Even though the NBA is in its off-season, the draft this week drew a lot of attention. Plus, Wimbledon is coming up! Scott Simon talks to Howard Bryant of ESPN.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time for sports.

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SIMON: The NBA draft, a major shake-up in the offseason, moving around the furniture. And will we ever really see the Montreal-Tampa Bay Des Rayons (ph)? Joining us now, Howard Bryant of ESPN. Thanks very much for being with us, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott.

SIMON: The NBA is in its offseason but still manages to capture a lot of attention with the draft and a lot of major stars moving around. Who do you think has suddenly gotten better?

BRYANT: Yeah. Well, it’s the greatest soap opera of the year. And it’s one of the things that the NBA has sort of mastered, which is offseason drama. Obviously, the team that got better, or that got better the fastest, was the Los Angeles Lakers. They ended up getting Anthony Davis, who’s an MVP-caliber player. He’s going to be playing with LeBron James. And suddenly, people think the Lakers are now championship material. That’s one end of the spectrum.

And then, suddenly, you have the Boston Celtics, who were supposed to be championship material. They’re losing not just Kyrie Irving, who’s not going to resign, it looks like, and Al Horford is also leaving, who’s been the anchor of that defense and the steadiest player they’ve had for years.

On the other hand, of course, everyone’s waiting to find out what Kawhi Leonard is going to do in Toronto. Will he stay? Will he go? Chances are he’s going to leave. And then, of course, with the draft a couple of nights ago, you’ve got Zion Williamson going No. 1 to the New Orleans Pelicans. All kinds of things happening.

SIMON: And Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson.

BRYANT: Yeah. They’re going to be out, though, almost the whole season, but they’re also free agents, so will the Warriors give them max contracts – both of them, 200 million apiece – even though they’re not going to play? There had been some talk that the Warriors may even max out Kevin Durant and still trade him, so who knows what the Warriors are going to look like?

Klay Thompson has made it very, very clear that despite the injury, he wants to stay there and that the Warriors have pretty much said that they’re going to reward him as well for playing his guts out. He belongs with that team. The Warriors aren’t going to be what they were, but, eventually, when those injuries are clear, they’re still going to be a really good team.

SIMON: Wimbledon begins next week. What are you watching for?

BRYANT: I’m watching for two things, and I’m really looking for Ashleigh Barty. I’m actually watching her in a couple of ways. One, she has the chance to become the first Indigenous player, obviously from Australia, to become world No. 1. She can do that tomorrow if she wins in the final at Birmingham. She can also – when Wimbledon begins, she can become the first Indigenous woman since Evonne Goolagong, also who was No. 1 in 1976.

SIMON: My favorite player as a youth, yeah.

BRYANT: Yeah, she was amazing. And she could follow up Evonne Goolagong by winning the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back, which is what Evonne Goolagong did in 1971. Ashleigh Barty, who took a few years off from the sport to sort of rearrange her priorities and find herself and find the love of the game once again, and it’s been an amazing story. So you’re watching her. You’re also watching whether or not Serena Williams can get that elusive 24th Major.

SIMON: Is there any chance the Tampa Bay Rays are going to split time by playing in Montreal half the season?

BRYANT: Well, we’ve seen this playbook before, Scott. We’ve seen what happens when teams are trying to leverage for a new stadium. We saw this in Montreal, of all places, 10, 15 years ago when it looked like the Expos were going to leave. And so what happened? The fan base was alienated enough, and the team was trying to engineer its way out of town, and they did. And they moved to Washington, D.C. And now suddenly, 14 years later, we see what going around is coming around in the other direction. Now Tampa Bay is trying to engineer its way out of the Tampa-St. Pete area and muscle its way into Montreal.

It’s kind of cynical. It’s not great for the fan bases. Obviously, you see what happens when these teams want new stadiums and they try to find another city to leverage themselves to either get one or leave town.

SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much.

BRYANT: Thank you.

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Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The biggest test for the U.S. Women’s National Team at the Women’s World Cup comes Thursday when the U.S. takes on Sweden. It’s been a busy week with many notable performances.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The U.S. women’s soccer team is back in action tomorrow at the Women’s World Cup in France. The team is taking on its biggest opponent yet, Sweden – a key match for the U.S. And there’s plenty else going on at the tournament.

Here to catch us up is NPR’s Laurel Wamsley. She’s been following the U.S. team in France, and she joins us on the line from there now. Hey there.

LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: Hi there.

KELLY: Hi. So I want to get to the U.S. women in just a second, but I gather it’s a player from Brazil who’s got everybody buzzing today.

WAMSLEY: Absolutely. That’s Marta. She’s the Brazilian superstar. You probably heard about her. And she scored on a penalty last night in their game – in Brazil’s game against Italy. And with that goal, she set the all-time scoring record for most World Cup goals, men or women, with 17.

