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Anonymous NBA player poll 2024: LeBron or Jordan for GOAT? Most overrated? Finals favorite?

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Anonymous NBA player poll 2024: LeBron or Jordan for GOAT? Most overrated? Finals favorite?

Sample size matters, people.

So when The Athletic launched its first NBA player poll in 2019, with 127 players answering questions about league matters so honestly because of the anonymity they were granted, the bar was set very high. We hit triple digits again last year (108 players), when the popular poll returned in full force after a COVID-19-induced hiatus because of limited locker room access for reporters during that time.

This time around, with familiar topics like MVP, “most overrated,” “player you’d least like to fight” and the referees to discuss, as well as new debates over the 65-game rule and the commissioner’s letter grade, our NBA staff interviewed a whopping 142 players from March 5 through April 11. That’s nearly a third of the entire league, with unfiltered views of stars and role players alike. And yes, all 30 teams had a voice.

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As is always the case, not every player answered every question. But the unprecedented participation means there are more opinions and insights than ever. There’s a bonus question, too, with players telling us which non-NBA player is their current favorite athlete (yes, as you might have imagined, Caitlin Clark received a few votes).

Away we go…

(Editor’s Note: In some cases, the combined percentages of all the answers to a question may not add up to 100 percent, because individual percentages have been rounded up or down to the nearest tenth of a percentage point.)


Here’s a not-so-bold prediction when it comes to the actual MVP race: Nikola Jokić is going to win it by a far more significant margin than the one you see above. This has been the trend with our polls, with players typically seeing it very differently from the 100 media members who vote on the award every year.

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So while Jokić is considered the heavy front-runner, it should come as no surprise that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander came so close to taking the top honor here. And bear in mind, these votes were taken before Oklahoma City secured the top seed in the Western Conference on the last day of the regular season.

Luka Dončić was simply incredible down the season’s home stretch, but — like SGA — didn’t see his full body of work reflected in the polling because of the timing factor in the process.

Jokić voters

• “He’s Jokić. He affects the game in many ways that people just can’t understand — both offensively and defensively, honestly. His defense has gotten a lot better.”

• “He’s unstoppable.”

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• “To be this effective the year after winning a championship, when it’s supposed to be harder, is impressive.”

• “Nikola Jokić is MVP. Consistent, still winning, still affecting the team in a number of ways. And it’s noticeable when he’s off the floor.”

• “He’s changed the game. His defense is underrated. He just knows the game so much.”

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SGA voters

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• “No one expected the Thunder to be what they are this season, and he’s the head of that snake. And he’s consistent every single game — same numbers, and they’re incredible numbers. And he plays on both ends of the floor.”

• “I think he’s the most consistent No. 1 option on his team without a consistent helper. Like, there isn’t really a clear second superstar even though Jalen Williams is coming on as well. I think what he’s doing every game is the most impressive, and it translates into wins.”

• “Obviously, he’s scoring the ball. But the way he shares it and has his team involved is very unselfish. And I think he’s up there in steals as well (tied with Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox for the league lead at two per game). And he’s been doing it all season long. …He’s just been really consistent in the style of play that he has. He’s just been dominating the game, and it’s not just points. It’s rebounds, assists, and he’s done a great job of leading that team over there.”

• “Underdog. Just with what OKC is doing, nobody would be mad if they were a 10 seed with their roster. If they were a 10 seed, nobody would be like, ‘Oh, they’re having a bad year.’ They’d be like, ‘They’re still rebuilding.’ … With what he’s doing, I think that’s my MVP.”


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Victor Wembanyama said last month that his friend and fellow Frenchman Rudy Gobert would be a worthy winner of the 2023-24 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. But Wembanyama also added that, in future seasons, he, and not Gobert, would be the front-runner.

Their NBA peers, however, feel Wembanyama’s time has already arrived. Players voted the towering Spurs rookie as the league’s best defender right now.

Wembanyama led the league in blocks, averaging 3.58 per game. His next closest competitor, Utah’s Walker Kessler, recorded 2.41 blocks per game.

“He just makes it so hard to finish at the rim,” one opponent said of Wembanyama.

Another player said: “He’s changing the game. Players — you can’t say ‘scared’ — but he’s changing their shots. He deserves it.”

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The Grizzlies certainly looked terrified in this three-on-one Wemby highlight that went viral earlier this month.

Gobert, who would join Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace as the only four-time winners of the DPOY award if he wins it this season, finished fifth in our vote (6 percent). As you’ll see later on in this poll, this isn’t the last time Gobert is questioned by his peers.

Jrue Holiday, the top vote-getter by a wide margin in last year’s poll, placed second in the voting this year at 12.9 percent, barely trailing Wembanyama.

Wembanyama voter

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“He really, like, affects everything in the paint. He has dudes not even trying to go to the rim. He damn near leads the league in blocks right now, and this is his first year. He’s doing it in limited time too.”

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Holiday voter

“I think guard defenders are more impressive because they’re on the ball all the time. As a big man, you make up mistakes by helping off your man. So it’s easier. Protecting the paint is somewhat easier than staying in front of the ball.”

Lu Dort voter

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“(He) guards multiple positions, (is a) physical defender, guards without fouling — even when at the beginning of the season when the referees were calling fouls. Now, it helps him even more, because they’re not calling fouls.”


Wembanyama entered last year’s draft with enormous hype. The answers to this question once again demonstrate that, in the players’ eyes, the adulation was deserved.

“Some of the stuff he does offensively, the way he moves, it just looks so fluid,” one player said. “Just seeing him from afar, he’s playing the right way. He has the right principles. He’s focused on the right things. I like him.”

Wembanyama’s age factored into some of the players’ votes, as he turned 20 in January. Naturally, any team executive looking to build a title-contending team wants as long of a runway as possible.

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“You can have him for 20 years,” one of the players said.

Another player who chose Wemby explained his vote like this: “The upside and at 20 years old, you can see that if he stays healthy and continues to get better, he can be a truly great player. I don’t want to put a ceiling on him.”

Jokić, on the other hand, is 29. So, it says something about how much his peers respect his game that so many of them still would make him their first signee even though he’s nearly one decade older than Wembanyama. Jokić is seven years older than Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards and four years older than Dončić.

Do you think Jokić faring so well is impressive? How about the fact that LeBron James is still getting votes in this young man’s category at the ripe old age of 39 (he’ll be 40 on Dec. 30). Ditto for Steph Curry, who turned 36 on March 14. The same can’t be said for 29-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo, who won this category by a landslide in both 2019 (36.4 percent to Anthony Davis’ 10.4 percent) and 2023 (52.4 percent to Jokić’s 8.7 percent) but registered a measly 2.2 percent this time around.


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There’s just something about Gobert’s game that his peers don’t like. Maybe the skepticism stems from a lack of playoff success, as none of Gobert’s teams have advanced to the conference finals. Or maybe it all traces back to the bubble in 2020 when the Clippers’ Terance Mann buried all those 3s over Gobert in the West semifinals and sparked serious scrutiny about the perceived limitations of the big man’s game.

Gobert has the elite résumé, though, with the three DPOY awards, three All-Star appearances, an All-NBA Second Team selection and three All-NBA Third Team nods. He has the receipts from this season, as he was the indisputable anchor of a Minnesota defense that was the best in the league while Gobert finished second in rebounds (12.9) and sixth in blocks (2.1) on a team that came just two wins shy of earning the No. 1 seed in the West (it finished third). And as our resident Timberwolves expert Jon Krawczynski wrote in January, the truth about those Jazz teams was that their lack of perimeter defense was the real problem that was exposed in those playoffs. These Timberwolves don’t have that deficiency.

