THEY MET EVERY week, Bill Belichick and a handful of his former assistants with the New England Patriots. Matt Patricia, Michael Lombardi, Josh McDaniels, to name a few, men with whom he had won Super Bowls, all of them out of work. They'd chat over Zoom, and go through each NFL game, as they once did in Foxboro, as only they could. Teams. Trends. Salaries. Schematic shifts. Stuff only they knew to look for, questions only they knew to ask, a common language and way of thinking, once the envy of the NFL and beyond, from other sports to business schools, now valued less around the league. The subtext was unspoken, but understood: Which NFL teams might make a coaching change this year? And of those teams, which of them might be interested in a 72-year-old, eight-time Super Bowl champion? And of those teams, which would Belichick want most?

According to sources with direct knowledge, the group deemed that the Chicago Bears were probably the most attractive job, but that team brass was unlikely to consider Belichick. The group expects the same thing that most around the league do: that the Bears will go offense, hoping to give quarterback Caleb Williams a chance at a career, probably targeting Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.

The New York Jets were a nonstarter; Belichick had issues with owner Woody Johnson back in 2000, before Johnson officially bought the team, and he had been critical this past season in his media roles with Johnson's horrific stewardship. Maybe the Giants, where he had spent the '80s, could work, but Belichick knew that it would be a rebuild, with the New York press at his heels. Plus, he believes the team would do best to retain its current coach, Brian Daboll. Dallas was a potential spot -- nobody can take a collection of talent and turn it into a team like Belichick -- but nobody knew if owner Jerry Jones would move on from Mike McCarthy, and if he did, if he'd want to hand over the team to Belichick. Jacksonville was another potential landing spot, but was it the right one? On his podcast, Lombardi took a shot at Tony Khan, son of owner Shad Khan who for years has run an analytics department emblematic of the problems with the current NFL. Additionally, there wasn't a lot of back-channel communication between anyone close to Belichick and owners; the league and three teams are almost two years into battling a discrimination lawsuit by Brian Flores.

Belichick's feelings toward the NFL have shifted he has told confidants. Look at the past year. Robert Kraft, whose life and legacy was forever altered by Belichick, fired him in January. Only one out of seven teams with openings showed interested in hiring him. The Falcons interviewed him twice, but when it came time for the team's brass to rank choices, Belichick failed to land in anyone's top three candidates -- in part, ESPN later reported, because Kraft helped torpedo his chances. Weeks later in February, "The Dynasty," the Kraft-owned Patriots documentary, launched on Apple and minimized Belichick's role in the team's historic run so roundly that former Patriots players spoke out against it. Belichick was entertaining in his myriad media roles, but the league seemed to move on without him. Owners spoke of him respectfully, but not desirably.

A few months ago, Belichick started to bring up college programs on the Zooms. He was spending a lot of time at Washington, where his son Stephen is in his first year as the Huskies' defensive coordinator. His former offensive coordinator in New England, Bill O'Brien, and longtime assistant, Berj Najarian, are at Boston College. Another former assistant, Joe Judge, served as a senior analyst at Ole Miss.

It reinforced and reaffirmed that there was another option out there. At first, the image of Belichick as a college coach made no sense. It was hard to picture Belichick sitting in a teenager's living room, in a hoodie with jagged sleeves, delivering his recruiting pitch. Nick Saban, one of Belichick's longest and closest friends, had retired from college football in large part because of the transfer portal and NIL. Tom Brady did an impression on television of Belichick last weekend: "Listen, you really wanna come here? We don't really want you anyway. I guess you could come. We'll figure out if you can play."

But something about ending his career by not chasing Don Shula's NFL wins record, but instead on campus, appealed to Belichick. When he agreed to terms with North Carolina, it was not only because of a new challenge after coaching only in the NFL since 1975, at a school where his father, Steve, had worked when Bill was a boy, and not only because his future in the pros was unclear.

It was because, in the words of a confidant, Belichick is "disgusted" in what he believes the NFL had become.

"This is a big f--- you to the NFL," another Belichick confidant says.

BELICHICK HAS ALWAYS cared about football's history, and his place in it. And he has always cared about leading a true football program. Unlike Bill Walsh's philosophy, it was not primarily based on a playbook; indeed, Belichick's schematic ideology is his lack of ideology, tailored and adapted to situation and circumstance. He has always wanted to build a team -- a true team -- despite the cultural and financial forces conspiring against that idea and ideal.

What became known as the Patriot Way was rooted in more than mutual sacrifice and mastery of situational football, ruthless decision-making and Brady's greatness. It was about teaching and education. Only Belichick's Patriots had full-team meetings in which players were quizzed not only on the opponent's statistics and playmakers, but the résumés of all of the assistant coaches. It was a football laboratory, augmented by some of the greatest players in NFL history.

Belichick was raised on campuses and has loved helping shape young minds. In April 2006, I watched him deliver the annual Fusco Distinguished Lecture at Southern Connecticut State University, on a stage that had also featured Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright and Christopher Reeve, among others. Like many, I worried that it would be a two-hour version of his news conferences. But he was in his element, relaxed and energized, speaking to students as they prepared to enter the real world. He told them to chase not money, but a job that was a continuation of a passion. One of the proudest moments of his life was when he passed on a career in finance and moved to Baltimore to do whatever the Colts asked of him.

When Belichick was fired by Kraft, despite it initially being presented as a mutual parting -- Kraft later cited trust and an eagerness to reclaim organizational power as factors -- he knew that his next job was not going to resemble the one he'd held for more than two decades. The NFL had moved away from the coach-centric model that Belichick learned under Bill Parcells. There are more layers now. Belichick insisted to the Falcons and made clear to other teams with openings last year that he wasn't seeking the total control of football operations he enjoyed for most of his head coaching career, both in Cleveland and in New England. He was willing to work with existing staff, whether it was Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot or Commanders general manager Adam Peters or Jerry Jones or Howie Roseman, if the Cowboys or Eagles, respectively, had decided to change coaches.

But something about it was always hard to buy -- and owners didn't. It wasn't that Belichick was disingenuous or too set in his ways; it was that if you hire Belichick, you hire him to do it his way. Belichick's system is him, from his player procurement program to contract incentives to the types of players he drafts. Because so much flowed out of his mind and because he almost always was the ultimate decision-maker, the Patriots were able to withstand the losses of key players and coaches -- everyone except Brady. How would Belichick, who ran a thin operation in New England, without many layers, handle running a team with a huge infrastructure? Was Belichick, who has had his share of player-evaluation whiffs but has also drafted the greatest quarterback and tight end ever, along with Hall of Fame defensive tackle Richard Seymour and several others who will join him in Canton, really going to abide by the philosophies of someone like Fontenot or Bears general manager Ryan Poles, if Chicago had hired Belichick after this year?

"Listening to Fontenot discuss drafting systems last January, as if he knew it all, bothered him," a Belichick confidant says.

