Category: NBA Basketball

6:10 PM ET

Associated Press

Vince Carter picked up some more hardware on his way out of the NBA.

Carter was named the winner of the NBA Sportsmanship Award on Thursday, honored in the final season of his record-setting 22-year career.

Carter, now an ESPN analyst, earned 143 first-place votes and 2,520 points in voting by NBA players. Brooklyn’s Garrett Temple (1,746) and Oklahoma City’s Steven Adams (1,632) were next.

The 43-year-old Carter finished his career in Atlanta, becoming the first player to appear in a game in four decades. The 1999 Rookie of the Year also received the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award in 2015-16.

Doc Rivers will be the next head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Rivers spent the past seven seasons coaching the Los Angeles Clippers, but after blowing a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the second round, he and the team mutually agreed to part ways. Soon after, the 76ers keyed in on Rivers, who they likely did not expect to be available, as their top coaching choice, and the deal was completed in less than a week. Rivers’ deal with Philadelphia is for five years, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. Though there was some speculation that he could take on front office duties as well — Rivers was the senior vice president of basketball operations in Los Angeles — that won’t be the case, as he will serve strictly as

9:27 PM ET

Tim BontempsESPN

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday that he doesn’t believe the league needs to institute a “Rooney Rule” to create more diversity in the league’s head-coaching ranks, but that the league has talked to all six teams with current head-coaching openings about ensuring they look at a variety of candidates.

“The answer is ultimately yes to, ‘Should the teams be able to hire who they want?’ I don’t see a way to operate a league where the league office, the commissioner, is dictating to a team who they should or shouldn’t hire or who they should or shouldn’t fire, frankly,” Silver said Wednesday night at his annual news conference ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers. “That’s the other side of the coin.

5:30 PM ET

Associated Press

ATLANTA — Continuing his pledge to work toward social and racial justice, Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce and his wife Melissa will match up to $15,000 in donations to the Georgia Innocence Project.

The Pierces’ pledge applies to any donations made Friday in honor of Wrongful Conviction Day.

Pierce became one of the NBA’s most outspoken advocates in the midst of nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd while in police custody. He plans to keep up his off-the-court efforts even as he looks ahead to his third season as the Hawks coach.

“Someone needs to take the reins and speak up,” Pierce said on a conference call after the Hawks wrapped up a two-week minicamp.

“I know I have the ability to raise awareness. What I’m also trying to do is partner with groups and

5:46 PM ET

After a rapid courtship and negotiation, Doc Rivers has reached agreement on a deal to become the next coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, sources told ESPN on Thursday.

Rivers’ deal with the Sixers comes only three days after departing the LA Clippers. It also returns him to the Atlantic Division where he’ll be a principal rival of the Boston Celtics, where Rivers won an NBA title in 2009 as coach.

Sixers general manager Elton Brand on Monday reached out to Rivers and his agent, Lonnie Cooper, to gauge interest in the Sixers job. Rivers soon was on a flight to Philadelphia where meetings on Wednesday with Brand, owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer had the sides moving quickly toward negotiating a multi-year deal.

Rivers takes over a Sixers team that lost in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs and continues to

Sep 30, 2020

After much springtime bloviating, there will be no asterisk on this NBA championship. If anything, it will be more badge of honor — a mark of perseverance through isolation, mental strain, and the internal discord of performing a job in the entertainment industry while issues of social and racial justice roiled outside the Orlando bubble.

We remember some champions more than others. This champion will stand out forever.

The bubble did not produce a fluke finalist. The Los Angeles Lakers ranked among the league’s three favorites all season. The Miami Heat did not, but they have been a different team in Orlando — new starting lineup, remade identity, more powerful two-way force. They faced a slightly tougher slate of playoff opponents than the Lakers, and outscored them by 4.5 points per 100 possessions — two points fatter than their regular-season margin.

Watch Now: Week 4 Starts and Sits: Running Backs (9:07)

The Lineup Cheat Sheet combines Fantasy analysis and game-flow predictions with a confidence scale to give you a definitive answer on who to start in your leagues.

It’s pretty simple: The scale runs from 1-10. The higher the number next to a player’s name, the more confident you should be to start him. The numbers are not a projection, just a confidence score to help you pick who to start. Every relevant player for Week 4 is here, so if a player isn’t listed, don’t start him.

To find a specific player, use your search function — CTRL-F on PCs and Command-F on Macs. If neither of those are options, or if you’re on a mobile device, you can scroll by game.

If you’re still unsure, just send a

USATSI

College basketball might have just been gifted a Final Four preview — in the very city where the 2021 Final Four is scheduled to be held. It was announced Thursday that the first CBS college basketball broadcast for the 2020-21 season will be Gonzaga vs. Baylor — the two teams who are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in CBS Sports’ preseason Top 25 And 1. 

They will play each other in a neutral-court game at Indianapolis’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse at 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 5. The game will serve as the lead-in to that day’s big “SEC on CBS” football matchup.

If both basketball teams live up to expectations for the 2021 NCAA Tournament, there’s a chance Bulldogs and Bears could face each other in the same city twice in the same season.

4:37 PM ET

The Brooklyn Nets named Steve Nash their head coach in early September and stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant see Nash’s role more as a coaching collaboration, rather than top-down leadership.

“I don’t really see us having a head coach,” Irving said on Durant’s new podcast, “The Etcs.” “KD could be a head coach, I could be a head coach [some days].”

Durant followed up by agreeing with Irving, calling it a “collaborative effort” and naming assistant and former interim head coach Jacque Vaughn as someone that could fill the role any given day.

Nash, who was a shock hire, said when he was named coach of the Nets he was especially excited to work with Irving, calling the star point guard a “savant with the basketball.” Irving, though, said on the podcast he doesn’t know Nash that well, but is looking forward

Who’s Playing

Western Kentucky @ Middle Tenn.

Current Records: Western Kentucky 0-2; Middle Tenn. 0-3

What to Know

The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers are 4-1 against the Middle Tenn. Blue Raiders since October of 2015, and they’ll have a chance to extend that success on Saturday. The Hilltoppers will take on Middle Tenn. at 5 p.m. ET at Johnny (Red) Floyd Stadium after a week off. WKU won’t have the home-field advantage, but they do enjoy a 7-point advantage in the spread.

Last week, WKU was within a late touchdown of stealing the win, but they took the “L” against the Liberty Flames 30-24. What made the defeat an especially bitter pill for WKU to swallow was that they had been favored by 14.5 points coming into the game. Despite the loss, they got a solid performance out