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Still, Gobert joins Draymond Green (2019) and Trae Young (2023) as the latest winner of this undesirable award.


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Seven seasons in, Derrick White’s top claim to NBA fame is finishing 16th in the media’s 2018-19 Most Improved Player voting and being named to the 2022-23 NBA All-Defensive Second Team. Jalen Williams, in his second season, placed second in last season’s Rookie of the Year voting but was also routinely mistaken on opposing telecasts for the Thunder’s “other” Jaylin Williams. Both Jalen Williams and White were lightly recruited coming out of high school.

So yes, in other words, they’re very familiar with the experience of being underrated. And while both are receiving more acclaim, they’re not the ones commanding the brightest spotlight on their respective teams.

White plays in the shadows of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porziņģis and Holiday. Williams, meanwhile, is on a dynamic young Thunder team where Gilgeous-Alexander commands most of the spotlight alongside big man Chet Holmgren.

One of the players who voted for White said, “I say that every single day: He’s one of the most underrated players in the league. They talk about him more (now), but they still don’t talk about him enough.”

Said another: “(White) defends really well (and) does a little bit of everything on offense.”

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It’s notable, too, that Gilgeous-Alexander finished fourth in the players’ most-underrated voting even though he’s a virtual lock to be an All-NBA First Team selection by the media for the second season in a row.

“I don’t know if you can even say it anymore because he’s starting to get his due, but from a players’ perspective, it doesn’t feel like it’s covered enough,” an SGA voter said. “But what Shai has done this year, just how his progression has gone … I don’t know if you can call him underrated, but it almost feels like how for all those years they were talking about Damian Lillard (during his Portland years), how he was kind of flying under the radar (because of Steph Curry). But if you asked players, (they would’ve said) he’s one of the best guards in the league, in the top two. So I’m starting to see some of that with how we’re talking about Shai.”


The legend of James Johnson grows yet again.

Not only is the 6-foot-7, 240-pound, 37-year-old tough guy now a three-time winner of this award, but he continues to inspire fear in his opponents despite playing in just nine games this season. The Pacers forward has been mostly out of sight, but he’s not out of mind.

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As many players discussed, it’s Johnson’s formal training as an actual fighter that most concerns them. He previously said that he holds a 20-0 record as a kickboxer, is 7-0 in mixed martial arts fights and has a black belt in karate. His nickname is “Bloodsport.” Need we say more?

In a January podcast interview with former NBA player Ryan Hollins, Johnson shared his opinion that, with a year of training in ground defense, he could beat UFC heavyweight legend Jon Jones in a fight.

Here’s the best part of Johnson’s latest season, though: Johnson re-signed with Indiana just two days after the game ball kerfuffle between the Pacers and Bucks on Dec. 13. Johnson had been available all season long, but the Pacers just so happened to come calling for him to return after that wild night in which Antetokounmpo gave them all the Big Brother treatment.

Johnson has been on board ever since, with a brief interruption for paperwork purposes. Indiana had to waive him to complete the Pascal Siakam trade with Toronto on Jan. 17 but signed him to a 10-day contract two days later before signing him for the rest of the season.

“He can actually fight,” one player said. “He’s different. He’s crazy. He’s one of those where you won’t win, but if you do win, you’ll have to kill him.”

Another player said: “Is he still in the league? He’s a triple black belt. I’m not f—ing with James. There’s other guys (where) I might actually lose the fight, but I’m not f—ng with James. He might kick me in my head.”

One of Johnson’s former teammates said: “J.J. is actually the coolest dude ever. He’s super cool. I just know his reputation. I know if you mess with him, it can get like that. But he’s one of my favorite teammates that I’ve had.”

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Speaking of consistency in this category, Steven Adams (6-11, 250) takes second place behind Johnson for the third consecutive time. The Houston Rockets big man hasn’t played since Jan. 22, 2023, when he suffered a posterior cruciate ligament sprain in his right knee that would later require surgery. But like Johnson, the intimidation factor remains.

“(Adams) knows all the MMA stuff, and he can get you in a chokehold real quick,” one Adams voter said. “He’ll be nice with it, but he’ll choke you out and be like, ‘It’s OK, buddy.’”

And how’s this for a terrifying thought for Rockets opponents during an on-court melee? A healthy Adams and his 7-4, 290-pound teammate, Boban Marjanović, in the same scuffle. The Serbian big man, who played a villain in “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” and starred in the below fight scene with Keanu Reeves, garnered votes as well.

“John Wick 3,” one Marjanović voter said in explaining his choice. “It’s not like he can fight, but he’s huge.”

You may have noticed Wembanyama received a vote for the player guys would least like to fight. Picking Wembanyama seemed like an iffy choice considering how thin he is. But, sure enough, Wemby garnered the player’s vote. The reasoning? He would have a massive reach advantage.

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Do you think MJ’s getting nervous? King James almost took his (player poll) GOAT crown this time around, and he’ll do just that next year if this voting trend continues.

In this endless debate, His Airness has experienced serious slippage for the third consecutive poll. Jordan had a huge edge in 2019 (73 percent to LeBron’s 11.9 percent) and was still nearly doubling him in 2023 (58.3 percent to 33 percent). Now the gap is only 3.8 percent.

It makes some sense, though, as James is doing things at this late stage of his career that players this age have never done. And these many feats, it’s quite clear, are changing the way some players see this debate. Consider the highlights of his past 14 months…

  • Broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record on Feb. 7, 2023
  • Led the Lakers to the West finals three months later
  • Led the Lakers to an (inaugural) In-Season Tournament title in December
  • Became the first player to be named to a 20th All-Star team in February
  • Was one of three players to average at least 25 points, eight assists and seven rebounds this season (the others were Jokić and Dončić)
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As one of us wrote when James became the first player to cross the 40,000-point barrier in early March, the constant comparisons do a disservice to both. Their respective journeys have become too different for the discussion to maintain any merit. But James’ ability to remain elite for this long, and to put together this incredible body of NBA work that started during George W. Bush’s first term as U.S. president in 2003, is forever changing the way his career will be remembered.

As a final note here, someone did, in fact, vote for Paul Pierce as the GOAT. (Insert shrug emoji here…)


The folks who run Madison Square Garden call it “The World’s Most Famous Arena” and the “Mecca.” But what sounds like brash marketing hype also matches the opinions of NBA players.

One player responded: “MSG. It’s the Mecca. It’s classic.”

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Another who chose the Garden answered: “At MSG and Crypto, there are bright lights and celebrities.”

The Celtics’ arena historically has gotten a lot of praise for its fans, and nothing’s changed this season. One player said: “Crazy atmosphere. Some big sports fans. It’s so loud in there.” Another said he likes facing the Celtics in Boston because he enjoys playing in a “hostile environment.”


The architects who designed Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, Charlotte’s Spectrum Center and Memphis’ FedExForum shouldn’t feel bad. Those arenas top this list because the home teams in those venues struggled to draw fans this season relative to other clubs.

Little Caesars Arena, which the Pistons share with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings, “won” this dubious honor even though its average announced crowd was said to be a respectable 18,159 fans per game.

