Sports
Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein is enjoying his climb in the NBA
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Not way back, Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein found solace in a psychology book that helped him address the stress and reality of being an NBA journeyman. The reality now is the big man’s stability and the ability to breathe a sigh of relief after signing an $87 million contract after six difficult seasons in the NBA.
But knowing the struggle well, all that cash won’t let him loosen the survival mentality that is gotten him this far.
“The moment I signed the contract, it was something special,” Hartenstein recently told Andscape. “I’m just making my way through the NBA. Coming out of the G League with the (Houston) Rockets and being sent back to the lineup consistently proved that I used to be ready for it. It was never easy. It wasn’t relief, but excitement.
“I didn’t feel like I could let off the gas. The labor finally paid off, regardless that it took slightly longer than I assumed. I used to be excited and at the same time motivated because I had proven myself.
Hartenstein played for the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, LA Clippers and New York Knicks from 2018 to 2024. The 7-foot-2, 250-pound player also spent a while early in his NBA profession playing in the G League for the Rio Grande Vipers. In the June 23, 2020 Rockets press release announcing the signing of David Nwaba, the team simply stated at the end: “As a result, the Rockets have waived center Isaiah Hartenstein. He was chosen forty third overall by Houston in the 2017 NBA Draft and played in a complete of 51 games as a Rocket. No other statistics were included.
On November 30, 2020, the Nuggets signed Hartenstein to a two-year, $3.3 million contract, who will probably be the backup to All-Star center Nikola Jokic. Hartenstein’s father, former Oregon center Florian, frolicked in Denver with his son to offer support, drive him to basketball practices and even cook meals. The stress was further intensified by the proven fact that there is a coronavirus pandemic.
“Overall, it was difficult to play under Jokic for about eight minutes a game,” Hartenstein said. “Things weren’t going well. Denver was probably the hardest time. It was after Covid and for the first time I felt like maybe it wasn’t going to work out. But I just kept talking.”
Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images
Hartenstein has at all times been a voracious reader. Hoping to assist himself mentally on and off the court, he began searching the Internet for sports psychology books that would give him guidance. George Mumford found them. NBA legend Michael Jordan once admitted that Mumford helped him turn into a greater leader. Mumford also helped former Los Angeles Lakers stars corresponding to Shaquille O’Neal, Lamar Odom and Kobe Bryant.
Mumford, who worked with Julius Erving at UMass, is a widely respected public speaker and coach who shares his story, strategies and proven techniques for improving athletic performance in the popular book. Hartenstein is credited with helping turn his NBA profession around in Denver by deepening his “mental space and mental preparation.”
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Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
“It became clear to me. I used to be in a state where I needed to work more (on my mentality) and it worked from there,” Hartenstein said of . “The most significant thing it taught me was to remain present and be more process-oriented.
“There will be ups and downs, but don’t go too high or too low. You’re going to have some bad games. Don’t let this continue. Move on to the next thing. Control what you can control.”
Hartenstein played sparingly for the Nuggets before being traded to the Cavaliers on March 25, 2021. He showed signs of being a proven NBA player with the Cavaliers, averaging 8.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 16 games during the 2020-21 season. He then signed with the Clippers on September 13, 2021, regardless that it was a one-year minimum contract. Hartenstein joined the Clippers and averaged 8.3 points and 4.9 rebounds off the bench in 17.9 minutes in 68 contests in 2021-22.
Hartenstein believes his time with the Clippers proved he was an NBA center.
“That was the first season I was consistently in the rotation,” Hartenstein said. “I had good months with the Rockets, but the Clippers were the most consistent (of the season).”
The NBA nomad was rewarded with his first contract with an annual salary exceeding $2 million, signing a two-year, $16 million contract with the Knicks on July 1, 2022. He averaged 6.3 points and seven.4 rebounds per game in 157 games with the Knicks from 2022-24. Most importantly, Hartenstein was New York’s successful starting center during the regular season and playoffs after Mitchell Robinson was injured.
Hartenstein felt respected and loved in the Knicks uniform and loved playing at Madison Square Garden.
“Playing in the Mecca (Madison Square Garden) and having big games, especially in the playoffs, was huge,” Hartenstein said. “Me and Jalen (Brunson) went in there and kind of changed it. It was big. Playing in the garden has always been special. It was a unique experience to be there.”
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Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Hartenstein’s father is black German and his mother is white German. In 2017, he told Andscape that he was pleased with his black roots and that his father taught him African American history. Hartenstein, who has a lighter complexion, said that in his youth in Germany he handled racism and dated individuals who didn’t know he was a black man and who made racist comments about black people in front of him.
