Want more basketball in your inbox? Sign up for Marc Stein’s weekly N.B.A. newsletter here.
The N.B.A. wanted to believe that the news media’s interest in the league’s ongoing conflict with China was cooling.
LeBron James duly reheated blanket domestic coverage of the topic with an interview Monday night that was widely received as pro-China — to the point that James is suddenly facing his harshest criticism perhaps since “The Decision” that took him from Cleveland to Miami in 2010.
This is clearly not the October that the league at large expected following an off-season of unprecedented roster upheaval. Rather than bask in the uncharacteristically wide-open title race that summer player movement spawned, we’ve spent nearly two weeks fixated on a geopolitical crisis that has consistently overshadowed the basketball.
There has been little discussion, as a result, of an important day that usually generates much more October coverage: Monday is the deadline for 2016 first-round picks, who are in the final year of their original rookie-scale contracts, to sign extensions.
Toronto’s Pascal Siakam and Sacramento’s Buddy Hield are two of the strongest candidates to land such deals before Monday’s 6 p.m. Eastern time buzzer. Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis is another prime contender among the 16 remaining eligible draftees from 2016, since he is known to be in active talks with the Pacers about a possible extension.
Yet it can be argued that no case is as intriguing as Boston’s ongoing negotiations with Jaylen Brown.
Brown’s 2018-19 season, much like Boston’s itself, fell far short of expectations after he helped the Celtics advance to within one win of the N.B.A. finals as a second-year forward in 2018. The longstanding reluctance of the Celtics’ team president Danny Ainge to dole out rookie-scale extensions — Rajon Rondo was the last Celtic to receive one in the final of 2009 — has further convinced many league observes that Brown is unlikely to end that drought.
But Brown was among the few players who emerged from U.S.A. Basketball’s humbling seventh-place finish in the FIBA World Cup in China with a boost to his reputation. He was aggressive, competitive and versatile for an American team gutted by a rash of defections by marquee names, emerging as one of the players United States Coach Gregg Popovich trusted most. A dearth of dependable frontcourt players led Popovich to deploy Brown as a power forward and, occasionally, as a small-ball center to try to fill the void.
Brown also appears to have a measure of leverage that recent Celtics extension candidates such as Marcus Smart and the since-departed duo of Terry Rozier and Kelly Olynyk did not. Without an extension by Monday, Brown will become a restricted free agent in July — and one of the most desirable free agents in the league next summer should he produce a strong 2019-20 season.
The venerable HoopsHype.com recently labeled Brown as a top-five free agent in July 2020. That’s thanks at least partly to a marketplace devoid of this past summer’s star power, but Brown may have an even stronger hand if Siakam and Hield land extensions in coming days.
“Everybody says that they’re not concerned with it, but in some way, shape or form they are,” Brown, in a recent telephone interview, said of contract talks. “But to be honest, it’s really not overwhelming me or ruling my thoughts. I know what type of talent I have. I’m confident in myself. I’m confident in my ability.
“It’s not something that’s keeping me up at night, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Brown felt sufficiently secure entering this season to shave his head shortly before the start of training camp. The social media stir that caused was quickly forgotten amid all the chaos in China that followed Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey’s Oct. 4 tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong — but the initial response has stayed with Brown.
“It was shocking,” he said. “I didn’t know people cared so much about my hair.”
What Bostonians really care about, of course, is what sort of rebound the Celtics can muster after a season of undeniable tension surrounding the oft-scrutinized leadership of Irving, as well as a second-round playoff exit to Milwaukee that hastened Irving’s free-agency defection to the Nets.
For all the questions about consistency Brown has inspired as a Celtic, his ceiling as a shooter and using his elite athleticism to produce more offensively, his production in 115 career starts is actually very similar to Jayson Tatum’s in 159. Tatum tends to generate more buzz as a potential franchise player, but some talent evaluators see Brown as the more effective (and well-rounded) two-way player.
Brown took the rare step of representing himself upon matriculating to the pros as the No. 3 overall pick in the 2016 draft. Yet he recently hired the veteran agent Jason Glushon to represent him in this fall’s negotiations with the Celtics.
Glushon also represents Al Horford, whose free-agency defection to Philadelphia in July, combined with Irving’s exit, has likely thrust Brown into a role with expanded responsibility. The size-challenged Celtics, in general, are a team people will be tracking in the Eastern Conference no matter what happens with Brown’s extension negotiations — especially after four Celtics spent the bulk of the summer together with U.S.A. Basketball (Brown, Tatum, Smart and the newcomer Kemba Walker) and with no clear-cut No. 3 seed in the East behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
“We spent a lot of time together, hanging out, talking, just getting to know each other,” Brown said of his summer excursion to Australia and China with the other three Celtics. “When you’re out of the country, guys tell you things they would never tell you here. We were all in the same bubble, so it was really good to learn stuff about my teammates. Video games, dinner, shopping — we never left the hotel alone.”
Brown, though, swatted away the notion that the time abroad gives the Celtics any sort of head start on the new season.
“I don’t want to say that,” Brown said. “I don’t want to put any expectations or added pressure on what’s on this team already. I just want to say it was a good experience. We’ll see whether it helped or hurt as the season goes on.”
The lone promise you can extract from Brown is that he plans to be a more vocal leader as he prepares to turn 23 on Oct. 24 — two years younger than Siakam and four years younger than Hield. Pressing him further about expectations, contractually or on the floor, tends to shut the conversation down.
“I’m avoiding that word in general,” Brown said. “‘Expectations’ is not a word I’m even going to try to use or that I want anybody on our Celtics team to use.