All of those things were on his mind this fall. He told confidants that Shula's record mattered to him, but it wasn't the essential thing. It wasn't why he has worked hours that have come with a steep personal price. He has always competed as if his self-worth was tied to the result. Losses took on a life of their own. Imagine the throttled rage inside him all spring after a group of men who routinely botch their most important hire not only mostly ignored him but gloated about it, telling ESPN that he was "voted off the island." He never forgets. Belichick knew that he'd have to compromise if he got another NFL job, maybe even more than the year before, and also knew that he faced a league that was skeptical of him.

If he didn't fix his new team right away, he'd be dealing with a media narrative for the third straight year in coaching that he'd lost his fastball. College coaches have many headaches -- they essentially re-recruit their players daily -- but Belichick came to believe that he'd have the space to run his program, winning or losing on his terms, all he has ever asked for. He'll have what he had in New England: He'll be the football czar. He knows there are politics, the way there are politics in the NFL, and challenges to building a team, but they feel manageable and worth the risk.

Says a source with knowledge of his thinking: "I'll go be the highest draw in college football, and will have the greatest coach in the ACC, instead of you guys who don't want [him] anymore because there are people who don't deserve to be empowered. ... Everyone is running away from college football. I think Bill thinks this landscape is better for him. ... More transactional and less relational. In his mind, this is better for me."

Maybe the signs were there a month ago, when Belichick told "The Pat McAfee Show" of the horror stories of answering asinine questions from owners. He told a confidant within the past week that he's "tired of the stupidness" of the NFL. Unlike Brady, Belichick has always embraced his darker side, with actions more often than words, and made no secret of his grievances. He turned the postgame handshake into a spectator sport. He seethed at the piousness around the league after Spygate. After Deflategate, he walked out of a league meeting when commissioner Roger Goodell spoke. And then, after his unquestioned greatness was suddenly questioned and became talk-show fodder for two years -- How good is he without Brady? -- he watched owners display abject indifference to his services. "He's disgusted," a confidant says.

If we've learned anything about Belichick over the years, it's that he'll often do the unconventional thing -- and that when at a crossroads, he will take control of his career.

TWO DECADES AGO, legendary journalist David Halberstam wanted to write a book about Belichick. They knew each other casually. Belichick respected Halberstam but initially was cool to the idea; it would go against every fiber of his being if he turned the spotlight on himself. Halberstam rethought the pitch and gave it another shot: "I suggested that there might be a book in the education of a coach, especially since the most important teacher in his life was his father, Steve -- a coach's coach," Halberstam later wrote. "It was an idea that interested him, and eventually he agreed to cooperate." After Belichick had become the first coach to win three Super Bowls in four years, Halberstam spent more time with him than any reporter to that point, working on what would be an authorized biography. Later in 2005, "The Education of a Coach" was published. Halberstam hit the media circuit, promoting the book, and on a Boston radio show, he was asked, "Will [Belichick] ever get sick of this?"

At the time, Belichick was 53 years old. He had yet to be busted for Spygate. He had yet to coach a team to within a minute of an undefeated season. Had yet to tell a documentarian that he'd never coach into his 70s, then blow past it, knowing deep inside that he needed the game more than it needed him. He had yet to draft Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Devin McCourty, Matthew Slater, and Dont'a Hightower, had yet to win 11 games with Matt Cassel, had yet to deploy the "Baltimore" and "Raven" formations, had yet to pass Deflategate into Brady's lap, had yet to send Malcolm Butler into the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, had yet to look up at a Super Bowl LI scoreboard that read 28-3, had yet to curtail access for Alex Guerrero, had yet to be called the "biggest f---ing a--hole in my life" by Kraft, and had yet to win a sixth Super Bowl. He had yet to watch his daughter, Amanda, coach lacrosse at Holy Cross, had yet to watch Stephen coach at Washington.

"He's really a coach and a teacher," Halberstam told the hosts. "I mean, you could almost see him, when this is done, saying, OK, I've ... you know, if he's done it and won X rings, saying OK, I'm going to go and teach at an Ivy League school or something like that. I'm going to do something smaller, without as much pressure."

And without the NFL, which he left before it could leave him. Again.

Seth Wickersham is a Senior Writer at ESPN. His next book, "American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback," published by Disney Publishing's Hyperion Avenue, is available for preorder now.

HOUSTON -- A livid Steve Kerr said the officiating crew made a call he has never seen in his NBA career, and it cost the Golden State Warriors a 91-90 loss to the Houston Rockets and a chance to go to the NBA Cup semifinals in Las Vegas.

"I'm pissed off," Kerr said, echoing the Warriors locker room late Wednesday night. "I wanted to go to Las Vegas. We wanted to win this Cup, and we aren't going because of a loose ball foul, 80 feet from the basket with the game on the line. I've never seen anything like it in my life, and that was ridiculous."

With the Warriors up by one in the final seconds, Stephen Curry missed a 3-point attempt and a scramble for the loose ball ensued as bodies from both teams hit the floor.

Gary Payton II got possession of a rebound on the floor, but Houston guard Fred VanVleet slid on top of him and Payton tried to pass the ball to Jonathan Kuminga. Kuminga and the Rockets' Jalen Green hit the floor for the loose ball, and Kuminga was called for a personal foul with 3.5 seconds left. Kerr could only watch with his mouth agape.

Green buried both free throws to give the Rockets a 91-90 lead. On the final possession, Curry was blanketed near the sideline and passed to Brandin Podziemski, whose 3-point attempt from the corner was blocked by Jabari Smith Jr. to secure the win for Houston and snap a 15-game losing streak to the Warriors.

Houston will face Oklahoma City on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Afterward, a furious Kerr lit into the officiating crew, led by crew chief Bill Kennedy, who called the personal foul on Kuminga. Kerr and the Warriors argued that officials had allowed both teams to play a very physical game up to that point.

"I've never seen a loose ball foul on a jump ball situation, 80 feet from the basket with the game on the line," Kerr said. "I've never seen that. I think I saw it in college one time 30 years ago. Never seen it in the NBA. That is, I mean, unconscionable. I don't even understand what just happened. Loose ball, diving on the floor, 80 feet from the basket, and you're going to give a guy two free throws to decide the game when people are scrambling for the ball. Just give them a timeout and let the players decide the game. That's how you officiate. Especially because the game was a complete wrestling match. They didn't call anything.

"So you've established you're just not going to call anything throughout the game. It's a physical game. And call a loose ball foul on a jump ball situation with guys diving on the floor? With the game on the line? This is a billion-dollar industry. You got people's jobs on the line."

Kennedy explained the call to a pool reporter afterward.

"The defender makes contact with the neck and shoulder area, warranting a personal foul to be called," he said.

The Warriors (14-10) blew a six-point lead and failed to score in the final three minutes. Curry missed a step-back 3-pointer with his team up by one with 11.1 seconds left before the loose ball scramble that resulted in the ending that left Kerr beside himself and the Warriors locker room in almost a dead silence afterward.

