THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTSWEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020 N B9PRO BASKETBALL SCOREBOARD
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. —
The two happiest N.B.A. players
these days just may be Brook
and Robin Lopez. Milwaukee’s
7-foot twin brothers double as
unabashed Disney
lovers.
“There is noth-
ing false about that
statement,” Brook
Lopez told me
when we crossed
paths Monday at Walt Disney
World, which is hosting the rest
of the N.B.A. season.
You could see the glee on
Lopez’s face even though more
than half of it, in accordance with
N.B.A. regulations, was covered
by a mask. His smile was that
big. The Bucks are a title con-
tender and will be here through
mid-October if they can reach
the N.B.A. finals.
It turns out my Monday, if not
quite Lopez-level, was pretty
good, too. It was my first full day
out of quarantine after seven
days of being restricted to a
314-square-foot room. I signed up
to go to six practices in this new
N.B.A. world that suddenly re-
quires no air travel and, despite
one cancellation and a couple of
timing conflicts, managed to
make three of them. I got to be in
a gym again for the first time
since March 6 and watched hap-
pily as Luka Doncic, at a basket
on the far end of the facility, went
through his array of jab-step
moves against the defense of the
Dallas assistant coach Jamahl
Mosley — just like they do before
every game.
As a Dallas resident who typi-
cally sees the Mavericks often, it
was my first dose of basketball
normalcy in a long, long time —
apart from the inelegant elbow
bump greetings that I tried to
exchange with the likes of Don-
cic, Boban Marjanovic and Mav-
ericks Coach Rick Carlisle.
“I’m having a blast,” Carlisle
said.
Carlisle’s team plays the Los
Angeles Lakers in a scrimmage
Thursday night and he was too
excited by the looming prospect
of an actual game to manage to
fret over the aesthetics of awk-
ward greetings in the name of
public health guidelines. Carlisle
said he sensed that the Maver-
icks were “energized” by the
fast-approaching resumption of
the 2019-20 season and specu-
lated that many other teams felt
the same.
I certainly got a jolt Sunday
afternoon from my first exposure
to sunlight in a week and the
chance to get my daily steps in
on actual concrete, but the real
lift came Monday when I got to
go see a few teams.
As stated in last week’s news-
letter, I don’t like to discuss work
conditions because this really is
a dream job — and complaining
out loud is dumb. This trip,
though, is different. For the first
time in league history, 22 teams
are living, practicing and playing
in the same place. And I’m one of
only 10 independent reporters
approved to cover the restart at
the N.B.A.’s centralized location.
So I share what I share here andtweet what I tweet from the
experience because I don’t think
there has ever been a time, in my
27 seasons covering #thisleague,
that the audience wanted to
know more about what we’re
doing and how we’re doing it.
There’s a perception, at the
so-called N.B.A. bubble, that
we’re bunking with LeBron
James this summer. In reality,
because all face-to-face contact
with players, coaches and team
staff members is forbidden out-
side of official interviews and
news conferences arranged by
the league, we are not supposed
to get close to James or anyone
else. The way things are set up
for the news media at Disney
World, chance encounters like
the one I had with Lopez can
realistically only happen during
practice times at the convention
center at the Coronado Springs
Resort. Three of the league’s
seven practice courts are there,
adjacent to a hallway that repre-
sentatives from the eight teams
staying at the Gran Destino are
prone to populate.
I found that out Monday after-noon while waiting to get inside
the San Antonio Spurs’ practice.
Lopez, along with Bucks Coach
Mike Budenholzer and the Los
Angeles Clippers’ Joakim Noah,
soon passed by in the short time
I was there.
Most of these encounters will
generate little more than a hello,
because the aforementioned 10
reporters, and a like number
from the league’s official media
partners at ESPN and Turner,
were required to sign unprece-
dented waivers pledging that we
would not approach any team
personnel when we saw them
outside of official access periods
for the news media.