He also discussed being black on the podcast , hosted by Brunson and Josh Hart, who were his Knicks teammates at the time.
“It was fun,” Hartenstein said of the podcast. “I knew they were doing it. They had been talking about it all week (before).”
He added: “(Andscape) was the first to release it to the world. It’s at all times funny when people discover about it.
The Knicks desired to keep Hartenstein and offered him a four-year contract price $72.5 million. Hartenstein, nonetheless, opted to sign a more lucrative three-year, $87 million contract to affix NBA All-Star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the rising Thunder on July 6. Hartenstein previously earned a complete of $22.6 million in his NBA profession. He will earn $30 million this season.
Looking back, Hartenstein is very pleased with what he was in a position to accomplish after a slow begin to his profession.
“It was hard to leave. It wasn’t easy. I loved being there and I loved my teammates,” Hartenstein said of New York. “If I could not go to a spot like OKC, I do not think I might have left. But you furthermore mght need to think that ultimately it would be a business. It wasn’t like I had an entire bunch of $100 million contracts before. I needed to be certain that my family was heterosexual.
“It was a crazy experience, starting with the minimum contract and the training camp take care of the Clippers. It’s quite a journey from here to there. Often you do not understand what you are going through. But now, looking back, I would not change a thing on or off the court.
Hartenstein’s difficult days in the NBA returned when on October 15 in a preseason game against Denver, the Thunder announced that he had suffered a minor, non-displaced fracture of his left hand. The excellent news was that the injury didn’t require surgery, but Hartenstein’s Thunder debut was delayed.
After learning of Hartenstein’s love of reading, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault gave him a book by Ryan Holiday. The #1 bestseller is inspired by stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of tolerating pain and overcoming adversity through perseverance and resilience.
“He talks about his time in Denver where he really worked on his mental game,” Daigneault told Andscape. “I really useful this book because he was hurt. But that is sort of right in his wheelhouse. He’s a really intelligent guy.”
“Mark gave me a book that really helped me through the (injury) process. Just read it and overcome every obstacle without wasting any time,” Hartenstein said.
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Paintings by Alonzo Adams/Imagn
Hartenstein received a hero’s welcome from Thunder fans when he debuted on November 20 with 13 points and 14 rebounds in a 109–99 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. His profession averages are points (13.3) and rebounds (12.3). , assists (4.2) and blocks (1.5) in six contests for the Thunder, who at 16-5 have the best record in the Western Conference entering Wednesday.
“He’s obviously big, and last season we had a smaller, better rebounding team,” Daigneault said. “It’s like explaining to AB (about signing him). But that does not do justice to how good a player he is. It’s not only a giant body that may bounce back. He’s a fantastic basketball player.
“He’s great at the most important things on the basketball floor. It is a complete bonding specialist that highlights both sides of the floor due to its dynamics.”
Hartenstein believes NBA players who’re struggling early in their careers can find inspiration in his story.
“Just follow the processes,” Hartenstein said. “Sometimes it takes time. We all enter the NBA and wish to play instantly. Mentally you have got to be strong and never have a negative attitude. Quite a lot of guys don’t play at first and they don’t seem to be good guys in the locker room. They don’t support their teammates when you aren’t getting your likelihood.
“You need to stay until you get your likelihood. Do small things. Be teammate. And just be ready when your time comes.
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL
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Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the entire football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
Indianapolis-keep me, should you heard it earlier: playmaker Alabama born in Texas, who’s a stronger runner than a passerby, will probably be called outside the first round of the NFL Draft.
The playmaker was undefeated in Sec as a primary -year starter.
The playmaker never played for the same offensive coordinator.
The name of the playmaker is even Jalen.
But it isn’t clear that Jalen hurts. This winter he was busy winning the Super Bowl MVP, and he didn’t play Iron Bowl or against Michigan.
Instead, it’s a former playmaker of Crimson Tide Jalen Milroewho last week Combine Combine tried to convey the case to the trainers and evaluators that he – like his namesake – is price being their playmaker franchise in the future despite questions on his ability.
“I went through adversity. I saw everything as a quarterback, “Milroe said on Friday. “I played at the most difficult conference in the country. It would be easier to play at other conferences, but what I could see in Sec catapulted me that I was ready to play NFL. “
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Departing from Katy in Texas, she originally got involved in Texas in 2019, but a 12 months later she fell to Alabama. After he was sitting behind the Crimson Tide Starter Bryung for 2 seasons, Milroe took his reins in the 2023 season. He helped Alabama survive Sec (8-0) this 12 months, won by the conference rival and two-time defender Georgia in the SEC championship, which caused Crimson Tide to the play-off collection.