"I haven't seen the replay, but ... if you're telling me it was a clear foul, I'll shut up, but I don't think that's the case," Curry said. "Was it? There's indecision in the group, so that means then let the game play out and let us decide it and not two free throws, 90 feet from the basket."

Curry and Kerr also were upset about another play that occurred minutes earlier in which they thought Curry was fouled on a 21-foot jump shot by Aaron Holiday. The jumper fell well short of the basket with 8:14 left and the Warriors up six. Curry and Kerr argued with the officials, but there was no call.

"We can talk about the refs all day, it's not why we lost," Curry said. "But there are swings in the game, obviously the last two free throws and that play, it's a five-point swing."

Curry said official Mousa Dagher explained to him that the ball was already released when Holiday hit his hand or wrist.

"I am like, if I shoot an 18-footer and I miss it by 6 feet, then either you tell me he hit the ball or it's a foul," he said. "I have never shot an 18-footer [that went] 12 feet. And they go down and [Tari] Eason hits a 3 in the corner. That is a huge swing. We can't let the refs take us out of it, which I don't think we did. But those are clear plays that can dictate a very tough, low-scoring game where you give a team an extra possession which they don't deserve.

"Which is why I was going crazy. I don't yell at the refs like that. It was a clear foul."

Curry and the Warriors said they were very motivated to go to Las Vegas to win the NBA Cup in its second season. Instead, they were left steaming in the visitors locker room at Toyota Center while the Rockets celebrated a huge win.

This was the second loss in eight days in which Kerr questioned a late call by officials that he believed cost the Warriors a game. At the end of a 119-115 loss at Denver on Dec. 3, Kerr argued that the Nuggets' Christian Braun signaled for a timeout after securing a loose ball while Denver had no timeouts left. The officials said they did not see Braun clearly signal for a timeout, which would have resulted in a technical foul and possession for the Warriors with 1.9 seconds left and the team down by four. The officials called for a jump ball instead.

"I am stunned," Kerr said after Wednesday night's loss. "I give the Rockets credit. They battled back. They played great defense all night. But I feel for our guys. Our guys battled back, played their asses off and deserved to win that game or at least have a chance for one stop at the end to finish the game.

"And that was taken from us by a call that I don't think an elementary school referee would've made because that guy would've had feel and said, you know what? I'm not going to decide a game on a loose ball, 80 feet from the basket."

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is unlikely to play Friday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, sources told ESPN.

It would give James, who missed Sunday's game with foot soreness, eight days in between games if he returns Sunday against Memphis.

Because of the NBA Cup, the Lakers are able to take a prudent approach with the schedule to allow James to recalibrate and recharge his body.

L.A. plays just two games in a 10-day stretch Dec. 9-18 -- coach JJ Redick gave the entire team Monday off and designated Tuesday as an optional "get what you need" day.

Redick met with many of the Lakers' players individually Tuesday, but James was not present, the coach said Wednesday.

On the season, James is averaging 23 points on 49.5% shooting (35.9% from 3), 9.1 assists and 8.0 rebounds. Redick said he is in constant communication with the player and Mike Mancias, James' longtime athletic trainer, about managing the four-time MVP's workload as he nears his 40th birthday at the end of the month.

"In game, he's asked for a sub a couple times because he's gassed," Redick said Wednesday. "For us, we have to be cognizant as we play more and more games, just the cumulative effect of playing a lot of minutes, and Sunday, being banged up with the foot thing, it felt like a good opportunity for him to get some rest."

FROM THE ROAD, the modern villa delivers Italy to Northern California. Old-growth olive trees shade the driveway leading toward Tuscan elms framing the front door while rows of Cabernet Sauvignon vines gather spring sunlight beside one of the two garages.

Suddenly, the quiet of a warm evening is broken by a child's laugh, and a smiling Domantas Sabonis emerges from the other garage -- which doubles as a gym, with weights, an ice bath and sauna -- in gray shorts, a white T-shirt and with an outstretched hand.

The Sacramento Kings' do-everything star forward and the Kings had landed after midnight, and Sabonis and his family returned to his home, about a half-hour's drive from downtown Sacramento, to spend the rare off day as his ninth NBA regular season nears its end.

Sabonis' wife, Shashana, carries their soon-to-be-9-month-old daughter inside, and the then-27-year-old Sabonis takes a seat at a round corner table beside a children's booster seat.

He lifts his 2-year-old son, Tiger, atop his knee.

"What does Daddy do?" the 6-foot-10 Sabonis asks.

Tiger is shy, but smiles. He knows. When he started crawling, he wanted to play with a basketball. His first word was "ball." Sabonis treasures photos and videos of those early days, but it was almost eerie, he says. They hadn't even introduced the game to Tiger; it was as if he was drawn to it, instinctively.

Now, Tiger has toy hoops around the house. He can dribble and dunk and Sabonis works with him on his shooting motion, showing him how to properly follow through. As he sits on his father's knee, Tiger is wearing cream-colored shorts and a matching shirt covered in basketball prints. "He is obsessed," Sabonis says.

Tiger comes to games, cheers and wants his dad to shoot and dunk every time he touches the ball. But Tiger doesn't yet know how good his father is -- that, last season, his father became the second player in NBA history to record 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 600 assists in a season, joining Wilt Chamberlain, who did so in 1966-67 and 1967-68 and won NBA MVP honors in both seasons.

And this season, his dad is averaging a career-high 20.8 points on a career-best 62.2% shooting. He's shooting a career-high 42.9% from 3-point range, ranks third in the league in rebounds (12.7) and leads the league in double-doubles (21).

Sabonis, in his third full season in Sacramento, is trying to lift a woebegone Kings franchise that seeks sustained success in a powerful Western Conference, while also representing the continued evolution of the modern big man, someone who can handle the ball, shoot from long distance and serve as an offensive nexus.

Doing all three, he believes, will not only help steady the Kings, currently 12-13 and out of the play-in, but honor his legendary father, Arvydas, who, in many ways, began that evolution decades ago.

A FEW DAYS later, from Lithuania, Arvydas Sabonis travels back in time, to when Domantas was small, just bouncing the ball, just as his grandson Tiger does now.

"He was always on the court," Arvydas says.

Sons are born into their father's shadow, but few are ever as large -- literally and metaphorically -- as the one Domantas was born into in May 1996. He arrived during the Portland Trail Blazers' playoff run in Arvydas' rookie NBA season. The Trail Blazers had, for years, tried to lure the 7-foot-3, 292-pound Arvydas and had drafted him No. 24 a decade earlier.

But Lithuania was then part of the Soviet Union, and the Soviets wouldn't let their prized player play in America. Arvydas had begun playing for the Soviet junior national team at 15 and soon became considered the best international player in the world: a mountain of a man who whipped no-look passes like Magic Johnson, possessed a soft-shooting touch from beyond the arc and dominated beneath the rim.