The rules were conceived by
the league for safety reasons. To
minimize the risk of a coro-
navirus outbreak, it wants no one
getting close to the principals
who does not need to be close.
But let’s be clear: There are
likely other motivations for
league and team officials to have
limited our accessible slice of the
Coronado Springs property to
less than one square mile, as
measured on a walk by my col-league Ben Golliver of The Wash-
ington Post.
They don’t want us to see and
document violations — players
not wearing masks or failing to
maintain a proper distance. They
don’t want us to see the inter-
team mingling that, in the
N.B.A.’s social media era, will
inevitably (and instantly) be
construed as tampering, like last
week when Lakers General
Manager Rob Pelinka and Andre
Iguodala of the Miami Heat, who
have a longstanding relationship
as former player agent (Pelinka)
and client (Iguodala), were spot-
ted walking together.
They don’t want us encroach-
ing on team privacy, and espe-
cially player privacy, when those
players have already been asked
to give up so many of their usual
freedoms to play on a campus
they are not allowed to leave
without permission for as long as
their teams are here.
Interactions like the one I had
with Lopez are likely to be rarer
than we expected because the
league on Sunday closed off a
common area shared by the
media wing and the Gran Des-
tino tower that houses the eight
teams with the best records
when play was suspended March- Two reporters who were invit-
ed to campus early kept running
into players on their trips to grab
food or a coffee, so those zones
have been blocked off.
We’ll adjust. We’ll find our
opportunities. In the 15-minute
blocks of practice that reporters
are actually allowed to watch, I
saw little more Monday than
individual shooting drills and, in
the Spurs’ case, players in very
spread out folding chairs putting
on their sneakers before practice.
Yet we will learn to maximize
what the new normal affords us,
just like the participants.
“Everyone keeps asking, ‘How
is the bubble?’ or, ‘How is it
going?’ ” James said Monday
after the Lakers’ practice. “And I
just say, ‘It’s 2020.’ Nothing is
normal in 2020. Nothing seems
as is, and who knows if it will
ever go back to the way it was.
But you make the adjustments
and you figure it out along the
way. That’s what life is all about.”
There Is No Normal in the Sequestered N.B.A.
MARC
STEIN
ON PRO
BASKETBALLHeightened restrictions will limit the access reporters will have to the teams in the N.B.A. bubble.TIM REYNOLDS/ASSOCIATED PRESSGo behind the N.B.A.’s curtain
with the league’s foremost expert.
Get Marc Stein’s weekly newslet-
ter in your inbox. Sign up at
nytimes.com/newsletters.
The Citi Open in Washington,
which was scheduled to restart
the men’s tennis tour next month,
has been canceled for 2020.
The tournament was set to be-
gin on Aug. 14 and serve as a lead-
in event for the United States
Open. But Mark Ein, the Citi Open
chairman, said concern about in-
ternational travel restrictions and
recent trends in the coronavirus
had led to the cancellation.
“When we committed to host
the event all the trends were going
in our favor, and halfway through
the process they all reversed,” Ein
said by telephone on Tuesday.
“Then we ran out of time. With a
little more time we may have been
able to overcome the obstacles
that were in front of us, but it’s bet-
ter to make a decision for all the
stakeholders before it gets to the
last minute.”
The decision, made on Monday,
will increase doubts about this
year’s U.S. Open, which is sched-
uled to be played without specta-
tors in New York from Aug. 31 to
Sept. 13.
But Stacey Allaster, the U.S.
Open tournament director, re-
affirmed Monday that plans re-
mained on track for a double-
header at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean
King National Tennis Center. The
Western & Southern Open is to be
played there from Aug. 22 to 28 as
a prelude to the U.S. Open, with
players and officials operating in-
side a health and safety “bubble”
similar to those being used by the
N.B.A. and other leagues.
“We are all in,” Allaster said.
