for presenting me with this honor. I am grateful to all of those who made this possible, especially my wife Mary Kay and my family. Thank you.&rdquo;
Adelman coached in the NBA for 29 years, including 23 as a head coach for five different teams (the Portland Trail Blazers, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves), amassing a 1,042-749 (.582) career record. He led his teams &ndash; known for their free-flowing, read-and-react motion offenses &ndash; to the playoffs 16 times, to the Conference Finals four times and to the NBA Finals twice.
He played collegiately at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and, as a senior in 1967-68, was voted West Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Year. Drafted by the San Diego Rockets in 1968, Adelman played seven seasons in the NBA.
Adelman began his coaching career at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, in 1977 where he led his teams to a 141-39 record and three conference championships in six years. It was while at Chemeketa in 1983 that he was hired by the legendary coach Jack Ramsay as an assistant coach for the Blazers, a position he held until he was named head coach midway through the 1988-89 season.
In his first full season as an NBA head coach in 1989-90, Adelman led the Blazers to a 59-23 record, the Western Conference championship and a trip to the NBA Finals. Two years later, the Blazers were once again Western Conference champions and back in the NBA Finals. Under Adelman, Portland had four straight seasons of 50-plus wins, a record of 291-154 (.684) and were in the playoffs all six seasons.&nbsp;
Adelman coached the Warriors for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons before assuming the reins in Sacramento in 1998. In eight seasons as head coach of the Kings, Adelman had a 395-229 (.683) record, winning 50 games or more in five consecutive seasons and taking the team to the playoffs each year.
In 2007, Adelman was named the Rockets' head coach, leading Houston to back-to-back 50-plus win seasons in his first two years and a winning record in all four seasons. Adelman closed out his coaching career with the Minnesota Timberwolves, where his teams improved from 17 to 26 to 31 to 40 wins in his three seasons at the helm.
In 2014, upon his retirement, Adelman ranked ninth all-time in both games coached (1,791) and games won (1,042). Today, he ranks 10th in games won and 13th on the all-time playoff wins list with 79. His teams had a total of 11 50-win seasons and two 60-plus win seasons. Adelman finished runner-up in Coach of the Year voting four times with three different teams (1990-91 with Portland, 2000-01 and 2001-02 with Sacramento and 2008-09 with Houston) and was a three-time All-Star Game coach.
Adelman was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2021. He was inducted into the Loyola Marymount Hall of Fame in 1986 and was named Oregon Sports Person of the Year in both 1990 and 1992. In 2015, the West Coast Conference (formerly the WCAC) inducted him into its Hall of Honor.
&ldquo;Rick Adelman is widely respected for his teaching, his tough-to-defend motion offenses, and his ability to get players to buy into his philosophy,&rdquo; said David Fogel, the National Basketball Coaches Association's executive director and general counsel. &ldquo;His commitment to the game and his players is reflected in his career accomplishments and makes him a most worthy recipient of this award. Congratulations to Coach Adelman on this prestigious recognition.&rdquo;
The National Basketball Coaches Association&rsquo;s Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award honors the memory of Hall-of-Fame coach Chuck Daly, who set a standard for integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion of NBA basketball. The award is determined annually by a Selection Committee comprised of some of the most respected coaches and basketball executives in the game, including Bernie Bickerstaff, Billy Cunningham, Joe Dumars, Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich, Pat Riley, Donnie Walsh and Lenny Wilkens.
The prior recipients are Mike Fratello (2022), Larry Brown (2021), Del Harris (2020), Frank Layden (2019), Doug Moe (2018), Al Attles and Hubie Brown (2017), K.C. Jones and Jerry Sloan (2016), Dick Motta (2015), Bernie Bickerstaff (2014), Bill Fitch (2013), Pat Riley (2012), Lenny Wilkens (2011), Jack Ramsay and Tex Winter (2010), and Tommy Heinsohn (2009).

Rick Adelman is the 18th recipient of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rick Adelman named winner of Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award

LOS ANGELES (AP) &mdash; The Los Angeles Lakers hope LeBron James&nbsp;will decide to continue his career after he recovers from the difficult end to their season.
James didn&rsquo;t meet with the media on the day after the top scorer in NBA history said he needed time to think about his basketball future following&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-playoffs-2023-nuggets-lakers-9f7a28f73a56c431672d840c93185b60">the Lakers&rsquo; elimination from the Western Conference finals</a>.
The 38-year-old James has skipped his team&rsquo;s postseason media exit interviews before, but his decision Tuesday left Lakers fans hanging about his intentions with his enigmatic comments following a four-game sweep by the Denver Nuggets.
General manager Rob Pelinka and coach Darvin Ham said they&rsquo;ll speak with James soon about his future.
&ldquo;We all know that (James) speaks for himself, and we&rsquo;ll look forward to those conversations when the time is right,&rdquo; Pelinka said. &ldquo;LeBron has given as much to the game of basketball as anyone who has ever played. When you do that, you earn a right to decide whether you&rsquo;re going to give more. ... Obviously, our hope would be that his career continues, but we want to give him the time to have that inflection point and support him along the way.&rdquo;
Despite James&rsquo; 40-point performance, including a career playoff-best 31 points in the first half, the seventh-seeded Lakers were swept by the top-seeded Nuggets with a 113-111 defeat in Game 4 on Monday night, ending James&rsquo; attempt to win his fifth career championship in his 20th NBA season.
Ham joked: &ldquo;Coming off a tough loss like that, the work we&rsquo;ve put in this season, I think I was ready to retire after last night, too.&rdquo;
Pelinka and Ham declined to speculate on whether James&rsquo; frustration stemmed from his persistent foot injury, which could conceivably require surgery to correct fully. He missed a month of the regular season down the stretch, but returned to his usual heavy workload before the playoffs.
James had been largely healthy throughout his NBA career until he reached his mid-30s in Los Angeles, where he has missed significant chunks in four of his five seasons.
&ldquo;When there&rsquo;s any injury, you seek multiple medical opinions, and there were some that doubted whether he could play again this season,&rdquo; Pelinka said. &ldquo;For him to end the season playing virtually 48 minutes and posting a virtual 40-point triple-double as a player in the 20th year of his NBA career is staggering.&rdquo;
The Lakers all said they understood why James would question his future after an outstanding performance in defeat.
&ldquo;I feel like that&rsquo;s human nature, to be his age and be playing at the level he&rsquo;s playing at,&rdquo; Troy Brown Jr. said. &ldquo;Personally, I feel like because of his love of the game, he will continue to play. But I don&rsquo;t blame him at all.&rdquo;
Pelinka said he hopes to keep much of the Lakers&rsquo; current core around James and Anthony Davis, calling roster continuity &ldquo;a high priority&rdquo; after several years of major annual changes. James is due to make $46.9 million in the first season of his two-year, $97 million contract extension, but several key contributors to the playoff run are free agents.
&ldquo;I think there&rsquo;s proof in concept that this was a really good team,&rdquo; Pelinka said. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re not going to rest on our laurels. If there&rsquo;s opportunities to get even better, we&rsquo;re always looking to improve. But we have a core that&rsquo;s highly successful, and that&rsquo;s a good starting point.&rdquo;
Los Angeles was one of the NBA&rsquo;s best teams after its moves at the trade deadline, going 18-8 to end the regular season even without James. The Lakers then made an impressive run to the conference finals, knocking off second-seeded Memphis and defending champion Golden State, but ran out of steam against the powerhouse Nuggets.
&ldquo;We feel like we&rsquo;ve got special players in the locker room that enjoy playing with each other,&rdquo; Pelinka said. &ldquo;We know there&rsquo;s more growth and improvement in that group, especially if we get a training camp together.&rdquo;
REAVES AND RUI
Pelinka made it clear he intends to do everything possible to re-sign Austin Reaves. The undrafted second-year pro is a restricted free agent after seizing a starting job and effectively becoming the Lakers&rsquo; No. 3 offensive option.
&ldquo;I want to be here. It feels like home to me, in a sense,&rdquo; Reaves said. &ldquo;Obviously it&rsquo;s a lot different than my actual home (in Arkansas). It&rsquo;s a little bigger. Traffic is a little worse. ... But it feels like a home for me, the way the fans support me, the players, the coaching staff, front office. It&rsquo;s just definitely somewhere I want to be, but we&rsquo;ll see what happens.&rdquo;
Rui Hachimura also is a restricted free agent, and Pelinka said the Lakers hope to keep him as well.
Hachimura said his short tenure with the Lakers was &ldquo;a crazy three months for me. It was one of the best times of my life.&rdquo;
D-LO&rsquo;S FUTURE
The Lakers&rsquo; most prominent unrestricted free agent is D&rsquo;Angelo Russell, who had several outstanding performances after his trade-deadline return to Los Angeles, but struggled badly enough in the playoffs to lose his starting job in the finale.
Russell, who scored only 25 points in the four conference finals games, called the season &ldquo;a complete success.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see what opportunity presents itself, and obviously I&rsquo;ll do the best for myself,&rdquo; Russell said. &ldquo;I think the future is bright. I think Rob Pelinka has some decisions to make, but that&rsquo;s his job. (I) would love to be here and contribute to that, so we&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;

