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8:45 PM ET NBA Insiders As the NBA prepares for a possible return to play in the midst of a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, which awards races are still in play? The NBA is expected to approve a return-to-play plan on Thursday, with growing support for a 22-team field that will include regular-season

5:48 PM ET Charlotte Hornets owner and Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan joined the chorus of athletes, coaches and executives expressing their grief and outrage over the death of George Floyd. “I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry,” Jordan said in a statement Sunday. “… I stand with those who are calling out

8:00 AM ET Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on June 1, 2018. Two lead changes. Three ties. A controversial replay reversal. A potentially series-changing blunder. The final minute of regulation in Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals featured just about everything. We let the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors tell the

10:11 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown led a peaceful protest march through Atlanta on Saturday night. Brown, who streamed part of the march live via his Instagram account and also posted videos of speeches to his page, said during the livestream that he’d driven 15 hours from Boston in order to

5:24 PM ET Detroit Pistons coach Dwane Casey lived through desegregation in Kentucky and said he knows what it has felt like to go into a new school unwanted and unwelcome. He’s seen the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. On Saturday, Casey, who is black,

2:37 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN As the NBA’s board of governors met Friday afternoon to assess options for how to restart the season, the league’s general managers have expressed their preference to go straight to the playoffs. In a survey of all 30 general managers, which was viewed by ESPN, 16 said they would prefer

7:17 PM ET Adrian Wojnarowski Close Senior NBA Insider Host of The Woj Pod Joined ESPN in 2017 Ramona Shelburne Close ESPN Senior Writer Senior writer for ESPN.com Spent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News The NBA is planning a Thursday vote of the league’s Board of Governors — with owners expected to

2:59 PM ET ESPN News Services Former NBA player Stephen Jackson spoke at a rally Friday afternoon in Minneapolis in remembrance of his friend George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody after pleading that he could not breathe. “I’m here because they’re not gonna demean the character of George Floyd, my

6:50 AM ET MICHELE ROBERTS HAD just stepped out of an Uber when her phone started buzzing. It was a little after 8 p.m. on March 11, and the National Basketball Players Association executive director had left her New York office after meeting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver to discuss the next steps amid the

6:20 PM ET Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard believes a play-in tournament for teams on the outside of the playoff picture “would be perfect” as the NBA considers options for how it could potentially restart its season. The Blazers were 3½ games behind the Memphis Grizzlies for the final playoff spot in the Western

9:12 AM ET ESPN News Services LeBron James and other high-profile athletes have taken to social media to voice their outrage over the death of a black Minnesota man who was pinned down by police. George Floyd, 46, died Monday night while in Minneapolis police custody. A bystander’s video showed an officer kneeling on the

5:48 AM ET DAMIAN LILLARD HAS never entered the Portland Trail Blazers‘ training center through the media entrance, but there’s nothing natural about May 8, the first time he walks into the facility since the NBA shuttered it March 20 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Wearing a mask, Lillard steps into a makeshift check-in area,

7:49 PM ET Count the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the latest institution to have its best-laid plans felled by the coronavirus. Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the board of the governors for the Hall, told ESPN on Wednesday that enshrinement ceremonies for the Class of 2020, one of the most star-studded lineups

2:08 PM ET The NBA’s cleanest method of resuming its season is to bring the 16 current playoff teams to its designated “campus,” seed them as they are now — eight East, eight West — and play the NBA’s normal postseason. Sticking to 16 limits the number of bodies, which cuts the chance of COVID-19

11:41 AM ET Old audio of Michael Jordan has surfaced in which he says he told NBA executive Rod Thorn, who was part of the USA Basketball selection committee, that he wouldn’t play on the Dream Team in 1992 if Detroit Pistons star point guard Isiah Thomas was also selected to the team. “Rod Thorn