My mantra for this year is, ‘Just hoop.’ ”
Although that’s easier said than done in the N.B.A.’s current tense climate, Monday’s extension deadline and the intensifying spotlight that comes with it may provide an immediate opportunity to see how well Brown pulls it off.
This newsletter is OUR newsletter. So please weigh in with what you’d like to see here. To get your hoops-loving friends and family involved, please forward this email to them so they can jump in the conversation. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.
Corner Three
You ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. (Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.)
Q: What are the odds Daryl Morey lasts more than one year with the Rockets after the China controversy? — Alizain Devshi
Stein: The Rockets have been adamant that Morey’s job is not in jeopardy even after a tweet that is, as covered here in our Sunday story, expected to cost the franchise in the neighborhood of $25 million this season in sponsorship losses.
In the team owner Tilman Fertitta’s lone public statement on the matter, to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, he announced that he and Morey “are fine.” Fertitta also declared that the Rockets employ “the best general manager in the league.”
In March, remember, Morey received a five-year contract extension that The New York Times subsequently reported pays him in the $8 million range annually. But the contract and Morey’s reputation as one of the most progressive thinkers among league executives are not his only sources of insulation.
The money that the N.B.A. generates in China is obviously significant and intoxicating, as evidenced by the league’s controversial decision to cancel scheduled interactions between the two teams in China last week and the media in fear of another statement that inflamed the situation further. But the backlash on home soil would be much louder — and presumably more expensive — if the Rockets ousted Morey for publicly supporting democracy and free speech.
This, after all, is America. Forcing Morey out on those grounds would be highly un-American.
I don’t think the Rockets can or will go there. I’ve certainly heard from a handful of league insiders who tell me that my take is naïve, but I’m convinced that the Rockets would be crushed for such a move — unless the crisis deepens to a point that Morey’s ongoing presence affects Houston’s N.B.A. on-court business, its relationship with Rockets players and those around the league or otherwise compromises his ability to effectively do the job.
Q: With the recent thumb injury suffered by Anthony Davis, how vulnerable are the Lakers? Can they really contend if they have to depend on Davis staying healthy? — Abdul Jama
Stein: I understand the general sentiment here. The Lakers have just endured a thumb injury scare with Davis and still haven’t seen Kyle Kuzma in five-on-five action because of his foot injury in August while on U.S.A. Basketball duty.
Throw in DeMarcus Cousins’ season-ending knee tear and the chaos of their trip to China last week and there’s no disputing that the Lakers have endured a disappointing (and disjointed) start to the season. With so many new faces and a new coaching staff, they really needed a smooth training camp — and they haven’t had it.
But let’s face it: Health looms as a huge factor for lots of teams in the West. The Clippers, after all, don’t expect to have Paul George in uniform until November after he had summer surgeries on both shoulders.
Everyone in the conference, apart from Phoenix and Memphis, is considered potential playoff material. When 13 teams are vying for eight postseason slots, injuries are almost certain to be a significant differencemaker. Davis is destined to forever face durability questions after all the injuries he suffered in his first four N.B.A. seasons, but the ceiling for his dynamic partnership with LeBron James is such that the Lakers were never going to fret about that too much.
Don’t forget that Davis appeared in 75 games in each of the two seasons before last year — which was too funky to analyze too deeply because of Davis’s late January trade demand and the havoc it wreaked on the rest of the Pelicans’ season.
Q: So why is this basketball newsletter not discussing an excellent W.N.B.A. finals? — David Wilson
Stein: Because I blew it. And because I can’t bring anything close to the depth of knowledge of the league that Howard Megdal lends to his W.N.B.A. coverage.
To wit: Here are links to a few of Howard’s stories from the playoffs, including his piece on Elena Della Donne and Coach Mike Thibault leading the Washington Mystics to a home win over the Connecticut Sun in a winner-take-all Game 5.
Four times a year, I invite someone from the staff to curate the newsletter for me when I am shooed away from the desk at Stein Line HQ. When the W.N.B.A. returns, I will make sure to ask Howard to take one of those turns to provide his unmatched perspective.
Numbers Game
.711
New Orleans’ Zion Williamson is shooting 71.1 percent from the field after three exhibition games as a pro and averaging a promising 23.7 points in 26 minutes. So much for my fears that Williamson’s averages from our recent NBA 2K simulation (20.9 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 59.3 percent from the field and 37.7 percent on 3-pointers) were setting expectations too high for the league’s Rookie of the Year Award favorite.
610
When Kristaps Porzingis made his Dallas Mavericks debut last week in an exhibition at Detroit, it was his first live game action in 610 days. Porzingis suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee playing for the Knicks on Feb. 6, 2018.
10,000
The first 10,000 fans at the Golden State Warriors’ Oct. 30 home game against Phoenix will receive a “Stephen Curry Popcorn Edition Bobblehead.” Golden State is paying homage to Curry’s deep devotion to his favorite snack, which we featured in April.
7
In the sporting event aired by the state-run network C.C.T.V. in place of the banned Lakers/Nets exhibition game in Shanghai last week, China’s national soccer team posted a 7-0 rout of Guam in a 2022 World Cup qualifying match.
7
From the department of Life Comes At You Fast: It was only a month ago that we all thought a seventh-place finish for the United States men’s national team in the FIBA World Cup is what constituted an American basketball crisis in China. Compared to the geopolitical mess confronting the N.B.A. after Daryl Morey’s pro-Hong Kong tweet on Oct. 4, those were the good ol’ days.
Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@marcsteinnba). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.
"how" - Google News
October 16, 2019 at 11:26PM
https://ift.tt/32oHZjO
How China Changed Jaylen Brown - The New York Times
"how" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MfXd3I
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "How China Changed Jaylen Brown - The New York Times"
Post a Comment