The Los Angeles Lakers hope LeBron James will decide to continue his career after he recovers from the difficult end to their season.

Rob Pelinka, Darvin Ham respond to LeBron James considering retirement

DENVER (AP) &mdash; Nikola Jokic had a triple-double after&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nikola-jokic-suns-owner-ishbia-nuggets-68825fb1632f87930fe30ec72ae5c94f">making up</a>&nbsp;with Suns owner Mat Ishbia and Michael Porter Jr. sank five 3-pointers to help the Denver Nuggets beat Phoenix 118-102 on Tuesday night for a 3-2 series lead.
Joker had 29 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists for his 10th career playoff triple-double, breaking a tie with Wilt Chamberlain for most by a center in NBA history.
&ldquo;To be honest, I just like to win the game, so whatever it takes,&rdquo; said Jokic, who was coming off a career-best 53-point performance in Game 4.
Game 6 is Thursday night in Phoenix.
&ldquo;If we play the way we did today,&rdquo; Jokic said, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re going to have a chance&rdquo; to close out the series and advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since the NBA bubble in 2020.
The Suns are confident they can shake this one off just like they did in bouncing back from two losses in Denver last week.
&ldquo;Yeah. I&rsquo;ve been in here a couple of times now,&rdquo; Phoenix star Devin Booker said. &ldquo;I love it. Every game has is its own character. Every game is its own movie, its own different preparation and everything to go with it. We&rsquo;re going watch over film, see how we can be better for Game 6.&rdquo;
The home team has won every game in the series. If that holds true again, the decisive winner-take-all clash will come Sunday back in Denver, where the top-seeded Nuggets own the NBA&rsquo;s best home record at 40-7, including 6-0 in the playoffs.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone devised a five-point plan for the Nuggets to regain control of the series after losing two in Phoenix: patch up their transition defense, slow down Booker, get more from his bench, unleash MPJ and knock down open 3s.
Check, check, check, check and check.
Porter bounced back from a quiet night in Game 4 with 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting from long range. Denver outscored Phoenix 31-23 in fast-break points; Booker scored 28 points but missed 11 of 19 shots; Bruce Brown boosted the Nuggets&rsquo; bench with 25 points and the Nuggets sank 13 of 27 from long range.
Jamal Murray added 19 points for Denver, and Kevin Durant chipped in 26 points for Phoenix but also had an uncharacteristic five turnovers.
The Nuggets turned a three-point halftime lead into a 91-74 cushion with a domiinant third quarter in which Jokic made seven of eight shots for 17 points and Booker was just 1-for-8 for 3 points.
The chippiness of the series reached a new level in the final minute of the third quarter when Nuggets swingman Brown antagonized the Suns as they huddled up on the court and Durant gave Jokic a forearm shiver. A double technical was assessed on Durant and Brown.
&ldquo;Just to see what they were drawing up,&rdquo; Jokic said when asked why he and Brown were spying on the Suns.
Durant called the dust-up &ldquo;absolutely nothing, it wasn&rsquo;t anything serious. They were excited, they were up big and we were trying to draw up some stuff. So, it was nothing.&rdquo;
So, no need for a hug and a handshake next time they play.
Before this game, Jokic shared a warm pregame embrace &mdash;&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://twitter.com/MichelleTuckner/status/1656099830685663232?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">and the basketball</a>&nbsp;&mdash; with Ishbia 48 hours after their kerfuffle over a loose ball in Phoenix in Game 4 resulted in a technical foul and a $25,000 fine for the Nuggets big man.
&ldquo;I was hoping he was going to pay my fine,&rdquo; Jokic cracked after the game.
&ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s just making light of a situation that was way overblown,&rdquo; Malone said. &ldquo;The NBA handled it the right way and I give their owner, Mat Ishbia, a lot of credit when he came out after the game and said, &lsquo;Listen, I don&rsquo;t want anyone to be suspended. Let&rsquo;s let the players decide this on the court.&rsquo; So, kudos to him for that.
&ldquo;But yeah, I think it just speaks to Nikola&rsquo;s personality and him being a little bit of a smart (aleck).&rdquo;
The NBA had stickers placed on the first several rows of seats &mdash; including Ishbia&rsquo;s &mdash; reminding spectators, especially those close to the action, of its&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://twitter.com/arniestapleton/status/1656074725368668162?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fan code of conduct policy</a>&nbsp;and a reminder that violations could result in ejection and revocation of tickets.
TIP-INS
Suns: Seated courtside alongside Ishbia was Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker, derisively known in much of Colorado as &ldquo;Midnight Mel&rdquo; for his departure from the Buffaloes job only hours after telling boosters he was in Boulder to stay.
Nuggets: This marked the first game in the series that the leader after one quarter held on to win the game. ... Among the VIPs in attendance was Broncos new head coach Sean Payton, his quarterback Russell Wilson and John Calipari, who coached Booker and Murray at Kentucky.

Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets beat the Phoenix Suns 118-102 on Tuesday night for a 3-2 series lead.

