Chris Paul makes exhibition debut with the Spurs, sets up Wembanyama for dunk with 1st assist

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Chris Paul makes exhibition debut with the Spurs, sets up Wembanyama for dunk with 1st assist

2024-10-10 10:50 Last Updated At：11:01

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama seem to already be clicking.

Paul — a 12-time All-Star entering his 20th season in the NBA — made his preseason debut with San Antonio on Wednesday night, getting a loud ovation from his new home crowd when he was the final player announced as part of the Spurs' starting lineup against the Orlando Magic.

And his first assist in his new uniform was fitting — an alley-oop lob that set Wembanyama up for a dunk late in the first quarter. Paul finished with five points and three assists, two of them to Wembanyama, in 23 minutes.

“Felt very natural. Felt like it was the good play,” Wembanyama said of that first lob from Paul. “And he's making a lot of good plays.”

The Spurs are Paul's seventh NBA franchise and when he makes his regular-season debut — preseason games don't count for anything official — the 6-foot guard will become the 11th player to appear in 20 NBA seasons.

“He’s so wise and he’s got so much experience,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Paul after San Antonio’s 107-97 win. “Sometimes I get mesmerized just listening to him say things to players. ‘I should have thought of that,’ that kind of thing. He mentors them well and he does it the right way.”

Vince Carter played in 22 seasons, a record that LeBron James will tie when he makes his first appearance this season. Robert Parish, Kevin Willis, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki all played 21 seasons, and four other players — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Jamal Crawford and Udonis Haslem — reached the 20-season mark.

Paul is also third on the NBA's all-time assist list with 11,894. He's 197 shy of Jason Kidd (12,097) for No. 2 on that list, and John Stockton holds the record with 15,806.

“Being on the court with him certainly feels like he's got things in control,” Wembanyama said. “It's reassuring, a little bit. It's one more teammate I can rely on in tough moments or doubt moments. It's only positive.”

Paul's first game with the Spurs was one of many notable debuts that will occur throughout the preseason by top players who'll be in new uniforms this season. Among them: Russell Westbrook debuted with Denver in Abu Dhabi last week, Karl-Anthony Towns had 10 points in 15 minutes Sunday in his first exhibition as part of the New York Knicks, and DeMar DeRozan appeared in a preseason game with Sacramento for the first time Wednesday against Golden State.

Evidently, DeRozan is still learning his way around. “Which way do I go?” DeRozan asked as he walked into the arena. But on the court, he was a quick study — the first points of Sacramento's preseason came on DeRozan's trademark midrange jumper.

On Thursday, Klay Thompson — who has only played for Golden State, until now — is expected to make his preseason debut for Dallas. Still unclear: when Paul George will make his preseason debut for Philadelphia, which doesn't play another exhibition until Friday.

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More than 1.5 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida

2024-10-10 10:53 Last Updated At：11:00

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), heavy rain and producing a series of tornadoes around the state. Tampa avoided a direct hit.

The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) as it made landfall at 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches home to 5,500 people about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa.

More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.

The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, but the storm was still bringing a potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, where over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain had fallen.

Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida Peninsula as a hurricane, eventually to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.

About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

Multiple tornadoes spawned by the hurricane tore across Florida, the twisters acting as a dangerous harbingers of Milton’s approach. Videos posted to social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighborhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.

About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was centered about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of Sarasota and had weakened slightly with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), becoming a Category 2 storm, the hurricane center reported. It was moving east-northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

Milton slammed into a Florida region still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which caused heavy damage to beach communities with storm surge and killed a dozen people in seaside Pinellas County alone.

Earlier, officials issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.

“This is it, folks,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now.”

By late afternoon, some officials said the time had passed for such efforts, suggesting that people who stayed behind hunker down instead. By the evening, some counties announced they had suspended emergency services.

Milton was expected to remain a hurricane as it plowed across the state, including the heavily populated Orlando area, through Thursday.

The storm threatened communities still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage. Surge was projected to reach as high as 9 feet (2.7 meters) in Tampa Bay.

Jackie Curnick said she wrestled with her decision to stay and hunker down at home in Sarasota, just north of where the storm made landfall. But with a 2-year-old son and a baby girl due Oct. 29, Curnick and her husband thought it was for the best.

Curnick said they started packing Monday to evacuate, but they couldn’t find any available hotel rooms, and the few they came by were too expensive.

She said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.

“The thing is it’s so difficult to evacuate in a peninsula,” she said. “In most other states, you can go in any direction to get out. In Florida there are only so many roads that take you north or south."

The famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans the mouth of Tampa Bay, closed around midday. Other major bridges also closed.

At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis described deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; over 50,000 utility workers from as far as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill up their tanks before evacuating.

“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” DeSantis said.

Heavy rain and tornadoes lashed parts of southern Florida starting Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day. Six to 12 inches (15 to 31 centimeters) of rain, with up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) in some places, was expected well inland, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.

One twister touched down Wednesday morning in the lightly populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado touched down in Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and tearing a gas station's canopy to shreds.

Authorities have issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people. Officials warned that anyone staying behind must fend for themselves, because first responders were not expected to risk their lives attempting rescues at the height of the storm.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch told residents to expect long power outages and the possible shutdown of the sewer system.

In Charlotte Harbor, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tampa, clouds swirled and winds gusted as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and other belongings. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, and its streets remain filled with waterlogged furniture, torn-out drywall and other debris.

Parks, an auto technician, planned to flee to his daughter’s home inland and said his roommate already left.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” he said.

By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights. SeaWorld was closed all day Wednesday, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando shut down in the afternoon.

More than 60% of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy. DeSantis said the state's overall supply was fine, and highway patrol officers were escorting tanker trucks to replenish the supply.

In the Tampa Bay area's Gulfport, Christian Burke and his mother stayed put in their three-story concrete home overlooking the bay. Burke said his father designed this home with a Category 5 in mind — and now they’re going to test it.

As a passing police vehicle blared encouragement to evacuate, Burke acknowledged staying isn’t a good idea and said he’s “not laughing at this storm one bit."

Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer in New Hampshire; Joseph Frederick in West Bradenton, Florida; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Brenden Farrington in Tallahassee; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico.