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02/15/19 07:37:00
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02/15 19:35 CST The Latest: In shocking development, NBA says travels happen
The Latest: In shocking development, NBA says travels happen
By The Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) --- The Latest on NBA All-Star Weekend (all times local):
8:35 p.m.
NBA executive Monty McCutchen has a less-than-surprising confession.
Travels get missed.
McCutchen, the former referee who moved to the league office last season and
now helps oversee the officiating program, said Friday that about two traveling
violations get called per game on average. He says the league believes that the
real number of travels that should be called is closer to five per game.
The NBA is no different than any other basketball league --- if every
letter-of-the-law travel was called, games could last for days. But McCutchen
says the league is continuing to work with its referees on making that (and
every) call consistently, and remains in constant contact with teams about
concerns and interpretations.
But don't expect a change to a four-ref system anytime soon. The NBA has
tinkered with it at the G League level, and McCutchen says "when we looked into
it, accuracy did not go up."
___
6:45 p.m.
Basketball Hall of Famer and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says Colin
Kaepernick's settlement of a collusion case against the NFL is a victory for
the quarterback.
Abdul-Jabbar says he believes that Kaepernick still wants to play in the NFL.
At a Hall of Fame event Friday at All-Star weekend in Charlotte, North
Carolina, Abdul-Jabbar said Kaepernick "had a statement that he had to make
through his demonstrations, but he's a quarterback and I think he should be
working."
Abdul-Jabbar, a winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was criticized
when he changed his name from Lew Alcindor as a statement of his Muslim faith,
and heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in the mid-1960s.
Kaepernick and Eric Reid filed collusion grievances against the league, saying
they were blacklisted because they kneeled during the national anthem to raise
awareness to police brutality, racial inequality and other social issues.
Reid's case was also settled Friday.
Abdul-Jabbar says Kaepernick is "a lot better than a number of the quarterbacks
I see that have jobs now. So something's wrong here."
___
6:05 p.m.
So, the best shooter in the Curry family is.... Sonya Curry?
The mother of Stephen and Seth Curry sank a one-handed, half-court shot ---
that she took underhanded --- to help her three-person team beat teams led by
her NBA sons and one by her daughter to win a family shootout at a newly
refurbished at a community center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It's a shot the Currys will be talking about for a long time.
After sinking the shot, Sonya raced around the court as fans in the crowded
center went wild. She then did a celebration dance as her sons looked on in
amazement and husband Dell applauded.
Seth Curry couldn't hold back laughter knowing he just got beat by his mom, a
former volleyball player.
The Portland guard said afterward "that was a lucky shot, but she knocked it
down on the big stage. That was good to see."
Seth joked getting beat by his mom was better than losing to his brother.
He said, laughing, "Hey, anybody but Steph winning was good."
The three-person teams included the Curry children and their families. Each
team had to make a layup, a foul shot, two 3-pointers from the corner and the
top of the key and, finally a half-court shot in the timed event.
The shootout was part of the dedication of the refurbished Carole Hoefener
Center, donated by the Stephen and Ayesha Curry Family Foundation, Under Armour
and Chase.
___
5:35 p.m.
Chris Webber, Bill Fitch, Marques Johnson, Sidney Moncrief, Bobby Jones, Jack
Sikma, Eddie Sutton, Ben Wallace and Teresa Weatherspoon are among the 13
finalists for enshrinement later this year into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Webber, part of Michigan's Fab Five and a five-time NBA All-Star, was a
finalist for the third consecutive season.
Fitch is a two-time NBA coach of the year who led Boston to the 1981 NBA
championship. Johnson was a five-time NBA All-Star and an NCAA champion under
John Wooden at UCLA. Jones was a four-time NBA All-Star, a huge part of
Philadelphia's 1983 NBA-title-winning team and the league's sixth man award
winner that season. Moncrief was a two-time defensive player of the year and a
prolific scorer.
Sikma was an All-Star in seven consecutive seasons, had a brilliant shooting
touch and helped Seattle win the 1979 NBA title. Sutton is a College Basketball
Hall of Fame inductee and was the first coach to take four schools to the NCAA
Tournament. Wallace was a massive part of the Detroit Pistons' run to the 2004
NBA title and a four-time defensive player of the year. Weatherspoon was one of
the first true stars of the WNBA, and a five-time All-Star. Westphal was a
stellar player and coach, and won a title with the Celtics as a player in 1974.