Nuggets beat Suns 118-102 in Game 5 to regain series lead

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) &mdash; Malik Monk scored 28 points, De&rsquo;Aaron Fox added 26 points and 11 assists, and the Sacramento Kings staved off elimination in their first-round playoff series by beating Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors 118-99 on Friday night in Game 6.
Now, a winner-takes-all Game 7 is back in Sacramento on Sunday afternoon.
Rookie Keegan Murray scored 15 points with four 3-pointers and grabbed 12 rebounds for his first playoff double-double, and the No. 3-seeded Kings withstood every scoring surge the defending champions made on their home court and shined in nearly every facet of this one with their special season on the line.
Kevin Huerter, struggling with his shot all series &mdash; 20 of 52 coming into the game &mdash; hit a 3 with 6:23 to go and another with 4:58 left as Sacramento gave the state capital one more chance to Light the Beam.
Curry scored 29, Klay Thompson 22 and Kevon Looney pulled down 13 more rebounds to give him an NBA-leading 85 this postseason. He was coming off a career-high 22 rebounds in a Game 5 win at Golden 1 Center.
But the Kings, in the postseason for the first time since 2006, answered almost every big play by Golden State in the third quarter and capitalized on regular miscues. They outhustled the Warriors to the boards.
The Kings led 90-80 heading into the final 12 minutes. Curry hit an early 3, only for Trey Lyles to connect moments later. When Curry drove for a layup the next possession, Monk made one of his own.
Curry's 3 with 9:28 left got Golden State within 99-89 before Fox hit.
Fox's first points came on a jumper with 2:18 left in the first on his first shot. He then scored again the next time down still dealing with a broken index finger on his shooting hand. He shot 10 for 18.
Sacramento snapped a six-game losing streak on the Warriors' home floor dating to a win on Feb. 25, 2020.
Lyles wound up with 12 points and 10 rebounds as others picked up the slack with Domantas Sabonis in foul trouble. The big man had seven points and 11 rebounds before fouling out with 5:17 left.
Fox had been frustrated with his poor fourth quarter in Wednesday's 123-116 defeat in which he went 0 for 6 from the field and was scoreless &mdash; the most shots he had ever taken in a final period without scoring.
Draymond Green came off the bench for a third straight game and received a rousing standing ovation when checking in for the first time at the 6:26 mark of the opening quarter. He had 10 assists.
Both teams took a while to warm up, with Sacramento starting 6 for 23 and Golden State 6 of 19.
PAYTON'S DEGREE
Golden State guard Gary Payton II surprised mother Monique with his college diploma in person Friday morning. Payton had&nbsp;<a class="link " href="https://apnews.com/article/payton-degree-warriors-playoffs-99e8594d7391b9fb6755a5d9fdf1b6e7" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-ylk="slk:promised her he would finish his degree;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid_p="43" data-v9y="1">promised her he would finish his degree</a>&nbsp;at Oregon State, and he did so recently to complete a major in human development and family science.
TIP-INS
Kings: Sacramento's bench outscored the Warriors' reserves 52-21. ... The Kings were 4 of 16 to start from deep but finished 17 of 45. ... Sabonis suffered a cut under his left eye on a jump ball with Looney in the second quarter.
Warriors: Curry missed three free throws, practically unheard of, as his team went 25 of 35 from the line. ... The Warriors gave up 23 points on their 19 turnovers. ... Green picked up his third foul at the 7:09 mark of the second quarter. ... Golden State is 8-3 in Game 6s dating back to their 2015 title run and 22-11 in close-out games.

The Kings forced a Game 7 against the Warriors, beating Golden State 118-99 on Friday night in their first-round playoff series.

Monk, Fox lead Kings past Warriors 118-99 to force Game 7

<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://www.nba.com/watch/video/warriors-vs-kings-4-17-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Golden State&rsquo;s Draymond Green stepping</a>&nbsp;on the chest of Sacramento&rsquo;s Domantas Sabonis was an action the league considered excessive, dangerous and worthy of suspension, NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars said Wednesday,
Dumars &mdash; whose job duties include being one of the NBA&rsquo;s major decision-makers for player discipline matters &mdash; shed light on what went into the decision to suspend Green for a playoff game, and why Sabonis&rsquo; actions didn&rsquo;t merit further sanctioning.
&ldquo;This was not some snap-of-the-finger decision to do this,&rdquo; Dumars said in an interview with The Associated Press. &ldquo;There was much discussion, and back and forth, looking at the play itself over and over. And then ultimately we came to the decision that the act itself, and repeat offenses, actually did warrant a suspension.&rdquo;
The incident with Sabonis and Green came midway through the fourth quarter of the Sacramento-Golden State game on Monday night. Sabonis grabbed at Green&rsquo;s ankle and Green wound up stepping &mdash; some would describe it as stomping &mdash; on Sabonis&rsquo; chest.
Sabonis got a technical, Green was ejected, the Warriors lost to fall into a 2-0 series hole and then the NBA decided Green needed to sit out a full game as well.
&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t like it went completely unpunished,&rdquo; Dumars said of Sabonis&rsquo; role. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t think it rose to the level of Draymond&rsquo;s play &mdash; excessive, over-the-top, dangerous, repeat offender. That&rsquo;s the separation between what he did and what Draymond did.&rdquo;
Green has been suspended in the playoffs before, missing Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals because of an accumulation of flagrant-foul points during that postseason. He went over the limit after what the NBA called at the time a &ldquo;retaliatory swipe of his hand to the groin&rdquo; of LeBron James. Cleveland won Game 5, then prevailed in Games 6 and 7 to capture the title.
It&rsquo;s also Green&rsquo;s second suspension this season. He had to miss a game in March after his 16th technical of the season. And in the preseason, he also caused the Warriors major headaches by punching teammate Jordan Poole in practice. He was also fined $25,000 earlier this season for an incident where the league found he directed obscene language toward a fan.
Green spent several moments gesturing at and yelling to the crowd, which included NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, after the play Monday night. Dumars said those antics were yet another factor.
&ldquo;The stuff that happened afterward, that doesn&rsquo;t help the situation,&rdquo; Dumars said. &ldquo;But if it was just that alone, we wouldn&rsquo;t be having this conversation. I focused on the act itself, and the fact that it&rsquo;s a repeat offense, those were the two main things.&rdquo;
Dumars and Green have been close for years. That didn&rsquo;t make this chapter any easier for Dumars.
On the night Green was drafted, he got a phone call as he slipped into the second round. The caller was Dumars, then the president of the Detroit Pistons, who checked in to show support and tell him to remain calm.
&ldquo;When I took this job I knew these type of situations would arise, not just with Draymond but also other guys I worked with and players and a lot of people across the league that I have personal relationships with,&rdquo; Dumars said. &ldquo;I think each one of them knows Joe D. has a job to do. You have to be objective in this seat, and people have to know I&rsquo;m going to call balls and strikes, going to call it like I see it. You have to be honest in this seat. You have to do it the right way.&rdquo;

Dumars — one of the NBA’s major decision-makers for player discipline matters — shed light on the decision to suspend Green.

Joe Dumars: Decision to suspend Draymond Green was ‘difficult’

Spencer Davies speaks with Taqwa Pinero about his life journey and how he's preparing both the future and current hoop generations.