And in a press conference after the match, Marta talked about how she’s dedicating that goal to all the girls who believe in their dreams. And she said that the Brazilian team can be an example in their country and also to South America that women can do every kind of role. But she also pointed out that given the huge audience for this event, that in a way, each team is doing that in their own home country. And because of Marta’s goal, Brazil will now go through to the knockout round, which had been in question.

KELLY: OK, all right, so the U.S. team – we said they take on Sweden. That’s going to be tomorrow. What are the stakes here?

WAMSLEY: Well, this is a matchup with a lot of history. So the U.S. used to have a Swedish coach, Pia Sundhage, and she led them to Olympic gold in both 2008 and 2012. And then right after the 2012 Olympics, she left the U.S. squad and went to coach Sweden. And then in the 2016 Olympics, Sundhage was the coach of Sweden that knocked out the U.S. team in the quarterfinals. And no U.S. women’s soccer team had ever left a major tournament that early, so it was a huge blow.

And it’s been said that the coach who took over after Sundhage, Jill Ellis, who’s the coach now, has spent a lot of time watching the tape and spending time with that and figuring out, how does this U.S. team face off against teams like Sweden that just bunker down defensively and won’t let them through?

KELLY: Wow – so quite a rivalry and, it sounds like, quite a game potentially tomorrow. This is not going to be like the opening match, where we saw the U.S. just dominate against Thailand. It was 13-nil, I think.

WAMSLEY: Yes, it was. And, no, this will be nothing like that. So people are predicting maybe 2-0, 2-1 against Sweden. This is going to be the first real test for the U.S. at this tournament, especially for the defense and for goalkeeper – new goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. They just haven’t had much come their way so far. Here’s what coach Jill Ellis said earlier today about this game.

JILL ELLIS: This is going to be great for us because we do need to sharpen that in terms of, you know, the first two games. We haven’t had a lot of balls to deal with in behind. And Alyssa hasn’t had a lot to deal with. But, you know, I’d also sort of remind the players that we’ve played one of the most competitive schedules and for that very purpose – to have as many of those moments before we came to this big stage.

WAMSLEY: And so the thing about this game is that both U.S. and Sweden are already through. And if the U.S. were to lose to Sweden tomorrow, they would actually maybe have an easier path in this tournament because they may have to play France if they win in the quarterfinals. But that’s just not how this team plays. This team plays to win, and that’s what they’re going to go out there to do tomorrow.

KELLY: Yeah. And before I let you go, just a quick sense of the scene, because you’ve been all over – you’ve been in Paris. You’ve been in Reims. Where are you exactly today?

WAMSLEY: Right now I’m in Le Havre a couple miles from where the team is going to play tomorrow. And…

KELLY: And is everybody just totally caught up in this?

WAMSLEY: Yes and no. In Paris, you almost wouldn’t know it’s happening. There’s almost no signage, no indication that it’s happening. You see – still see more signs for the men’s football games than the women’s. But here in these smaller towns where the U.S. has been playing in Reims and in Le Havre, you do see them a lot more, and there is a palpable excitement here. And of course wherever the U.S. plays, the U.S. fans go. So there’s a lot of excitement.

KELLY: All righty, thank you, Laurel.

WAMSLEY: Thank you.

KELLY: NPR’s Laurel Wamsley reporting.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The U.S. Women’s National Team has advanced at the Women’s World Cup after defeating Chile 3-0 Sunday. There’s still one more game in group play and it’s an important one to the U.S.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The United States turned in another impressive performance at the Women’s World Cup. Now, it wasn’t 13-nothing, the score by which the Americans defeated Thailand, such a drubbing that some people complained the Americans went too far. But it was a shutout, as the U.S. defeated Chile 3-0. The team is now guaranteed to advance to the knockout round. NPR’s Laurel Wamsley is in Paris.

LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: The atmosphere inside the Parc des Princes stadium was electric and very American. Fans were decked out in red, white and blue, sometimes on their cheeks, sometimes wearing the American flag like a cape. Tickets for the U.S.-Chile game had sold out, unlike many other matches in the tournament that have had lots of empty seats. Even before the game started, fans were amped by the recent big win over Thailand. And they urged their team to show them some more fireworks.

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UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER FANS: (Chanting) U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.

WAMSLEY: The U.S. dominated from the start, with crisp, clean passes and pressure at the Chile goal. And the U.S. had an almost entirely different lineup from their first game, seven new players in the starting 11. But it didn’t matter. The team played with finesse and power, and it didn’t take long for the U.S. to start scoring. Team captain Carli Lloyd hammered the first goal into the back of the net in the 11th minute.

