CHICAGO (AP) — Stacey King, who played on three consecutive NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls from 1991-93 before returning to the organization as an Emmy-winning broadcaster, has died. He was 59.

The Bulls announced that King died Sunday and said they were notified by a family member. No other details were immediately available.

“Stacey King was a cherished member of the Bulls family and one of the truly unique personalities in our organization’s history,” Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “His connection to Chicago, the Bulls and our fans spanned more than three decades — first as a player and later as the unmistakable voice that helped bring Bulls basketball into the homes of generations of fans. We will miss him deeply and remember the joy, energy, humor, candor and passion he brought to our organization, our broadcasts and our fans every day. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

King began his NBA playing career with the Bulls, who selected the 6-foot-11 forward/center out of Oklahoma with the sixth overall pick in the 1989 draft. He averaged 6.6 points and 3.3 rebounds over his five seasons with the Bulls.

He played a total of eight seasons in the NBA during a career that also included stops in Minnesota, Miami, Boston and Dallas. King posted career averages of 6.4 points and 3.3 rebounds.

As a broadcaster, King endeared himself to a new generation of Bulls supporters. He spent more than two decades as a commentator on Bulls games.

“Stacey loved being a Bull,” Bulls president and CEO Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement. “You could feel it in everything he did — the way he played, the way he called games and the way he connected with our fans. He had a unique gift for bringing people together and making every game feel personal. He brought an energy and love for the game that came through in every broadcast, helping fans feel connected to our team. Whether it was through a broadcast, a conversation or a photo with a fan, Stacey made people feel seen and valued.

“We were fortunate to know him not only as a player and broadcaster, but as a friend. Stacey genuinely cared about people, and he made our organization better. We will miss him dearly, and his impact, memory and legacy will remain a part of the Chicago Bulls forever.”

King delighted fans with his memorable calls and nicknames. His enthusiasm was apparent every time the Bulls hit a big shot.

“We enjoy what we do,” King said last month on his “Gimme the Hot Sauce” podcast, a reference to a comment he'd frequently make after big plays. “It's a fun job. It never seems like work for me. Every night, I go to work, win, lose or draw, I'm having fun.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Three-time NBA champion and beloved broadcaster Stacey King has died, the Chicago Bulls announced Sunday, June 7.

King was 59 years old.

In a statement on social media, Bulls' owner Jerry Reinsdorf said "Stacey King was a cherished member of the Bulls family and one of the truly unique personalities in our organization’s history. His connection to Chicago, the Bulls and our fans spanned more than three decades – first as a player and later as the unmistakable voice that helped bring Bulls basketball into the homes of generations of fans. We will miss him deeply and remember the joy, energy, humor, candor, and passion he brought to our organization, our broadcasts, and our fans every day. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones."

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King was the sixth pick in the 1989 draft out of Oklahoma. His connection to the city of Chicago is undeniable as he was not only beloved as a player but as the team's color commentator for nearly 20 years.

A Philly hoops legend is taking on a major role for his hometown team.

The Sixers will reportedly promote Jameer Nelson to executive vice president of basketball operations, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Nelson was one of four candidates reportedly on Bob Myers’ short list to replace Daryl Morey before the franchise decided to hire Cleveland Cavaliers GM Mike Gansey. Nelson, who previously served as the team’s assistant general manager, was reportedly the only internal candidate under consideration.

Nelson is one of the most decorated local players in history. The Chester native attended Chester High before heading to Hawk Hill to play for St. Joe’s. Nelson had one of the finest college careers of any Big 5 player. A fantastic four-year run culminated in a magical 2003-04 season in which the Hawks went 27-0 during the regular season, finishing as the No. 1 team in the country. After a disappointing early exit in the A-10 Tournament, St. Joe’s made it all the way to the Elite Eight, losing a 64-62 heartbreaker to Oklahoma State. Nelson was named the Wooden Award winner as college basketball’s top player among a slew of accolades.

The 6-foot guard was selected 20th overall by the Denver Nuggets in 2004, but was immediately traded to the Magic. Nelson then spent the next decade in Orlando and was named an All-Star in 2008-09. All told, he spent 14 years in the NBA playing for the Magic, Nuggets, Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics, New Orleans Pelicans and Detroit Pistons before retiring in 2018.