In 1982, Indiana Hoosiers head coach Bob Knight said after an exhibition game between the Hoosiers and the Soviet national team, in which the 17-year-old Arvydas led fast breaks, made turnaround jumpers, and finished with 25 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks, that Arvydas "was as good a prospect as I'd ever seen."

For years, his legend only grew. U.S. politicians became involved, trying to assist in bringing him to the NBA, but Arvydas remained behind the Iron Curtain, caught in the geopolitical pull of the Cold War. He suffered two Achilles tendon ruptures in his early 20s -- he later suspected one was from overuse -- before the Soviets relented, allowing him to visit Portland for treatment in 1988. He led the Soviets to the Gold Medal in the ensuing Olympics in Seoul, even though he hadn't fully recovered, but Arvydas suffered knee injuries and stress fractures in the years that followed, when he played professionally in Spain. Still, the Trail Blazers never gave up their pursuit.

Finally, in the summer of 1995, five years after Lithuania broke free of a soon-to-crumble Soviet Union, a deal was struck. "If not NBA now, never," Arvydas said then. "Last chance." He turned 31 in his rookie season, was named to the All-Rookie first team, was a runner-up for Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year and averaged 23.6 points and 10.6 rebounds in the playoffs. Age and injuries had slowed him considerably, but he was still a force, which presented a tantalizing question that has lingered ever since:

What if Arvydas Sabonis had come to the NBA in his prime?

"We would have had four, five or six titles," former Blazers great Clyde Drexler once told ESPN. "Guaranteed. He was that good."

In his early seasons, Arvydas recalled Domantas -- who goes by Domas -- shooting and dribbling at the Trail Blazers' practice facility, developing a love of the game. "Domas, I remember always wanted to [wear] No. 23 because of Jordan." Arvydas says.

Domantas didn't then know about the legend of his father. To Domantas, Arvydas was just his dad whom he loved and admired and who also played basketball. Arvydas retired from the NBA after the 2002-2003 season, when he was 38.

A few years later, in 2006, after the family had moved to Málaga, Spain, Domantas sat at his computer. Alone and curious, he typed his father's name into YouTube. He was 10.

Highlight clips emerged. As Domantas began watching, his eyes grew wider with each no-look pass and deep 3.

"Wow," he thought to himself. "He was actually really good."

A part of Arvydas had always hoped that any of his three sons -- Zygimantas, Tautvydas and Domantas, the youngest -- might pursue the game.

"If someone plays basketball," he recalls thinking, "[I'll] be happy."

He didn't want to push them, to force them to live up to his legacy, which only grew when he was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2010 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame one year later. But Domantas never imagined pursuing anything else. His two older brothers went on to play professionally in Europe, but Domantas had bigger goals.

Two years after his father's Hall of Fame induction, Domantas played for a Spanish professional team and the Lithuanian under-16 national team at the FIBA European Championships. He became known for piling up double-doubles, even grabbing 27 rebounds in one outing. He wore No. 11, his father's number.

Domantas wasn't as flashy as Arvydas, or as tall, and he couldn't shoot or pass like him, but he was quicker, with strong instincts for grabbing loose balls.

Arvydas would watch his son's games from the stands, and Domantas would feel his father's presence. Wearing "Sabonis" on his jersey meant hearing from others who wondered about his dad, or who saw his dad play and wanted to share stories, or who shared that they wished his dad could've stayed healthy -- what might have been.

Domantas took pride in carrying the name, motivated to prove that he was worthy of the greatness attached to it. In 2014, he enrolled at Gonzaga, playing two seasons before leaping to the NBA -- he was drafted 11th, fittingly the same as his father's jersey number -- and joining the Oklahoma City Thunder. In Domantas' preseason debut in October 2016, the Thunder traveled to Spain to face Real Madrid, a team Arvydas played for many years prior.

Arvydas flew in from Lithuania, and, hours before the game, the two sat down for an interview to talk about the connections, past and present, father and son. They sat beside each other on a patio, the Spanish sun beaming down -- the 20-year-old Domantas beside his towering father, then 51, streaks of gray through his dark hair.

"He was a 7-footer that could do everything like a point guard," Domantas said. "Everyone would say he could shoot, pass, play in the post, everything, hook shots, so if I can get anything from his game, that would be awesome."

The stoic Arvydas turned to look at his son. He would soon respond by saying he wished his son all the best as he embarked upon the beginning of his NBA career, and how important it was to continue working. "In basketball always, you need to work, work and work and you never stop if you want to progress and be good," Arvydas said.

But before Arvydas said any of that, he told Domantas what every son wants to hear from his father.

Arvydas smiled. "I'm very proud."

ABOUT AN HOUR before tipoff on a spring night at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Doug Christie rises from a courtside seat and points to a specific spot on the court -- one bookend of the free throw line, known as the elbow. Then, the former Kings guard calls upon a memory from his 15-season career, which stretched from the early 1990s and into the mid-2000s.

It was the first time he played Arvydas Sabonis.

During the game, Christie remembers, the Trail Blazers' center stood at the elbow, caught the ball and tossed a swift, underhanded pass to a teammate, almost as if he were throwing a bowling ball down the lane. Christie almost did a double-take, he says now.

"Oh s---, wow!" Christie thought to himself.

Most centers passed from up high, above their shoulders, or offered a bounce pass, but in this moment -- and so many others to follow -- Arvydas was more creative, more daring. And Arvydas could step outside and shoot 3-pointers, too, which virtually no centers even attempted back then. Christie knew Arvydas was older, wracked by injuries and a sore back, ankles and troubled knees that left him lumbering up and down the court. "He had a torn Achilles, and he was still a monster," Christie says. "So you can imagine what he was as a young man."

After his playing career ended, Christie visited Pepperdine, to watch his alma mater play a Gonzaga team featuring Domantas. Christie immediately saw shades of Arvydas in Domantas' feel for the game, his ability to scan the court and move the ball, especially at his size.

Christie became a Kings assistant coach in 2021, and one year later, the team traded for Domantas, who had developed into an All-Star with the Indiana Pacers. Christie began working with him, and the connection wasn't lost on Christie: playing the father, coaching the son. And when asked about his early days of coaching Domantas, Christie points to the same spot on the floor that served as a flashpoint for his own memories of Arvydas: the elbow.

Domantas caught the ball and moved it above his head with one hand, scanning the floor for teammates, in the same way that his father had before him, reminding Christie too of center Vlade Divac and forward Chris Webber, his former teammates on the powerhouse Kings teams from the early 2000s. Both were big but skilled passers -- and if a teammate made a good screen and cut to the basket, the ball would find them. In Domantas, Christie saw the same type of potential.

And so, too, would coach Mike Brown.

FOR YEARS BROWN had been dreaming of building an offense centered around a skilled, versatile, cerebral big man who could make quick decisions, pass, screen, shoot and attack the rim. More of a point guard than a center. "A point center," Brown says.

The inspiration came from Brown's time as an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors from 2016 to 2022. From the bench, he saw how integral forward Draymond Green was to the Warriors' offense: operating away from the rim, passing the ball, setting good screens to free up Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry, rolling hard to the rim, guiding teammates to specific spots -- serving as an air traffic controller. "He makes that thing go," Brown says.

And when Green caught the ball on the perimeter, the Warriors often ran a specific action that Brown found especially tantalizing: the dribble-handoff. Green would have the ball, and set a screen on his teammate's defender while handing him the ball.

In that moment, a world of options opened.

Green could free up the teammate for an open 3-pointer. Or he could fake the handoff and drive hard toward the rim, trying to score or pass to an open teammate when the defense collapsed. Or he could hand the ball off to a teammate, then roll toward the rim and be fed a quick pass for an easy bucket.

The DHO, as it's known in basketball parlance, was a potent weapon. And even more so, Brown believed, if it had the right practitioner.

What's more, he thought, not many teams employed it, so not many teams practiced defending it. If he ever became an NBA head coach again, Brown envisioned one day building an offense around the DHO.

What he needed was the right opportunity and, most of all, the right player to run it.

"My story, it ended short. Now comes a Sabonis with a long story." Arvydas Sabonis, about his son Domantas

Meanwhile, some 2,200 miles away, Domantas was running DHO actions more and more during his time with the Pacers, where he spent five seasons after playing in Oklahoma City. In 2020-21, when he was named an All-Star for the second straight season, Domantas was involved in a league-high 780 handoffs, according to ESPN Research. The next season, 716, another league-high.

The only other player even close? Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic.

On Feb. 8, 2022, the Kings traded for Sabonis, sending Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield and Tristan Thompson to the Pacers (while also receiving Justin Holiday, Jeremy Lamb and a 2023 second-round draft pick in return). A few months later, the Kings began looking for a new head coach, and Brown, keenly aware of who they just acquired, pushed to fill the role.

In the job interview, he laid out his vision, with Domantas being the centerpiece. Brown imagined Domantas running even more DHO actions, especially with Kings rising star guard De'Aaron Fox. Those two alone, Brown said, would present a powerful one-two punch. He got his wish.

He was hired in May 2022 and brought with him two assistants from Golden State. In his first season as the Kings head coach, the team ran 1,136 total direct handoffs with Domantas, then the most in the Second Spectrum tracking era, which dates back to 2013-14.

Domantas averaged 19.1 points and a league-best 12.3 rebounds and was named an All-Star for the third time. Fox, meanwhile, earned his first All-Star nod. The Kings' offense improved from 24th the season before to the league's best in Brown's first season. The Kings broke a 16-year postseason drought, the longest active streak in the four major North American men's professional sports leagues, and Brown, for his part, was named the NBA Coach of the Year.

To watch the Kings now is to see Brown's vision in real time. Sabonis' 91.7 touches per game last season ranked third among all players, trailing only Jokic (101.3) and Luka Doncic (92.1). And when Domantas has the ball, he moves it quickly: Among the top 25 players in total touches last season, Sabonis had the second-shortest average touch length, ahead of only Anthony Davis of the Lakers.

While his touches per game have dipped this season with the arrival of DeMar DeRozan, he still ranks 3rd in the NBA among centers, behind only Jokic and Anthony Davis.

Brown knows all the numbers. And he's effusive in his praise.

"I'm not saying Domas is better than Jokic or anything like that," Brown says, "but, to me that's why Domas is a better playmaker than Jokic."

Brown says that Jokic is one of the best passers ever, a player more akin to Aryvdas, who says of Jokic, "Look, Jokic is incredible. He can do everything. He's not too quick, but he's very smart."

But Domantas' role is different, he notes. He's more of a point guard, tasked with bringing the ball up on one side of the floor, then, if nothing is there, moving to the other side of the floor off the dribble to make a play for others. It's not something Jokic does or is tasked with doing, Brown says. It's not something Aryvdas did, either.

In his day, Arvydas was considered the best passing big man in the world. While Domantas may not be as flashy, he ranks second in passes per game this season, trailing only Jokic. That uptick comes after the Kings have employed the DHO even more with Domantas -- 1,421 in 2023-24, a new league-high in the Second Spectrum tracking era. Domantas' DHOs have been as effective as ever this season: the Kings average 1.05 points per direct handoff from him, the second-highest figure in a season in his career as Sabonis, once again, leads the NBA in handoffs leading directly to an action.

From Lithuania, Arvydas beams with pride. In so many ways, his son represents the culmination of a movement that he helped begin. He could appreciate the connection, the evolution, from himself to his son.

"I'm very happy the Sabonis blood is there and showing [well]," Arvydas says. "My story, it ended short. Now comes a Sabonis with a long story."

SINCE ARVYDAS SABONIS retired, he has found little use for the spotlight.

"Look, I'm [nearly] 60 years old," he says. "Everybody knows about whatever they need [to know] about me. It's been written. Everybody knows. That's it. But Domas, okay, that's another story. But about me? What to talk about?"

If there's anything Arvydas might be wrong about, it's this. Domantas says he hears about his father almost every night, and has for years. He understands, too, that there's an aura about Arvydas, an unanswerable what-if that hangs over the history of an entire sport.

Aryvdas knows that his name and legacy dominate his son's life. But in Arvydas' own life, it's the opposite.

"Here in Europe, I'm traveling around and everyone is asking me about him," Aryvdas says.

A 10-hour time difference separates California and Lithuania, and a 7 p.m. tipoff in Sacramento requires Arvydas to watch his son's games at 5 a.m. local time. He watches live, but it's difficult, he says. When he does watch, he is quiet. He studies. He loves the progress Domantas has made. Two years ago, Domantas began dribbling the ball up the court. Last year, he improved his passing. This year, his 3-point shooting. "Each year, something new," Arvydas says.

Sometimes, Arvydas will ask his son why he didn't see a certain opportunity to score. Or why he didn't see a specific teammate who was open.

"You were also 7-3, Dad," Domantas will say. "You could just shoot over the top or see over the top. I'm smaller. I've got to work a little harder."

Domantas knows that his father possessed almost supernatural court vision. And even if he tried to make some of his father's no-look passes, which Domantas readily describes as "insane," he's not sure his teammates would even be ready.

"His teammates expected it every time," Domantas says. "If I threw one of those right now, it would hit the back of my teammate's head."

Hearing this, Arvydas offers a solution.

"You need to pass to their face two times," Arvydas says with a hearty laugh. "On the third time, they'll catch it."

There is room to grow, and Domantas knows it. "I watch Jokic as much as I can," he says, "just to see how he's doing things, how their guys are moving." He wants to be more aggressive offensively, and Christie wants him to look at the basket more and be a threat to drive to the rim.