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“No fans, no atmosphere at the moment,” one player said.

Another added: “It’s very open. It’s got to be packed out for it to stand out, and that’s just not what it is.”

The Hornets ranked next to last in home attendance this season, prompting one of the players who voted for Spectrum Center to say, “It’s quiet. Good arena. But it’s quiet.”

One of the NBA’s off-court dramas this season swirled in Washington, where Wizards principal owner Ted Leonsis attempted to move the team and the NHL’s Washington Capitals to Alexandria, Va. Leonsis later scuttled those plans after they failed to move forward in Virginia’s legislature, and Leonsis subsequently reached a deal to remain at Capital One Arena and receive $515 million in funding from the local government to upgrade the arena.

Opposing players don’t like the arena much. One of them said: “Just the way it’s built, it’s a very cold arena. It feels like there’s no soul to it. It feels very empty when you’re there — not by how many people are there. There’s no warmth. I don’t really know how to explain it. … As a player, you like to feel enveloped by the crowd. It doesn’t feel like that.”

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You may be wondering why Denver’s Ball Arena, where fans have been rocking for years now, ranks seventh in the voting. The answer: the altitude, which is something the Nuggets and NHL’s Colorado Avalanche lean into as a psychological play. When visiting teams’ buses arrive in the arena’s loading dock, players see a sign that says: “Ball Arena WELCOMES YOU TO THE MILE HIGH CITY, ELEVATION 5,280 FEET.”

“Oh my God, that team needs to be moved,” one player said. “The altitude is crazy. I don’t like it at all. Every time I play there, I’m dog-tired.”


This is a case where players’ opinions appear to have changed in one year. Gregg Popovich won this vote last year, followed by runner-up Steve Kerr.

Erik Spoelstra placed third last year, receiving 9.5 percent of the vote, but has since vaulted to the top. He has come a long way in this poll since getting just 1 percent of the vote (12th place) in 2019. Considering that his Heat reached the NBA Finals by way of the Play-In last season, it’s safe to assume that earned him even more respect.

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“Just the Heat culture — they’re always competing,” one Spoelstra voter said. “They’re always trying to find a way (to win). I feel like they’re always taking guys that fit their system, and that makes them play very good.”

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Popovich remains highly regarded.

“Pop,” one player answered. “Easy. I love those types of coaches, like Pop and Spo. I would rather you ‘mother—’ me than smile in my face.”

The Knicks’ Josh Hart, who voted for Spoelstra, insisted that he be quoted on the record for this one.

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“Spo, hands down,” said Hart, who worked with Spoelstra at the FIBA World Cup tournament last summer when the Heat head coach was a Team USA assistant. “Quote me on that one. F–ing love Spo.”


Few coaches get more out of their teams than Tom Thibodeau does. But no coach gets more grief for it than Thibodeau, either.

Thibodeau’s Knicks finished 50-32 and earned the East’s second seed, but New York’s success this season and his two NBA Coach of the Year awards didn’t seem to matter much to players. He’s been named the coach players least would like to play for in all three polls, with this margin (37.7 percent ahead of Doc Rivers) the largest yet (he was 13.5 percent ahead of Chicago’s Jim Boylen in 2019 and 29.1 percent ahead of Houston’s Stephen Silas last year).

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“I’m too old for those practices,” one player said.

“He’s playing everyone 48 minutes,” another said.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. According to the NBA’s figures, four Knicks players ranked in the top 50 in minutes per game this season: Julius Randle (15th at 35.4 per game), Jalen Brunson (16th at 35.4 per game), Anunoby (35th at 34.0 per game) and Hart (50th at 33.4 per game).


It’s said that the NBA has improved parity in recent years, and that’s true.

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But players still think the NBA title race will come down to two teams: the defending champion Nuggets and the team with the league’s best regular-season record, the Celtics.

“Whoever comes out of the East is going to lose to the Western Conference teams,” one player said. “I just think when you look at the landscape out West, the best teams — Denver is my pick. OKC’s too young and they’re not big enough. … The one team that could give (Denver) problems would be the Clippers if they play at their best and they’re healthy, just based on matchups. But continuity in this league is everything, and Denver has it. So that’s my pick.”

Another player who voted for the Nuggets said: “It’s like a factory, plug and play. They play the right way, no matter who’s out there. Shoutout to Jokić.”

Still, Boston was a buzz saw during the regular season, compiling a league-best 64-18 record while finishing first in offensive rating and second in defensive rating.

“When you’ve got Jrue Holiday on the team with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who are shot makers, he’s a great defender obviously,” one player said. “And with Kristaps Porziņģis, they have got danger everywhere and defensively as well. Also, their fans make it hard to beat them, for sure.”

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All things considered, this report card could have been much worse for the refs. In essence, you had 21.9 percent of the players polled indicating that the officiating job was below average this season and 78.1 percent giving a grade of average or better. Given all the high-profile frustration with the officiating on display this season, as well as the midseason change in “points of emphasis” that empowered defenders again and suppressed scoring, no one should be surprised that they didn’t get straight As.

Voters who gave an F

“Sh–, they don’t know if they want us to play or not play.”

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“But they good people…”

Voter who gave a D

“It’s a different sense of entitlement that they feel, and they get a little bit more sensitive than they had previously. Some of the missed calls, it’s just like, that’s not OK. And some of them are blatant. It’s not an easy job by any means. (But) I’ve seen better years.”

Voter who gave a C

“The issue is there’s just too much volatility. But also, the inconsistency. I would say there’s eight elite officials, great officials, and then you have the rest of the 50 that are just, you could carry them in. It makes it hard on those guys. There’s eight elite officials who are great at communicating and at officiating, and then there’s four (who can do) one of each, where they can either officiate or they can communicate. And the rest of them are just … bad.”

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Voter who gave a B

“I don’t think people realize how hard that job is. All things considered, they’ve done a good job. That’s not a job I would ever want to have. There’s still definitely room for growth, but within the job and what’s asked of them and where the game’s moving, I think they’ve done a great job.”

Voter who gave an A

“They make the calls that the league wants them to make, right? … And now, we’re just adjusting again, because there’s more holding and grabbing now. So they’re allowing stuff now. I guess they just do whatever they’re told.”


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What’s more telling? That 46.2 percent of the players gave the commissioner an A or that none of the 130 players who responded gave him a D or an F?

“Some of the things he does, we’re not going to like, but that’s just us as players,” said one of the players who gave Adam Silver an A. “We like to complain about s—. But I think what he’s doing is great for the league. The In-Season Tournament. The Play-In. All this is to build the luster of the league and to build the TV ratings to make sure they’re in a certain place so when it comes time to do this new TV deal, we can do it.”

Another said: “I’d give him an A. The money’s good. The fans are enjoying the games. We’ve got a new In-Season Tournament that everybody looks forward to now, especially because there’s money on the line. I really wanted to win that In-Season Tournament. I had some plans for that money, for real.”

It’s not all perfect, of course.

“Everything is good except the All-Star Game, and that weekend wasn’t great,” said one player who still gave Silver an A. “Other than that, I feel like it’s been entertaining. I feel like the league’s been real competitive.”

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One player who gave Silver a B said: “There’s a big disparity with the referees still. Referees aren’t consistent with their integrity, the way they approach you, and the NBA has a huge problem on its hands. That’s the biggest thing in the NBA right now: the referees. Some people get calls and some people don’t get calls. It may be the same (play), but if it’s Trae Young or somebody else, it looks different.”