Taqwa Pinero's knowledge is its own currency, and he's paying it forward

The NBA will have labor peace for years to come.
The league and its players came to an agreement early Saturday on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement, the NBA announced. It is still pending ratification, though that process is almost certainly no more than a formality.
The deal will begin this summer and will last at least through the 2028-29 season. Either side can opt out then; otherwise, it will last through 2029-30.
Among the details, per a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke to The Associated Press: the in-season tournament that Commissioner Adam Silver has wanted for years will become reality, and players will have to appear in at least 65 games in order to be eligible for the top individual awards such as Most Valuable Player. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the league nor the National Basketball Players Association released specifics publicly.
Another new part of the CBA will be a second luxury tax level that, when reached, will keep teams from using their midlevel exception to sign players. That was a clear compromise, given how some teams wanted the so-called &ldquo;upper spending limit&rdquo; that would have essentially installed an absolute ceiling on what can be spent each season and help balance the playing field between the teams that are willing to pay enormous tax bills and those who aren&rsquo;t.
Not in the CBA is a change to the policy that would allow high school players to enter the NBA draft. It was discussed and has been an agenda item for months, but it won&rsquo;t be changing anytime soon &mdash; probably not for at least the term of the next CBA.
&ldquo;We also appreciate that there is a lot of benefit to really having veterans who can bring those 18-year-olds along,&rdquo; NBPA executive director Tamika Tremaglio said in February during an NBPA news conference at All-Star weekend. &ldquo;And so, certainly anything that we would even consider, to be quite honest, would have to include a component that would allow veterans to be a part of it as well.&rdquo;
Silver said Wednesday, at the conclusion of a two-day Board of Governors meeting, that he was hopeful of getting a deal done by the weekend. He also said there had been no consideration &mdash; at least on the league&rsquo;s part &mdash; of pushing the opt-out date back for a third time.
The current CBA, which took effect July 1, 2017, came with a mutual option for either the NBA or the NBPA to opt out after six seasons &mdash; June 30 of this year. The sides originally had a Dec. 15 deadline to announce an intention to exercise the opt-out, then pushed it back to Feb. 8, then to Friday.
The league and the union continued talking after the midnight opt-out deadline passed, and a deal was announced nearly three hours later.
The agreement doesn&rsquo;t end the process, though it&rsquo;s obviously a huge step forward.
The owners will have to vote on what the negotiators have hammered out, and the players will have to vote to approve the deal as well. Then comes the actual writing of the document &mdash; the most recent CBA checked in at around 600 pages containing nearly 5,000 paragraphs and 200,000 words. Much of it will be the same; much of it will need revising.

The NBA and its players came to an agreement early Saturday on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement.

NBA, players' union reach deal for a new labor agreement

Isaac Mourier is the director of performance nutrition and sports science at Impact Basketball, one of the most prestigious independent training organizations for elite pro basketball players. He's spent time as a consultant for the Sacramento Kings and as a nutritionist for Georgia athletics, and he played pro basketball in Germany.
So while Mourier cannot speak for everyone in the NBA, his next statement carries weight:
"I've never met a player that doesn't want to play," Mourier told Basketball News. "Never, in my career as a player, as a practitioner, have I ever met a player that does not want to play. So that's a myth."
The NBA's perceived "load management crisis" has only sparked louder outrage this season from fans, some media and even former players. Charles Barkley has <a href="https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/charles-barkley-load-management-steel-mill-first-take.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called the trend</a> "disrespectful to the game."&nbsp;Kendrick Perkins has <a href="https://fadeawayworld.net/kendrick-perkins-rips-load-management-its-starting-to-get-beyond-disrespectful" target="_blank" rel="noopener">labeled the mental toughness of today's players</a> as "softer than funeral music." While these two are certainly controversial voices at the very least, they are significant influences in the sport's discourse.
Barkley and Perkins, among many others, are also warping the true hows and whys of load management.&nbsp;
Today's NBA game is more physically taxing than ever, and among those in the league, it's barely a debate.&nbsp;
"I was part of the physical era, where you could hand-check and grind, post up and all that," Mike Conley told <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nba/load-management-draymond-green-warriors-kevon-looney-technology-mike-conley-jerami-grant" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox Sports in January.</a> "We were a physical team. It&rsquo;s who we were. That was taxing in a whole other way. You played through injuries, but it was more bumps and bruises because you were being physically assaulted.
"Now it&rsquo;s like, imagine running as fast as you can for 48 minutes and having to do that every night. There are more possessions, more opportunities to get these non-contact injuries. Guys are having more calf strains, more hamstrings and stuff like that. We weren&rsquo;t getting those as much (before)."
Kevon Looney backs Conley up in <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nba/load-management-draymond-green-warriors-kevon-looney-technology-mike-conley-jerami-grant" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that article</a>, and Mourier supports them both. He says that the "physicality" of the old-school, post-centric game is much different from today's fast pace that wears out the body with more muscle contractions.
"What may look less physically taxing to the eye, in terms of less bumps and bruises and people getting knocked over &mdash; I think you're actually having the opposite effect on the body, where these distances covered, the speed at which they're covered and the changes of directions are far more taxing on the body," Mourier said.
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Today, teams can quantify those stresses. Mourier explains that players often jump on force plates and see how their power generated will change with fatigue throughout a season. Hormones and proteins found in blood testing can signal muscle damage or inflammation. Teams use GPS tracking and camera systems to monitor players' wear and tear even in practices. The data paints a collective picture of an athlete's overall load during the season.
Importantly, this data isn't hidden by doctors &mdash; it typically is part of an ongoing conversation throughout the year. Building trust between players and medical staffers is crucial to injury management. That way, players can trust the data and doctors can respect the athlete's motivations.
"There's a number of data points that you will track until it gets to the point where we have to stop," Mourier said. "It's not like, 'Hey, we've just noticed something and you're not gonna play tonight.' It will be something that's been in the works &mdash; overall wellness scores, looking at that force plate data &mdash; it will be a trend, which is happening over time, and it's got to a point where it's like, 'Okay, we really have to do this.'
"It's not taken lightly because, ultimately, everybody's job there is to make sure that people can play every night."
Fans often want to ask: Who's in control? And the difficult answer is that the power dynamics change in different organizations.
Mourier says that superstars' voices will naturally have more influence, but that college staffs have more control over player rest than NBA teams. Others in the NBA have observed that teams do hold serious decision-making power.
"I do know on occasion that it&rsquo;s not the player&rsquo;s choice [to rest]," New Orleans Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. told Basketball News.
"On the whole, I think people are on the same page, especially when it comes to our [Impact Basketball] guys on [NBA] teams," Mourier said. "I've never come across someone saying, 'They made me sit down; I wanted to play and I couldn't.'"
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Seth Partnow works for StatsBomb and writes for The Athletic, and was formerly the Milwaukee Bucks' director of basketball research, working adjacent to the sports scientists within the organization. He said in his general experience, trust in both data and relationships is a huge part of reaching decisions to rest.&nbsp;
"I think that the impetus for resting overwhelmingly comes from the medical and front-office side," Partnow told Basketball News. "I think that part of the increased comfort players have with revealing that information is maybe an increased willingness to take that advice."
Partnow explained that teams often boil down decision-making for rest to a "risk versus reward" scale. Does Player X need to play this specific game for the sake of the team, and is it worth the risk of a potential injury that could threaten playoff availability?&nbsp;
"We're going to be judged on how well we do in the playoffs," Partnow said. "And more of a bigger factor than a regular-season win or two is, 'Are my good players able to play?'"
That balance does not include the weight of the fan experience &mdash; a valid criticism within the conversation. Mourier, originally from England, remembers attending his first NBA game in person between the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards and being disappointed when LeBron James and Dwyane Wade didn't suit up. NBA tickets can be a significant investment for fans and families; understandably, they would be bummed when a star rests.
But "risk vs. reward" applies to the league's approach too, as evidenced by its lack of action on anything surrounding load management. Others, including <a href="https://theathletic.com/4272209/2023/03/03/load-management-nba-injuries/?source=user_shared_article" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a recent conversation between The Athletic's staff members</a>, have clamored for more transparency around injuries as at least a starting point.
&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t a new issue. There&rsquo;s nothing particularly happening this season that we haven&rsquo;t seen happening over the last several seasons," Adam Silver <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/02/25/sports/sunday-basketball-notes/?p1=BGSearch_Overlay_Results" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said in February</a>. "I understand it from a fan standpoint that if you are particularly buying tickets to a particular game and that player isn&rsquo;t playing. I don&rsquo;t have a good answer for that other than this is a deep league with incredible competition."
One motivator gaining traction is the idea of minimum-games-played requirements for season awards. Shams Charania has reported that <a href="https://theathletic.com/4302514/2023/03/13/the-bounce-lakers-cba-games-played-minimum-shams/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">both the league and the National Basketball Players Association like the idea</a>. But many do not, including Mourier.
"I think that opens up a pretty dangerous can of worms, because if you have somebody that's really not in a position where they're ready to play &mdash; we have to start looking at them as humans as opposed to just athletes," Mourier said. "If they're in a position where they are really not ready to play, they're feeling sore or there's an injury, and they're creeping up on that cut-off for games and they're about to play, and it's gonna mean that they're not going to get home, they can't put food on the table for their family or can't support the the different needs that they have, then we have a human issue."
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Warriors head coach Steve Kerr explains his position of protecting his players on the second night of a back-to-back, empathizes with the fans who are affected by load management and shares how a 72-game NBA season would be equally as rewarding as it&rsquo;d be safe. <a href="https://twitter.com/basketbllnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@basketbllnews</a> <a href="https://t.co/osTyhqxNyd">pic.twitter.com/osTyhqxNyd</a>
&mdash; Spencer Davies (@SpinDavies) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpinDavies/status/1616581456658108416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2023</a></blockquote>