Christie also feels a deeper responsibility. Two summers ago, he traveled to Lithuania, smoked cigars and drank wine with Arvydas, his old adversary. He watched the father and son together, the dynamic. The gravity of their lineage resonated, and when Christie returned home, he did so with a greater purpose. This past summer, they worked more on Domantas' right hand, on his jump shots. "We're starting to see it," Christie says.

When Christie started working with Domantas, one of the first things he told him was that Domantas didn't even know how good he was -- and how good he could be. Christie believes Domantas will tap into abilities that he doesn't even know he possesses. Arvydas believes this, too.

"He has time," Arvydas says of his son's NBA career, mentioning the greatest thing lacking from his own.

If there is one constant in his feedback, one point that Arvydas preaches more than any other, it is physical health, which greatly undercut his own career.

"After each game, you need to go and do recuperation," Arvydas tells his son. "It doesn't matter if it's two hours, three hours. It's all for you. For your health."

And Domantas heeds the advice. "I'm always in the treatment room," Domantas says. "Either ice bath, massages. We have all these types of machines nowadays to help you recover."

Those machines didn't exist for Arvydas, nor did other advances in modern medicine.

"I don't feel nothing about this," Arvydas says. "It's impossible to know. What happened is what happened. I'm too happy to come [over to the NBA]. Okay, I'm coming and I'm 30 years old, but I know what is there and that's it. What happened if I come if I'm 18 years old or 20 years old? Who knows?"

That question will live forever, but in Domantas there is another Sabonis, a young and healthy one, playing at a dominant level in the NBA.

"I just feel bad because I'm nothing like him," Domantas says of his father. "He's at a whole different level, so it's not the same."

Sitting at his kitchen table, Domantas says he isn't sure he'll ever measure up to his dad.

"You know how some legends never die?" Domantas asks. "Well, it's hard. I'm just another basketball player. He's a legend."

It doesn't matter that he has posted one of most dominant seasons in NBA history, one that drew statistical comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain. The statistics don't matter, he says. It's much bigger than that. It was his father's impact on his country, too.

"I still have time, but I don't know," Domantas says. His father was historic. And his skill level? "I feel like there's a big difference there."

Relay all this to Arvydas, and he is dismayed. "I feel uncomfortable to hear this," Arvydas says. "He has his way. He's playing his way. He's Domantas Sabonis. He's lefty and a different story. We see what happens when it's final, when he's finished this job. It's not over."

Relay all this to others around Domantas, and they say he's being overly modest, that he plays more like his dad than he knows.

"There's times where he's just driving and he hits a behind-the-back pass to a guy that's cutting, and you're like, 'How did you see that?'" Fox says. "So there's a little there."

With the Pacers, Domantas wore No. 11, a tribute to Arvydas. And beginning this season, he started wearing No. 11 for the Kings. (The number was previously retired by franchise legend Bob Davies, but his children gave their blessing for Domantas to wear it. In a June news release, Domantas stated, "The number 11 holds a special place in mine and my family's lives, having worn it throughout my career in honor of my father.")

For his own career, Domantas continues to collect accolades, and his profile continues to grow. Last season, he was featured in the inaugural season of the Netflix documentary series "Starting 5" with four other household names: LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum. Looking ahead, he wants to win medals with the Lithuanian national team, just as his father did, and to get the NBA title that eluded his father too.

For all their differences, Arvydas notices one powerful commonality.

"He is a warrior -- like me."

Back at his house, Domantas says it feels good that he has helped the family name live on, and he pictures Tiger learning more about him and his grandpa, and maybe pursuing the game just as they did.

The early evening sunlight starts to fade, and out from behind the kitchen island, Tiger emerges again. He eyes his father and the toy hoop nearby.

"You want to play hoops before dinner?" Domantas asks his son.

The answer, from the next generation of Sabonis: an emphatic "YEAH!"

North Carolina has sent shock waves across both the NFL and college football landscapes as it has finalized a deal with six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick to replace Mack Brown as its next football coach.

Needless to say, we have questions.

Just last year, when a surge of assistants -- and multiple head coaches -- left the collegiate ranks for the NFL, some thought that would become an ongoing trend as college football shifts further away from amateurism and more toward a professional model. Belichick, at age 72, has done the opposite, and he joins his former assistant -- first-year Boston College coach Bill O'Brien -- as head coaches in the ACC.

Though Belichick has no experience coaching college football, his hire brings a level of panache that even a national championship coach such as Brown could not bring. Super Bowl championships will do that for a coach. A program that has been mostly average over the past four decades, UNC football has played second fiddle to its hoops team. Perhaps the name recognition alone will begin to change hearts and minds about how serious UNC is about altering the football narrative, and the wins and losses on the field.

So how exactly will this work? What are his biggest challenges? Why UNC? Our reporters weigh in. -- Andrea Adelson

Jump to: What CFB fans need to know
Biggest challenges | Recruiting impact
Why UNC? | Playoff chances

What should college fans know about Bill Belichick that they might not from watching New England Patriots games?

He is as much Professor Belichick as Coach Belichick. He loves to teach, taking after his late mother, Jeannette, who spoke seven languages and taught at Hiram College. So those who have played and coached under Belichick have often described the experience as getting a doctorate in football, and that extended to media members in news conferences at times. While Belichick was notorious for being tight-lipped when speaking to reporters about anything he believed compromised competitive advantage, he would often discuss at length the history of the game. He has a soft spot, in particular, for special teams, "situational football" and UNC alum Lawrence Taylor, whom he coached at the New York Giants and calls the best defensive player in the history of the NFL. -- Mike Reiss

What will be his biggest challenges going to the college game?

Fair or not, one of the main reasons the Patriots moved on from Belichick was the belief that the players coming into the NFL respond more to a relational type of coaching style. So this will put that belief to the test: How will his old-school, bottom-line coaching approach resonate with today's student-athletes? -- Reiss

There is a reason former NFL coaches sometimes have difficulty as college head coaches, and vice versa. Though college is moving more toward an NFL model with revenue sharing and the transfer portal, one of the biggest differences is everything on a coach's plate beyond coaching his football team. Belichick is going to have to deal with the board of trustees, boosters and donors, and fundraise more than he has ever had to -- that includes the traditional spring speaking circuit to drum up support and interest in North Carolina football. At UNC, in particular, football is not the top sport; basketball is, and fan interest in football often wanes if the results are not there. Even in the best of times, UNC football has a hard time selling out its stadium and generating the type of fan interest that automatically followed the Patriots. Then there is the world of recruiting -- which includes the transfer portal -- and sitting in the living rooms of 17-year-olds and their families to convince them to play for him, beyond just rolling Super Bowl highlights. There will be questions about playing time, academics (uncharted territory for Belichick) and, of course, NIL and revenue-sharing payments. -- Adelson

Belichick says he wants to run an NFL program at the college level. What does that mean for the portal and recruiting?

