JOE ‘JELLYBEAN’ BRYANT, THE FATHER OF KOBE BRYANT, DIES AT 69
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, the father of the late Basketball Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, has died, his alma mater announced Tuesday.
Bryant, who spent eight seasons in the NBA with three different franchises, was 69. The Philadelphia Inquirer, citing La Salle coach Fran Dunphy, reported that Joe Bryant recently had a massive stroke.
“We are saddened to announce the passing of La Salle basketball great Joe Bryant,” the school said in a news release. “Joe played for the Explorers from 1973-75 and was a member of our coaching staff from 1993-96. He was a beloved member of the Explorer family and will be dearly missed.”
Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash in January 2020 in Calabasas, California, as the group was making its way to a basketball tournament.
Joe Bryant was the No. 14 pick by Golden State in the 1975 draft, and the Warriors wound up selling his rights to Philadelphia before the start of his rookie season. He played four years for the 76ers, three for the San Diego Clippers and one for the Houston Rockets, averaging 8.7 points in 606 games.
From there, he embarked on an international career, with stops in France and Italy. The years in Italy shaped Kobe Bryant; it was there that he started to truly develop a love for basketball as well as becoming fluent in Italian. The family moved back to the Philadelphia area around the time that Kobe Bryant was 13, he became a high school star and was drafted four years later.
Joe Bryant had a number of coaching stints, including for teams in Italy, Japan and Thailand, as well as stints with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks — meaning he was coaching in the same city as his son was playing for a number of years.
IN-GAME FLOPPING PENALTY NOW PERMANENTLY IN NBA RULES
The NBA is officially cracking down on flopping, as the league’s board of governors permanently implemented a penalty for the action into the playing rules on Tuesday.
In-game penalties for flopping were handed out during the 2023-24 campaign, but the NBA was using this past season as a trial year for the rule.
When a referee calls a flop, the player who committed the act will be given a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul. The opposing team then gets to shoot one free throw, and it can send any player who was on the floor at the time of the flop to the line.
Violations for flopping cannot lead to ejections.
The NBA Board of Governors also voted to make a change to the in-season tournament, and now any points scored in overtime will not factor into point differential and total points tiebreakers. That change will be installed for the 2024 in-season tournament, set to begin on Nov. 12.
Point differential and total points are the second and third tiebreakers, respectively, in the group stage of the in-season tournament.
LEBRON JAMES AT 39 STILL IS THE CENTER OF ATTENTION FOR USA BASKETBALL. THAT WON’T CHANGE IN PARIS
LAS VEGAS (AP) — This is how the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team took the floor for warmups before an exhibition game in Abu Dhabi: Stephen Curry opened with a layup, followed by ones from Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards and Derrick White, and then a short jumper from Devin Booker.
All were met with some cheers. And then LeBron James got the ball in his hands. The crowd got louder immediately, the volume rising until his dunk was met with the loudest roar the arena could muster.
“He’s still LeBron,” U.S. assistant coach Erik Spoelstra said.
At 39 years old, starting the 22nd season of his pro career, the all-time leader in NBA points, soon to become the first men’s player to represent the U.S. at the Olympic Games in three different decades, he’s still LeBron. And that’s why USA Basketball so badly wanted him on this team that’s headed to the Paris Olympics later this month, because there is no question that he makes the team even more of a favorite for what would be a fifth consecutive gold medal.
“Listen, once I got the clearance from Savannah James, that’s the one I had to get the clearance from to give up my summer pretty much to play basketball at 39 years old,” James said, referring to his wife. “Once I got the clearance from her, I didn’t have to have much convincing.”
Not after last summer, that is.
James watched the U.S. World Cup team — another team with 12 NBA players, but not 12 players with the pedigree of those on this Olympic roster — struggle last summer in the Philippines and end up with a fourth-place finish. He didn’t like it. So, he started calling around, seeing if players like Curry would be willing to play in Paris with hopes of reminding the world that the U.S. is still pretty good at basketball. He didn’t have to twist a lot of arms.
“He was the first person I talked to in the fall about would this be something I would want to do,” said Curry, who’ll be making his Olympic debut. “And from there it was like, ‘Let’s get it.’”
LeBron’s Olympic history
James made his Olympic debut in 2004, fresh off his rookie season, on the team that finished third in the Athens Games. The Redeem Team followed in 2008 and won gold, then the team at the London Games in 2012 won yet again. James hasn’t played in the Olympics since. It was reasonable to ask if he ever would again.
The U.S. won Olympic gold at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo three years ago without him, and now tries for a fifth in a row with him back in the fold for presumably the final time.