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Another common suggestion is to simply shorten the schedule, be it to 70 games, 65 games or whatever makes sense. It would lighten the workload for players and possibly address some of the concerns about the value of the regular season along the way. But Silver didn't seem excited.
&ldquo;If we thought it made sense to reduce the number of games, we would. But there&rsquo;s no data right now that suggests, as I said, based on some prior experiments or even as we look at the data over the course of the season and when players get injured, it isn&rsquo;t... You would think that it would be the case that injuries would increase as the season goes on, and that&rsquo;s not necessarily it either," Silver said.
Partnow echoes Silver's stance as a reason for the league shrugging its shoulders. There just isn't hard proof that the change wouldn't lead to an obvious loss of revenue from dropping 200-plus contests.
"Measuring how that sort of loss of &mdash; I don't know, if you want to call it loss of trust &mdash; might longer-term affect the per-game revenue, that's tough math to do, but I think that's the concern," Partnow added.
And even if the league did shrink the schedule, games are not the only way athletes are physically taxed during the year.
&ldquo;I think the biggest thing [fans don't notice] would just be trying to manage injuries and inflammation while traveling via airplane," Nance Jr. said. "That always seems to exacerbate most problems.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Fans can&rsquo;t imagine playing 82 games in different cities all across the country and the physical toll it takes on your body, even without injuries," added NBA veteran Etan Thomas. "It&rsquo;s difficult for most fans to really understand.&rdquo;
Mourier says that pros need at least 48-to-72 hours between high-level competition for their bodies to replenish with proper nutrients. That's not consistently happening under the current schedule, and travel doesn't help.
"All of the factors which are not directly related to after the ball is thrown up at the tip-off &mdash; so sleep, travel, all of that other stuff &mdash; how can we influence those things to put the players in a more favorable spot to be able to go and perform every night? I think that's where we start," Mourier suggested.
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Load management is the best strategy NBA teams have to contain injuries, but it isn't stopping them from happening. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263354" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Studies are showing</a> that NBA players get hurt more than ever. Partnow warns not to assume rest every time a star is out briefly; many of the smaller cases are still legitimate injuries.&nbsp;
The findings hint at a scarier truth: What if the NBA can't do anything about it? As <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27125793/these-kids-ticking-bombs-threat-youth-basketball" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ESPN's Baxter Holmes uncovered</a>, AAU and youth sports are taking major tolls on players' bodies before they even reach the pro level. Current pros are torn on if the grind of year-round youth basketball was worth it.
"I agree that kids are being overworked at a young age,&rdquo; <a href="https://hoopshype.com/2019/11/08/does-aau-lead-to-load-management-in-nba-kids-are-being-overworked/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chicago Bulls big man Nikola Vucevic told HoopsHype in 2019</a>. &ldquo;Parents push kids too hard to succeed and hire all these fake basketball coaches who don&rsquo;t teach them how to play the game the right way. Kids have to have fun first while they play, and not [have someone] make it a business for them right away."
The NBA doesn't supervise the entirety of American youth hoops, which means it can't stop one of the root problems.
"Yes, absolutely [it's worrisome]," Partnow said. "I mean, on some level, it's not just that youth sports are out of our control. Youth sports are out of control."
So, NBA teams and players have more data than ever to manage a sport that is more physcially demanding than ever. But the league doesn't have the data to comfortably make a big change, and the frustration only grows.
At what point does the NBA stop waiting for numeric proof to force change, and take the risk for the sake of its players and fans?
"That's a political question. I don't know," Partnow said. "The longer [load management] becomes front and center of the conversation, the shorter that timespan is. But if something intervening happens that takes the focus off, and now we're talking about this other thing, then it loses salience and it kind of subsides...
"It seems like this [conversation] has been pretty continuous for the last couple months, which is probably the longest I can remember it being sort of a constant."

Ethan Fuller talks to figures around basketball to understand why load management happens and what can be done about it.

Here's the reality of the NBA's perceived 'load management crisis'

