The current free agent center, who last played with the Lakers, is an eight-time All-Star, a one-time NBA champion and five-time All-NBA first team player, just to name a few of his accomplishments. Howard wondered what was missing in order for him to make the honorable list.
“I was very surprised that I wasn’t put on the list,” Howard said. “When I saw that I wasn’t on the list, I was really upset. I really was just wanting to say, do I even want to play basketball no more? Like, what am I playing for? I’ve did all this stuff, I’ve accomplished all these things, I feel like I’ve been a great ambassador for the NBA and the game globally. I feel like that was just the disrespect, total disrespect.”
Howard is currently in his 18th year in the league and playing for his seventh team in his career. The 36-year-old didn’t mention anything about intentions to retire soon.
However, while speaking with Sharpe, Howard did express interest in joining the 2021–22 NBA Champion Warriors potentially in the future.
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Will Kyrie speak with the media tonight?
Sooner or later, Kyrie Irving is going to have to take responsibility for spreading antisemitic propaganda. Last night was not that time.
After a combative press conference Saturday night in which he refused to entertain the idea that he was wrong to promote a blatantly antisemitic film, Irving faced no consequences from the Nets or the NBA. He was in the starting lineup for last night’s game against the Pacers and didn’t even have to face additional scrutiny after the game. He was not made available to talk to the media. (A group of fans did, however, sit courtside wearing shirts that read “fight antisemitism.”)
During that Saturday press conference, Irving repeatedly took issue with the suggestion that he was promoting antisemitism. But what else can you call sharing a link with your 4.6 million Twitter followers to a film that claims, among other things, that Jews lied about the Holocaust, that Jews are created anti-Black racism and that Jews created slavery? Irving spread those ideas at a time when antisemitism is on the rise in the United States. “Kanye is right about the Jews,” read a message projected on the outside of TIAA Bank Stadium in Jacksonville after Saturday’s Florida-Georgia game, referring to repeated antisemitic comments made in recent weeks by Ye.
“Whether Irving intends to or not, he is giving aid and comfort to the worst among us—and, disturbingly, doesn’t seem to grasp that,” Howard Beck writes.
The Nets play again tonight (at home against the Bulls) and the team has not said whether Irving will address the media after the game. But he can’t keep hiding from scrutiny. He should make himself available to field questions after the game and apologize for his words and actions. He needs to reckon with the fact that the material he helped spread is hateful and move on, rather than dig in his heels like he did on Saturday. He needs to do that, most importantly, to limit the damage he’s already done, but also to put the issue behind him so the Nets can proceed without another distraction. As Beck writes, this is already a team (with a 2–5 record after last night’s win) that’s teetering on the edge of disaster:
Kevin Durant, remember, demanded a trade over the summer. Irving, remember, failed to get the extension he sought and is on a one-year deal. Steve Nash, in his second season as a head coach, continues to look overmatched in the role. Ben Simmons, in his first games after missing a full season, looks tentative and overwhelmed. The slightest bump in the road could send the Nets careening into a ditch.
Whether it be for his flat-Earth comments or his anti-vaccine stance, Irving has always been reluctant to apologize for misguided words. Now would be another good time to change that.
On this day in 2003, Larry Fitzgerald broke an NCAA record by catching a touchdown pass in his 14th consecutive game. Who held the record before him?
Randy Moss
Tim Brown
Desmond Howard
Charles Rogers
Yesterday’s SIQ: On Oct. 31, 1950, who became the first Black player to appear in an NBA game?
Earl Lloyd
Chuck Cooper
Nat Clifton
Jim Tucker
Answer: Earl Lloyd. He made his debut for the Washington Capitols on the first day of the NBA’s fifth season.
While Lloyd was the first Black player to appear in an NBA game, Chuck Cooper became the first Black player drafted by an NBA team in April 1950, and Nat Clifton was the first Black player to sign an NBA contract when the Knicks signed him in May of that year. (Tucker, the other name listed above, became one of the first two Black players to win an NBA championship, along with Lloyd, when their Syracuse Nationals won the ’55 title.)
Lloyd was always modest about his place in history, declining to put himself in the company of Jackie Robinson.
“I don’t think my situation was anything like Jackie Robinson’s—a guy who played in a very hostile environment, where even some of his own teammates didn’t want him around,” Lloyd once said, according to NBA.com. “In basketball, folks were used to seeing integrated teams at the college level. There was a different mentality. But of course, the team did stay and eat in some places where I wasn’t welcome.”