Not long after his playing career ended, he was tapped by the Sixers to be the assistant general manager of the Delaware Blue Coats, the team’s G League affiliate, in 2020. He was promoted to GM in 2023-24 and was promoted again this past season as assistant general manager of the Sixers. All indications were Nelson was well-thought of within the organization and would’ve held a big role moving forward, even if he wasn’t named president of basketball operations.

The announcement of Nelson’s expected promotion also coincided with the news of Elton Brand’s fate. Charania has reported that Brand will not return as Sixers GM, and will work in a new role with Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. Charania added that Brand chose not to interview for the president of basketball ops position and has been supporting the team’s draft preparation.

In Myers, Gansey and Nelson, the Sixers have a triumvirate of former high-level basketball players leading things — a stark departure from the analytics-driven Daryl Morey. We’ll see if it’s a recipe for success.

“You’re gonna have a dude. You have to have a 1A dude. And they’re missing that.He too small.

“I have a philosophy: If your best player is small, you’re not winning. John Stockton, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, you can go down the list… Steph Curry is the only—he’s in a different class.” — Becky Hammon (Dec. 2023)

Sometimes, revisionist history sucks. Sometimes, revisionist history is facts.

And these days, having just wrapped up the first week of the sixth month in the Gregorian calendar, facts tell you Mrs. Hammon—or at the very least her take on New York Knicks point guard, captain, and franchise player Jalen Brunson—sucks.

I’m not here to retell the whole Brunson story once more—from Rick, to Mark Cuban by way of Dallas, to the Eastern Conference Finals MVP award and the current NBA Finals 2-0 lead.

We’re past that. Way past that.

See, life’s a thing of highs and lows. Brunson, in the eyes of any and every New Yorker and Knickerbocker fan, is a franchise savior. But past miseries surely played in the big-headed’s favor.

By the time Brunson arrived in Manhattan, thanks both to his connection to the Knicks organization—one that started nearly 25 years earlier—and a rekindled relationship in the summer of 2022, New York had gone through their fair share of wretchedness.

Seven trips to the playoffs in the prior 23 years, starting in 2000 and following a five-game NBA Finals loss to the San Antonio Spurs in 1999. 19 postseason wins to 33 losses. 771 regular-season wins to 1,073 losses. Six seasons above .500 to 17 with a losing record.

In the four seasons under Brunson’s guidance at the point, the Knicks have won 61.2% of their regular-season games, advanced to the conference semis twice, made the conference finals two more times and, in this the fourth year of the JB Era, finally clinched the long-chased NBA Finals berth.

Only the 94-98 Knicks and the 71-74 Knicks have put together better runs than the current Knicks. Only the latter won one title. The 2026 Knicks could match that following Brunson’s four-year run in town.

All of the above to get to the point of the article before it’s too late and I found myself having written more words about stuff unrelated to it than the actual thing.

Where does Brunson rank among New York’s all-time guards?

It’s inevitable to fall for the sugar rush these Knicks are giving us, considering Brunson the one and only man in history to save the franchise from relocating out of utter dysfunction, and crown him King Knicks Guard. Hell, even FanDuelstill considers JB the favorite candidate to end up winning the NBA Finals MVP at +115 over the actual, leading MVP candidate in everybody’s mind and boxscores, Karl-Anthony Towns at +165.

Even if the Knicks end up bottling this thing and losing the Finals in hellaciously historic and astonishing fashion (spoiler: not happening), Brunson has already secured his place as one of the bona fide Knicks greats. Do a quick search, and you’ll find a million boards. Here’s one from KD’s platform, just to make the post fancier.

As things stand, there is no debate in placing at least two or three names above Brunson in the all-time leaderboard—it is obvious that nobody is touching Patrick Ewing or Clyde for starters. Keywords: As things stand.

In a matter of days, likely no later than Wednesday night, Brunson will write his name in golden letters in the history books of the New York Knicks organization.

How many players can actually say that? Not a lot. How many of them played an important role at the guard positions for the Knickerbockers while at it? Fewer, if not just a handful.

There are plenty of ways to cut straight to the chase and get rid of plenty of no-names, as great as some of them might have been. Quickest pathway? Knicks’ retired numbers, a graveyard where Brunson’s No. 11 is already destined.

That’s it, that’s the list (with the omission of coach Holzman’s No. 613).

