NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson<\/a> of the champion New York Knicks said as he signed off from his role hosting the season premiere of \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d on NBC.<\/p>\nThere are six coaches in new roles entering the season, including Dallas\u2019 Dusty May \u2014 who led Michigan to the NCAA title last spring and then found an offer to jump to the NBA with the Mavs too enticing to turn down.<\/p>\n
May\u2019s first Dallas camp is already underway. The other five new coaches \u2014 Jamahl Mosley in New Orleans, Sean Sweeney in Orlando, Taylor Jenkins in Milwaukee, Tiago Splitter in Chicago and Micah Nori in Portland \u2014 will lead their first practices in their new spots on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been a few active coaches that I\u2019ve leaned on for advice, not as much strategy as just the day-to-day planning, the future, things like that,\u201d May said, talking about how he\u2019s gotten ready to go from leading a college program to an NBA one. \u201cIt\u2019s more of just trying to figure out what my routine is going to be, what our routine is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
May isn\u2019t alone on that front. Everybody \u2014 from first-year coaches to 24th-year players \u2014 will be figuring things out.<\/p>\n
James, now the first player in NBA history to enter a 24th season, will begin his expected final chapter with his inaugural camp with the 76ers. He made the NBA world wait a few weeks before announcing his decision over the summer to join to Philadelphia on a two-year deal, then explained some of his rationale for the move last week on a podcast he shares with Steve Nash.<\/p>\n
If James wins a title in Philadelphia, the 76ers would be the fourth franchise to become champions with him on the roster. James won two championships in Miami, one in Cleveland and one with the Los Angeles Lakers. And if that Philly title happens, it would give Joel Embiid his first ring \u2014 which is part of James\u2019 motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope I can be that final little piece that can help him get over the hump and have him maybe just see it a little bit differently than he\u2019s seen in his career as far as the day-to-day process,\u201d James said on the \u201cMind The Game\u201d podcast last week. \u201cThe day-to-day what it takes to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo got traded to Miami, where he\u2019ll join Bam Adebayo and newly acquired Klay Thompson in an effort to get the Heat back into contention. Leonard \u2014 hoping to move past a turbulent end to his Los Angeles Clippers tenure \u2014 has been traded back to Toronto, after leading the Raptors to the 2019 NBA title. And Curry agreed last week to a two-year extension with Golden State, even though nobody around him or the Warriors ever thought he would seriously consider playing elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years to come,\u201d the Warriors wrote to Curry in a social media post.<\/p>\n
After media day, a few teams hit the road for at least a portion of their training camps. Preseason games start Saturday \u2014 Miami faces Toronto in Quebec City, with exhibitions running through Oct. 16. And then opening night or really opening day this year, is Oct. 20 with Boston at Detroit in a 3 p.m. EDT tip to start the season, followed by Philadelphia at the Knicks that evening and Oklahoma City visiting San Antonio in a matchup of last season\u2019s Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n
Plenty of teams expect to contend. Surprises are certain. Disappointments are certain, too. And the road toward whatever the final destination is starts now.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of our mindset is going to be growth every single day and becoming a championship level team,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said. \u201cNo one is a championship level team on September 29th. There\u2019s not a team in the league that is a championship level team. That is an ongoing process throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NBA coverage here<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By TIM REYNOLDS LeBron James will presumably wear his Philadelphia uniform in public view for the first time.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-862863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}