SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Chris Paul is 11 hours from his 19th NBA season ending. He’s less than a month from turning 39. He takes a seat in the third row of Golden 1 Center after the Golden State Warriors’ morning shootaround in Sacramento. Later that night, the Sacramento Kings blow them out 118-94, an elimination that also throws into question Paul’s immediate future.

But this much is clear: Paul is not retiring. He will play a 20th NBA season somewhere.

“I’ll talk to my wife and my kids, my family, my support system, see what it looks like,” Paul told The Athletic. “But this isn’t (the end of my career). I know it for sure.”

Paul remains under contract for the Warriors next season, but there’s a necessary caveat. All $30 million of his deal is non-guaranteed. Part of the Warriors’ reasoning behind the Jordan Poole for Paul trade last offseason was the financial flexibility it would provide this summer. The Warriors can use it as a trade vehicle or wipe all $30 million off the books before it guarantees on June 28.

Those options and decisions will be explored in the coming weeks. But Joe Lacob and the Warriors’ ownership group have already indicated a desire to avoid the second apron and even duck the luxury tax entirely, resetting the repeater clock….

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Eighty-four-year-old Roberta Burkholder, her white parka zipped to her neck, stands alongside her 81-year-old husband, Orval. She arrived here, at the back doors of Indiana University’s Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, around 7 a.m. It’s now pushing 5:30 in the evening. To their left are Trenton Kemp and his 13-year-old son, Maguire. They flew into town two days prior from Boise, Idaho, and planted at this particular spot around 6:30. Another gentleman, Josh Kennedy, flew in from Norman, Okla., before parking here before dawn.

Chris Coats, a kindly white-haired gentleman dressed head-to-toe in Hoosier gear, came comparatively late, around 8 a.m., but has since become the de facto mayor of this pop-up community. He knows everyone’s backstories, if not all of their names. The lady behind him, Coats explains, was smart enough to pack chicken salad sandwiches, and that fella over there, the one in the overalls? He bought four pizzas and some Wendy’s and generously shared them with everyone.

This cross-section of Americana — young, old, male, female — forms the head of a line that snakes in all directions; so many people in line a 10-year veteran of the security team at IU prays that they all have a ticket to get in the building. They have collected…

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…

INDIANAPOLIS — Stephen Curry, the greatest 3-point shooter in history, edged WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu in a first-of-its-kind shootout on All-Star Saturday Night.

Curry, the Golden State Warriors superstar who’s made more 3s than anyone, and has two NBA 3-point contest championships to his name, set a score of 29 to Ionescu’s 26 in the single-round shooting contest that easily upstaged the league’s regular 3-point contest. Ionescu, shooting a WNBA-size ball from the NBA 3-point line, hit her first seven shots, causing a stir among the Indianapolis crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Curry won a 3-point championship belt that looks like a boxing or pro wrestling title belt, with goats on each side of the buckle. Last summer, Ionescu hit 25 of her last 26 shots in the WNBA 3-point contest for 37 points, the highest score of any 3-point contest in either the men’s or women’s game.

The NBA and WNBA donated $25,000 to the charities of the two players’ choice, and State Farm contributed thousands of dollars to the NBA Foundation for each shot Curry and Ionescu nailed.

The Curry-Ionescu contest took place on a brand new, forgiving, LED glass court developed by German company ASB GlassFloor, installed at the football stadium for All-Star Weekend. The floor changed colors, graphics,…

The Golden State Warriors have plucked Jess Smith, the head of revenue for the Angel City Football Club, to be the president of their new WNBA franchise. It’s the first move by the team since the league announced it was expanding to the Bay Area back in July.

Smith, already a Bay Area resident, will oversee the business operations of Golden State’s WNBA team. She has arguably the most critical task in the Warriors’ stated plan to be a paradigm shifter regarding the economic possibilities of the WNBA. The league made it clear it was choosing the Bay Area for an expansion franchise to take advantage of the Warriors’ elite business operations. Owner Joe Lacob, a longtime supporter of women’s basketball, said he’s joining the WNBA fold to essentially elevate the league. So Smith — named to two Under 40 lists last year by the Sports Business Journal and Leaders in Sports — will be in charge of making the Warriors’ money-making machine work for the WNBA’s newest franchise.