Also selected as finalists were Leta Andrews, who won 1,416 games in more than
50 years on the sidelines; Hugh Evans, a referee in the NBA for 28 years;
Barbara Stevens, the longtime coach at perennial Division II power Bentley and
a winner of more than 1,000 games.
The Curt Gowdy Award winners for media contributions went to Marc Stein of The
New York Times and retiring Los Angeles Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler.
The full Hall of Fame class will be selected at the NCAA men's Final Four at
Minneapolis in April.
___
4:35 p.m.
Warriors guard Steph Curry says it's been "really weird" staying in a downtown
hotel in his hometown for the All-Star Weekend. It's leaving him a "little out
of sorts."
When Curry usually visits Charlotte, North Carolina, he and his family stay at
a home they once owned, located about 30 minutes from downtown. Or they stay at
his parents' place about 15 minutes away. But with traffic and so much going on
this weekend he decided to stay downtown, close to the Spectrum Center.
Curry says family is starting to trickle in and "the real fun starts in a
little while."
He's hosting a community service event Friday afternoon before making a
30-minute drive north to watch his alma mater, Davidson College, play against
St. Joseph's. He's excited that the Wildcats will wear alternate black and
yellow neon Under Armour jerseys and the same Curry 6 Coy Fish neon shoes that
he'll wear at Sunday night's All-Star game, which he says "is going to be
pretty cool."
He did find time to stop at one of his local favorites for lunch --- Bojangles
chicken and biscuits. He jokingly says, "Probably got some crumbs in my teeth
right now" while poking at his mouth.
__
1:35 p.m.
Seth Curry has a bold prediction as to who will win the NBA 3-point contest on
Saturday night.
"Me, me, I will," Curry confidently told The Associated Press on Friday at the
NBA's Day of Service at the Charlotte Convention Center.
Curry will be competing in his first NBA 3-point contest against a solid field
that includes older brother Stephen Curry, who won the event in 2015 and is
third all-time in NBA history with 2,365 3-pointers made.
Seth Curry says, "I want to win it for myself and my family" saying it has been
a goal of his to win the event since he watched his father Dell Curry compete
in it at the 1992 All-Star game.
Stephen Curry sees the outcome a little differently. When he was asked who's
going to win, he responded, "Oh I am."
Game on.
___
11:10 a.m.
Dallas rookie Luka Doncic said if he had to pick any five current international
players to beat an American team of All-Stars the list would include
Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dallas' Kristaps Porzingis, Denver's Nikola
Jokic, Miami's Goran Dragic and --- he added with a smile --- himself.
Doncic got his first look at All-Star life Friday, when he was part of the
Rising Stars practice and media session in the morning. He'll play on the World
Team against the U.S. in the Rising Stars game on Friday night.
Doncic says his adjustment to the NBA has gone better than expected after a
very successful start to his career in which he is averaging 20.7 points, 7.2
rebounds and 5.6 assists per game
Doncic said that "it went great from the beginning" and that having the trust
of his teammates made the transition easier.
He said didn't expect to have as much success as he's had this season, adding
"I'm surprised a little bit, too."
___
9:25 a.m.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has opened the annual All-Star Technology Summit
by touting the "smart jersey of the future."
Silver used an app on a phone to change the number and name on the back of a
jersey that was displayed on the side of the stage where he spoke, flipping it
from a Kemba Walker model to a Stephen Curry model to a Michael Jordan model.
Silver laid out what a fully customizable fan experience may look like in the
NBA in 2038, right down to changing the name on the jersey those fans wear to
games.
Silver's address opened the summit, a platform for discussions about
basketball's future and the role of evolving technology.
The tech summit is in 20th year and draws hundreds of top league executives.
Panels are scheduled on sports betting, disruptive technology, the relationship
between athletes and technology, and ways to attract fans of the so-called Gen
Z --- the 2.5 billion people worldwide born between 1997 and 2010.
___
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