D2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 , 2022
TELEVISION AND RADIO
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
7 p.m. Richmond at George Washington » NBC Sports Washington
7 p.m. Rhode Island at St. Bonaventure » CBS Sports Network
7 p.m. Arkansas at Florida » ESPN2
7 p.m. Michigan State at Iowa » ESPN
7 p.m. Georgia at Texas A&M » ESPNU
7 p.m. Tennessee at Missouri » SEC Network
8 p.m. Villanova at Connecticut » Fox Sports 1
8 p.m. Miami at Pittsburgh » ACC Network
8 p.m. Nebraska at Northwestern » Big Ten Network
9 p.m. Kansas State at Kansas » ESPN
9 p.m. Alabama at Vanderbilt » SEC Network
9 p.m. San Diego State at Boise State » CBS Sports Network
10 p.m. New Mexico at Utah State » Fox Sports 1
11 p.m. UNLV at Nevada » CBS Sports Network
SOCCER
3 p.m. UEFA Champions League round of 16, first leg: Lille at Chelsea »
WUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13)
5:15 p.m. Copa Libertadores second round, first leg: Monagas at Everton »
beIN Sports
7:30 p.m. Copa Libertadores second round, first leg: Fluminense at Millonarios »
beIN Sports
8 p.m. Concacaf Champions League round of 16, second leg: Santos Laguna
at Montreal » Fox Sports 2
10 p.m. Concacaf Champions League round of 16, second leg: Guastatoya at León
» Fox Sports 2
TENNIS
5 a.m. ATP: Dubai Tennis Championships, Chile Open and Mexican Open,
early rounds; WTA: Qatar Total Open and Abierto Zapopan, early rounds
» Tennis ChannelPRO BASKETBALL
Dragic set to join Nets
after Spurs buyout
Goran Dragic plans to sign
with Brooklyn, giving the Nets a
veteran boost in the backcourt.
Agent Bill Duffy said Monday
that Dragic is going to Brooklyn,
where the Nets need guard help
after trading James Harden to
Philadelphia. B en Simmons,
acquired in that deal, isn’t ready
to play after sitting out all season,
and Kyrie Irving still can’t play
in home games because he hasn’t
met New York City’s vaccine
requirement.
Dragic played just five games
this season for To ronto, where he
was traded from Miami in the
offseason in the deal for Kyle
Lowry. The Raptors dealt him to
San Antonio at the trade
deadline. Dragic then agreed to a
buyout and became a free agent.
Dragic was an all-star with
Miami in 2018 and helped the
Heat reach the NBA Finals two
years later. The Slovenia native
began his NBA career in 2008 in
Phoenix as a teammate of current
Nets coach Steve Nash.
TENNIS
Novak Djokovic won his first
match of the year when he beat
Lorenzo Musetti, 6-3, 6-3, to
open the Dubai Championships.
Djokovic couldn’t defend his
Australian Open title last month
because he was deported from
the country for being
unvaccinated. The United Arab
Emirates allowed him entry, and
Djokovic cashed in at a
tournament he has won five
times.
Musetti took two sets off
Djokovic at the French Open last
year, but the Italian wild card
couldn’t convert bags of break
chances while trailing 3-1 in the
first set and 4-2 in the second.
“I have to be satisfied with my
tennis, especially after not
playing for two and a half, three
months,” Djokovic said.
Andy Murray won his first
match in Dubai since his title run
in 2017. He beat Australian
qualifier Christopher O’Connell,
6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-5.SOCCER
Neymar hopes to play in the
United States one day, more than
he wants to return to his native
Brazil.
The 30-year-old forward
recently extended his Paris Saint-
Germain contract to 2025.
“I don’t know if I will play inBrazil again. I have a lot of will to
play in the U.S., that I do want. At
least for one season,” Neymar
told the podcast “Fenômenos.”...