“It feels surreal to be leaving Angel City, candidly,” Smith, 37, said in a phone interview, “just having been a part of building it, unofficially and then officially, for four-plus years at this point, and what it took to do what we did. But to be able to build again here is going to be…

Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu are known to terrorize their respective NBA and WNBA opponents from behind the arc, and now they get to showcase their talents during the first head-to-head NBA versus WNBA 3-point challenge.

The event, taking place during NBA’s All-Star Weekend from Feb. 16-18 in Indianapolis, will feature five racks of balls per shooter. Each rack will be placed behind the arc and will contain five balls. The first four racks have four game balls and one “money” ball, while the fifth rack (money rack) is all money balls. Additionally, each competitor will have two starry-range shots (shots located well behind the arc). Curry and Ionescu will decide which of the five racks they will earmark as their “money rack.”

Successful game ball shots are worth one point, money balls are worth two and starry-range shots are worth three.

Ionescu will shoot from behind the WNBA-mandated 3-point line with WNBA-sized basketballs, while Curry will shoot from behind the NBA-mandated 3-point line with NBA-sized basketballs.

In the NBA, the 3-point line is 23 feet and 9 inches long at the top of the arc, closing in on 22 feet from the basket in the corners of the court. The WNBA’s arc is slightly shorter at 22 feet and 1.75 inches from the basket at the top and slims to…

Two of the most prolific shooters in basketball will showcase their skills from beyond the arc during NBA All-Star Weekend with Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu set to face off in a 3-point shootout during the event, league sources said to The Athletic.

Curry is a two-time winner of the NBA’s 3-point contest. The Golden State Warriors star posted victories in 2015 and 2021 and is the league’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers.

Ionescu set a contest record last year with 37 points in the final round of the WNBA event. The New York Liberty guard passed Curry and Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton — who both had 31 points in a single round in 2021 and 2023, respectively — in her first career 3-Point Contest win.

Exciting competition planned: A 3-point Shootout between Golden State’s Stephen Curry and WNBA NY Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu at NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis, sources say. Two 3-point contest champions. Curry hinted at the possibility tonight while mic’d up vs. Kings. pic.twitter.com/ccXYRsxj4B

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 26, 2024

Rules of the event, including what ball and 3-point line will be used, remain unclear.

Curry previously hinted at the possibility of squaring off against Ionescu. He told teammate Brandin Podziemski, “I…

In a nearly empty arena in late November 2020, Caitlin Clark shot her first college 3-pointer. Time was ticking down in the first quarter of the Hawkeyes’ matchup against Northern Iowa. Clark forced a steal at midcourt and weaved her way to the right wing. With two defenders around her, she rose up. Her attempt was blocked.

That didn’t discourage her.

Now a senior, Clark is perhaps the biggest star across both men’s and women’s college basketball. She’s made more than 400 3-pointers throughout her college career and re-written the record book — at Iowa and nationally. “We see it every single day in practice, she hits one (shot) that amazes you or makes one pass that makes your jaw kind of drop,” Iowa assistant Abby Stamp says.

Clark passes with pin-point accuracy. Teammates and coaches alike laud her work ethic and improved leadership skills. But it’s Clark’s 3-point shooting which often immediately jumps out to viewers. She has been compared to some other recent greats in the basketball world — Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard and New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, to name a few. But how does Clark actually stack up when compared to such sharp-shooters?

Though the NBA and college 3-point line are different…

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…

Four-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala has a new gig, just three days after he retired from basketball. ESPN has hired Iguodala as a studio analyst. Here’s what you need to know:

• Former NBA guard Austin Rivers and former New York Knicks general manager Scott Perry are also joining ESPN as analysts.
• Additionally, the network hired WNBA coach Becky Hammon as an NBA studio analyst for the season. Hammon, whose Las Vegas Aces recently won the WNBA championship, has previously worked for ESPN.
• Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White will also serve as an NBA analyst. She has previously worked for ESPN and the Big Ten Network.

What to expect from ESPN’s additions

As a longtime NBA rightsholder and a media entity that leans heavily into basketball, ESPN is perennially in search of on-air talent — and especially those who have recently left the court. David Roberts, the head of event and studio production at ESPN and the lead executive for the network’s NBA and WNBA production, said he was impressed by Iguodala’s candor on his podcast as well as his storied history as a player and voice in the league. Iguodala won’t just appear on NBA-centric shows: Roberts said viewers will see him on “First Take” as well as “Get Up.”

The network’s additions of Perry and Rivers also…