In terms of criticism for Silver, several players indicated officiating is one of the few areas in which they believe he has fallen short.

“The only reason (I’m giving Silver) a B and not an A is that I’m not sure that players have the liberty to speak out (against referees) the way it should be,” one player said. “I do, to a certain extent, understand why that is, because you’ve got to create a culture of togetherness and can’t just randomly criticize referees and all that stuff. But some of this stuff, especially with referees, they have an ego and they know that so they act a certain way toward you because they know you’ll lose money if you criticize them. … Adam’s doing a great job of maximizing our money in a great way.”


The new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players, enacted last summer, includes a provision that says players must appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for most end-of-the-season honors, including MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, the All-NBA teams and All-Defensive teams.

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From league officials’ perspective, the new rule is designed to get the league’s best players on the court more often. In addition to benefiting the fans who purchase tickets to games, the theory goes that having such a rule will make the league even more attractive to suitors for the upcoming media rights deal.

The rule has come under fire from some players, even though they voted to accept the new CBA. Keep in mind that the rule is one small part of a large, dense document that came as the result of thorough negotiations between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association that represents them. Neither side got everything it wanted.

But still, we wondered how players feel about the rule now. In the wake of the sensitive Embiid situation earlier this season, when the reigning MVP was roundly ridiculed for missing a nationally televised Jan. 27 game at Denver because of a left knee injury only to get hurt three days later when Jonathan Kuminga fell on the knee in a game at Golden State, the discussion about whether the rule was putting players in harm’s way was front and center for the second half of the season.

Exactly half of the players who answered the question said they’re against the rule.

“Obviously, I get why they do it in terms of wanting guys to play,” said one player who is against the rule. “But I also think guys will force themselves to play through things sometimes — obviously, the Embiid thing that happened, whether he was right or not to play. I just think it gets risky for guys. If you’re talking about MVP, I think for everyone in the league it’s clear who the MVP is, whether they play 65 or 82 games. From a player’s point of view, I think guys know who the MVP is. It’s always going to be whatever the top two or three or whoever those guys are. So, I just think it’s forcing guys to play sometimes when there (are) legitimate reasons (not to play).”

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Some of the players against the 65-game rule said they’re in favor of having a rule but would prefer the threshold be set at a lower number of games.

One player said: “I think that’s a lot of games, honestly, when you think about how the game is played. Back in the day, guys would play 80-some games. They would walk the ball up and post up. But we’re non-stop, and there’s a lot of wear and tear So, guys like Embiid, guys that are superstars in this league, there’s a situation where they might have to fight through games to get to a threshold to get an award. It’s kind of tough, kind of bulls— sometimes. But what if one of those guys, they’re at 60 games, they’ve got a bad knee injury and, in one of those five games, tears his meniscus because he’s trying to get an award? I don’t like that.”

Nearly 45 percent of the players who responded said they were in favor of the rule.

“Sixty-five games, that gives you a 17-game cushion to miss if you need rest or things like that,” one of the rule’s supporters said. “I’m all for it. You’ve got to be out there on the floor if you can.”


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Let’s face it, folks: During the 2023-24 college basketball season, no player was more compelling than Clark. And when we were enjoying March Madness, the women’s NCAA Tournament seemed to have more engaging storylines and colorful characters than the men’s.

This got us wondering: Is women’s basketball having a moment within the NBA too?

The answer appears to be a resounding “yes!”

In our survey, Clark not only ranked as the second-favorite current non-NBA athlete, but women’s basketball players — Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum, Angel Reese, JuJu Watkins, A’ja Wilson and Clark — were named on 12.2 percent of all NBA players’ ballots. Only NFL players were named on more ballots (39.1 percent of them) than women’s basketball players.

“She’s unreal,” one NBA player said about Clark, who went first overall last week to the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft. “I’m excited to see how her journey pans out and what she does for the women’s game.”

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Now that Clark has finished her college career, who, if anyone, will become the most popular NCAA women’s player? Maybe Watkins, the dynamic 6-foot-2 guard who just finished her first season at USC.

One NBA player said: “Her game is so pretty to watch. She’s so fluid, smooth. … I hadn’t watched a full game (of hers) until tournament time. I’d seen little clips and highlights and stuff. But watching her against UConn the other night, she definitely made a big fan out of me.”

Soccer players — none of them American — were named on the third-highest number of ballots, coming in at 11.3 percent.

Given that the NFL dominates the North American sports landscape, it should come as no surprise that it dominated our poll. Jackson, the Baltimore Ravens quarterback who won his second NFL MVP last season, has a bunch of fans in the NBA.

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“He’s one of the best QBs ever since he came into the league,” one player said. “His running ability is crazy.”

But it was one other NFL quarterback — a quarterback far less talented than Jackson — who drew one of the funniest responses in our entire poll: Cousins, the former Commanders and Vikings quarterback who recently signed a four-year, $180 million contract to join the Atlanta Falcons, with $100 million of that total guaranteed.

When an NBA player named Cousins as his favorite current non-NBA athlete, the response elicited a dumbfounded “Why?” from one writer from The Athletic.

The NBA player said: “Kirk Cousins because he gets paid and doesn’t have to win or don’t have to do anything and made $400 million off of one playoff win. Legend.”

(Illustration by John Bradford / The Athletic; top photos of Rudy Gobert, Victor Wembanyama and Adam Silver: Kenny Giarla, Ronald Cortes, Justin Tafoya / Getty Images)

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The Bears need a coach who holds players accountable. Look no further than Ron Rivera

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The Bears need a coach who holds players accountable. Look no further than Ron Rivera

In 1982, George Halas reached into Chicago Bears history to find a head coach and hired Mike Ditka.

In 2025, the team Halas founded needs to consider its history again.

There are candidates with no ties to the Bears who deserve consideration.

Foremost among them is Mike Vrabel, who never should have been fired by the Tennessee Titans and can win Super Bowls — plural — in the right situation. If Ben Johnson of the Detroit Lions is as dazzling as a head coach as he is as an offensive coordinator, he will transform an organization. His defensive counterpart in Detroit, Aaron Glenn, seems to have leadership and coaching qualities that few have. Steve Spagnuolo’s long history of building defenses and relationships may be evidence he could thrive with a second chance. The way Joe Brady has easily lifted the Buffalo Bills offense suggests he can handle more plates on the bar.

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And there are others. Maybe in the final analysis, one of them is best suited for the job.

However, only one person has had a football role on both Bears Super Bowl teams. Ron Rivera was a linebacker on the 1985 champions. On the 2006 Bears that lost to the Indianapolis Colts, he was their defensive coordinator.

Now he should be first in line to interview.

Rivera’s 2006 defense allowed the third-fewest points in the NFL. Without justification, he was fired after that season, and the Bears took a cold plunge. In the 19 seasons since, they have made the playoffs three times and have a .439 winning percentage.

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Drafted by Jim Finks, built up by Ditka and mentored by Mike Singletary, Rivera, more than any potential candidate, comprehends what it means to be a Bear. He knows where Chicago’s potholes are. He understands the organizational strengths and limitations, the fan base and the local media.

There is no doubt Halas would have endorsed interviewing Rivera. Same for Walter Payton, who sat across from Rivera on plane rides to and from games.