Borussia Dortmund forward
Gio Reyna’s latest injury is not as
bad as initially thought, and the
American could return to
training in two weeks, the club
said.
The 19-year-old’s first start in
six months ended with him in
tears Sunday as he left the field
amid fears of a recurrence of the
right hamstring injury he
suffered S ept. 2 while playing for
the United States....
Supporters’ clubs will be shut
down in Greece for five months
as part of a crackdown t riggered
by the death of a 19-year-old who
was stabbed and beaten by soccer
hooligans in the northern city of
Thessaloniki.
The Feb. 1 killing of
Thessaloniki resident Alkis
Kambanos shocked the city and
soccer fans nationwide. Te n
people have been arrested in
connection with the attack....
Pelé extended a hospital stay
after being diagnosed with a
urinary infection.
The 81-year-old went in Feb. 13
to continue treatment for colon
cancer. Doctors found the
infection days later, HospitalIsraelita Albert Einstein in Sao
Paulo said in a statement.
“His clinical conditions are
stable, and his release should
take place on the next few days,”
the hospital said....
Amsterdam c lub Ajax reached
a settlement with the family of
Abdelhak Nouri, who suffered
severe and permanent brain
damage after collapsing during a
preseason friendly in 2017.
The club a cknowledged the
midfielder did not get adequate
medical attention after he
collapsed, and it accepted
responsibility. Ajax announced it
will pay Nouri’s family a net sum
of $ 8.9 million....
Celta Vigo was held by last-
placed Levante to a 1-1 draw at
home in the Spanish league,
missing a chance to move close to
the Champions League
qualification places.
Franco Cervi put the hosts
ahead in the 67th minute, but
Levante equalized through
Roger Martí in the 82nd....
Substitute Victor Osimhen
headed in a late equalizer, and
Napoli earned a 1-1 draw at
Cagliari t o move within two
points of the Italian Serie A lead.COLLEGES
Matt Luke resigned asGeorgia’s associate head coach
and offensive line assistant,
saying he wanted to spend more
time with his family.
The 45-year-old spent the past
two seasons working for Georgia
Coach Kirby Smart, helping the
Bulldogs win their first national
championship since 1980....Pittsburgh deputy athletic
director and chief operating
officer Christian Spears was
hired as athletic director at
Marshall.
Spears will guide Marshall’s
pending transition from
Conference USA to the Sun Belt.
— From news servicesDIGESTASSOCIATED PRESSThe NFL is collaborating with
the XFL for player safety and
health data.
The XFL, which plans to re-
launch in 2023 , will be working
with the NFL on physical and
mental fitness programs for play-
ers, the study of playing surfaces
and equipment, and t he sharing of
game trends and data.
“We are extremely pleased to
collaborate with the NFL in these
important areas,” said Dany Gar-
cia, co-owner of the XFL, which
also h as Dwayne “ The Rock” John-
son among its ownership group.
“ Sharing insights and practices
between the XFL and NFL will do
a tremendous amount of good for
the game of football and support
the player ecosystem overall.”
Also potentially in the works
between the leagues could be in-
ternational football development
and scouting, and officiating, in-
cluding the testing of game rules
for player protection as well as
technologies to enhance officiat-
ing.
The XFL is not planning to
become a developmental league
for the NFL.
l STEELERS: Kevin Colbert is
ready to get on with the next
chapter of his life.
The longtime Pittsburgh g ener-
al manager has one more massive
item left to do before stepping
down in May: find a replacement
for Ben Roethlisberger.
While Colbert said Monday
that longtime backup Mason Ru-
dolph would be the starting quar-
terback if the season began next
week, he anticipates adding some
competition to the mix in the c om-
ing months through either the
draft or free agency or perhaps a
mix of both.
Colbert stressed that the front
office and coaching staff have
“confidence” in Rudolph and are
“excited to see what’s next. ” And
he praised Dwayne Haskins, who
“did some nice things” in practice
and preseason games during his
first year with the club.