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WAMSLEY: She’s the first person to score in six consecutive games in the Women’s World Cup. Fifteen minutes later, Julie Ertz doubled the Americans’ lead with an expert header off a corner kick from Tierna Davidson. She’s the team’s youngest player at 20, appearing in her World Cup debut. Davidson served up another corner a few minutes later. And Carli Lloyd scored again, also on a header. U.S. fans were thrilled at what they saw, including A.K. Linehart Minnick from Boise, Idaho.

A K LINEHART MINNICK: Carli Lloyd has demonstrated that she has a work ethic above and beyond anything. She’s out there leading with that big heart. And then you see Mallory Pugh, who’s, like, this newcomer. And she’s got so much ability, it’s scary. And they were, like, knocking her around, and she’d get back up and get in their face and take the ball. And it was – I mean, it was an amazing performance.

WAMSLEY: Playing and winning with the team’s reserve squad was an act of confidence by U.S. coach Jill Ellis. But it was also strategic, letting all of her players work out any anxiety before the more difficult games that lie ahead.

JILL ELLIS: We need them in a good place. And if they can have minutes, and the butterflies are kind of out the way, then I think it helps us down the line.

WAMSLEY: The U.S. will now face their longtime foe, Sweden, who knocked them out in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Olympics. But the victory over Chile guarantees that the U.S. will advance to the next round of the tournament. And they’re one step closer to their mission here in France, winning the Cup. Laurel Wamsley, NPR News, Paris.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with ESPN analyst Jalen Rose about why he thinks advanced analytics is hindering diversity hiring in the NBA.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Let’s talk basketball for a minute. The men’s NBA season is officially over. The Toronto Raptors have won their first NBA championship. And now the big news in the men’s game is the upcoming draft and the big trades, like Anthony Davis heading to the Lakers. So we thought this might be a good time to explore how teams decide. And while there’s been a lot of talk these days about the growing power of agents and big-name players, increasingly, teams are using advanced analytics, really detailed performance data to determine whom to hire.

And Jalen Rose has some thoughts about that. Jalen Rose is a former college basketball star, a member of the University of Michigan’s Fab Five, a former NBA player. And he’s now a prominent sports analyst on multiple shows on ESPN and elsewhere. In a recent conversation with The New Yorker Magazine, Rose argued that the increased reliance on analytics over things like playing experience make it harder for former players, many of whom are minorities, to get high-level positions. I called him to ask him to tell me more.

JALEN ROSE: There became an amazing groundswell of opportunities that presented themselves in powerful positions, whether general manager, president and/or an entire department now that organizations are dedicating themselves to making sure they are on top of the analytics. And they’re able to decipher not only what you see, but obviously they’re able to detect it via the numbers.

So I understand, and I appreciate having all of the information. But at some point, there still has to be some level of logic, expertise. Your eye test has to be something that you’re able to trust along with your instincts to make that big final decision. I just always felt like analytics should be a tool – a wrench, a hammer – that’s a part of the tool box, not necessarily the end-all, be-all to a final decision. And it definitely should not be the sole reason why somebody is put into a powerful position.

MARTIN: In a way, I feel like you’re saying that, well, you’re saying a couple of things that people have seen in other fields. They feel that, say, algorithms are replacing human judgment. And it also – what I hear you saying is that this is a way to kind of keep the club the way it’s always been. Now that more African Americans are getting the experience to move into these front office positions, you have the feeling that perhaps this reliance on data is a way to kind of keep it as the club that it’s always been that has not been particularly diverse. Is that what you see?

ROSE: Well, I’m just really talking about the landscape as I see it and acknowledging how that did take place based on the dynamics you just described. It’s just that what ended up happening with those jobs and the dynamics of professional sports. If you look from the top down, there needs to be more diversity in the powerful positions.

And a lot of times, the numbers became a catalyst to say, here’s an opportunity. Oh, and by the way, since you know analytics, you get pushed to the front of the line. And if you look in the NBA and in many professional sports, there isn’t a lot of diversity amongst those who got their position based on the fact that they were really good at crunching the numbers and doing analytics.

MARTIN: So what kind of reaction are you getting?

ROSE: A lot of support. And the great thing about being open-minded and trying to always be fair, you hear it from all sides. And when people have a good point, you acknowledge it. And when you feel like what you’re saying and what you believe is what it’s going to be, then and you just own it.

MARTIN: That was ESPN analyst former, NBA player Jalen Rose. We’re talking about a piece that just posted in The New Yorker called “Jalen Rose Has A Problem With Basketball Analytics.” And we reached him in Oakland. Jalen Rose, thanks so much for talking to us.