On Tuesday, the United States
Tennis Association said in a state-
ment that the Citi Open decision in
“no way impacts the U.S. Open or
the Western & Southern Open”
and that the organization would
create a “safe and controlled envi-
ronment” at the U.S. Open that
has been approved by the state of
New York and meets city and fed-
eral standards.
“We constantly base our deci-
sions regarding hosting these
tournaments on our three guiding
principles that include safety and
health of all involved, whether
hosting these events are in the
best interest in the sport of tennisand whether this decision is finan-
cially viable,” the U.S.T.A. added.
“We are confident we remain in-
line with all three guiding princi-
ples.”
The Citi Open also had a “bub-
ble plan” and had hoped to group
players in an official hotel with
testing and health monitoring. It
had preliminary interest from
some of the top men’s players in
the game, including Daniil
Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
“The big issue really wasn’t a
bubble plan,” Ein said. “The big is-
sue is immigration, getting people
back and forth in and out of Amer-ica. We don’t have clarity around
that.”
The Citi Open cancellation,
which comes in the week that the
W.N.B.A. and Major League Base-
ball are planning to resume play,
underscored the unusual chal-
lenges that professional tennis
faces as an international sport
that shifts venues and continents
on a regular basis.
Because of the rise in coro-
navirus cases in the United States,
the European Union is not allow-
ing American travelers to enter.
Although the United States is al-
lowing foreign athletes to enter,
there are lingering uncertainties
about whether athletes would be
required to quarantine upon arriv-
al. There are also domestic re-
strictions in place, with New York
now requiring residents from 31
states, including the professional
tennis hotbeds Florida and Cali-
fornia, to self-quarantine for 14
days upon arrival in New York. It
also remains unclear whether Eu-
ropean players would have to
quarantine upon returning to Eu-
rope.
Ein said he believed the Citi
Open cancellation might help to
expedite the clarification process.
“I do think the European events
are definitely going to happen,
and I think the U.S. Open has a re-
ally good chance to happen,” Ein
said. “I think our cancellation
could accelerate the resolution of
those immigration issues. I think
that’s going to make it a focus. You
can’t figure these things out the
week before the event.”
Ein, an entrepreneur who was
once a ball boy at the Washingtonevent, said he and his team were
“heartbroken” to call off the tour-
nament. He added that the
prospect of holding it this year be-
came less attractive when it be-
came clear that spectators would
not be allowed on site.
Although exhibitions are being
staged regularly on a regional ba-
sis, and World TeamTennis is be-
ing played at the Greenbrier re-
sort in West Virginia, the regular
men’s and women’s tours have
been shut down since March.
The WTA Tour plans to be the
first to resume with a clay-court
event in Palermo, Italy, from Aug.
3 to 9. That will be followed by a
clay-court event in Prague and a
new hardcourt event, the Top
Seed Open, in Lexington, Ky., from
Aug. 10 to 16, which has commit-
ments from Serena and Venus
Williams.
But the ATP Tour has no plans
to fill the gap left by the Citi Open’scancellation. “I know how hard
Mark Ein and his team have
worked to adapt to new and con-
tinually changing conditions and
would like to recognize their out-
standing commitment to staging
the event,” Andrea Gaudenzi, the
ATP chairman, said in a state-
ment. “Unfortunately for the mo-
ment there are still large factors at
play, which are outside of our con-
trol.”
For now, the ATP season will re-
sume in New York with the West-
ern & Southern Open, followed by
the U.S. Open.
But those events, if they do take
place, are uncertain to attract full-
strength fields, with some men’s
players likely to remain in Europe
and restart their seasons on clay.
Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-
ranked player, and Rafael Nadal,
the reigning U.S. Open men’s sin-
gles champion, are among those
considering that option.Kickoff of Men’s Tour Will Have to Wait
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREYNick Kyrgios won the Washington tournament in 2019, but this
year’s version, which was set to begin Aug. 14, has been canceled.NICK WASS/ASSOCIATED PRESSDoubts rise about the
U.S. Open as a tuneup
event is canceled.