Within that list, Frazier, Dick Barnett, Dirk McGuire, and Earl Monroe played guard throughout their careers.

No. 1 — Walt “Clyde” Frazier

Frazier spent 10 seasons with the Knicks, made seven All-Star teams, earned seven All-Defensive First Team selections, won two NBA championships for New York and ultimately made the Hall of Fame. Not only that, but he even had a game worth replaying forever in his Game 7 performance in the 1970 NBA Finals, when he put up an extraordinary 36-point, 19-assist, seven-rebound performance to send the Los Angeles Lakers packing. No debate here.

No. 2 — Earl “The Pearl” Monroe

Monroe is probably where the debate starts, as silly as that sounds. For now (now meaning before Game 3 of the 2026 NBA Finals), The Pearl remains ahead. Monroe came to New York already established as one of the league’s great guards, and he simply took his game further in Manhattan, helping the Knicks win their 1973 title. He made four All-Star teams in his career, earned a place in the Hall of Fame, and started his career by being named the 1968 Rookie of the Year. That said, he didn’t rack up trophies as Clyde did, with no real personal awards in his resume.

No. 3 — Jalen “Captain Clutch” Brunson

Consider this placement just a stopgap toward greater heights, fellas. Brunson has already led the Knicks to the NBA Finals, he’s won multiple playoff series as the franchise’s No. 1 player and offensive engine, and once and for all put an end to the long and nonsensical drought at the point guard position in New York. Yes, Brunson is not really a man for awards outside of new-era crafted titles such as Cluth Player of the Year and all this flashy stuff, but he’s already earned three All-NBA call-ups and has won something no other lead guard in NYC ever did: the NBA Cup (lol). Anyway. Two more wins this month, and I’m moving JB up to No. 2, with all due respect to the elders and path-pavers.

No. 4 and 5 — Dick Barnett & Dick McGuire

McGuire, at the very least, belongs in the conversation, having made five All-Star teams as a Knick and later joining the Hall of Fame.

The same goes for Barnett, who was more of a taker than a giver and a legit shooter more than he ever was a passer. Even then, he was a guard and he makes the top-5 cut. An All-Star nod and two titles in his resume (he only played four games in the 1973 run, though) and his near-17 PPG only second to Willis Reed’s 24 in the 1970 playoffs, are more than enough.

The Rest — Mark Jackson, Michael Ray Richardson, Derek Harper, Charlie Ward, Stephon Marbury

Action Jackson won Rookie of the Year with the Knicks in 1988, made the All-Star team in 1989, and led the league in assists later in his career. Sugar Ray made three All-Star teams with New York and led the NBA in assists and steals in 1979-80. Harper helped steady the 1990s Knicks and started on the 1994 NBA Finals team. C-Ward won the 1994 Heisman Trophy before becoming a long-term Knicks starter and part of the 1999 Finals team. Starbury stole my heart from the get-go. That’s it, that’s the reasoning there—always remember the tough days.

Where do you rank Jalen Brunson among all-time Knicks guards? Is he already a top-3 all-time Knicks, no positions considered? Let us know in the comments section below!

In 1919, eight members of the Chicago White Sox attended a series of meetings and plans were hatched to throw the World Series in favor of the Cincinnati Reds.

The fix was far from the first in baseball. At the time, America’s pastime was in its infancy and the notion of ‘integrity of the game’ was also in its infancy. Gamblers and players routinely fraternized, and the occasional fix was more or less accepted — maybe not always with good grace, but without a great deal of protest.

Then the World Series was fixed.

The response was not particularly swift. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey and the rest of the league’s owners spent most of 1920 trying to bury the story, but when a grand jury was convened to investigate the conduct of the Series in the context of laws against gambling in general, it became hard to keep a lid on what actually happened. In September of that year, Eddie Cicotte confessed and the scandal exploded onto the front page.

Ultimately, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of a U.S. professional sport, instituted lifetime bans against the eight players who sat in on meetings to throw the Series. Landis’ ban was based on players knowing about the fix, so even guys that arguably didn’t participate in the fix like Shoeless Joe Jackson were banned for life.

Fast forward to the 1980s in the NBA and maybe Gloria was right…

In the 1981-82 season, that prince of an owner, Donald Sterling, publicly suggested that his team should lose games to secure a top pick. He was fined a record $10,000 by David Stern, but there were no further consequences — not even when Sterling allowed the team’s active roster to fall as low as eight players that season.