According to the <a href="https://twitter.com/tp4pt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Transfer Portal For Playing Time</a>, the NCAA men&rsquo;s basketball transfer portal has set a new record for the most D-I and D-II entries in the first four days, with more than 1,015 players putting their name in thus far. For comparison, it took six days longer to surpass 1,000 entries in 2022. The transfer portal has created a period of unprecedented player movement across the NCAA. On "The Collision: Where Sports And Politics Collide,&rdquo; me and my co-host Dave Zirin did a deep dive into the transfer portal and what this means for college basketball going forward.
Dave Zirin: I heard your former coach, Jim Boeheim, discuss some of the things that have changed the dynamics of college basketball. He discussed NIL and the transfer portal. Has it surprised you how quickly the power dynamics have shifted in college hoops? Etan Thomas: Interesting. I was actually just listening to Coach Boeheim discuss this on the radio with Jay Williams and Keyshawn Johnson this morning after I dropped my kids off at school. For me, as far as the transfer portal (goes), I&rsquo;m kind of torn on this topic, to be honest.
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Dave: I am as well. I'm very torn, but please continue. Etan: So, on one hand, players now have flexibility and I think it&rsquo;s important for players to have that flexibility to move to a different situation if the situation they are currently in is not the best for them. So, I&rsquo;m definitely all for that. In addition, from a players perspective, you&rsquo;re no longer&hellip; how can I say this... held captive. I don&rsquo;t want to use that strong of a phrase and, of course, this is in a basketball sense &mdash; don&rsquo;t take this literal, please. Dave: I understand what you&rsquo;re saying. Etan: Yeah, so I just want to make that point clear. But in the past, no matter how bad the situation was for you, from a player&rsquo;s perspective, you were almost forced to deal with it because [the] repercussion or punishment for transferring would be that you had to sit out an entire year and lose that year of eligibility. And that is a lot; you had to really be unhappy in your situation to give up an entire year. Now, it&rsquo;s different. Players now have the flexibility to leave if the situation is not good for them and I&rsquo;m all for that, in theory. Now, from a coaching standpoint &mdash; and this was Coach Boeheim&rsquo;s point this morning &mdash; how do you build a team with that reality, [when] you have half of your team leaving every year? And I understand that issue. But should players have the flexibility to leave? I think so. I mean, coaches have the flexibility to leave anytime they get a better opportunity somewhere. I always thought &mdash; and this was way before the transfer portal was even a reality &mdash; but I thought that if your coach left, you should have the right to leave without having to sit out a year. I think that should&rsquo;ve been a rule anyway. Dave: I definitely agree with that. I mean, that definitely seems fair for so many reasons. Etan: Right. But at the same time, when you look at the transfer portal now, it just opened up and in, what, 3 days you have over 1,000 players who want to transfer? That&rsquo;s a lot, so that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m torn on this topic. Dave: Whew. I too am very torn on this. So, on the one hand, the checkmate argument in favor of the transfer portal is exactly what you just said: coaches can leave, so why can&rsquo;t players? Coaches don&rsquo;t have to sit out a year, so why should players? Coaches can pursue the best opportunities for themselves and for their families, so why can&rsquo;t the players make similar choices in that regard? That, to me, is the most checkmate of all checkmate arguments. But, there is another side to it, and you can&rsquo;t deny this other side. You know, you actually end up sometimes losing arguments when you don&rsquo;t grant that the other side has a point.
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Etan: That&rsquo;s very true because then you look unreasonable. It&rsquo;s okay to say, "I agree with you here, but this is where I have a different perspective." Dave: Right, so the thing that I really don&rsquo;t like about the transfer portal is: I think there is actual value in team sports of fighting your way forward, of being the person freshman year who had to bust their hump to start sophomore year. And if you&rsquo;re that unhappy that you want to leave, I don&rsquo;t mind there being a high bar for that level of unhappiness. Listen, we all know how this situation works, and we all know that young people can be a tad impulsive. So, I like the idea of there being guard rails for when players make these decisions to consider, "Okay, do you really want to leave? Is it really that bad? Or are you just having a really bad week or month? Is this something you can persevere through?"
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&ldquo;I&rsquo;m bringing my luggage with me. And it&rsquo;s Louis&hellip; The more of you that transfer, the more room there is&rdquo; Deion Sanders telling most of the team to transfer after they gave him an ovation is a WILD move<a href="https://t.co/tCbWEeJYQq">pic.twitter.com/tCbWEeJYQq</a>
&mdash; Max Chadwick (@Chad_Maxwick) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chad_Maxwick/status/1599591913560023041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote>

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Now, with that being said, and I have to point him out because he has been the most honest about it: Deion Sanders walks in at the University of Colorado, addresses his players in full view of the cameras and says something to the effect of, &ldquo;Yeah, a third of you won&rsquo;t be here next year." And it&rsquo;s like, you&rsquo;re talking to scholarship athletes in their teens and are basically telling them, "Hey, that class you&rsquo;re taking that you really like or your girlfriend that you&rsquo;re thinking of possibly proposing to in a few years or that frat you just rushed, well good luck because those life plans are out the window! Because I&rsquo;m the new coach and I&rsquo;m in charge." And that doesn&rsquo;t seem very fair because if you&rsquo;re offered a scholarship, that should mean something." Etan: Yeah, but people still have to understand that it is a year-to-year agreement. My wife gets tired of me using her as an example, but it&rsquo;s what happened to her after she tore her ACL for the third time while she was playing at Syracuse. The doctors told my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time), Nichole Oliver, if she wanted to be able to run around and play with her children when she was in her 30s, she would have to stop playing, and the coaches tried to take her scholarship away.
Her and her mother actually had to get a lawyer and meet with the Athletic Director and threaten legal action and a ton of bad publicity for the university if they did that. And here&rsquo;s the thing, Dave: every time I tell this story, we get multiple messages from parents or players asking for advice because their university is trying to do that very same thing to them.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/syracuse23.jpg" alt="" width="503" height="300" /> Dave: Wow, that&rsquo;s awful. Etan: Right, it's terrible. So, people do have to put stories like that into consideration. But it&rsquo;s an example of how all of the power was always leaning to the side of the colleges, and I never liked that dynamic. But again, like we said earlier: there a thousand players in the transfer portal right now! So, what I would say is I think they should come up with a rule that you get one transfer, so make it a good one because you only get one. You have some players you see now and this is their third transfer and their third different college, and their just a junior! I&rsquo;m not sure if that&rsquo;s good either. So, that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m torn on this topic. Dave: I really like that idea. Thinking of my own child, if my son went to a university and the coach was super intense about recruiting him and then day one on campus, the coach leaves, [that changes things]. Here is my son as a freshman and he has to deal with the fact that he has to either [transfer] or find peace with the new coach who may or may not even value him as a player. He may not be a player he wants to play and he has no connection to him because he never recruited him, so why would he stay there? Etan: I agree, 100%. So in my scenario, if you only get one transfer, that&rsquo;s like the exception. If your coach leaves, that doesn&rsquo;t count against your one transfer because, yes, that changes everything for an athlete.
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Dave: Ah, I like that too because the new coach could have a completely different idea of what they want to do from what you were promised when they recruited you there. Etan: I agree. But with that being said, I do have to be able to acknowledge &mdash; and this is what Coach Boeheim brought up today on the radio &mdash; if he was still coaching now, he would be chasing players to see who is going to stay and who is going to leave, and it&rsquo;s a musical chairs type of thing now. You lose four players, you replace them with four new players. But how can a coach actually coach players? If they don&rsquo;t like anything, they just leave! Well, I can see that both ways. If you&rsquo;re being brutally unfair to someone, yes, they&rsquo;re probably going to leave because you can no longer hold them captive. Some coaches call it &ldquo;coaching a player hard," but I don&rsquo;t like that term because Bobby Knight in his mind thought that&rsquo;s what he was doing when it was actually abuse. So, a coach can no longer do that and hold a player captive anymore, and that&rsquo;s a good thing, in my opinion.
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But now the other side, and this is the part that Coach Boeheim brought up, sometimes it&rsquo;s simply not your turn yet. So I look at myself: my freshman year at Syracuse, it just wasn&rsquo;t my turn yet. I was playing behind a more experienced, bigger, stronger and, quite frankly, better senior center in Otis Hill, who had just been to the NCAA Finals the year before, so I had to be patient. And, of course, it was hard because I was at the bottom of the totem pole on the team. But when I came back my sophomore year, I was ready and prepared to step in as a starter, got back-to-back Big East Defensive Player of the Year and things turned around for me. But I had to wait, so I know firsthand that a bad situation can definitely change.
Dave: If they had the transfer portal your freshman year, would you have stayed? Etan: Listen, I was almost going to transfer even without them having the transfer portal how it is now (laughing). But looking back now, I&rsquo;m glad I didn&rsquo;t make that decision. But I was very close to doing it because it was not a good environment and situation for me in my freshman year. Coach Boeheim also used the example of <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/hakim-warrick-qa-2003-syracuse-championship-and-jersey-retirement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hakim Warrick</a>, who didn&rsquo;t play a whole lot in his freshman year but then came back his sophomore year and blocked the shot against Kansas in the championship game that really won the game for Syracuse. So his point is that things can change, and he&rsquo;s right. So, there is an argument to be made that some players are losing the lessons of perseverance, fighting through adversity, etc. because at any hint of difficulty, they transfer. But at the same time, there&rsquo;s the question of should they be able to have the flexibility and the choice to leave a situation they are unhappy in? So, that&rsquo;s why this is a complex topic. Dave: Very complex indeed.