Kara Nortman’s path to owning
a professional women’s soccer
team began in Vancouver, British
Columbia, when she went looking
for a women’s soccer jersey dur-
ing the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
Nortman found some, eventually,
without players’ names on the
backs.
“I just didn’t understand why it
was so hard,” Nortman said. “I
was trying to get people to take
my money. Why could nobody
take it?”
Nortman, a venture capitalist,
soon became devoted to women’s
soccer, following the National
Women’s Soccer League and talk-
ing about the game with anyone
who would listen — including the
actress Natalie Portman, whom
she met at a fund-raiser. Both soon
became active supporters of the
U.S. women’s team’s fight for
equal pay, and after last summer’s
Women’s World Cup, they decided
it was time to involve themselves
more personally in the game.
“Natalie texted me three times,
just one line: ‘Let’s bring a team to
L.A.,’ ” Nortman said.
On Tuesday, their dream be-
came a reality when the N.W.S.L.
announced that it would expand to
Los Angeles in 2022, with a team
bankrolled by an ownership group
that includes not only Nortman
and Portman, but also the tennis
star Serena Williams and her hus-
band, the tech entrepreneurAlexis Ohanian; the media con-
sultant Julie Uhrman; and more
than a dozen former members of
the U.S. women’s team.
The Los Angeles team, which
said it would release its name and
stadium plans before the end of
the year, will be the only team in
the N.W.S.L. owned almost en-
tirely by women. The ownership
group of 33 people also includes
several women of color, including
the actresses Uzo Aduba, Eva
Longoria and America Ferrera,
and the talk-show host Lilly Singh.
Perhaps befitting such a di-
verse ownership group — which
also includes the World Cup win-
ners Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and
Abby Wambach — the team came
into being in a nontraditional way.The owners decided on a mission
before approaching the league,
then consulted members of the
U.S. women’s national team and
their players association to better
understand the needs of women’s
pros. The mission was clear from
the start, said Uhrman, the club’s
president: “Champions on and off
the field.”
Part of that motto, she said,
would be embracing the fight for
pay equity for women by bolster-
ing media coverage of the league,
securing new sponsorships and,
ultimately, creating stronger rev-
enue streams through increased
viewership.
“It’s our goal to have women’s
professional soccer players make
a living only playing women’s pro-fessional soccer,” Uhrman said.
Becca Roux, the executive di-
rector of the United States Wom-
en’s National Team Players Asso-
ciation, said the combination of fe-
male investors, former women’s
pros and people of color on the
new team’s board of directors had
the potential to be game-changing
steps for not only the N.W.S.L., but
for other major leagues. Williams
and Ohanian’s 2-year-old daugh-
ter, Olympia, is also listed as an in-
vestor.
“We’ve seen other athletes —
mostly men — join ownership of
sports teams in recent years, but
not so much women because they
often didn’t make enough money
in their careers to buy into a
sports franchise,” Roux said.New Pro Team, Founded by Women, Will Press the Cause for Equal Pay
By GILLIAN R. BRASSILSOCCER
SOCCERENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Team GP W D L GF GA Pts
t-Liverpool ....36 30 3 3 77 29 93
Man City .....37 25 3 9 97 35 78
Chelsea .....36 19 6 11 64 49 63
Leicester .....37 18 8 11 67 39 62
Man United... 36 17 11 8 63 35 62
Wolverhampton 37 15 14 8 51 38 59
Tottenham ....37 16 10 11 60 46 58
Sheffield United 37 14 12 11 38 36 54
Burnley ......37 15 9 13 42 48 54
Arsenal ......37 13 14 10 53 46 53
Everton ......37 13 10 14 43 53 49
Southampton.. 37 14 7 16 48 59 49
Newcastle ....37 11 11 15 37 55 44
Crystal Palace. 37 11 9 17 30 49 42
Brighton .....37 8 14 15 37 53 38
West Ham ....36 10 7 19 47 60 37
Aston Villa ....37 9 7 21 40 66 34
Watford .....37 8 10 19 34 61 34
Bournemouth.. 37 8 7 22 37 64 31
Norwich .....37 5 6 26 26 70 21
t-clinched title
Sunday, July 19
Bournemouth 0, Southampton 2
Tottenham 3, Leicester 0
Monday, July 20
Brighton 0, Newcastle 0
Sheffield United 0, Everton 1
Wolverhampton 2, Crystal Palace 0
Tuesday, July 21
Watford 0, Man City 4
Aston Villa 1, Arsenal 0
Wednesday, July 22
Man United vs. West Ham
Liverpool vs. ChelseaNATIONAL WOMEN'S
SOCCER LEAGUE
CHALLENGE CUP SCHEDULE
All Times E.D.T.
