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Former Nets player, and the first openly gay athlete in the NBA, Jason Collins married his longtime partner, Brunson Green, recently. The couple reportedly tied the knot over the Memorial Day weekend in a ceremony in Austin, Texas, after the two had been together for more than a decade.
Ratings and viewership declined only 3 and 1 percent respectively from last year’s conference final Game 4 on the ESPN networks, Celtics-Pacers in the same Memorial Day window last year (3.5, 6.63M). Game 3 on Saturday — a 42-point Minnesota rout — averaged a 2.6 and 5.26 million on ABC, down 26 and 27 percent respectively from Timberwolves-Mavericks on TNT and truTV last year (3.5, 7.25M).
For the second-straight week, a nationally televised matchup of Caitlin Clark’s Fever and Angel Reese’s Sky delivered the top WNBA audience in 23 years. Sunday’s Fever-Sky WNBA regular season game, the third meeting of the season between Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and Chicago’s Angel Reese, averaged 2.30 million viewers on ESPN — surpassing the teams’ meeting on CBS the prior week (2.25M) as the most-watched WNBA game since Memorial Day 2001.
The weekend before Memorial Day, back in Los Angeles, Pistons owner Tom Gores, general manager Troy Weaver and others in Detroit’s front office held a meeting to figure out what to do about a coaching vacancy that had been unsettled for nearly two months. Up to this point, the Pistons’ intentionally slow-played process had led them to close to a dozen interviewed candidates, according to team sources, with Charles Lee and Kevin Ollie, both of whom had never been an NBA head coach before, leading the pack.
Sean Cunningham: Memorial Day pre-draft workouts in Sacramento today as the Kings hosted headliners Jalen Wilson of Kansas and Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis, according to league source.
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All-Star forward Karl-Anthony Towns suffered an incredible loss when his mother, Jacqueline Cruz, died from the coronavirus in April. And Towns and several teammates were front-and-center in the calls for justice following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Rosas said that he and coach Ryan Saunders have tried their best to be there for Towns and the team. “It has been a tragic, tragic period in Karl’s life, not only with what everybody in the world is facing but when it hits home and it results in the death of his mother, it has been very tragic,” Rosas said. “Myself, Coach, the organization, we have regular communication with Karl and his family. We want to make sure that we’re there for them every step of the way. We have structures in place, even though we’re not together right now, to check on not only Karl but all of our players.”
The publisher of NBA 2K paused all online game activity for two hours Thursday in recognition of George Floyd's memorial service. 2K halted online play from 2-4 p.m. ET while a service was ongoing in Minneapolis, where Floyd died while in police custody on Memorial Day.
The NBA and National Basketball Players Association have discussed a model of 30 teams returning to reach a target goal of 72 regular-season games, sources said. The Hawks, who had 10 players participate in voluntary workouts on Memorial Day, are the league's closest to that total with 67 games played this season. "Our guys are excited about the opportunity to get back to it," Travis Schlenk, the Hawks' president of basketball operations and general manager, told ESPN. "It has importance for us. We're a young team, and because of injuries and some other things this season, we didn't get to see them all together.
The 2017-18 NBA season largely was an empty experience for Miami Heat forward Rodney McGruder, thanks to a long injury absence. But his Memorial Day weekend was one filled with meaning. Returning home, the Maryland native was among several NBA players and coaches who participated in the Good Grief Camp in Washington, an event for children who lost loved ones who served in the military.
The Lakers’ front office will be on the clock this Memorial Day, as six more draft prospects audition on Monday: Bryce Alford, Dwayne Bacon, Jordan Bell, Amida Brimah, Kennedy Meeks and Derrick Walton Jr.
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Isaiah Thomas: A few years later I got my chance. There was this Memorial Day basketball tournament in Seattle, and one of my good friends, David Hudson, said, “Isaiah, you should do a Memorial Day tournament in Tacoma. You could call it Memorial Day Zeke-end.” He came up with that name on the spot because a lot of guys call me “Zeke,” which is a nickname for Isaiah. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but I thought the name was pretty dope. Then I thought about Jason and Jamal. We want you to do the same for the next guy.
The Clippers’ Crawford showed off his game Memorial Day weekend in Tacoma, Wash., (remember Crawford is from the Seattle area) at Celtics’ guard Isaiah Thomas‘ Memorial Day Zeke-End Basketball Tournament. The best part of this video is when Crawfords decides to try and nutmeg (go between the legs) of Boston’s Kelly Olynyk. Aside this one defender, Crawford is just too much for everyone involved. Watching NBA guys destroy lesser talent is one of the joys of summer.
Nets Daily: #Nets summer store on Coney Island is back for third year, on Stillwell Avenue. Opens Memorial Day Weekend. http://t.co/ekTtg4IGNt
Less than a week ago, in the lead-up to Memorial Day weekend, Nets forward/center — and soon to be free agent — Andray Blatche posted a picture to his Instagram where he appears to be holding a hookah shaped like an AK-47. Listen, maybe some will get up on their soapbox about how this somehow promotes violence, probably the same people who think video games promote violence, but trust us when we say puffing on a little shisha relaxes everyone into passivity.
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