NBA

1:30 PM ET Near the end of the NBA’s board of governors call on Friday, Oklahoma City Thunder owner Clay Bennett delivered an impassioned soliloquy on why the league and owners needed to consider the competitive and financial plights of smaller-market teams that could be left out of the season’s summer resumption in Orlando, Florida

7:25 AM ET When speaking with players, coaches, executives, referees and even typically skeptical agents in recent weeks, their display of support for Adam Silver reveals a remarkable building of capital in his six years as NBA commissioner. Under his leadership, the league and its partners have gotten richer. Silver has expanded support of players

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

8:48 PM ET NBA Insiders Who are the favorites for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and the other major NBA awards for the 2019-20 season? The league is expected to approve a return-to-play plan on Thursday, with growing support for a 22-team field that likely will play regular-season and play-in

9:50 AM ET Even in the middle of a pandemic, when nobody is playing, Bradley Beal‘s name still emerged in trade rumors. The New York Daily News last week reported that the Brooklyn Nets have had “internal discussions” about pursuing the 26-year-old Wizards guard, who signed a two-year, $72 million extension in October. “It’s not

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This story was originally published on April 14, 2016. Kobe Bryant’s final game will re-air on ESPN and the ESPN app Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET. LOS ANGELES — The clock ticked toward midnight Wednesday. The sold-out stands had emptied hours earlier. Now, ushers, security guards and cleaning crews swept mounds of purple and gold

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