All matches played at Zions Bank Stadium,
Herriman, Utah.
Quarterfinals
Friday, July 17
Portland 1, North Carolina 0
Utah 0, Houston 0, Houston advances 3-2
on penalty kicks
Saturday, July 18
Sky Blue FC 0, Washington 0, Sky Blue FC
advances 4-3 on penalty kicks
Chicago 0, Reign FC 0, Chicago advances
4-3 on penalty kicks
Semifinals
Wednesday, July 22
Portland vs. Houston Dash, 12:30 p.m.
Sky Blue vs. Chicago Red Stars, 10 p.m.
Championship
Sunday, July 26
TBD vs. TBD, 12:30 p.m. (CBS)BASEBALLM.L.B. EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
All times E.D.T.
Monday, July 20
Yankees 2, Philadelphia 2
Washington 4, Baltimore 2
Cleveland 11, Pittsburgh 7
Houston 6, Kansas City 3
Chicago White Sox 5, Chicago Cubs 3
L.A. Angels 1, San Diego 0
L.A. Dodgers 12, Arizona 1
San Francisco 6, Oakland 2
Tuesday, July 21
Houston 15, Kansas City 6
Washington 6, Baltimore 4, 8 innings
Detroit at Cincinnati
Miami at Atlanta
Toronto at Boston
Colorado at Texas
L.A. Angels at L.A. Dodgers
Oakland at San Francisco
Wednesday, July 22
Miami at Atlanta, 4:05 p.m.
Kansas City at St. Louis, 4:05
Detroit at Cincinnati, 6:10 p.m.
Minnesota at Chicago Cubs, 7:05 p.m.
Cleveland at Pittsburgh, 7:05 p.m.
Toronto at Boston, 7:30 p.m.
Colorado at Texas, 8:05 p.m.
Milwaukee at Chicago White Sox, 8:10 p.m.
San Diego at L.A. Angels, 9:40 p.m.
REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE
Thursday, July 23
Yankees at Washington, 7 p.m.
San Francisco at L.A. Dodgers, 10 p.m.
Friday, July 24
Atlanta at Mets, 4:10 p.m.
Detroit at Cincinnati, 6:10 p.m.
Toronto at Tampa Bay, 6:40 p.m.
Miami at Philadelphia, 7:05 p.m.
Milwaukee at Chicago Cubs, 7:10 p.m.
Kansas City at Cleveland, 7:10 p.m.
Baltimore at Boston, 7:30 p.m.
Colorado at Texas, 8:05 p.m.
Minnesota at Chicago White Sox, 8:05 p.m.
Pittsburgh at St. Louis, 8:15 p.m.
Seattle at Houston, 9:10 p.m.
Arizona at San Diego, 9:10 p.m.
San Francisco at L.A. Dodgers, 9:40 p.m.
L.A. Angels at Oakland, 10:10 p.m.
Saturday, July 25
Milwaukee at Chicago Cubs, 1:05 p.m.
Baltimore at Boston, 1:35 p.m.
Minnesota at Chicago White Sox, 2:10 p.m.
Pittsburgh at St. Louis, 2:15 p.m.
Toronto at Tampa Bay, 3:10 p.m.