In the near term, Belichick's hiring will come with an immediate litmus test for his pull in the transfer portal market and on the recruiting trail. North Carolina has seen a handful of starters enter the portal during the program's weekslong coaching search, most notably left tackle Howard Sampson, left guard Aidan Banfield, center Austin Blaske and linebacker Amare Campbell. Will any of those players withdraw from the portal to play for Belichick? If not, can he find high-level replacements for multiple holes in his starting lineup? As for high school recruiting, three of the nine members of the Tar Heels' 2025 class remain unsigned after the early signing period. If Belichick can retain those commitments -- most critically the pledge of ESPN 300 quarterback Bryce Baker -- it'd mark a positive start on the trail.

How do his future players feel? "Initial feelings are very mixed thoughts," DE pledge Austin Alexander (No. 298 in the ESPN 300) said. "There's excitement and wonder. I'm just interested to see what's going to happen. I do not have a timeline [for a decision]. I am just taking it day by day."

The bigger picture of Belichick's ability to recruit high school prospects and build a roster in the portal era stands as perhaps the most fascinating piece of his move to North Carolina. College programs are beginning to look more and more like NFL front offices, embracing NFL-style models of advanced scouting and roster construction as the power dynamics between coaching staffs and personnel departments shift in the NIL/revenue-sharing era. In that sense, there has never been a better time for Belichick -- one of the sport's greatest roster builders -- to land in the college ranks. Outside of Colorado's Deion Sanders, there's now no bigger name in college coaching. But Belichick's allure with modern college athletes and his appetite for the still-relational business of high school recruiting will be tested, and it's worth noting as well that North Carolina is far from the only school that will be pitching itself as an NFL program at the college level.

What exactly that looks like under Belichick and the results it produces are what will ultimately matter for the Tar Heels. Regardless, the decision to appoint Belichick marks one of the latest and most substantial signs yet of college football's ongoing march from amateur athletics to a professional model. -- Eli Lederman

How surprising is it that UNC is the place Belichick returns to coaching?

Extremely surprising. UNC has been described as a "sleeping giant" in broad terms because it has the potential to reach another level in football. But over its vast history, UNC has not quite been able to do that enough -- even under Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown. Twice. In his first tenure, Brown took the Tar Heels to multiple 10-win seasons and elevated the program, but it did not win any championships. In his recent tenure, Brown took the Tar Heels as high as a No. 10 ranking and developed two NFL quarterbacks in Sam Howell and Drake Maye but failed to win 10 games in any season over the past six years. Since 1997 -- the final year Brown coached the first time around -- the Tar Heels have one double-digit win season (Larry Fedora, 2015). North Carolina has not won an ACC title since 1980, and there are reasons for that. Expansion has added more football schools to the league, while others, such as Clemson, have invested far more in football. At its core, North Carolina remains a basketball school, and its funding efforts will remain as such. While it appears UNC should have everything in place to win -- nice facilities, great recruiting area, a history of producing NFL talent -- the Tar Heels have simply not been able to do it consistently enough. Hall of Fame coach or not. -- Adelson

Can Belichick and UNC actually make the playoff and/or win a title?

Absolutely. Belichick might actually be one step ahead of his peers, even though this is his first foray into a college head-coaching job. Now more than ever, college coaches need to operate their programs like the NFL, with money, deals, moving roster parts -- everything Belichick made a living on at the pinnacle of the sport. Plus, he can fill his staff with assistants who can specialize in all of it. His name alone will draw NFL-caliber players, because who wouldn't want to compete for a Super Bowl-winning coach? Add all of that into the fact that the 12-team CFP is likely to grow to 14 or 16 teams in 2026 and beyond, and it would be more surprising if UNC didn't compete for a national title. -- Heather Dinich

Bill Belichick as the head Tar Heel. Something's gotta give.

The Chapel Hill hiring that no one saw coming is the football equivalent to one of those old black-and-white films of two locomotives crashing head on. Or some reality stretching experiment set up by scientists, the immovable object and irresistible force pitted against one another to peek into the total unknown. When Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves asks Robert Oppenheimer, "Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?"

The NFL GOAT and Rameses the Ram. When they clack their horns in the middle of an open tobacco field, which of their very weighty, very opposite football pasts will prevail by pushing over the other?

Can the greatness of the gridiron genius in the hoodie finally unlock the long-puzzling, long-elusive potential of Franklin Street football? Or will the bottomless tar pits of the Tar Heels' football history consume Belichick like it has everyone who has preceded him, going back to the school's first game, a 6-4 loss to Wake Forest in 1888.

Belichick, 72, is, by any measure, one of the greatest coaches in the history of football, believed by many to be the best to ever wet an NFL whistle. He owns eight Super Bowl rings, six as head coach, along with the NFL head coaching records for Super Bowl appearances (nine), playoff appearances (19, tied), playoff wins (31) and division titles (17). His 333 wins (including playoffs) trail only Don Shula. He is so revered that he has served as a confidant and mentor to the man considered the modern measuring stick for college football coaching greatness, Nick Saban.

But Belichick's closest brush with college coaching was as a kid, when he attended practices and watched film alongside his father, Steve, a 33-year assistant coach at Navy. Belichick was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1952, when his dad was on the staff at Vanderbilt. The next year, the family moved to Chapel Hill while Steve coached three seasons as North Carolina's running backs coach. That's it. No actual college coaching. Just watching.

Now, he is on to Cincinnati ... er, sorry, back to Carolina. And when one pivots their eyes from the résumé of the coach to the résumé of the place where he shall now be the coach, another movie quote comes to mind, and it's from a North Carolinian, Ricky Bobby: "Everything cool that was just said, you wrecked it."

The reckless reality of UNC football is that the only rankings it has ever topped are when people compile their lists of "schools that should be great at football but aren't."

The Heels began playing football 136 years ago and have eight conference championships to show for it. Their last ACC ring came in 1980, when Lawrence Taylor was still dressed in Carolina blue. LT turns 66 in February. Since the ACC championship game came into being two decades ago, the Heels have made two appearances, in 2015 and 2022, and lost both times to Clemson.

They have participated in 38 bowl games but have lost 23 of them, including 11 of their past 14, and have run onto the field for a January bowl only seven times -- and just once this century. Their greatest postseason triumph was probably the 1981 Gator Bowl, when they held off a rainy rally by Lou Holtz's Arkansas Razorbacks. Then again, it might be their 2010 Music City Bowl win over Tennessee, not because of the final score but because that's the game that led to clock runoff rules being instituted. What a legacy.

This is a program that produced Dre Bly, Julius Peppers, Greg Ellis, last year's No. 3 NFL draft pick Drake Maye and one of the greatest old running backs to ever lace up the cleats, two-time Heisman Trophy runner-up Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice. But it is also a program that has produced only seven 10-win seasons, and only one since 1997.

The state of North Carolina is packed with high school football talent. The UNC brand is one that is genuinely global (thanks, MJ!). In recent years, the school has even made a long-needed course correction when it comes to football facilities and upgrades, with the christening of a nearly $50 million football HQ and the upfitting of always-beautiful-but-usually-sad Kenan Stadium. And yet, Belichick is the team's third head coach in eight seasons.

