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 — Engraved on the inner side of Sabrina Ionescu’s debut signature sneakers, the Sabrina 1, are two words written in capital letters: ANYONE, ANYWHERE.

The message serves as a reminder to Ionescu and those who wear her shoes that dreams are limitless, no matter where someone comes from or what they look like. But even Ionescu, who once just dreamed of being the best player in her basketball-crazed family, wasn’t dreaming something this big.

She now is one of the best basketball players in the world, and her dominance on the hardwood with the New York Liberty has manifested into history on her feet. Ionescu’s signature sneakers are designed for men and women, marking the first time Nike has ever made a unisex shoe for one of its female basketball players.

Ionescu’s sneakers have been a hit among her WNBA counterparts and the young girls who look up to them. They’ve become one of the most popular sneakers in the NBA, as well.

“It was obviously something that we targeted,” Ionescu said. “Going in, it was just understanding the versatility of the shoe and what it is that we were trying to accomplish.

“Bridging the gap between women’s and men’s sports, and being able to do that by creating a unisex line that was available for everyone, that was…

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…

This is the digital version of The Pulse. If you want it earlier, start every morning with The Pulse delivered to your inbox. Sign up here.

Good morning! Be like Tommy Tanks today.

---

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…

The NBA, NHL and WNBA are on the precipice of being the first North American professional sports leagues to receive an investment from a sovereign wealth fund. The Qatari Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, is close to buying a stake in Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals, and Washington Mystics, sources briefed on the deal told The Athletic.

It’s a small stake, according to a person briefed on the matter. The deal valued Monumental at roughly $4 billion. Monumental’s portfolio also includes Capital One Arena and its new RSN, Monumental Sports Network.

“In November 2022, the NBA Board of Governors decided to permit passive, non-controlling, minority investments in NBA teams by institutional investors, including university endowments, foreign and domestic pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds, subject to a set of policy guidelines adopted at that time,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement to The Athletic. “All such investments require league review, NBA Board approval and compliance with the policy.

“The NBA Board is currently reviewing a potential investment by QIA in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Washington Wizards, among other…

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’…

WASHINGTON — The Washington Wizards will hire Oklahoma City Thunder executive Will Dawkins as the franchise’s No. 2 basketball operations executive, reporting to Michael Winger, a league source told The Athletic on Monday.

Dawkins, 37, recently completed his third year as one of the Thunder’s two vice presidents of basketball operations and his 15th year overall with the organization. Dawkins’ title with the Wizards will be general manager, said the league source, who was granted anonymity because Dawkins’ forthcoming hire has not been announced yet.

In Washington, Dawkins will reunite with Winger, who on May 25 was named the president of Monumental Basketball, overseeing the Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go.

Winger and Dawkins worked together in Oklahoma City from 2010 until 2017, when Winger left Oklahoma City to join the Clippers as L.A.’s general manager.

One of Winger’s first priorities in his new role in Washington has been to hire a No. 2 executive, and Winger chose Dawkins.

When Winger left the Thunder, he knew Dawkins was an up-and-coming fast riser who only needed an opportunity to blossom and grow on his own. After Winger’s departure, and after Oklahoma City’s then-vice president/general manager Troy…

WASHINGTON — With the Washington Wizards underperforming and lacking a clear path back to national relevance, Ted Leonsis has decided to hire LA Clippers general manager Michael Winger, a lawyer by training who has experience dealing with superstar players, high-powered agents and the nuances of the collective bargaining agreement and salary cap.

Leonsis plans to give Winger wide latitude to expand and revamp the Wizards’ infrastructure — and potentially launch a full rebuild of the roster — said league sources who were granted anonymity because Winger’s hiring, though agreed to in principle, has not been made official yet.

Leonsis will name Winger the president of Monumental Basketball, a new position that will give Winger oversight of not just the Wizards and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go but also the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.

Winger, 43, will take over a Wizards team that has missed the playoffs in four of the past five years, is set to pay shooting guard Bradley Beal up to $208 million over the next four seasons and faces an offseason in which forward Kyle Kuzma intends to become an unrestricted free agent and center Kristaps Porziņģis can become an unrestricted free agent.

According to a league source, Winger will have full authority over constructing…

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,…