INDIANAPOLIS — There isn’t too much scoring in the NBA — 70-point games and record-breaking team offenses be damned.

The players don’t like to see what happened to Joel Embiid, or even Tyrese Haliburton, but they support the spirit of a league requirement for games played to determine eligibility for awards like MVP.

Clippers or Celtics? Joker, Embiid or even … LeBron? And who wants to be NBA commissioner Adam Silver for a day?

The Athletic again put on its collective hard hat, grabbed a lunch pail and jumped head first into All-Star media day, a savage, unruly affair in which players sit up on a dais, behind a gate, having questions shouted at them by YouTube influencers, goofballs on top of other goofballs’ shoulders, rappers, WNBA players and, yes, traditional reporters.

From the practice court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Joe Vardon, Sam Amick, David Aldridge and Mike Vorkunov spoke to 18 players, most of them All-Stars, a couple from the Skills Challenge, 3-Point or Slam Dunk contests, and one second gentleman, to canvas them on who’s the NBA’s best player, the best team and what about the league needs to change.

Not everyone polled answered every question, but they all had plenty of ideas:

Who is the best player in the league?

Nikola Jokić, Joel Embiid — 3
Luka…

CHICAGO — Steve Kerr couldn’t have been more blunt in his assessment of the Golden State Warriors before Friday’s road game in Chicago.

“The No. 1 thing we’re missing is a level of competitive desire,” the Warriors coach said. “It’s just not there. The last two games, we have not competed. I think Steph (Curry) said it after the (New Orleans Pelicans) game. There’s a standard that’s been set here for over a decade of, ‘You’re going to compete. You’re going to bring the energy, bring the life.’ And the last two games, we have not had that at all. So we have to fix that.”

Enter the Chicago Bulls.

Against an injury-ravaged Warriors squad coming off consecutive losses of 36 points to the Pelicans and 15 points to the Toronto Raptors, the Bulls assembled a shameful second half before suffering a 140-131 loss Friday. The only thing more cringe-worthy than the team’s performance on the court over the final 24 minutes was the halftime ceremony that went awry when fans mercilessly booed late Bulls general manager Jerry Krause in front of his widowed wife, Thelma Krause, during the franchise’s first Ring of Honor ceremony.

Golden State posted an opponent season high in points, connected on 20 of 47 3-pointers and collected 21 second-chance points behind 13…

Chicago Bulls fans mercilessly booed late general manager Jerry Krause during a halftime celebration of Friday’s 140-131 loss to the Golden State Warriors at the United Center.

The team brought together several former players to honor its inaugural Ring of Honor class, as well as Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson and other team personnel. When former team broadcaster Neil Funk announced Krause and the big screen depicted Krause’s likeness, fans erupted in boos.

The crowd’s reaction left Krause’s widowed wife, Thelma Krause, visibly shaken as she was shown on the big screen.

GO DEEPER

Greenberg: Lack of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen not worst part of Bulls ‘Ring of Honor’

“It’s absolutely shameful,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who won three championships with the Bulls under Krause, said postgame. “I’m devastated for Thelma and for the Krause family. What can we possibly be thinking? … The fans who booed, they know who they are and that to me is absolutely shameful. I’m devastated by that.

“Whether people liked Jerry or not, whether they disagreed with the decision to move on, we’re here to celebrate the team. Jerry did an amazing job building that team. Tonight and last night was all about the joy and the love that team shared with the city and I’m so…

LAS VEGAS — This week, the NBA will descend upon Las Vegas in full force. Even for a city used to spectacle, it’s bringing something novel along with it. For the first time in decades, the league will hold real, live, actual — yes, they count — regular-season games in Sin City. It is a step into the breach unlike any other for the NBA.

Professional basketball has come to Vegas before. There have been exhibition games, the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, NBA Summer League, even a few Utah Jazz games in the 1980s, a playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers in 1992, the NBA G League Ignite franchise since 2020 and, for the last six seasons, WNBA games. But the NBA has never put a product on display quite like the one it will on Thursday afternoon when the NBA In-Season Tournament semifinals tip off at T-Mobile Arena.

While it is a seminal moment for the league and the city, it is also one open to much conjecture and forecasting. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has tiptoed around expansion in recent years, and Las Vegas has come up as a potential home for a new franchise. This week will likely do little to silence those rumblings.

In July, Silver called Vegas “our 31st franchise;” now, everyone is waiting to see if Vegas will actually be the league’s…