In 2012, spicy Larry Fedora and his high-tempo offense were supposed to inject full-throttle energy into the program while also sprinting away from embarrassing, yearslong improper benefits and academic fraud investigations. The Heels won 11 games in 2015 and were ranked 10th in the final CFP poll, but three years later Fedora was gone.

Fedora's replacement was Mack Brown, back for a second stint (see: that 1997 success before he bolted for Texas), coming off the bench from ESPN. The arc of the Brown 2.0 era looks similar to Fedora's, as it was for most of the coaches who came before him, a promising peak in the middle followed by an exit out the back door. From 2020 to 2023, Brown's Heels were routinely climbing into the top 10 by midseason, but by December were routinely slipping out of the top 25 altogether.

Time after time, would-be saviors have been brought to Chapel Hill charged with waking the sleeping giant. Heck, the staff that Belichick's father served on was led by George Barclay, the Heels' first-ever first-team All-American, called home to put a spark into his alma mater's team in 1953, the ACC's inaugural season. He went 11-18-1 over three years, unable even to replicate his success at his previous stop, Washington & Lee.

Meanwhile, fans of Tar Heels football have been forced to watch every other team in the state have their own eras of success while they settled for another so-so season. East Carolina set NCAA offensive receiving records. Appalachian State won FCS titles and captured the imagination of America with wins at Michigan and Texas A&M. Wake Forest won the ACC in 2006. NC State has won 13 of its past 18 games against Carolina, including the past four. Last fall, Duke hosted "College Gameday." Duke!

"The place has a ceiling. Just how it is," a former UNC assistant coach said via text Wednesday morning as the world waited to see if Belichick was taking the job, adding after a long pause of typing dots: "Throw a Hail Mary. Why not? If it doesn't work, no one will care. They just want to beat Duke."

The last sentence of his text was punctuated by a basketball emoji.

Because of its brand, academic reputation and flagship status for the deep-pocketed state of North Carolina (sorry, Tobacco Road rivals, but it's true), UNC is also viewed as the sleeping giant of conference realignment. While Florida State and Clemson make their public noise about the potential of moving elsewhere, the Heels are widely considered to be the most coveted ACC target for any league seeking its next cash-covered puzzle piece. A departure from the conference it helped create would be every bit the equivalent of Texas and Oklahoma bolting the Big 12 or USC breaking ranks with the Pac-12.

But with the greatest respect to Michael Jordan, Dean Smith and their fellow white trimmed jersey-wearing Heels, when it comes to redrawing maps and endorsing checks from restructured TV deals, it's a football-gloved hand that wields the pen. And all of those other universities listed in the previous paragraph have won a hell of a lot more than a handful of Gator Bowls and earned way more than zero conference titles since the Carter administration.

Perhaps that's why UNC administrators are heaving this ball from midcourt. Why they have hired a coach with zero college experience. Why they have hired a man notoriously impatient with NFL rookies and put him in charge of a locker room full of 19-year-olds.

Who knows why the man we came to know in sleeveless red, white and blue will now dress in Carolina blue and argyle. What we do know is that everything and everyone that UNC has thrown at football before Bill Belichick hasn't worked. And this might. But if bringing in a man who will one day have his own entire wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame fails to rouse one the most puzzling meh programs in the 155-year history of the sport, then nothing ever will.

The GOAT versus the Ram. Something's gotta give.

HOUSTON -- Jalen Green made two free throws with 3.5 seconds left and the Houston Rockets beat the Golden State Warriors 91-90 on Wednesday night to advance to the NBA Cup semifinals in Las Vegas.

Houston snapped a 15-game skid against the Warriors, winning for the first time in the series since Feb. 20, 2020. The Rockets will face Oklahoma City, which beat Dallas in the other West quarterfinal game on Tuesday night, in the semifinals on Saturday.

Alperen Sengun led the Rockets with 26 points and 11 rebounds and Jabari Smith Jr. added 15 points.

Houston led by 14 before falling behind late to set up the thrilling finish.

Houston trailed by six with about 1 1/2 minutes left before Fred VanVleet made a 3-pointer and Sengun added a layup with 27 seconds to go to cut the lead to one.

Stephen Curry missed a 3-pointer with 11 seconds left and Gary Payton II grabbed the rebound, but Green intercepted his pass and was fouled by Jonathan Kuminga to set up the winning free throws.

The Warriors had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but Smith blocked Brandin Podziemski's 3-point attempt.

Entering Wednesday, the Warriors had been 461-0 when leading by 6 or more points in the final 1:30 of a game under Steve Kerr.

Takeaways

Warriors: Golden State beat the Rockets twice this season without Curry before losing Wednesday in a game where he had 19 points.

Rockets: This young team showed poise in finishing this one after squandering a double-digit lead.

Key moment

Green's hustle on getting the ball late to draw the foul to set up the winning free throws.

Key stat

Houston won despite making just 6 of 27 3-pointers.

Up next

While Houston heads to Las Vegas this weekend, the Warriors will return to regular-season play Sunday at Dallas.

Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.

"When I got to the change rooms they asked if I hit it and I said 'yeah, I smashed it'. And then the replay came up and the head went into the hands and about one minute later everyone else was laughing at me"

Mitchell Marsh on walking in Adelaide

NEW YORK -- Trae Young had 22 points and 11 assists, De'Andre Hunter and Jalen Johnson outplayed the Knicks frontcourt and the Atlanta Hawks took their surprising NBA Cup run all the way to the semifinals in Las Vegas, beating New York 108-100 on Wednesday night.

Hunter scored 24 points and Johnson had 21 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists for the Hawks, who were perhaps the surprise team of the tournament after knocking off the defending champion Celtics in Boston and the NBA-leading Cleveland Cavaliers in group play to reach the knockout stage as the No. 3 seed in the East.

They will face another East power, the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, on Saturday in a semifinal matchup.

Josh Hart scored 21 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 19 points and 19 rebounds for the Knicks, who went 4-0 in group play and shot out to a 12-point lead Wednesday. But as in the 2021 playoffs, it was Young who was celebrating on the floor of Madison Square Garden after eliminating the Knicks.

Takeaway

Hawks: Just advancing out of a tough pool group would have been a great experience for some young Hawks players. Now they can go and win the whole thing with two victories in Las Vegas.

Knicks: One of the favorites to win the tournament had a shockingly poor second half and fell to 0-2 against Atlanta this season.

Key moment

The Knicks led 66-62 before Young scored eight straight points, pointing to the floor after a 31-footer for his second consecutive 3-pointer. Hunter then hit a 3 to cap an 11-0 surge during which Atlanta took its first lead of the game and went ahead 73-66.

Key stat

Atlanta outscored New York 61-46 in the second half.

Up next

While the Hawks go to Las Vegas, the Knicks will go to Orlando for a game Sunday.