However, Colbert acknowl-
edged there will probably be one
or two more players thrown into
the mix by the time organized
team activities begin in May.
The Steelers have the 20th p ick
in the draft after a 9-7-1 season
that ended with a blowout loss t o
the Kansas City Chiefs in the first
round of the playoffs. While Col-
bert said the depth of this year’s
incoming quarterback class is rel-
atively thin, he said there is quali-
ty at the top end, a group that
includes former Pitt star Kenny
Pickett.
l VIKINGS: Wes Phillips will
follow Kevin O’Connell to Minne-
sota from the Super Bowl cham-
pion Los Angeles Rams and serve
as offensive coordinator for the
Vikings.
Phillips was one of five more
assistants for O’Connell’s staff fi-
nalized by the team. He is the son
of Wade Phillips and the grandson
of Bum Phillips, both former NFL
head coaches. Wes Phillips was
the tight ends coach for the Rams
for the past three years and added
the passing game coordinator title
in 2021.
NFL NOTES
League
says it will
collaborate
with XFL
lawsuit laid bare how hollow the
NFL’s campaign against racism
is. He then wrote a fanciful piece
in the Grio about a mass boycott
of the league by the Black players
who predominate it. “The
campaign... was meant to
powerfully communicate that
hundreds of Black men across
teams (plus any allies who
wished to join them) would not
be playing a 2022-23 season until
the NFL meaningfully engaged
them and retired Black players in
collaboratively developing a
sustainable strategy that would
immediately accelerate the hiring
of more Black head coaches,”
Harper imagined.
But the onus for change is also
on those of us who subscribe to
the NFL, spin its turnstiles and
cloak ourselves in its garb. As
long as we continue to do so
while complaining about the
league’s unethical behavior, we’re
not frontin’ for the league much
less than the former attorney
general.Kevin B. Blackistone, ESPN panelist
and professor at the Philip Merrill
College of Journalism at the University
of Maryland, writes sports
commentary for The Washington Post.American pleas to change its
name and imagery. And when
Flores filed his suit, there was one
Black head coach employed by
the 32 teams, whose rosters are
around 70 percent Black. Since
then, Miami replaced Flores with
Mike McDaniel, who is biracial,
to much fanfare. But even
McDaniel seemed uncomfortable
explaining his parentage.
Jay-Z once cut a little ditty with
Pharrell Williams called
“Frontin’,” which is rap
vernacular for, among other
things, putting up a facade. If
Lynch is guilty of erecting such a
disguise for the league’s history of
discrimination, Jay-Z and the
entertainers he lined up for the
Super Bowl halftime show are
culpable in frontin’ for the league,
too. How are Black men aspiring
to be not just players but head
coaches in the league “gon’ be
alright,” as Lamar raps, if they are
systematically locked out of those
top management positions?
But it’s not just on them. It’s on
us fans as well. A researcher I
once worked with, Shaun Harper,
the founder and executive
director of the USC Race and
Equity Center, wrote in The
Washington Post that Flores’swinner Kendrick Lamar, who
performed his signature
“A lright,” celebrated by his
generation of Black America as
its anthem for a new century.
They were all pulled together
by hip-hop impresario Jay-Z. He
stepped into the oven that is NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell’s
office to help Goodell douse the
blowback the league was getting,
particularly from Black fans,
when it became clear that its
owners e xiled Black quarterback
Colin Kaepernick because of his
on-the-field protests of
unchecked police lethality on
Black people. Kaepernick dared
to use the national anthem as his
mix tape and the American flag
as a prop.
A few years later, what does
Jay-Z have to show for his efforts
to help the league embrace social
justice? An NFL campaign called
Inspire Change, which the league
said will drop $250 million over
10 years — or, conservatively
estimating, less than 1 percent of
its revenue over that time. There
has been a lot of sloganeering,
such as stenciling “End Racism”
into the end zones — including in
Kansas City, Mo., where the team
continues to refuse Nativeintoxicating, violent product. The
league is an analgesic we just
can’t quit, no matter how
debauched it can be.