Miami at Philadelphia, 4:05 p.m.
Colorado at Texas, 4:05 p.m.
Atlanta at Mets, 4:10 p.m.
L.A. Angels at Oakland, 4:10 p.m.
Seattle at Houston, 4:10 p.m.
San Francisco at L.A. Dodgers 4:10 p.m.
Kansas City at Cleveland, 5:10 p.m.
Detroit at Cincinnati, 5:10 p.m.
Yankees at Washington, 7:15 p.m.
Arizona at San Diego, 9:10 p.m.BASKETBALLN.B.A. PRESEASON SCHEDULE
All Times E.D.T.
All games in Orlando, Fla.
Wednesday, July 22
Orlando vs. L.A. Clippers, 3 p.m.
Washington vs. Denver, 3:30.m.
New Orleans vs. Nets, 7 p.m.
Sacramento vs. Miami, 8 p.m.
Thursday, July 23
San Antonio vs. Milwaukee, 3 p.m.
Portland vs. Indiana, 3:30 p.m.
Dallas vs. L.A. Lakers, 7 p.m.
Phoenix vs. Utah, 8 p.m.M.L.S. IS BACK
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
All Times E.D.T.
All matches played at ESPN Wide World of
Sports Complex, Orlando, Fla.
GROUP STAGE
GROUP A
Tuesday, July 14
Orlando City 3, N.Y.C.F.C. 1
Philadelphia 2, Miami 1
Monday, July 20
N.Y.C.F.C. 1, Miami 0
Orlando City 1, Philadelphia 1, tie
GROUP B
Sunday, July 19
San Jose 2, Chicago 0
Seattle 3, Vancouver 0
Thursday, July 23
Vancouver at Chicago, 9 a.m.
GROUP C
Friday, July 17
New England 1, D.C. United 1, tie
Tuesday, July 21
New England 0, Toronto FC 0, tie
D.C. United at Montreal
GROUP D
Friday, July 17
Kansas City 3, Colorado 2
Minnesota 0, Real Salt Lake 0, tie
Wednesday, July 22
Sporting Kansas City at Real Salt Lake, 9 a.m.
Minnesota at Colorado, 10:30 p.m.
GROUP E
Tuesday, July 21
Columbus at Atlanta
Wednesday, July 22
Red Bulls at Cincinnati, 8 p.m.
GROUP F
Saturday, July 18
Portland 2, Houston 1
Los Angeles FC 6, LA Galaxy 2
Thursday, July 23
Houston at LA Galaxy, 8 p.m.
Portland at Los Angeles FC, 10:30 p.m.TRANSACTIONSM.L.B.
American League
YANKEES — Placed RHP Masahiro Tanaka
on the 7-day concussion IL retroactive
to July 19, 2020. Optioned LHP Jordan
Montgomery to their alternate training
site. Signed LHP Luis Avilan, RHP David
Hale and C Chris Iannetta to major league
contracts and added them to the 40-
man roster. Reassigned INF Matt Duffy, C
Erik Kratz, OF's Estevan Florial and Zach
Granite, LHP Tyler Lyons and RHP's Deivi
Garcia, Brooks Kriske, Nick Nelson, Clarke
Schmidt, Nick Tropeano, Miguel Yajure and
Tony Zych to the alternate training site.
Placed RHP Dan Otero on the restricted
list.
N.F.L.
ARIZONA CARDINALS — Signed LB Isaiah
Simmons and OT Josh Jones.
CINCINNATI BENGALS — Signed LB's Logan
Wilson, Akeem Davis-Gaither and Markus
Bailey and OT/G Hakeem Adeniji.
DALLAS COWBOYS — Signed CB Reggie
Robinson.
DENVER BRONCOS — Signed CB Michael
Ojemudia.
GREEN BAY PACKERS — Signed TE Josiah
Deguara.
HOUSTON TEXANS — Signed CB John Reid,
DT Ross Blacklock and WR Isaiah Coulter.TENNIS