The issue focused on a long-troubled first-round fight, the first to be set in a new N.B.A. building, a new court, a new media, a new place, a new world, a new way of life, a new way of going.

"I was a first-rounder, a first-rounder, a first-rounder, a first-rounder, a first-rounder, a first-rounder, a first-