Discriminatory hiring — can’t
wait till the playoffs start! Using a
eugenics-sounding practice
called race-norming to pay
dementia-addled Black former
players less than similarly
injured White players by arguing
Black players have less cognitive
ability to start with — give us a 17-
game schedule!
We e ven celebrated Flores
being hired Saturday by the
Pittsburgh Steelers as some sort
of assistant to Mike Tomlin, a
Black head coach. T his means
Flores joined a legion of Black
workers everywhere who are
more likely than their White
counterparts to be
underemployed relative to their
résumés.
How hooked we are to the NFL
was on display during the Super
Bowl halftime show, which so
many hailed as the best ever.
Matured rap stars Snoop Dogg,
Dr. Dre and 50 Cent were joined
by the queen of hip-hop soul,
Mary J. Blige; the purveyor of rap
to White middle America,
Eminem; and 2018 Pulitzer Prizecrime seemed more than a
misnomer, Lynch vs. Flores
appeared to be it.)
Why Lynch chose to go from
protecting civil rights heading
the Justice Department to
defending discrimination in the
largest, most powerful sports
league in the United States could
be just greed. As a partner at
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &
Garrison, one of those venerable
New York-based law firms, Lynch
can earn more than $6 million
per year with clients such as the
NFL.
But Lynch was never a strident
attorney general on civil rights
like her predecessor, Eric Holder.
And since she entered private
practice, doing what she’s doing
for the NFL has become her
modus operandi. She successfully
shielded McDonald’s against a
discrimination lawsuit from
Black franchisees.
What Lynch’s joining the NFL
to uphold its inequitable
managerial employment system
reminded me of most was how
receptive we are to the seductive
nature that is the NFL — how
addicted we are to itsBLACKISTONE FROM D1KEVIN B. BLACKISTONELynch vs. Flores offers more evidence of the NFL’s seductivenessMobley, the rookie of the year
favorite, has Davis-like versatility
and potential on defense. Jarrett
Allen, another first-time all-star,
would complete a long and athletic
frontcourt capable of helping
James handle Joel Embiid, Giannis
Antetokounmpo, e t al. James has
praised all three players, saying
Mobley was “going to be a damn
good basketball player” in
November before aligning himself
with Garland and Allen.
“Cleveland is very deserving of
this platform and this moment,”
James said Saturday. “They have
two all-stars of their own in the
game in [Garland] and the big
fella, Jarrett Allen. And they got
another guy in the All-Star Game,
and that’s me.”
Few would begrudge James a
full-circle return to the franchise
that drafted him, especially if the
move back to his home state
facilitated his dream of playing
with Bronny. To make a trade
work this summer, C leveland
could use Kevin Love’s e xpiring
contract to help match salaries.
The biggest hang-up could be
whether the Cavaliers can
convince the Lakers to accept a
pick-laden return package similar
to the one the Brooklyn Nets sent
to the Houston Rockets last year
for James Harden.
Now that James is dropping
breadcrumbs and musing in
public, the L akers will soon need
to decide whether this mutually
beneficial partnership has run its
course.of major backlash. He delivered
the 2020 championship to a
Lakers franchise that was adrift
following Kobe Bryant’s 2016
retirement. He helped bring Davis
to town and steered the Lakers
through Bryant’s tragic death. He
didn’t oversee a new dynasty, but
he has played spectacularly and
aged gracefully. In short, James
came, he made “Space Jam: A New
Legacy,” and he conquered.
The “when” and “where” of
what comes next remain to be
seen. James is under contract
through the 2022-23 season,
meaning he could be traded this
summer or leave as a free agent in
the summer of 2023.