“He’s just meant so much to the game of basketball, especially in my career since I was in high school following him and he’s almost 40 years old now,” said U.S. forward Kevin Durant, who is seeking a fourth Olympic gold. “He’s still playing at an elite level, which is inspiring to me as well. And so, every chance I get to be around LeBron, even if it’s just having a quick bite to eat or just seeing him just randomly for a couple of minutes, his energy is just contagious.”
It’s still there in bunches, too.
When the U.S. team opened camp in Las Vegas, coach Steve Kerr asked two of his assistants – Spoelstra and Tyronn Lue, both of whom have coached James in the NBA — if the intensity that he was practicing with was normal. They nodded.
He goes all out, all the time, even with four NBA titles, even with a Basketball Hall of Fame spot and perpetual place in the never-to-be-solved Greatest Of All Time conversation locked up and with a net worth exceeding $1 billion. He has nothing to prove and still runs himself through defensive slide drills like they’re going to decide Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
Kerr sees plenty of similarities between James and Curry, who went head-to-head in four consecutive NBA Finals when Golden State and Cleveland ran the league from 2015 through 2018 — and now gets to watch them team up for real for the first time. Curry sees them as well.
“I know exactly what he’s about,” Curry said. “I get to see a little different side of him in the work that he puts in and how he approaches practice, the way he talks and communicates. I get to see that side of it, which is really, really, really dope. I guess he gets to see that from me as well.”
LeBron says ‘game is in great hands’
The team is a perfect blend of everything James would have wanted if he was putting the group together himself. Veteran experience with him, Durant and Curry, even though Curry hasn’t played the Olympics before. Plenty of bigs to protect the rim in Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo and Joel Embiid. Championship players — with three players from the current NBA champion Boston Celtics on the roster in Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and White. Young stars in Haliburton, Booker and Edwards.
James won’t have to play huge minutes. The idea is for the Americans to use their depth, use a lot of players, keep everyone as fresh as possible and know that no team has anything close to the top-to-bottom talent on their roster as the U.S. does.
And playing one Olympics with many who will be likely looked at for the Los Angeles Games in 2028 — like Haliburton and Edwards — is important for James as well.
“The game is in great hands. … I mean it’s just super cool that we can not only show by example, but also just be around them,” James said. “They have their thing going as well, so we don’t step on their toes and nothing of that nature, but we just hope that we can continue to set a standard for them of what excellence is all about because they’re already excellent. I hope we’re just setting the standards for them.”
In Paris, there will be plenty of people wearing James jerseys, mostly Los Angeles Lakers ones, some USA ones, probably some Miami and Cleveland ones, too. Everything he does and says will make news. Even at this point in his career, the fascination with James hasn’t changed. Some love him, some don’t, but they’re all watching him. After all, like Spoelstra said, he’s still LeBron.
“I just feel incredibly honored to be coaching LeBron,” Kerr said. “And it’s definitely way better to coach him than coach against him.”
PATRICK BEVERLEY DEPARTING NBA TO PLAY IN ISRAEL
Patrick Beverley announced on his podcast Tuesday that he is leaving the NBA to play next season in Israel.
The 36-year-old free agent guard is a three-time NBA All-Defensive selection and a veteran of 666 regular-season games and 71 more playoff games.
Beverley said he plans to sign with Hapoel Tel Aviv BC, which competes in the Israeli Premier League and EuroCup.
“They gave me everything I asked for,” he said. “I couldn’t refuse.”
Beverley split the 2023-24 season with the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks, averaging 6.2 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 73 games (13 starts).
He owns career averages of 8.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals in stints with the Houston Rockets (2012-17), Los Angeles Clippers (2017-21), Minnesota Timberwolves (2021-22), Los Angeles Lakers (2022-23), Chicago Bulls (2023), Sixers and Bucks.
Beverley has been traded seven times since 2017 and nine times in total.
MAVERICKS STAR KYRIE IRVING BREAKS LEFT HAND IN OFFSEASON WORKOUT, HAS SURGERY
DALLAS (AP) — Kyrie Irving broke his left hand during an offseason workout and had surgery, and the Dallas Mavericks didn’t provide a timeline for his recovery in an announcement of the injury Tuesday night.
Irving and Luka Doncic led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals in their first full season together. Boston won the title series in five games.
The 32-year-old Irving averaged 25.6 points in 58 games during the regular season while dealing with foot, heel and thumb injuries.
Irving made his deepest playoff run since going to the finals with Cleveland in 2017, and helped the Mavs get that far for the first time since Dallas won its only championship in 2011.