Ditka was not the only former Bears player to become their coach. In their first 54 years, every one of their coaches except Ralph Jones was a former player for the team. Halas himself played for the Bears. The other Bears players who became the franchise’s head coach were Luke Johnsos, Hunk Anderson, Paddy Driscoll, Jim Dooley and Abe Gibron.

The Bears have been criticized — justifiably — for not considering former Bear Jim Harbaugh as a head coaching candidate. Ignoring Rivera would be making a similar mistake.

History is not the only reason Rivera should be considered. Like Harbaugh, Rivera is a proven coaching commodity. His coaching journey began humbly as a quality control coach for his Bears in 1997. Two years later, he went to work for Andy Reid in Philadelphia as a linebackers coach before returning to Chicago to coordinate the defense in 2004.

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Ron Rivera returned to the Bears as defensive coordinator from 2004 to 2006. (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)

When he was head coach of the Carolina Panthers, Rivera’s teams made it to the playoffs four times and the Super Bowl once. He was voted coach of the year twice, which makes him one of 13 to be honored more than once. Seven of the 13 are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with Halas and Ditka among them.

After new Panthers owner David Tepper fired him in 2019, Rivera was unemployed for less than a month when he agreed to lead Dan Snyder’s Washington Redskins, who became the Football Team and then the Commanders in Rivera’s tumultuous tenure as their coach. And he wasn’t just their coach. He was their de facto general manager. Then he became Snyder’s frontman/shield when workplace culture transgressions and financial improprieties came to light and Snyder went underground.

Rivera arguably was the most sought-after coach in the 2020 cycle. The four regrettable years he spent with Snyder, arguably the worst owner in the NFL’s history, changed perceptions. Rivera was not the first to have his reputation diminished by the association.

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In his tenure with Washington before Snyder, the great Joe Gibbs won 67 percent of his games and three Super Bowls. After retiring and returning with Snyder as owner, he went 30-34. As a college coach, Steve Spurrier won 71 percent of his games and a national championship. With Snyder, he won 37 percent of his games. Mike Shanahan, who should be on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, had a .598 career winning percentage and two Super Bowl rings as a head coach before partnering with Snyder. In Washington, his winning percentage was .375.

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Rivera’s winning percentage before Snyder was .546, one percentage point better than Vrabel’s. In Washington, it was .396.

Some will question if a defensive-minded coach like Rivera is right for the Bears because of the presence of quarterback Caleb Williams, as if a coach without an offensive background should be disqualified. Hiring a head coach with one player in mind when 53 need to be led is an absurdity.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, John Madden, Don Shula, George Allen, Bill Parcells, Marv Levy, Dick Vermeil, Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson have busts in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Almost assuredly on their way to Canton are Bill Belichick, John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. None of them had offensive backgrounds before becoming head coaches.

In 2011, when Rivera was hired in Carolina, there were similar concerns about his ability to handle an offense. With the first pick in the draft, the team chose a quarterback, Cam Newton. Rivera sent offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, quarterbacks coach Mike Shula and offensive quality control coach Scott Turner to Auburn to meet with the school’s offensive coordinator, Gus Malzahn, and try to understand what Malzahn did with Newton in helping him win a national championship and Heisman Trophy.

Panthers coaches implemented concepts Newton succeeded with at Auburn, including RPO plays that weren’t widely used at the time. Newton was named offensive rookie of the year. Four years later, Newton was voted the NFL’s most valuable player — while playing for a defensive-minded coach.

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Rivera connects with players. He earns respect with authenticity, class and toughness. And apparently, these Bears need a coach who will hold players accountable.

The year after Newton was the league’s MVP, Rivera benched him because he refused to follow a team rule requiring players to wear ties on the plane. When Newton showed up tieless, Rivera tried to give him a tie to wear. Newton said it didn’t match his outfit. Rivera told him there would be repercussions, and Newton subsequently was held out the first series of a game. Newton later apologized to the team.

Rivera, who learned about aggressive strategies from Buddy Ryan and his Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, never has been afraid to take a chance. Before they called the head coach of the Lions Dan “Gamble,” they called Rivera “Riverboat Ron.”

In his first training camp in Washington, Rivera was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer in a lymph node. That season, he had 35 proton therapy treatments and three chemotherapy treatments. Rivera lost 25 pounds and grew so weak he had to be brought into the office with one arm around his wife’s shoulder and one around the team trainer’s. He never stopped coaching and leading, though, and his team rallied, winning five of its last seven games to make the playoffs.

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Rivera eventually rang the bell and is cancer-free. For his perseverance, the Pro Football Writers of America voted him the recipient of the George Halas Award, which is given for overcoming adversity.

The significance of Rivera winning the award named after the founder of the Bears should not be lost on those entrusted with maintaining the Halas legacy.

(Top photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)

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‘A long road. A big mountain to climb’: Inside Matt Murray’s emotional journey back to the NHL

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‘A long road. A big mountain to climb’: Inside Matt Murray’s emotional journey back to the NHL

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Matt Murray looked up to the scoreboard above him, counted down the seconds as they disappeared and finally pumped his fist.

It had been 638 days since Murray last felt the feeling washing over him.

Bilateral hip surgery forced the Toronto Maple Leafs goalie out of the entire 2023-24 season, the final of a four-year contract. There was no guarantee the oft-injured Murray would play in the NHL again. A one-year contract offered him a lifeline to continue grinding far out of the spotlight in the AHL, with only one goal.

And over a year and a half later, Murray was back to where he had fought to be: in the NHL win column after stopping 24 shots in a 6-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

“A long road. A big mountain to climb. But I kept this moment in the front of my mind on the days it felt tough,” Murray said.

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The 30-year-old’s eyes grew more red with every word he spoke after the game. His voice quivered.

“A big release,” he said, struggling to find the words to put nearly two years away from the NHL into perspective. “A rush of emotions.”

The typical goalie hugs with teammates after the win were tighter, longer. In a physical game where a player’s career can turn on a dime, Murray’s return resonated far more heavily than the 2 points the Leafs also added on the day.

“It’s good to see (Murray) smiling,” Steven Lorentz said, “because you know he’s back doing what he loves.”

In the dressing room, Max Domi immediately handed Murray the team’s WWE-style wrestling belt as player of the game. Murray’s up-and-down performance was secondary.

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“He was getting that thing, 100 percent, he deserved it,” Domi said. “The ability to stick with it mentally, out of all those days that I’m sure he had a lot of doubt, it’s a long road to recovery. We’re all super proud of him.”

It’s easy to quantify just how long Murray’s road back to the NHL was in days: 628 of them between his last two appearances.

It’s far more difficult to accurately describe just how arduous that road is.

Injuries have dogged Murray throughout his career after winning back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in his first two seasons in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins. His games played tapered off every season from 2018 to 2022. After he was traded to the Leafs in summer 2022, he struggled through his first season. It was fair to wonder whether hip surgery would be the final dagger in his NHL career.

But Murray would still hang around teammates at the Leafs’ practice facility during his rehabilitation last season, feeling so close but so far away from the league he once conquered.

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“The fact that he’s just on his way back here says a lot about his character, his dedication to the game,” Lorentz said.

Murray kept a stall full of his gear at that facility that was never used. An important and humane gesture from the Leafs organization, but still a reminder that Murray was not playing NHL games.

Even after re-signing with the Leafs on a one-year, $875,000 deal, he felt like the organization’s No. 4 goalie. When the Leafs needed a netminder to replace the injured Anthony Stolarz, they called up Dennis Hildeby. The lanky Hildeby is seven years’ Murray’s junior.

