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The Knicks are in contract limbo with three key players, after tabling all contract extension talks on Oct. 9. Owner James Dolan said this summer that New York wouldn't dip into the punitive second apron to keep the team together. Hart has a team option and on media day said there hadn't been any discussions on a new deal. Towns is eligible for a four-year, $276 million deal. Before talks were halted, the Knicks' offer was at $200 million, which represents a pay cut from his current salary (four years, $220.4 million). Towns hoped for a contract extension at the start of last season and didn't get it. The disappointment was quiet, but he played through an up-and-down regular season as he and Brown struggled to get on the same page; then it clicked in the postseason.
Mike Brown has pointed to on-ball defense, indecision on offense and his players standing around when plays break down as culprits for the slow start. According to NBA.com, the Knicks trail only the Houston Rockets and Charlotte Hornets in frequency of shots late in the shot clock (four seconds or less), and shooting 28.8% in those situations ranks them behind only the Portland Trail Blazers in efficiency -- they were best in the league last season. Usually, that's Jalen Brunson time, as he did so often in the playoffs. But the magic hasn't been there to start the season.
Shams Charania: G/F Dalen Terry has agreed on a two-year deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder, sources tell ESPN. Terry enters his fifth NBA season after the former No. overall 18 pick spent time in Chicago and Philadelphia, and went to training camp with Golden State last month.
Three-time NBA All-Star center Domantas Sabonis reportedly wants to leave the Sacramento Kings, with ESPN's Tim MacMahon describing the situation between the big man and the franchise as increasingly difficult. "Quite frankly, Sabonis wants out of there, and if they can move him, they would," MacMahon said on The Hoop Collective. "So he's not happy. It's a bad situation."
Ernie Johnson believes the NBA would benefit from shortening the regular season below 82 games. Johnson is on his farewell tour as he announced last month that this would be his final season on the iconic Inside the NBA studio program after 37 years. He spoke with Front Office Sports’s Baker Machado last week on a variety of topics, including what he sees for the future of Inside the NBA without him, how ESPN/ABC have handled the program, and why he thinks the season could stand to shed a few games. “If I were gonna do one thing, maybe I would reduce the schedule by a few games, so it’s not 82,” Johnson said when asked about the current state of the league and what changes he would make. “Here we are a week into the season and there’s so many stars who are out right now. That’s the concern. It’s like, OK, so Anthony Edwards isn’t gonna play for a while. OK, so Kawhi Leonard’s out for a while. Look what happened in OKC.”
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Johnson also spoke of the “seamless” transition the show made to ESPN and ABC last year after TNT lost the NBA rights, and ESPN licensed the program in exchange for a package of Big 12 football and basketball games. “That was our concern, in all honesty, when this change was gonna be made. I said, ‘Are we still gonna be able to be Inside the NBA?’ And this is total honesty: It was seamless,” Johnson said. “The folks at ESPN have been, [and] continue to be, great.” He continued, “They’ve let our show continue the way we do it. We’ve got the same producer, we’ve got the same studio crew, we’ve got the same graphics folks, we got the same announcer. It’s us continuing to do the show in Atlanta’s Studio J. It’s just, the logo is different. It’s on ESPN, or it’s on ABC. They’ve been tremendous partners to be with. I’m just glad that we could continue the show. It would’ve been very strange to just cold turkey stop doing the NBA.”
Luka Doncic tormented Toronto to the tune of eight turnovers -- swiping five steals and drawing three charges -- becoming the first player to record those defensive marks in the same game since player tracking began in 2013-14, according to ESPN Research. "Obviously, I'm not the best defender in the NBA, but I think this year, I really took a step forward," said Doncic, whose season-high 15 rebounds also came on the defensive end. "Obviously, people are going to talk what they want to talk [about] me. ... But I know, and my team knows, that I'm better this year."
The latest chapter of Yaxel Lendeborg's explosion onto the NBA scene came in Sunday night's 124-112 win over the LA Clippers. Lendeborg made 13 of 19 shots, including six 3-pointers, and finished with 37 points, the most for a Warriors rookie since Stephen Curry in 2010. On the front end of a back-to-back, the Warriors opted to rest Curry and Draymond Green, saving the duo for Monday night against the Phoenix Suns while clearing the Sunday runway for Lendeborg. "Whenever Steph's not in the game, it's my opportunity to try to be the leader, be the main guy on the team," Lendeborg said.
Yaxel Lendeborg already has scoring nights of 26, 26, 31 and 37. He's averaging 22.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists, generating legitimate early buzz for Rookie of the Year. "One thing I'm proud of myself is my 3-point shot diet," Lendeborg said. "Last year, if I would've missed like three 3s, I'm never shooting another one in the game. In Denver, I started off 0-for-5 and I kept shooting."
San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama launched a career-high 34 shots for a season-high 43 points Saturday to propel the Spurs to a 121-111 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. "When he plays with his teammates, it really causes a problem for the other team, whether that's spacing, handling the basketball, playing two-man game or three-man game," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "The best players in this league, when they play with their teammates, it's damn near impossible at times [to stop]. You've got to just choose how they beat you. He's made some fine improvement in a short amount of time."
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In a court filing this week, Jeanie Buss accused her siblings of conspiring against her in a "cloak and dagger" campaign through the media, said they were jealous that their father picked her over them to govern the Los Angeles Lakers and asked a judge to block her siblings' attempt to sell the family's shares in the team, which would end her run as the Lakers' governor. Wednesday's filing, reviewed by ESPN, is the latest salvo in the bitter legal battle playing out between Jeanie and her siblings, namely Joey and Jesse Buss, leading up to a scheduled Dec. 8 hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The filing responds to recent filings by Jeanie's siblings, who are seeking to sell the family's remaining shares of the Lakers to the Bob Iger and Josh Kushner ownership group, who are seeking to buy the team from Mark Walter at a $12.5 billion valuation. "The conflicts that ensued after Dr. [Jerry] Buss's death [in 2013] were sadly inevitable, and no doubt intensified given that Dr. Buss chose his daughter over four sons to be his successor," Jeanie's lawyers wrote in the Wednesday filing.
In Wednesday's filing, she again asked the court to remove Joey and Janie as co-trustees of the trust for breach of fiduciary duty, to hold them in contempt of court, to find Jim, Johnny and Jesse liable for aiding and abetting a violation of the 2017 court order, and for her to be reimbursed for legal costs. Sources close to the family have told ESPN that there have been settlement talks between the two sides, but it's unclear how much progress has been made leading up to the scheduled December hearing.
Three sports figures running for Congress captured Republican nominations in the midterms—two for House races, and one for the Senate. Former NFL kicker and broadcaster Jay Feely is running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District; former Rangers and Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is running in Texas’s 21st Congressional District; and former NBC and ESPN sideline reporter Michele Tafoya is running for Senate in Minnesota. Their former colleagues in the sports world are injecting money into their races. More than a dozen active team owners donated to one of the three. Other high-profile names include: * NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: $7,000 to Feely * CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz: $3,500 to Feely * Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill: $7,000 to Tafoya and an additional $10,000 to associated PACs * 10-time NBA All-Star John Stockton: $3,500 to Tafoya * Texas Rangers owner Ray Davis: $7,500 to Teixeira