The team said updates on Irving would be provided as necessary. Training camp opens in about 2 1/2 months.
NBA MOVES A BIG STEP CLOSER TO FINALIZING NEW 11-YEAR MEDIA RIGHTS DEALS
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The NBA’s Board of Governors approved the league’s next media rights deals with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video at its meeting Tuesday, moving the league one giant step closer to finalizing the 11-year agreements that will be worth about $76 billion.
Now comes the next, and possibly final, step: seeing if Warner Bros. Discovery will match one of the deals in an effort to extend a relationship with the NBA that dates to the late 1980s. WBD has five days to match, that clock starting to run when it receives the contracts from the league.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, citing the ongoing process, declined to offer specifics on when that five-day window starts or whether it has already started.
“Without getting into the specifics of the deal, I’d say philosophically we set out with certain goals in these negotiations and part of them were economic and part of them also led to what are the best ways we can serve our fans going forward,” Silver said. “Part of it was to get additional broadcast exposure, and hopefully we will have accomplished that. And also, to get more streaming connectivity with our fans, because in terms of traditional television — while still vital — there is a large portion of our fan base that no longer subscribes to those services.”
The new deals, which as currently constructed would keep the NBA on ESPN and ABC plus add NBC and Amazon to the mix, will begin in the 2025-26 season. This coming season marks the end of a nine-year, $24 billion deal that was record-setting for the NBA — and the new deal will shatter those records, both in terms of length and value.
“We wanted to make sure that going forward that our games will be accessible for our fans through various streaming services,” Silver said. “So, that’s something that we’ve been very focused on in these deals, and not just on reach in the United States, but reach globally as well.”
Much of the basic framework of the new deals, if they become reality, have already emerged. ESPN and ABC will keep the league’s top package, including the NBA Finals — which have been on ABC since 2003 — and one of the conference finals series, plus a slew of regular season contests.
NBC, which would return as a broadcast partner for the first time since 2002, would showcase games on Sunday night once the NFL season has ended, plus air games on Tuesdays throughout the regular season and stream a Monday night package on Peacock. Prime Video would have games on Thursday night after it is done carrying NFL games. Its other nights would be Friday and Saturday.
NBC and Prime Video would alternate who carries the other conference final.
NBA Cup Tiebreakers
A mild tweak has been made to the group play tiebreaker system for the in-season tournament, now called the Emirates NBA Cup.
Overtime scoring has been removed from the point differential and total points tiebreakers. Those are the second and third tiebreakers, after head-to-head record, in group play.
It doesn’t totally remove the differential, and that tiebreaker led to some weirdness last season. Boston was intentionally fouling Chicago up by 32 points with 7 minutes left in a group play game last season to try and ensure it would win any tiebreakers. And New York advanced to the quarterfinals on point differential over Cleveland, Orlando and Brooklyn.
“I understand the concept,” Knicks guard Josh Hart said last season of the point differential tiebreaker. “But it’s weird.”
Flopping Rule
The in-game flopping penalty is now permanent, after a one-year trial this past season convinced the league to go forward.
When flopping is called in-game now, the offending player is charged with a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul and the opposing team is awarded one free throw — to be attempted by any player who is in the game when the technical is assessed.
A player cannot be ejected from a game based on flopping violations.
Expansion
As Silver has said many times, once the league’s collective bargaining agreement and media deals get done, the next major project for the NBA will be looking at whether it’s time for expansion.
“I think we will engage this fall, in earnest, in the process of making those determinations — should we expand and if we were to expand, how many teams should we expand,” Silver said.
LINDSEY HARDING WILL BE THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS’ FIRST FEMALE ASSISTANT COACH, AP SOURCE SAYS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lindsey Harding is joining JJ Redick’s coaching staff with the Los Angeles Lakers, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Lakers haven’t publicly announced Redick’s first coaching staff, which also includes former NBA head coaches Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks. Harding will be the 17-time NBA champion team’s first female assistant coach.
The 40-year-old Harding was the G League’s coach of the year last season with the Stockton Kings, becoming the first woman to win the award. The former No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick previously was an assistant coach, a player development coach and a scout for the Sacramento Kings and Philadelphia 76ers.
Harding and Redick have been close since both collegiate stars played at Duke over the same four-year span. Harding was the Naismith College Player of the Year in 2007 before she embarked on a nine-year WNBA playing career, including two seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks.
Harding’s Stockton Kings went 24-10 and reached the G League’s conference finals last season.
ESPN, Redick’s former employer, first reported Harding’s addition to the Lakers.