His flirtation with the Cavaliers,
who are 35-23 and the East’s fourth
seed, is especially intriguing given
how well their young pieces would
complement James. Darius
Garland, a first-time all-star, could
serve as a secondary ballhandler
and scorer a la Irving. EvanTa ken together, James’s
comments felt like the NBA
equivalent of reactivating his
Tinder account and updating his
profile photo. He hasn’t quit on
the L akers. But talking about his
future so openly does suggest that
he sees the writing on the wall.
Davis was crucial to the L akers’
202 0 title push, but his unreliable
health has short-circuited the
Lakers’ past two seasons.
Westbrook is under contract for
next season, and trading him this
summer will not return a star.
The Lakers don’t have many
quality draft assets or young
prospects to cash in for veteran
talent. And while James’s
statistical production remains
strong, his presence no longer
guarantees that his team will be
among the top title contenders as
it did earlier in his career.
If James is indeed plotting his
next move, he can do so with a
clear conscience and without fearIf the next two months go well,
the L akers, who entered the season
as Western Conference favorites,
will be lucky to win a playoff series.
If they don’t, the L akers could
easily find themselves out of the
postseason for the second time in
James’s four seasons.
With all e yes and ears on James
in Cleveland, he candidly
acknowledged that this season
has been “a hell storm” and the
“strangest” of his 19-year career.
He also went out of his way to
praise Oklahoma City Thunder
General Manager Sam Presti,
comments that some observers
perceived as a slight to Lakers GM
Rob Pelinka. Then, in an
interview with the Athletic,
James said that “the door’s not
closed” on a possible return to
Cleveland. The 37-year-old added
that he plans to play on the same
team as his oldest son, Bronny, a
high school junior who is on track
to be draft eligible in 2024.cleveland —
The NBA gathered
for All-Star
Weekend at an in-
between moment:
The omicron wave
had passed, but the threat of
future variants and Kyrie Irving’s
endless vaccine mandate saga
still loomed. Adam Silver, who
went maskless for most of the
festivities, couched his optimism
with layers of hedging.
“Hopefully,” the commissioner
said, “this is the beginning or the
middle of the end of the worst of
the pandemic.”
LeBron James, the star of stars
in Cleveland, found himself stuck
in a similar purgatory, hinting
Saturday that he is in the
beginning or the middle of the end
of his Los Angeles Lakers tenure.
The four-time MVP has long
displayed a keen and cutthroat
sense of when to seek greener
pastures. He left the Cleveland
Cavaliers in 2010 convinced that
they had plateaued. He ditched the
Miami Heat in 2014 when health,
age, depth and salary concerns
piled up. He moved on from
Cleveland again in 2018 after his
partnership with Irving dissolved.
That history is instructive
because James is suddenly
embroiled in perhaps the bleakest
chapter of his career. T he 2009-10
Cavaliers won 61 games and a
playoff series. The 2013-14 Heat
won 54 games and reached the
Finals. The 2017-18 Cavaliers won
50 games and reached the Finals.
By comparison, the Lakers
(27-31) are in ninth place in the
Western Conference. James’s co-
star, Anthony Davis, is sidelined
again with a significant foot
injury that will keep him out for
at least a month. James’s third
wheel, Russell Westbrook, has
been a disastrous fit and a major
impediment to the Lakers’ cap
flexibility and trade options. The
rest of James’s supporting cast
isn’t up to the task of a long
playoff run, and reinforcements
didn’t arrive at the trade deadline.James uses a ll-star stage to foreshadow his career’s final chapterOn the
NBA
BEN
GOLLIVERJASON MILLER/GETTY IMAGES
As the Lakers fall short of high expectations, LeBron James is openly considering a change of scenery.WIZARDS’ NEXT THREEvs. San Antonio SpursFriday7NBCSWat Cleveland CavaliersSaturday8NBCSWvs. Detroit PistonsMarch 17 NBCSWRadio: WTEM (980 AM)