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…

MANILA, Philippines — The Americans’ chartered jet, on its way from the Arabian Peninsula, flew over a range of forested mountains as it began its initial descent into the Philippines, where only the occasional dirt path splitting the trees seemed to be a reasonable means of navigating the jungle.

As the plane flew east, across this nation of 7,640 islands, and approached the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, thousands of tin roofs covering shacks and huts made out of plaster or cement brick dotted the landscape. Some of the structures, whether they were homes or former businesses, collapsed on one side, exposed to the air.

Awaiting Team USA on the tarmac was a welcoming delegation. Local dignitaries, women in traditional gowns, placing hand-woven scarves of silk and gold around the necks of players and coaches, and airport workers taking cellphone footage.

The team buses, guided by police escort, could only partially navigate the stifling traffic in Metro Manila. Hundreds of mopeds and mini motorcycles weaved through cars. Makeshift buses with cabs look like they were made out of a giant tin can, called jeepneys, clogged lanes; a truck filled with live pigs passed on the right. A 10-minute drive to the business district, to skyscrapers and attractive restaurants…

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will enshrine its 2023 class on Aug. 12 in Springfield, Mass. Eleven individuals and the 1976 Women’s Olympic team will take their place among the greatest to ever play the sport. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of this weekend’s ceremony.

When and where will the Hall of Fame induction ceremony take place?

The induction will begin at 7 p.m. ET at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. According to the NBA, 45 Hall of Famers will be on-hand for the event.

Who is being inducted? Who will be presenting them?

1976 Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, presented by Ann Meyers (Class of 1993), Nancy Lieberman (‘96)

The first women’s team to compete in an Olympic Games. Composed entirely of college players, they paved the way for future generations of female basketball players to pursue their dreams of being on the biggest stage.

Coached by Hall of Famer Billie Moore, the roster featured fellow inductees in Lusia Harris-Stewart (1992), Ann Meyers Drysdale (1993), Nancy Lieberman (1996) and Pat Summitt (2000). They earned the silver medal, losing to the Soviet Union in the championship matchup.

Becky Hammon, presented by Sheryl Swoopes (‘16), Teresa Weatherspoon (‘19)

Hammon played point guard in…

DENVER — Kevin Love’s wife Kate gave birth to the couple’s first child over the weekend. Love, the Miami Heat’s starting power forward, did not fly with the organization to Denver for Game 5 of the NBA Finals so he could be there for the birth of his daughter, but traveled on his own late Saturday night to rejoin the Heat and resume his effort to be a part of the second team in history to come from a 3-1 deficit to win in the finals.

“When you have a special moment like that, you’re obviously very happy no matter what situation you’re in,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said of Love. “To see the joy on his face for him having his baby, obviously, his wife is healthy and everybody is healthy throughout, that’s the blessing that you get. That’s the blessing he probably needed. That’s great news for all of us that we probably needed.”

Life indeed goes on, even while history hangs over the heads of both teams. The Nuggets are looking for the first NBA title in the franchise’s 47 seasons in the league, and they’ve only lost once since the middle of the Western Conference finals when they were tied 2-2 with the Phoenix Suns.

Denver is at home, where it has lost just once this postseason (to Miami in Game 2) and can celebrate in an unrivaled state of euphoria…

MIAMI — At the moment Derrick White’s buzzer-beating layup fell through the basket, his father, Richard, could not celebrate yet. The officials still needed to rule whether the putback bucket would count.

Few reviews have ever weighed more. If the referees waved off the basket, Boston’s season would end in a crushing fourth-quarter collapse. If they determined the score counted, Derrick’s shot would head straight to Celtics lore. He would be the savior of the season. The extender of the Eastern Conference finals. The humble, unassuming guard with the wherewithal to hustle his way into history. On the court, Derrick believed he released the ball just in time. In their Denver area home, his parents held their breath.

“Did he get it off?” Richard wondered.

Yes. Just barely. In the final fraction of a second, Derrick rescued the Celtics’ season. At the last possible moment, he crashed past Max Strus, flew toward the legends of John Havlicek and Larry Bird and finished a 104-103 Game 6 thriller with a putback of a Marcus Smart miss.

“I stood up,” Richard said during a phone conversation. “My wife and I slapped hands. And all we could say was, ‘Oh, my God.’”

Omg that’s my boy

— Richard White (@RamblinWreck34) May 28, 2023

None of the Celtics players had…

NBA legends Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade, along with San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, are among the 2023 class to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this summer, the Hall of Fame announced Saturday. Here’s what you need to know:

• Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Gene Keady, Gene Bess and David Hixon are also in the Class of 2023, as are Becky Hammon and Gary Blair, who headline the Hall’s selections for the Women’s Committee.
• The 1976 Olympic women’s basketball team, which won the silver medal in the inaugural appearance for women’s Olympic basketball, is also headed to the Hall of Fame, as well as 1983 NCAA champion and broadcaster Jim Valvano, who is recognized posthumously.
• Inductees required 18 of 24 votes from the Honors Committee for induction in the Class of 2023.
• The Class will be enshrined in Springfield, Mass., on Aug. 12.

Introducing the Class of 2023. #23HoopClass pic.twitter.com/at27SyXUsI

— Basketball HOF (@Hoophall) April 1, 2023

Career snapshots of the inductees

• Nowitzki won the 2011 NBA Finals with the Dallas Mavericks, with whom he spent his entire 21-year NBA career with. He made 14 All-Star Games and was voted league MVP in 2007.
• Wade was a 13-time All-Star and won three NBA championships with the Miami Heat…

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…