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…

Free-agent guard Joshua Primo was suspended four games without pay for “conduct detrimental to the NBA,” the league announced Friday.

In October 2022, a former San Antonio Spurs female employee alleged that Primo, then on the team, exposed himself to her. Nearly a week later, former Spurs psychologist Hillary Cauthen sued Primo over alleged incidents involving indecent exposure, according to the lawsuit filed in Bexar County, Texas.

Cauthen also filed a criminal complaint against Primo for “multiple counts of indecent exposure.” Cauthen, who was hired under contract by the Spurs in September 2021, said Primo exposed himself to her nine times, according to the lawsuit.

The Spurs waived Primo on Oct. 28, 2022.

The NBA said Friday that it conducted its own investigation and found Primo engaged in inappropriate and offensive behavior by exposing himself to women. The league said Primo maintains his conduct was not intentional, and found no other evidence that Primo engaged in any other acts of sexual misconduct.

“Nevertheless, this behavior does not conform to league standards and warrants discipline,” the NBA said.

Primo, 19, was the No. 12 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. He played four games with the Spurs during the 2022 season, posting averages of 7.0 points, 3.3 rebounds…

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…

LAS VEGAS — Becky Hammon is sitting next to Sydney Colson in an office at the Las Vegas Aces’ facility and is struggling to keep a straight face. Colson has been called in to talk to Hammon and team president Nikki Fargas under the pretense that she offended a teammate’s family member.

But as Colson tries to explain herself, Hammon can’t keep up the jig any longer and bursts into laughter, letting Colson know the entire meeting was a charade. Some Aces teammates who had been on the receiving end of Colson’s many jokes decided to mess with the prank queen herself, and Hammon excitedly took on a central role in the act.

Hammon credits Kelsey Plum for coming up with the idea. But Plum says none of this happens without the environment Hammon has created in Las Vegas, where team members willingly come in on an off day to mess with the 11th player in the rotation.

“You watch our team play and you watch the amount of fun we have, and that just permeates from Becky,” Plum says. “I really enjoy coming to work. It’s a lot of fun, and she’s a big reason for that.”

Hammon adds: “If you watch our bench, you’re going to see a lot of people making fun of a lot of people. Mostly me. They make fun of me.”

It…

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Futures

Big expectations and breakfast tacos

All the bluster turned out to be smoke. No trade fires were seen at the NBA Draft last night, but that doesn’t take much away from what could be a league-changing draft. Some nuggets:

Check out The Athletic NBA Show’s live reaction, which was a fun stream last night:

The story of draft day, though — and the last week, to be honest — continues to be the ongoing transformation of the Washington Wizards:

• As expected, Chris Paul will not play in Washington next year. He’s headed to the Warriors in exchange for Jordan Poole, who theoretically becomes a building block for the Wizards going forward. Paul gets to chase his ring alongside the two best shooters to ever live. Washington’s path might look confusing from the outside, but John Hollinger says all you need to do is look at the contracts.
• Buried in draft coverage was news that the Qatari Investment Authority is close to buying a stake in the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics. It would make the NBA, NHL and WNBA the first American major…

CHICAGO — Brian Wright remained stoic throughout. There was no outburst, no wide smile, barely even a fist pump. As the San Antonio Spurs’ winning numbers were read off individually after flying out of a lottery machine in a conference room here he forced himself to sit still. The realization that the fate of his entire organization had just flipped came when Clay Allen, the Rockets general counsel sitting beside him, let him know those four numbers — 14, 5, 8, 2 — were the ones he had been waiting a whole season for.

It’s a remarkable thing, the NBA Lottery. The fortunes of men, women, franchises, and cities, all decided by the random procession of ping pong balls from a clear drum on the third floor of the McCormick Place West Convention Center. As representatives from 14 teams sat waiting for the final number to be drawn a little after six o’clock local time, the futures of six teams hung in the balance. Five of them needed just one more number to land the right to draft the prospected being discussed as the best since LeBron James. Another, the Wizards, had six different outs — if just one of them hit, they’d find glory.

Instead, as Wright sat unmoved, San Antonio found themselves atop the draft again, another generational big man in their sights. In 1987,…

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…