Lakers’ next game postponed after Kobe Bryant’s death

LOS ANGELES >> The NBA has postponed the Los Angeles Lakers’ next game against the Clippers on Tuesday night after the deaths of retired superstar Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash.

The league announced the decision Monday.

Bryant’s helicopter crashed Sunday, and the Lakers learned about it while flying home from an East Coast road trip. LeBron James and several other players appeared to be visibly affected by the news when they got off the plane.

The Lakers organization hasn’t made a public statement about Bryant’s death, choosing to mourn in private. The 16-time NBA champion franchise made grief counselors available to employees Monday after the loss of Bryant, who spent his entire 20-year NBA career with the Lakers.

Dwight Howard is the only current Lakers player who played with Bryant, but the players all knew him.

Bryant had attended a handful of Lakers games in recent years with his daughter, Gianna, who also died in the crash in Calabasas, California.

The NBA says the game between the Los Angeles rivals will be rescheduled later.

The next game on the Lakers’ schedule is Friday night at home against Portland.

Andrew Berry is coming back to the Browns. This time as the boss.

Berry, who left Cleveland’s front office last year to work in Philadelphia, agreed Monday to become the Browns’ new general manager and executive vice president, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. Berry will get a five-year deal, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the team has not made the hiring official.

Berry will be just the second black GM currently working in the NFL. Miami’s

Chris Grier had been the league’s only minority GM.

Minnesota Lynx star Maya Moore sees missing a second consecutive WNBA season as an extension of her decision to skip last year.

The 30-year-old told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday that her work pushing criminal justice reform wasn’t done yet.

“I think when I made my announcement last February in ‘The Players’ Tribune’ that the heartbeats of what I believed in were still true,” Moore said. “I’m still very committed to Jonathan’s case and will see it through.”

Moore has spent most of the last year trying to help a family friend overturn a conviction. Jonathan Irons has been incarcerated since 1997, convicted in the nonfatal shooting of a homeowner during a burglary. He is serving a 50-year sentence but has asked a judge to reopen his case.