But while Milroe had a big arm (his 10 yards for the test took third place in Sec in 2023), the pass was not his strong suit. For two seasons as a starter Milroe never achieved 3000 yards in one season, the first starter of Alabama, who did it because it … hurts.
Hurts, from Houston, led Crimson Tide to the National National Championships in 2016–17, but during these two seasons were lower than 5,000 yards. While Hurts was a singular Rusher (1,809 yards and 21 sticks) at the moment, his weakness as a passerby is known for led to the spare Tua Tavailoa during the break of the national championships in 2017.
In the mix, Milroe decided that despite his pedestrian passes, he was still worthy of being a start at NFL.
He is aware of his weaknesses and swore that he worked in the ass to enhance outside being “one dimension.” He could move when his legendary trainer, Nick Saban, retired after the 2023 season, but decided to not fall off. He traveled six miles a day to ensure that that something was left in the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter. He studied progression and reads after I-SNAP to lift his IQ in football.
Unlike the forecast sorts of the first round, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, Milroe threw a mix on Saturday, hoping that he would show the bands that he has mechanics to do that to the playmaker NFL. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Milroe showed strong arm strength and a very good location of sail routes, curls and it while throwing exercises, but fought accuracy on intermediate and on the routes.
“That’s so many things that I can learn more where I am today and where I will be when it comes to day 1, starting with NFL,” said Milroe before Saturday exercises. “Always be a game student, at all times attempt to develop, because it would be so many opportunities in which I can look back and say that it was the moment after I grew up as a playmaker.
“That’s right now, I’m just trying to grow as much as possible, put my best foot forward and just look for development.”
Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Milroe was asked that he was one other playmaker in Alabama to succeed in the mix, following in the footsteps of the role (who moved to Oklahoma in 2019), Tavailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young. Milroe said he appreciates being in the company of others, but he added that it’s difficult to check him with others.
“We had different bands, we had different players around us, we had a different system,” he said.
But when he specifically asked what he could study the journey of Hurts-from the first manager of the game after the super Bowl-Milroe master said he inspired him his companion Alabam.
“The most important thing I learned from J. Hurts is how he kept his head (I) always continued to work,” said Milroe. “He at all times raised his game, he has never been self -deserved, and all the pieces you see is great progress from him.
“And I have to applaud him as a person, he as a man, because he is definitely inspiring for many playmakers of my image, as well as many playmakers throughout the country. He leads to all of us. “
The couple isn’t completely similar. Hurts had about 20 kilos on Milroe when he was in college. Milroe has a stronger arm, while Hurts played more and not using a mistake of football: Milroe threw 17 interceptions and ate 67 bags for 2 seasons as a starter in comparison with 10 captures Hurts and 43 bags.
But they can each be changing the game when their teams need them. In a highly publicized match against Georgia at the starting of the last season, Milroe finished almost 82% of his passes on 374 yards and two appointments, adding 117 yards to the ground for the next two results.
Milroe can also match the wounds in the so -called “Jalen-ISMS. “
“Climbing upstairs is not easy, but when you reach the top of this mountain, you will learn so many things when it comes to adversity when it comes to difficulties, things along the way,” said Milroe in a mix.
Sports
Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos from 1968. Black Power Salute inspired me to find my goal
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I’d say that I grew up within the household to be sure that that me and my siblings were aware of the black history. My parents invested in the gathering of black encyclopedias. On the duvet we had a version of the Bible with Black Jesus. Our house was stuffed with books of black novelists and thinkers, and if a black document appeared, we watched it. I watched all movies made on television about Dr. King, each “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen” and I sat for all 14 hours “Eyes on the reward”-as a toddler. Bless my heart.
Having said this, there have been pockets of black history, and more likely that I had no opportunity to delve into once I was a toddler. The college was where all the will for information and understanding of the combined. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., One of a very powerful historically black universities within the country. It was there that I met people from around the globe whose knowledge about black history differed (often depending on the colleges and the communities by which we lived), but everyone had hunger to learn more.
One day, through the first yr, I remember one among my friends in a T -shirt by which I had definitely seen before, but I never paid attention to. There was a black and white screen printing on the shirt (what I do know now) the enduring moment on the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, where on the rostrum for 200-meter medals, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (races 1. And 3. Place Finaners) Everyone gathered a black fist in gloves while he played “Star Spangled Banner”. Peter Norman, the second place from Australia, wore a human rights badge, like Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise the fist of black power (although they each said it was for human rights), they received medals in black socks to represent poverty within the black community, and Smith wore a black scarf for black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-wheeled employees, unpacking the jacket and wore a necklace from the beads for individuals who were lynched. Due to the state of Black America in 1968 and a continuing struggle for equality and civil rights, there have been calls to a boycott of the Games. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also killed in April this yr – and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do it on the rostrum, which led to one of the crucial durable images of public protest.