How could Murray not wonder whether his NHL return would ever come?

“There were definitely times when it felt really difficult,” Murray said. “But whenever I felt like that, I had a great group of people around me. That’s the only reason why I’m here.”

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All Murray could do was work his tail off, far away from public sight, quietly hoping for the return that finally came Friday night.

“The emotions were high today,” Murray said.

Those emotions perhaps ran highest before the game. The typically stoic Murray allowed himself to stop and appreciate how far he’s come.

“I was able to take a moment in warmups and during the anthem and look around and appreciate the long journey that it’s been and think of all the people who helped me get here,” Murray said.

It was the kind of game that reminded onlookers of the fragility of an NHL career. Just a few short years separated Murray from being a Stanley Cup winner to being largely written off from the NHL, all essentially before the age of 30.

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“You feel for a guy like that because he works so hard and he wants it so bad,” Lorentz said. “We’re all rooting for him.”


Matt Murray saved 24 shots in a 6-3 win over the Sabres, earning his first NHL win in 638 days. (Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images)

Murray moved well enough in his return. He swallowed most of the 27 shots the Sabres threw at him, looking every bit the veteran he is. Murray had two goals against called back upon video review. His sprawling save on Sabres forward Alex Tuch was a reminder of the athleticism he can provide now that he’s fully healthy, too.

They’re all qualities Leafs fans might have forgotten. But they’re qualities that are still front of mind for Murray’s Leafs teammates.

“It hasn’t been forgotten in my mind what he’s accomplished in this league in his career,” Leafs forward Max Pacioretty said, himself no stranger to debilitating injuries that threaten a career. “It’s hard to almost remember what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished because it seems like all the noise is always in the moment, whether it’s the injury or what has happened lately.”

Perhaps the Leafs win could have been predicted ahead of time. Sure, they were playing a reeling Sabres team that has now sputtered through 12 losses in a row. And they were buoyed by an upstart, white-hot line of Max Domi, Bobby McMann and Nick Robertson. They’re the third line in name only: The trio combined for three goals and 6 points against the Sabres.

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But the opponent shouldn’t denigrate what was front of mind not just for Murray but also for the Leafs in Buffalo. They wanted to do right by a player who has done everything in his power to return to the NHL. You didn’t have to squint to see a defenceman like Jake McCabe throwing Sabres out of Murray’s crease with a little extra gusto.

“It gives you some incentive to go the extra mile because you know (Murray) has gone that extra mile just to get back to this position to where he’s at right,” Lorentz said. “It’s not like he half-assed it to get back to this point and he expected to be here. Surgeries and injuries like that, that he went through, that can stunt your career for a long time. You might never be able to recover to your old form.”

But Murray is working on getting back to the Matt Murray of old. And the Leafs’ need for Murray won’t end when they head north on the QEW back to Toronto.

The earliest Stolarz will likely return from a knee injury will be mid-to-late January. Hildeby doesn’t exactly have the full confidence of the Leafs organization right now after allowing a few soft goals during a recent call-up against the Sabres at home, combined with a less-than-stellar AHL season so far. He’s likely going to be an NHL player down the road, but there’s room for him to grow and develop more confidence in his game.

But Murray has what no other goalie in the Leafs organization has: experience. And that matters to Brad Treliving and Craig Berube: Both value games played and would rather lean on veterans whenever possible.

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They’ll lean on Murray because of everything he’s done, and gone through, in his career.

After Friday night, that career looks drastically different.

“In reality, you’ve got to take each day as it comes and you never know when it’s going to be all over,” Pacioretty said. “So you don’t want to take days for granted.”

After Murray had dried his eyes and slowly taken off the pounds of goalie gear heavy with sweat, he sat on his own in the dressing room. The Leafs equipment staff all stopped unloading bags from the dressing room to give him a quiet pat on the back.

Murray looked up to see a note written on a whiteboard in the dressing room. The Leafs bus would be leaving in 20 minutes. There was another NHL game on the horizon.

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He could smile once again knowing it certainly won’t be 628 days between being able to do what he loved.

(Top photo: Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images)

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How Merseyside became America’s 51st state

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How Merseyside became America’s 51st state

Beyond the dust of Liverpool’s dock road and the huge lorries rolling in and out of the city’s port, the glass panels of Everton’s new home at the Bramley-Moore Dock sparkle impressively, radiating ambition.

The site, expected to open next year, is a feat of engineering considering the narrow dimensions of the fresh land below it, where old waters have been drained to create a 52,888-capacity arena that has been earmarked to host matches at the 2028 European Championship.

The Everton Stadium, as it is currently known, has been nearly 30 years in the making and nothing about its construction has been straightforward. There were three other proposed sites — including one outside Liverpool’s city boundaries, in Kirkby — which never materialised; a sponsorship deal collapsing due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; three owners, Peter Johnson, Bill Kenwright and Farhad Moshiri, departing; and several flirtations with relegation. 

Ultimately, Dan Friedkin, a Texan-based billionaire, will have the honour of being in post when it is inaugurated after his group’s long-awaited takeover was completed on Thursday.


Everton’s new waterfront home (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

It has been a momentous week for Everton, and for the region as a whole. The Friedkin Group’s takeover means both of Merseyside’s Premier League clubs are now controlled by Americans. Meanwhile, a third, League Two side Tranmere Rovers, could join them if the English Football League (EFL) ratifies a takeover by a consortium led by Donald Trump’s former lawyer Joe Tacopina.

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In football terms, Liverpool is on the verge of becoming the USA’s 51st state — the name of the 2001 movie starring Samuel L Jackson and Robert Carlyle, which was filmed in the city and used Anfield, the home of Liverpool FC, as a backdrop.

It is a huge cultural shift from the days — back when that film was released — when Liverpool and Everton had local owners and an American takeover of the city’s most celebrated sporting organisations seemed unthinkable. 

And for all the excitement that Everton and Tranmere’s takeovers have generated, there remains an underlying caution — born of years of fear and frustration over the direction their clubs have taken — over what U.S. ownership will mean.

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Everton is a club of contrasts. 

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Much of their mainly local support comes from some of the United Kingdom’s most economically challenged districts in the north end of Liverpool, near Walton where Goodison Park is located, and the ‘People’s Club’ — as former manager David Moyes christened them — has long taken pride in not being connected to big business, particularly in comparison to their near-neighbours Liverpool.

“One Evertonian is worth twenty Liverpudlians,” said former local captain Brian Labone, who led the team he supported as a boy in the 1960s.

Yet it hasn’t always been this way. At that time, it was Everton — not Liverpool — who were the city’s big spenders under their chairman John Moores, the founder of Littlewoods Pools. Then, their nickname was the ‘Mersey Millionaires’ and the club’s modus operandi was unapologetically ruthless: one manager, Johnny Carey, was sacked in the back of a taxi.

Moores would detail several innovations that would grow the sport, making it more attractive to business. They included the creation of a European Super League (sound familiar?), the rise of television, as well as the removal of the maximum wage, leaving a free market in which the best players would go to the richest clubs.

When Liverpool started to dominate English football and Goodison Park experienced a dip in gates, Moores tried to raise more cash. One of his solutions was to bring corporate hospitality to Goodison, as well as more advertising boards around the pitch but the move experienced pushback.