Lloyd, who died in 2016, went on to become the coach of the Pistons. Since Bill Russell was a player-coach for the Celtics, that makes Lloyd the first African American hired by an NBA team strictly to coach.
Lloyd, Cooper and Clifton aren’t remembered today the way Jackie Robinson and Willie O’Ree (the NHL’s first Black player) are. In a 2002 book that was once reviewed in SI, Lloyd recalled how he was disappointed when he happened to walk past the Pacers at an airport in the ’80s and not one player recognized him.
Philadelphia’s trade for Malone worked out better than the Butler deal. Fresh off winning his second MVP with the Rockets, the Sixers acquired Malone in exchange for Caldwell Jones (a defensive-minded center five years older than Malone) and a first-round pick originally belonging to the Cavaliers.
You might look at the trade as a sort of proto-tanking move for the Rockets. The moribund Cavs had only won 15 games during the previous season so it wasn’t farfetched that, during those pre-lottery days, the Cleveland pick might be No. 1. At the same time, the trade (and starter Robert Reid’s unexpected retirement due to religious reasons) made the Rockets such a terrible team that they were the ones who ended up finishing with the league’s worst record and getting the top draft pick. They took Ralph Sampson No. 1 and Rodney McCray with Cleveland’s pick at No. 3.
The Sixers, meanwhile, hoped that Malone would be the missing piece to a championship team. Over the previous six seasons, led by Julius Erving, Philadelphia had the best cumulative record in the NBA and had reached the Finals three times. All three times, though, the Sixers fell short.
“In last spring’s series against Boston, we were the downtrodden team, David against Goliath,” Sixers GM Pat Williams told SI’s Anthony Cotton, referring to Philly’s seven-game victory over the Celtics in the conference finals. “The whole nation was sympathetic to us. Now we’re back to being Goliath.”
Williams was right. With Malone, who won a second straight MVP in 1983, the Sixers went 65–17 (the best record in the NBA) and cruised through the playoffs, losing just one game before sweeping the Lakers in the Finals.
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The postgame incident marred an otherwise celebratory moment for the Wolverines.
Players, coaches and administrators from both Michigan and Michigan State have found themselves having to answer questions about the scuffle that broke out in the tunnel following the Wolverines 29–7 victory on Saturday evening.
The latest to weigh in on the videos that emerged postgame showing multiple Spartans players punching and kicking Michigan players Ja’Den McBurrows and Gemon Green was Wolverines running back Blake Corum, who said he was “disappointed and frustrated” with the events that took place.
“You don’t like seeing those types of things,” Corum said during Monday’s press conference, per Saturday Tradition. “There has never been a fight in the tunnel. Obviously, teams have talked multiple times. We’ve been down. We’ve lost. Teams talk. There’s never ended up being a fight. It’s okay to talk trash and do that, but when you start doing other things, then it’s like, ‘Come on. Are we really doing this?’ I know as a man, I wouldn’t have felt good ganging up on a couple players. That’s not how I roll. But to each his own.”
The fallout from the shocking altercation has continued since Saturday as University of Michigan and Michigan State University police departments along with the Big Ten all investigating the matter. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh called for “accountability” for those responsible and said he would be surprised if the incident did not result in criminal charges.
Spartans coach Mel Tucker apologized for the actions of several players during his own press conference Monday. He also confirmed the suspension of Michigan State’s Tank Brown, Khary Crump, Angelo Grose and Zion Young for each player’s involvement in the altercation.
“Michigan State football is about integrity, discipline, unselfishness, toughness and accountability,” Tucker said. “The incidents involving a small group of our players do not represent our culture.”
Zimmer previously worked as linebackers coach and then co-defensive coordinator under his father, Mike Zimmer, from 2014 to ’21. He also worked under him with the Bengals organization as an assistant defensive backs coach in ’13 when his father was Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator.
Zimmer’s cause of death is unknown at this time, but his sister notes he died “so unexpectedly.”
“Adam, I love you so much and I will miss you every second of every day until I see you again,” Corri’s Instagram caption ended. “Please watch over us and help us be okay.”
You can read Corri’s full Instagram tribute to her brother below.
Bengals president Mike Brown released a statement following the news Tuesday.
“Our organization has had the privilege of knowing and working with the Zimmer family for 15 years,” Brown said. “We have the highest regard for Mike and Adam, and we are incredibly saddened by this tragic news. Mike and Adam were more than just coaches for us—they were friends. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Zimmer family at this time.”