12:00 PM ET The final, fleeting fight for 30 teams to resume the NBA’s season is raging through these last days of indecision. Hours of commissioner Adam Silver’s time are being spent engaging owners and high-level executives who are making the case for how the league should march into the summer’s playoffs, including those desiring

8:13 AM ET IT’S STILL DARK when George Hill drives up the dirt road. It is 5:30 a.m., and Hill parks his Dodge pickup, trudges over to a small hut perched 12 feet above the ground, climbs the ladder and settles in to watch the sunrise. Wearing Wrangler jeans and a hoodie emblazoned with the

6:25 AM ET In team-by-team virtual calls with players this week, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said the “overwhelming” sentiment has been that “they really want to play” and resume the 2019-20 season, most likely in late July at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida. “It’s time. It’s time,” Roberts told ESPN.

6:17 PM ET Cleveland Cavaliers big man Andre Drummond left a big tip for a waitress at a Florida restaurant on Sunday. Kassandra Diaz, a server at Che Restaurant in Delray Beach, said she didn’t know who the customer was until she saw that he had left a $1,000 tip on a $164 check. “When

1:11 PM ET Georgetown Hoyas men’s basketball coach Patrick Ewing is recovering at home after a weekend stay at the hospital with the coronavirus, he told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. On Monday, Patrick Ewing Jr. tweeted that his father’s coronavirus symptoms are being watched and that he is “now home and getting better.” It was announced

8:00 AM ET It has been two and a half months since we’ve seen a poster dunk, an ankle-breaking move or a buzzer-beating shot on an NBA court. And, while there is some hope of a potential restart, plenty of hurdles remain in the league’s mission to save the season amid the coronavirus pandemic. But

12:46 PM ET Associated Press New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says teams in his state can return to their facilities for training after a pause of more than two months. “Starting today, all the New York professional sports leagues will be able to begin training camps,” the Democratic governor said during a news conference Sunday.

8:00 AM ET Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on Sept. 7, 2017. Tracy McGrady turns 41 years old on Sunday. From the moment Tracy McGrady first appeared on The Jump, ESPN’s Rachel Nichols has always introduced the seven-time All-Star as “Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady.” That title became reality in 2017, when McGrady

10:41 AM ET ESPN News Services Jerry Sloan, a bulldog as a player for the Chicago Bulls and coach of the Utah Jazz, died Friday at the age of 78. The Jazz announced that Sloan had died from complications from Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, which he had revealed diagnoses of in April 2016.

12:35 PM ET The NBA has entered into exploratory conversations with the Walt Disney Company about restarting the remainder of its season at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida, in late July, NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said Saturday. “The NBA, in conjunction with the National Basketball Players Association, is engaged in

12:59 PM ET Tim Bontemps Brian Windhorst Close ESPN Senior Writer ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010 Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years Author of two books After 10 weeks of suspension of the NBA season due to the coronavirus, the idea of a bubble site where games could be played has taken the next step.

7:19 PM ET Among marketplaces where governmental restrictions are keeping practice facilities shuttered, teams are asking the NBA whether players can bypass returns to those cities and report directly to the league’s proposed campus environment for the start of training camps, sources told ESPN. Most teams in regions still adhering to stay-at-home policies amid the

4:34 PM ET Don Nelson, the winningest coach in NBA history, had just finished a stroll on the beach in his beloved Hawai’i on Friday when a reporter informed him that his coaching contemporary Jerry Sloan had died from complications of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia at age 78. “Oh, he was a dear

9:00 AM ET “The Last Dance” is over, but let’s lead off our five NBA things with some unfinished business: 1. Dishonoring a champion With precious few exceptions, great teams have a life cycle. They gain experience, win a lot, age, and get bad. There are ways to mitigate the pain, but almost never to

7:00 AM ET What if the Splash Bros. had Wilt Chamberlain playing center? How many titles would the Lakers have won if Magic Johnson was running the break with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal? Imagine Hakeem Olajuwon and James Harden teaming up in Clutch City. We asked our NBA writers to come up with an