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“Fans didn’t like it,” says Gavin Buckland, who recently published a book entitled The End, which looks at some of the longer-term causes of Everton’s struggles. “They felt the boards intruded on their match day routine — an in-your-face commercialism.”

Attitudes haven’t changed much since, in part because successive Everton owners haven’t been able to expand Goodison which is hemmed into Walton’s warren of terraced streets. Under Kenwright, Everton played on that reputation of the plucky underdog punching above its weight; it was only when Moshiri, a Monaco-based British-Iranian steel magnate, arrived as co-owner in 2016 that the waters were muddied. 


Goodison Park – with Anfield visible at the top of the picture – is sandwiched into terraced streets (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Under Moshiri, Everton became two clubs in one. Like Kenwright, Moshiri operated from London but unlike the theatre impresario, he had no natural connection with Merseyside. While Moshiri aimed for the stars, spending big on players and managers, Kenwright — who remained chairman and still had influence until his death last year — had a more corner-shop mentality. There was a lack of clarity over decision-making.

Enter Friedkin. Perversely, Everton’s fallen state is a major reason they represent such an attractive proposition to the San Diego-born businessman, who identified them as one of, if not the last, purchasable English football club where there is room for significant growth.

On Merseyside, there is some concern about what this might mean: Americans have tended to develop dubious reputations as owners of English football clubs due to their appetite for driving non-football revenues and seeing their investments as content providers. 

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Will the new stadium, for example, become a shopping mall experience, complete with hiked-up ticket prices? Buckland speaks of a “cliff edge”, where Everton are moving into a new home, necessitating new routines for matchgoing fans, while a new foreign owner with a reputation for keeping his distance gets his feet under the table. For some, all of this at once might be too much.

Given that Friedkin cannot claim to have played a leading role in the stadium move, he is likely to be judged quickly on the team that he delivers. Any new revenue-driving schemes will only float if fortunes improve on the pitch, otherwise his priorities will be questioned.

For proof, simply look across Stanley Park. In 2016, thousands of Liverpool fans walked out of Anfield in the 77th minute of a Premier League game against Sunderland after FSG announced that some ticket prices in the stadium’s new Main Stand would be priced at £77. 

Liverpool had won just one trophy in six years of FSG ownership at that point and local fans, especially, felt like their loyalty was being exploited, given the organisation’s policy of investing its own money in infrastructure but not the team. The protest led to an embarrassing climbdown.

Liverpool was once described by the Guardian newspaper as the “Bermuda Triangle of capitalism”. It has since been framed absolutely as a left-wing city even though voting patterns suggest it should be described as a dissenting one. Its football supporters, whether blue or red, tend to confront perceived injustices, especially if it involves outsiders making money at the expense of locals, and even more so if they are not delivering on the pitch.

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Liverpool have retained their working-class feel (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

FSG were only able to buy Liverpool at a knockdown price, which its former American owner Tom Hicks described as an “epic swindle”, due to the response of the supporters who unionised themselves in an attempt to drive both Hicks and his partner George Gillett out following a series of broken promises, as the club veered dangerously towards deep financial problems from 2008.

“The missteps of Hicks and Gillett put power in the hands of the fans,” reminds Gareth Roberts from Spirit of Shankly, the fans group which is still active 16 years after its formation and which now has members on the club’s official supporters board. The latter became enshrined in Liverpool’s articles of association after FSG apologised for its leading role in the attempt to create a European Super League in 2021. 

This came after several other high-profile PR blunders that eroded trust. It remains to be seen whether figures like John W. Henry, FSG and Liverpool’s principle owner, will listen to the board rather than pay lip service and carry on regardless with his own plans. Roberts says the ongoing challenge is “getting them to understand the culture”, and it does not help the relationship when Henry’s business partner, Tom Werner (Liverpool’s chairman), speaks so enthusiastically about taking Premier League fixtures away from Anfield and potentially hosting them in other parts of the world.

There was a time when either Everton or Liverpool’s local owner not showing at a match would dominate conversations in pubs and get reported in the local paper. Now, that only happens if they actually turn up.

Leading FSG figures usually fly in from Boston, Massachusetts, attending a couple of games a season — Werner was at Liverpool’s recent game against Real Madrid, while Henry was in the stands for the first home game of the season against Brentford. They appoint executives and dispatch them to Merseyside, or London, where the club has long had an office, to run the business on their behalf. Such individuals are under pressure to drive revenues as far as they can, in theory improving the economic possibilities of the team.

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John W. Henry visits Anfield for the Brentford game in August (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Roberts says ticketing is an especially thorny issue at Liverpool due to the popularity of the club. It feels like locals are under attack: that there is a race to get the richest person’s bum onto a seat.

As far as Roberts is concerned, a club that markets its image from the energy that Anfield occasionally creates is treading on dangerous ground. “The Kop still has power,” he insists. “But if you squeeze the fans and they drop off, there is a risk that the place gets filled with spectators rather than supporters and with that, you kill the golden goose.”

This, he adds, should act as a warning to Evertonians as they embark on their own American adventure. 

Like Roberts, Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram is a season ticket holder at Anfield and he understands such anxieties. In October, he spent a fortnight in North America exploring trade opportunities and the experience made him realise how powerful a brand Liverpool has abroad due to its connections with football and music, as well as its central role as a port in the movement of the Irish diaspora that spread across the Atlantic in the 19th century.

He says such history helps start conversations with American businesses from sectors like bioscience and digital innovation, which are now interested in investing in Merseyside due to the availability of land near the waterfront on both sides of the Mersey river, a hangover from the harsh economic measures of the 1980s and the decline that followed. 

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Rotheram says football, especially, plays a significant role in the visitor economy to the region, which in 2018 was worth £6.2billion. A thriving Everton playing at a stadium that does a lot more than host football matches every fortnight has the potential to add to that pot. The site at Bramley-Moore promises to regenerate the area around it and, currently, there are small signs of that change. Now Everton’s immediate financial concerns have gone away, perhaps businesses hoping to move in can proceed with more confidence.

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How Liverpool 2.01 was built – and FSG abandoned any plans to sell


To reach the third professional football club on Merseyside attracting American investment, you have to cross the river.

If Rotheram gets his way, a walkable bridge will connect Liverpool to Wirral, the home of Tranmere Rovers, and potentially boost the peninsula’s economy. But for the time being, there are just two transport options: a tunnel under the Mersey or, more pleasurably, a ferry which takes less than seven minutes to sail from the Pier Head, beneath the famous Liver Buildings, to Seacombe.

In the middle of this journey, as the ferry juts north, there is a different view of Everton’s new stadium, positioned between a scrapyard and a wind farm, both of which are in the shadow of a brooding tobacco warehouse that is the biggest brick building in the world. Everton’s new home is much closer to the city and might seem enormous from the land, glistening from whichever angle you look at it, but it does not dominate the skyline from the brown, scudding channels of the Mersey.

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Everton’s new stadium, as viewed from Birkenhead across the Mersey (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

When the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne sailed across the same stretch of water in 1854, he recalled a scene that he thought neatly captured the personality of the Liverpudlians he’d encountered over the previous six months, having been sent to the city as American consul.

There, on the ferry, was a labourer eating oysters using a jack knife taken from his pocket, tossing shell after shell overboard. Once satisfied, the labourer pulled out a clay pipe and started puffing away contentedly. 