ROSE: Thank you kindly. Have a great day.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The U.S. Women’s soccer team beat Thailand 13-0 on Tuesday, sparking an ethics debate over running up the score against a weaker opponent. NPR’s Michel Martin talks to sports ethicist Shawn Klein.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Women’s World Cup is underway in France, and as usual in the early rounds, the underdogs have been getting dispatched by the powerhouses pretty handily. But Tuesday’s match between the U.S. and Thailand took this to a new level. The U.S. crushed the Thai opponents 13-0. For some, this was a cause for celebration and vindication, as the U.S. women have been pressing their governing body for better pay and conditions. But for some commentators, the lopsided result raises questions about sportsmanship and even ethics. Should the Americans have kept running up the score against the vastly outmatched Thais?

To settle this, we’ve called Shawn Klein, a lecturer in ethics and philosophy at Arizona State University. And he’s with us now from KJZZ in Arizona.

Thank you so much for joining us.

SHAWN KLEIN: Thanks for having me.

MARTIN: And, professor Klein, I want to mention that you teach a class in sports ethics – a class that has a whole section of the syllabus devoted to the ethics of running up the score. So you have thought a lot about this. You watched this game. Did it strike you as unethical in the moment?

KLEIN: I thought it was exciting. I thought it was ridiculous. I kept running to my son and saying, they scored again. They scored again. I didn’t experience it as lacking in sportsmanship.

MARTIN: And when you say ridiculous, you don’t mean that in a bad way. You mean it like, ridiculous – like, wow, this is ridiculous.

KLEIN: Yeah. I mean…

MARTIN: This is crazy (laughter).

KLEIN: Crazy – this is – I’ve never seen this. This is, you know, Michael Jordan leaping over all the defenders in basketball. This is Serena Williams demolishing, you know, her competition in a tennis match. It was a sporting moment that you just don’t see, and so it would – that part was exciting, to see that historical aspect of it.

MARTIN: And so what do you make of the way this has kept bubbling up all week? I just want to note that the U.S. coach, Jill Ellis, said that if this had been a men’s soccer match, these questions would never have come up. I don’t know any way to test that theory. But why do you think this has bubbled up like it has all week?

KLEIN: I mean, I think she’s right to a degree. I do think that the fact that this is the Women’s World Cup is playing a role of why it’s getting the attention it’s getting. At the same time, these questions do get raised in other sports. I mean, I can’t recall it being raised in men’s soccer. Certainly, from the U.S. perspective, the U.S. has never gotten (laughter) close to having this kind of match – at least, on the winning side. But in other sports, whether it’s the NFL, men’s college football, baseball, flipping the bat after a home run, the celebrations – this question does get raised against men’s teams.

MARTIN: You did mention the celebrations. So that is another sportsmanship question that has come out of this match – about the way the U.S. women celebrated their goals – you know, jumping in each other’s arms or rolling on the field. I mean, that’s pretty standard stuff. But I do wonder if you think that the fact that the team kept celebrating when they kept scoring – do you think that’s something that’s pushing people’s buttons?

KLEIN: I do think that that’s the driving force for a lot of the discussions. But what the U.S. players were doing was coming together. In some of the cases – so you take Mallory Pugh, this was her first World Cup goal. Yes, it was the 11th goal that the U.S. scored, but this was her first goal. So of course she’s going to celebrate, and of course the team around her is going to come to her and celebrate.

And that shows great team chemistry – that they’re all so happy for Pugh’s success and achievement – an achievement that she’s been dreaming about since she was 6 years old. So I think that that ability to dream and then celebrate when you have achieved your dream, I think, is one of the magical things of sport. And I would hate to see us not celebrate that.

MARTIN: I wanted to ask you, for the people who think it’s just not a good look or maybe it just makes the U.S. look bad or like bullies, why do you think that it was important from the standpoint of the U.S. women for them to play hard and score as many goals as they could? Like, what point do you think they were making?

KLEIN: One is just internal to their – to the team – that they can play well together in the context of a game in front of fans on international TV. I also think it’s a message to the rest of the field that the U.S. is here to defend their championship, and they’re going to play hard.

I think it’s also important in terms of telling young women that it’s OK to be who they are. It’s OK to be great. It’s OK to pursue greatness and to achieve greatness. And it’s OK to celebrate your achievements and not to run from them and not to hide from it. And I think that’s an important message.

MARTIN: Well, I do want to note the USA plays Chile tomorrow, Sunday. Care to – I don’t know – handicap it for us?

KLEIN: (Laughter) I think that the U.S. will win. I don’t think we’ll get into the double digits again. I’ll say that. It may be more like a – let’s say 6-1 score. Let’s go with that.

MARTIN: OK. That’s Shawn Klein. He hosts a podcast called “The Sports Ethicist” where questions like this one often come up.

Shawn Klein, thanks so much for talking to us.

KLEIN: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.