So far, 1,015 players have entered the NCAA transfer portal. Etan Thomas and Dave Zirin discuss what this means for college hoops.

Is the NCAA transfer portal getting out of control?

While almost everyone in March Madness wants to be this year&rsquo;s version of reigning national champion Kansas, almost anyone playing over the next three weeks would also love to be this year&rsquo;s version of Doug Edert.
If that name doesn&rsquo;t ring a bell, maybe Edert&rsquo;s wispy mustache will. Edert was the reserve guard from Saint Peter&rsquo;s who turned into a social media sensation after scoring 20 points in a first-round upset over Kentucky last March.
By the time he and the Peacocks made history by becoming the first 15 seed to advance to the Elite Eight, Edert&rsquo;s mustache had its own Twitter handle and Edert himself had deals hawking chicken wings and a few other products.
All of this was spurred by the confluence of social media&rsquo;s ever-growing imprint on society (and sports) combined with the new and loosely regulated world of NIL, the name, imagine and likeness deals that allow college athletes to cash in on paid endorsements.
Edert&rsquo;s success story is one of several examples of the ways social media has turbocharged March Madness, that one-of-a-kind American sporting event that had communal elements built in &mdash; think, the bracket and the office pool &mdash; long before the internet even existed.
The key for someone like Edert &mdash; and there will almost certainly be another &ldquo;someone like Edert&rdquo; once the shots start flying &mdash; was to move quickly.
&ldquo;My main focus was basketball, and obviously, I&rsquo;m trying to do whatever I can to help my team win games,&rdquo; Edert told The Associated Press. &ldquo;But at the same time, I&rsquo;m trying to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.&rdquo;
Some things &mdash; namely, the emerging love affair with his jump shot, to say nothing of his &rsquo;70s-style &rsquo;stache &mdash; took on a life of their own, the way things often do on TikTok, Instagram and the other social media platforms that help drive the tournament&rsquo;s popularity. Others &mdash; namely, the hot wings deal and a few more sponsorships &mdash; came because he struck quickly at the urging of his friends and parents, who were watching this unheralded guard from a tiny school blow up in real time.
&ldquo;Nobody was pressuring me, saying, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve gotta do this, or you&rsquo;ve gotta do that,&rsquo;&rdquo; Edert said. &ldquo;They were just behind me, and they were offering to help in any way they could.&rdquo;
Edert would not divulge the amount he has made from his sponsorships, which included a deal shooting celebrity video messages and another promoting a website that offers adult recreational sports leagues.
But, he said, it gave him a &ldquo;nice little start, for whatever happens after college.&rdquo; Certainly, it gave him more than someone like him might have gotten only a couple years ago. And it was not something anyone saw coming for a guard from a 3,400-student school in Jersey City, New Jersey.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always that chance that a star player, or an underrated player from a team that goes far, will capture the hearts of America, and where will they capture it? On social media,&rdquo; said Jeffrey Weiner, senior vice president for NIL marketing at GSE Worldwide. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be on TV, and then they&rsquo;ll go look for that person on social media. People are watching these games with their phones in their hands.&rdquo;
Edert said he rarely posted on social media, and had a following of about 1,500 on Instagram in early March of last year.
&ldquo;And after the Kentucky game, I look at my phone and it&rsquo;s 6,000 followers and it&rsquo;s going up,&rdquo; he said. It is now 149,000, barely a blip by hoop-star standards, but a 1,000 times more than he had a year ago.
Perhaps the single most impactful social media post to emerge in the NIL era came from the TikTok account of Oregon&rsquo;s Sedona Prince.
Her takedown of the NCAA for the sparse weight room facilities at the 2021 women&rsquo;s tournament shined a spotlight on the disparities between men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s college sports. That video currently has been viewed more than 12.3 million times.
In the month between February 2021 and the time Prince posted a month later, the hashtag &ldquo;NCAA&rdquo; spiked from 7 million to 490 million views on TikTok. The hashtag &ldquo;March Madness&rdquo; has gone from 957 million views in 2021 to 1.4 billion views this year on TikTok &mdash; and that 2023 figure was calculated before a single basket had been made in the actual tournament.
Prince&rsquo;s TikTok following now numbers 2.8 million. With the explosion in popularity came a deal with an energy drink that includes equity and cash in exchange for creating content on social media. Her current feed also includes sponsored content with Buick and Crocs, which means she now has a bank account to go with her unexpected fame.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried to optimize my NIL opportunities.,&rdquo; Prince said in an interview last year with Yahoo Finance. &ldquo;I take what I do off the court, which is TikTok and certain brand deals, but turn them into something I can use for the rest of my life., money that I can retire with, put my kids through college with.&rdquo;
The NIL platform Opendorse estimated that companies spent $917 million on college athlete deals in the first year they were approved. Most of those earnings were made via social media.
These days, many arrangements come on the front end through so-called collectives that are tied to schools, often sealed during the recruiting process. Edert, however, was making no such money when he signed to play for Shaheen Holloway at Saint Peter&rsquo;s.
&ldquo;At the beginning of the year, when they explained to students that you can start your own business or have your own brand, I&rsquo;m thinking, &lsquo;This doesn&rsquo;t really apply to me,&rsquo;&rdquo; Edert said of the preseason athletic department presentations he sat through.
Now, it does, and Edert&rsquo;s star turn at March Madness last year also played a roundabout role in his second run through the recruiting process. When Holloway left Saint Peter&rsquo;s for a job at his alma mater, Seton Hall, several Peacocks, including Edert, used social media to let the world know they were entering the transfer portal.
&ldquo;I announced early in the morning, and by 7:30 or 8, my phone started blowing up,&rdquo; Edert said.
Most of those calls and messages were from coaches at Edert&rsquo;s new school, Bryant University, where they knew a lot more about the guard out of Nutley, New Jersey than they might have the year before. Those coaches weren&rsquo;t the only ones.
&ldquo;Even yesterday, I was signing autographs and taking some pictures with kids in middle school and high school,&rdquo; Edert said. &ldquo;They said &rsquo;We love you, Doug.&rdquo; And I felt great. I&rsquo;m just doing what I love to do. There&rsquo;s a lot of love and support from a lot of people, and it really means a lot.&rdquo;

Doug Edert’s success story is one of several examples of the ways social media has turbocharged March Madness.