According to Hawthorne, the labourer’s “perfect coolness and independence” was mirrored by some of the other passengers. “Here,” Hawthorne wrote, “a man does not seem to consider what other people will think of his conduct but whether it suits his convenience to do so.”

Hawthorne did not specify whether the labourer was from Liverpool or the piece of land to the west now known as Wirral. To any outsider, the places and their residents tend to be viewed as one of the same.

On Merseyside, however, distinctions are made: Liverpudlians tend to identify themselves as tougher and sharper, while those from “over the water”, tend to have softer accents and are once removed from the struggles of the city.

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In truth, both areas suffered in the late 1970s and 80s when unemployment ripped through its docks and shipyards. Whereas Liverpool’s city centre has been transformed in the decades since, the Wirral’s waterfront feels less promising. Whereas Liverpool has the Albert Dock, museums and a business district punctuated by glassy high rises, Wirral has very few distinguishable features from the river beyond its scaly, grey sea wall.

Three miles or so from the terminal in Seacombe lies Prenton, the home of Tranmere, a football club that returned to the Football League in 2018, having fallen on hard times since the early 1990s when it threatened to reach the Premier League.


Tranmere’s homely but ageing Prenton Park ground (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

That history is one of the reasons why an American consortium led by Tacopina has an application with the EFL to try and buy the club from former player, Mark Palios, who later acted as the chief executive of the English Football Association.

The Athletic reported in September that Tacopina was attempting to “harness the power of his celebrity contacts” to try to propel Tranmere up the divisions from League Two. In a report the following month, it was revealed on these pages that rapper A$AP Rocky and Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby were two of the investors.

According to a source involved in the deal, who would like to remain anonymous to protect working relationships, there is a belief the takeover will be completed in early 2025. While the source suggests it has taken longer than expected to reach this point after an unnamed investor dropped out, The Athletic has been told separately that an unnamed investor’s application was rejected by the EFL. This led to the buying group trying to source a replacement. The EFL declined to comment.

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Tacopina has been involved in Italian football for a decade, with mixed success. He knows Tranmere is not a sexy name but neither was Wrexham before they were taken over by the Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in 2021. While Tranmere has a fight this season to retain its Football League status, Tacopina would be taking on a club that more or less breaks even. 

Palios is naturally cautious. For years, he’s wanted to find a minority partner but interested parties have tended to find there isn’t much up-side for such investment. Palios has since been able to convince Tacopina that Tranmere has significant potential with a full takeover, that the club has geography on its side and could become the region’s third wheel.


Joe Tacopina, sat next to former U.S. President Donald Trump, wants to buy Tranmere (Andrew Kelly-Pool/Getty Images)

More than 500,000 people live on the Wirral but the majority cannot get tickets for Liverpool or Everton. There is an interest in Tranmere but many Wirral residents are only would-be fans. That would surely change with an upwardly mobile team, as Tranmere were in the 1990s when it tried to reach the top flight and a packed Prenton Park witnessed a series of exciting cup runs.

Tranmere is worth around £20million in assets. Even if the club reached the Championship, the gateway to the Premier League, the value would increase significantly, potentially leaving Tacopina with a profit if he decided to sell. Importantly, the stadium is owned by the club and Tacopina would be inheriting that. Tacopina takes confidence from the stories of clubs like Bournemouth and Brentford, who are now established in the Premier League despite playing in similar-sized stadiums to Prenton Park (Bournemouth’s is actually considerably smaller) and with little history of success at the top level. 

Prenton Park, however, does not have the facilities to generate much revenue outside of matchdays. In the boom of the early 90s, the venue was rebuilt on three sides but that did not include the main stand, which remains a relic of corrugated iron and brick. Lorraine Rogers, the chairperson before Palios, suggested the stand was costing Tranmere £500,000 a year to maintain. In 2021, a League Two game with Stevenage was postponed after a part of the roof flew off during a storm.

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Palios has explored other stadium options. From the Mersey, the West float slipway leads to Bidston, where a site has been discussed but diehard fans are not enthusiastic about a move three miles away which would take the club away from its roots and potentially position it next to a waste plant, and where there are few pubs and transport links are limited.

Last summer, Palios suggested the zone was ripe for redevelopment in an interview with Liverpool Business News. “I advise my children, if ever they invest in property, invest in the south bank of the river,” he said. “As sure as apples fall from trees, this place is going to get developed.”

Any relocation, however, would need assistance from Wirral Waters as well as a council that for a decade has carefully been trying to manage its budgets due to cuts from central government. At the start of December, the Liverpool Echo reported that the council will be asking the government for a £20million bailout to prevent it from having to declare bankruptcy. 


Tranmere’s ground rises out of the streets in Birkenhead (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)

While it is generally accepted the Palios era is near an end and Tranmere needs to find a way to move forward, there is a wariness and some Tranmere supporters are questioning whether they want someone who has represented Trump in a rape trial running their club. 

Matt Jones, the presenter of the Trip to the Moon podcast, speaks of “excitement, curiosity and fear”. Two years ago, he tracked down Bruce Osterman, Tranmere’s previous American owner (and the first in English football), to San Francisco.

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Osterman told Jones that in 1984, he was able to complete a takeover because Tranmere were “days away from shutting its doors”. Yet Osterman was humble enough to admit that he was ill-prepared for the challenges that followed, despite investing £500,000 in cash. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he admitted. “I had no experience in this area. I was a trial lawyer… I had no understanding of the history, or where we were going.”

Osterman says that if he had his time again, he “would probably have paid more attention to the team’s relationship with the community”. Over the next three and a half years, Tranmere’s financial position became bleaker and he ended up selling the club at a loss to Palios’ predecessor Peter Johnson, the son of a butcher who became a millionaire businessman in the food industry.

Johnson ended up buying Everton where he was much less popular. His story is a reminder that it is not just American owners who move around clubs, as Friedkin has. Johnson grew up a Liverpool fan, an inconvenient factoid which put him on the back foot at Goodison, where he encountered suspicious minds and hardened attitudes.


Cynicism is deeply embedded among Everton fans, who might wonder how long it will take for their club to see the benefits of being at a new stadium and under new ownership.

Yet Friedkin’s arrival potentially draws a line under much of the uncertainty. Simon Hart, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the club, speaks about the last few years being battered by “existential concerns relating to the club’s future to the extent you are largely numb, hoping just to survive. The impression that Friedkin seems reasonably sensible and hasn’t destroyed Roma is something to grasp and be grateful for.

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“At the moment, the thing that needs answering is whether Everton can go into the new stadium as a Premier League club that is secure. There is a sense that anything that keeps the club alive is acceptable.”

Excitement is not the right word but relief might be. Hart thinks Goodison is irreplaceable, a venue where the terraces hang over the pitch and some of the timberwork dates back to the Victorian era. It is as much a part of the club’s identity as the Liver Buildings are to Liverpool. A departure inspires mixed emotions that swirl around the freezing reality that Everton has not won a trophy of any kind since 1995. 

As the years pass and the record extends, it becomes harder to escape. Hart describes Goodison as his “special place”, but it feels like “disappointment is soaked into every brick now”. He attended the 0-0 draw with Brentford in November when the visiting team were down to 10 men and it felt as though Goodison was weighed down by negative emotion.

Perhaps their new home allows the club to embrace a fresh start and, as he puts it, “allow Evertonians to look forward rather than back.”

(Top image: Getty Images/Design: Eamonn Dalton)

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