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…

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…

Editor’s note: This story addresses mental health and addiction and may be difficult to read or emotionally upsetting. 

AVALON, N.J. — Phil Martelli eases back into his chair and sighs. He has been scrolling through his phone, reading text messages that span a two-year window. It is a one-sided conversation, all black and white from the sender, no blue responses from him.

It is a beautiful sunny day in New Jersey and just a week ago, Martelli and his wife, Judy, enjoyed an idyllic Jersey Shore weekend, their home stuffed with children and grandchildren as the kids’ exuberance ricocheted off the ceilings.

But on this August afternoon it is pin-drop quiet in the house. The kids have left and the mood is heavy as Martelli pages through the texts from a person he always considered part of his family. The messages all follow the same pattern: a desperate request for help, a pressing need for money – to pay the dope man, the bartender, or, to get off the streets and find safety.

Martelli used to answer, even send the money as requested. But then counselors advised him he wasn’t helping; that, in fact, he was hurting. Then the messages stopped, the last one coming more than a year ago now – in April of last year. “I’m really sad” is how it ends.

Martelli is sad, too….

Michael Winger can trace his path to the Washington Wizards’ front office through three NBA cities: Cleveland, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles. But perhaps none of those formative experiences ever would’ve occurred if, nearly 22 years ago, he didn’t first pause to read a poster on the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio.

There, on a routine walk through a school building, he and another undergraduate spotted a placard: Ron Shapiro, a powerhouse agent for baseball players, was scheduled to give an on-campus talk. All students could attend.

Winger wanted advice on how to enter the sports business. He gained so much more. Over the next several years, Winger and Shapiro developed a bond that endures. Shapiro became not just a mentor but also a father figure. And the Shapiro family — which includes Shapiro’s wife, Kathryn Adams Shapiro, and seven children — treated Winger like one of their own. 

“That underscores Ron and Cathi,” Winger says. “That’s just who they are as people: ‘Stray cats? Bring ’em in.’ And I was a stray cat.”

Winger is 43 now, with a wife and children of his own, and no one within the basketball industry would describe him as a “stray.” Late last month, Ted Leonsis, the CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment and the Wizards’…

CLEVELAND — When Nick Gilbert was 14, he wore a bow tie to represent the Cleveland Cavaliers at the 2011 NBA Draft Lottery.

The oldest son of Cavs chairman Dan Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, watched as the team landed the No. 1 draft pick, which it used to select Kyrie Irving.

“It was quite a sight,” Dan Gilbert said after the lottery win. “I am very happy for him, too. He has been a lucky kid his whole life and overcome a lot of great odds. It’s a very good thing that he was a part of this.”

Nick returned with his trademark bow tie in 2013 ​— and so did Cleveland’s good fortune. The Cavs drew the first pick yet again. They used that pick to select Anthony Bennett, which didn’t turn out so great.

But once again in 2014, then-general manager David Griffin wore Nick’s bow tie as a handkerchief in his suit jacket as the Cavs once more saw the ping pong balls come out their way to land another first overall pick that would turn into Andrew Wiggins.

The bow tie also made an appearance before the 2021 lottery when then-general manager Koby Altman, who has since been promoted to president of basketball operations, unwrapped two of them in a package delivered to his hotel room in Chicago. One was Nick’s original bow tie that preceded a first-round draft pick and…

Nick Gilbert, the son of Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, died Saturday due to neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that causes tumors to grow on tissue anywhere in the nervous system. He was 26.

The Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, Mich., announced Gilbert’s death. The Gilbert family resides in Michigan.

Nick frequently donned a bowtie and represented the Cavaliers at the NBA Draft Lottery, beginning at age 14 during the 2011 draft. That year marked the first of three occasions the team won the No. 1 pick in a four-year stretch, with Gilbert representing Cleveland each time.

In March, the team held a “Cavs Bow Tie Night” during a game against the 76ers to raise money for NF Forward, an organization Dan and his wife Jennifer established in 2017. The nonprofit aims to fund research and benefit individuals and families affected by neurofibromatosis (NF).

The Cavaliers dedicated their 2022-23 season to Nick “and the millions of others worldwide that have been affected by NF,” per NF Forward. 

(Photo: Jason DeCrow / AP)

If you have questions about the future of your team’s live games on your local cable, satellite or digital provider, particularly those on Bally Sports channels, we’re here to answer with what we know so far.

Diamond Sports Group, the Baltimore-based corporate parent of the 19 Bally Sports channels that air 47 NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA teams, announced Feb. 15 that it would skip a $140 million debt payment due that day and use the month-long grace period as part of its effort to financially reorganize itself.

Many observers interpret the move as a precursor to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, though that is not a certainty. Diamond has $8 billion-plus of debt, incurred as part of parent Sinclair’s 2019 purchase of the regional sports channels, and lost $1.2 billion in the most recent fiscal quarter.

“Certainly more likely that they will file bankruptcy because they did not make the payment,” said Schuyler Carroll, a bankruptcy attorney who is not connected to Diamond. “But not necessarily that they will file bankruptcy. They are still continuing discussions with their creditors to try and avoid bankruptcy. But those can often be difficult.”

Diamond in a Feb. 15 statement said it “intends to use the 30-day grace period to continue progressing its ongoing…