Two years later, the Houston Rockets decided to sit their starters in order to secure the top pick in the pre-lottery draft. Their reward? One of the best centers ever to play the game, Hakeem Olajuwon. Granted it took a decade for that to pay off with a pair of championships, but the Rockets definitely benefited from playing to lose.

Also competing for the bottom of the draft that season? The Chicago Bulls. They got Michael Jordan with the third pick, and the rest, for them, is history as well.

In 1996-97 multiple teams, the Celtics included, tanked for a chance to pick Tim Duncan, in the NBA’s relatively new lottery arrangement which gave the worst teams better odds at getting a top pick.

In the 2010s, Sam Hinkie made tanking a publicly declared priority for the Philadelphia 76ers, with the team deliberately stripping itself of competent players in order to secure multiple top draft picks (picks which Hinkie wasted, for the most part, but that’s another story for another day).

Tanking has become as accepted an affront to the integrity of basketball as gambling once was in baseball.

There is no material difference between the players throwing games for monetary gain and GMs throwing seasons in order to secure high draft picks.

None.

In both cases, the individuals involved are deliberately doing less than their best in order to lose.

It’s true that the NBA has finally done something to minimize the most egregious forms of tanking, but this new system, with its dramatic rise in odds for 4-10 finishers has basically created a huge disincentive for teams that are ‘on the bubble.’ Teams sitting in the gap between the 10^th place in the lottery standings and the 19^th place teams that are assured playoff spots have little incentive to push for a better record and every incentive to play for a worse one.

If you finish in 11^th place, you get one lottery ball. If you finish in 10^th place, you get three.

All this new approach has done is change the way teams will choose to tank and how they’ll pursue it. Changing the goal from ‘being the worst team in the league’ to ‘being bad enough to get three lottery balls’ doesn’t change the fact that the team’s management is still trying to lose.

Sure, the optics might be a bit better, but tanking is still cheating. It’s still a violation of trust.

What can be done?

Sadly, not much. Gambling-influenced play typically comes out due to criminal investigations, where law enforcement agencies have both the power to seize communications and the authority to threaten real consequences against individuals complicit in these schemes.

Recall that it was a criminal investigation that brought the Black Sox scandal to light.

With a matter like tanking, there aren’t any laws being broken.

And in any event, tanking is often done with a nod and a wink. The NBA might have the power to compel teams to turn over emails and other correspondence, but these aren’t likely to feature an owner and a GM chatting about how they’re going to aim for a top pick in the lottery.

When tanking is egregious, as what happened with the Pacers and the Jazz this season, the league’s response is, basically, a slap on the wrist.

Yes, under the new lottery arrangement, the league has the ability to impose more severe punishment for conduct perceived as tanking, and this is a good first step.

However, like locked screen doors that only stop honest burglars, penalties for obvious acts of tanking only affect the stupidest teams. Any team can get around these penalties by cooking up plausible-sounding reasons for trading away good players (‘saving on cap costs’), and for resting starters (‘injury recovery’).

In order for tanking to stop, the collective attitude of fans — which is ultimately what drives league policy — needs to change. As long as we pretend that tanking is anything but cheating, it’s going to continue.

The game we’re promised is one where both teams are playing to win. We didn’t sign up for Gloria’s murky realm where some teams are playing to lose, because if they lose they win.

As long as we believe that trying to win is optional, as long as we’re content to see teams trying to lose, we will be complicit in the active undermining of the integrity of the game.

Who knew the Knicks had it in them?

I’m going to wrap up this column by noting that we might have another ‘fo-fo-fo’ in the making.

Yeah, this means that Jamie Dolan might get to hoist a Finals trophy, and it means that I got my “Spurs in six” prediction quite wrong, but in the end, I’m fine with it.

I don’t particularly care for the Knicks, but I’m sick and tired of the notion that the Western Conference is head-and-shoulders better than the East. It’s such an accepted narrative, that I’d be happy to see the East’s third seed spank the West’s second seed, even if it means having to deal with Knicks fans acting like this isn’t the team’s first championship since 1973.

With the C’s out of the playoffs, I’ve been in favor of maximum chaos, and the Knicks winning a title is about the maximumest chaos that we can get short of human sacrifice and dogs and cats living together.