Social media madness gives opportunities to Edert and others

Let&rsquo;s go ahead and put Denver and Sacramento into the Western Conference playoffs. It&rsquo;s hard to imagine Memphis and Phoenix falling out of the mix, even with&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/ja-morant-checks-into-counseling-program-no-timetable-to-rejoin-team" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ja Morant away from the Grizzlies</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/suns-kevin-durant-expected-to-miss-23-weeks-with-sprained-ankle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kevin Durant still not able to make his home debut for the Suns</a>&nbsp;because of ankle trouble. Put them on the bracket as well.
And from there, it&rsquo;s anyone&rsquo;s guess.
The West is an absolute mess, and the middle of the pack &mdash; the race for the last two guaranteed playoff spots and the four berths into the play-in tournament &mdash; is as muddled and murky as possible.
&ldquo;Hope,&rdquo; Utah coach Will Hardy said, &ldquo;is a good motivator.&rdquo;
True. There&rsquo;s plenty of hope still out there, too.
The West has, more often than not in recent years, been the power-broker side of the NBA. Not this year. The shinier records are at the top of the Eastern Conference, which is on pace to finish with three of the best four records this season &mdash; something that hasn&rsquo;t happened since 2008-09.
The West has become a logjam this year, and the standings change almost nightly. A single win or loss can change everything: Utah was ninth in the West entering Monday, and a&nbsp;four-point loss at Miami left the Jazz tumbling three spots to 12th. The Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, went from 11th to ninth &mdash; from out of the play-in to back in &mdash; without even playing.
Defending champion&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/suns-warriors-thompson-curry-booker-9cd92497df68da54f0225b275cb4c264">Golden State beat Phoenix</a>&nbsp;and went from sixth to fifth. After the Warriors, it&rsquo;s the Los Angeles Clippers in sixth, Minnesota seventh, Dallas eighth, the Lakers ninth, New Orleans 10th, Oklahoma City 11th and the Jazz 12th.
Put another way, 2.5 games separated the fifth-place Warriors from the 11th-place Thunder. Only 4.5 games separated the Warriors from the 13th-place Portland Trail Blazers. It&rsquo;s hard to envision a scenario, given how tight the standings are right now, where at least some West races for seeding don&rsquo;t go down to the final day.
&ldquo;No one&rsquo;s really out of it right now, at this point in the Western Conference,&rdquo; Hardy said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a couple teams that have fallen, I guess, out of the race, but 5 through 13 are so tight that every team is competing each night with that hope of like, &lsquo;Hey, if you string a few together, you can really vault in the standings.&rsquo; We&rsquo;d all be lying if we say we don&rsquo;t check the standings. We definitely do, but it can be a little distracting.&rdquo;
This is exactly what the NBA wanted when it added the play-in tournament &mdash; intrigue all the way to the end of the season. Only the top six teams in each conference are guaranteed playoff spots when the regular season ends on April 9; the next four from the East and West go to a play-in tournament to decide the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds on the respective brackets.
Only three teams &mdash; Houston, San Antonio and Detroit &mdash; have been eliminated. Charlotte isn&rsquo;t too far away from joining that trio. Everyone else still has a legitimate chance, at least at the play-in.
&ldquo;You do have to embrace the competition,&rdquo; Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re dreaming about things in the middle of the summer, this is what you want. You want games with incredible pressure and context. You don&rsquo;t want games to have no meaning, to play for lottery balls. You want to have this kind of context. And you want to see what this competition can bring out of you.&rdquo;
Teams will find out, whether they want to know or not.
There are no fewer than 24 matchups the rest of the way that will pit those teams vying for spots 5 through 8 on the West bracket against one another, meaning those nights could lead to a big swing in the standings.
It also might come down to which teams get somebody back in time to help the cause.
The Lakers may get LeBron James back at some point. The Warriors aren&rsquo;t sure when Andrew Wiggins &mdash; out for personal reasons &mdash; could return, or if he will. The Mavericks are dealing with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving both having injuries. The Timberwolves hope Karl-Anthony Towns is close to a return from a calf injury. The Pelicans have remained in the race despite not having Zion Williamson, which they&rsquo;re probably used to by now.
Buckle up. Denver might not get caught atop the West. The trio of Milwaukee, Boston and Philadelphia will finish 1-2-3 in the East in some order. But everything else is pretty much up for grabs, especially in the super-cluttered West.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny what a couple of wins can do right now,&rdquo; Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said.

All but two West teams are fighting for a playoff spot. Only 2.5 games separate the 5th-place Warriors from the 11th-place Thunder.

Earning a Play-In spot in the Western Conference won't be easy

On Monday night, Ja Morant missed his fifth-straight game since stepping away from the Memphis Grizzlies to seek help following some concerning off-court incidents.&nbsp;
Morant has checked himself into a counseling program in Florida and there's currently no timetable for him to return to the Grizzlies, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35854000/morant-counseling-program-no-return-nba-date-set" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported on Monday evening</a>.
In a statement, Morant said that he's away from the team to "get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being."
The NBA is investigating Morant's antics, which culminated in the All-Star flashing a gun on his Instagram live feed while partying in a Colorado strip club on March 4.
Prior to that incident, there was an offseason altercation between Morant and a 17-year-old, which led to a civil lawsuit. The teenager alleges that Morant and his friend, Davonte Pack, assaulted him.
Pack was recently banned from the Grizzlies' home games for one year after the NBA investigated claims that a laser was pointed at members of the Indiana Pacers following their game in Memphis on Jan. 29. A Pacers security guard believed the laser was attached to a gun, according to The Athletic. However, following the NBA's investigation, the league <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/grizzlies-ja-morant-steps-away-to-get-help-after-recent-incidents" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said they</a> "found no evidence that anyone was threatened with a weapon."
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Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins recently revealed that members of the organization tried getting through to Morant about his off-court antics prior to the gun incident.&nbsp;
&ldquo;We have had conversations in the past trying to guide him and help him continue to evolve as a person and a player,&rdquo; Jenkins said, <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/grizzlies-tried-to-address-ja-morants-actions-before-gun-video" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per The Associated Press</a>. &ldquo;Obviously, this came to a head the other day, so we put this process into action.&rdquo;
Even with Morant away from the team, Memphis has won three-straight games. The Grizzlies&nbsp;are 3-2 overall since Morant stepped away. On the season, Memphis is 41-26, which is the second-best record in the Western Conference.
Morant is one of the most electrifying, popular players in the NBA, averaging 27.1 points, 8.2 assists, 6.0 rebounds and 1.1 steals, while shooting 46.3% from the field, 31.6% from three-point range and 74.4% from the free-throw line.

Ja Morant checked himself into a a counseling program in Florida and there's currently no timetable for him to return to the Grizzlies.

Ja Morant checks into counseling program, no timetable to rejoin team

Longtime pro Jordan Crawford opens up to Spencer Davies about his unpleasant NBA experience, his Detroit connection and more.