I remember how I learned history and realized that on the most important scene these brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to quietly protest against the conditions of underrated communities in America. I felt strengthened; We often discuss standing on the arms of giants, however the more I got into the history of black in America, the more I spotted what number of giants there have been. In college I used to be very bad and for a while ready to burn every part that represented the establishment or any obstacle to black liberation. I felt like all those individuals who even saw their space on the planet in reference to individuals who could never give you the option to speak as heroes whose lives were to be modeled later. Especially since it was also fastidiously that putting people in front of him can often bring an enormous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their position, they were booed on the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home, but they weren’t welcomed by the hero, but as a substitute of rough sleds, and even in some cases the specter of death. They were also not beloved by athletes. Two men, associated eternally in history, even have a good relationship –Carlos even claims that he let Smith go within the race Because “Tommie Smith would never put his fist in the sky if I won this race,” the claim that Smith denies.
History ultimately has a way of rights, but it surely took a few years and realizations on the front of social policy, in order that the actions of those persons are perceived as brave and needed, not only selfish and smug.
The lessons that I learned from College and continuous reading and education I gained (my head remained within the book about black history) were one among the best advantages in HBCU. The very variety of books I learned about about which I actually have never heard of – I actually have upheld me all my life.
That is why I remember sooner or later I used to be walking around Washington, the eastern Washington market and a street seller was selling different photos of moments in black history, and he had a 40 -inch photo within the Tommie Smith and John Carlos frame. I paid for it in money and spent it across the capital of the country until I returned home. I do know that it happened in 2005 (I finished Morehouse College in 2001) because I just moved to my first apartment with no roommate and it was the very first thing that I actually have ever suspended on the wall. This picture within the frame still hangs on the wall in my home in 2025 and I used it to teach my children about sacrifice and privilege and how you may have to discuss individuals who cannot.
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The query that my youngest children often ask: “How do I know who can’t speak for herself?” Which is an incredible query. For this I answered an easy fact, pointing to the photo:
“These men have made a gesture that gave people whose most of us, including them, would never see or never know them, but on which life negatively affects the alternatives of the wealthy and the federal government. Sometimes you may have to take this chance to say something because you do not know in the event you’ll ever have such a big platform.
Son, there may be at all times someone who cannot speak for himself, and you may have to use it in a voice, because perhaps the thing you say or a stand that can help someone you understand, live a greater life. ”
I take advantage of words that may understand a little bit higher, but I can inform you that my children have a look at this photo on a regular basis, and once one among my sons said: “These guys are heroes, right?”
I say yes, they’re. They are the heroes of the Black History.
They will live eternally for speaking, and even quietly, in solidarity with those that couldn’t.
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Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died
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Morgan State University announced that his older associate athletics director and tax director, Sterling Steward, died.
No reason for death was disclosed, but the college has confirmed his contribution since he was employed in December 2022.
Morgan State University Athletics mourns Sterling Steward’s departure https://t.co/avjzilxhja
– Grizzly Life (@grizzlylife22) February 26, 2025
Steward died on February 26. In Morgan State he was accountable for the event of university programs, supporting partnerships and strengthening the financial and operational success of the Faculty.
“Sterling was more than a colleague-he was a respected leader, mentor and friend,” said in a written statement by Den Freeman-Patton, vice chairman and director of inter-university athletes. “His passion for athletics and commitment to raising Morgan programs were visible in everything he did. He worked tirelessly to ensure that our sports students had resources and the possibilities of distinction, and its impact will be felt for many years. We expand our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, especially his three sons and sister when we mourn this huge loss. “
While the steward worked in Morgan, strategic growth and cooperation occurred. His work with the institutional development department helped to offer more opportunities and created lasting relationships to support sports programs.
Steward earlier he worked At the University of New Orleans (UNO) as an assistant to the college athletics director for strategic income generation. He also made stays on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Savannah State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama State University, Kentucky State University, Eastern Oregon University and Xavier University in various roles, including for a senior consultant athletics director and sports director.
He was from New Orleans, who received the title of bachelor and master’s degree on the University of Southern Mississippi. He won a bachelor’s degree in the sphere of coaching and administration/history of sport and his master’s degree in the sphere of sport management.
(Tagstransate) Morgan State Universiry
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