ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Team USA has relocated halfway across the world but is still in a holding pattern with star Kevin Durant, who missed practice again Saturday with a calf strain and likely won’t play when the Americans face Australia in a friendly set for Monday.
Coach Steve Kerr has been publicly downplaying any concern about the injury but pushed back his timeline before leading the team through practice.
“I know there’s still a couple of weeks before we have to make a decision roster-wise,” Kerr said. “So we’re just taking it day by day.”
For weeks, Team USA had a contingency plan in place if Kawhi Leonard wasn’t able to play in the Olympics as he recovered from a knee injury, lining up Derrick White as the probable replacement in early June. The Americans made that move Wednesday, releasing Leonard and putting White on the roster as they broke training camp in Las Vegas.
If the team has a backup plan for Durant, it is keeping it under wraps.
“It’s not something we’ve even discussed at this point because we feel good that [Durant] is going to be OK,” Kerr said.
Durant said earlier this week he was hopeful to have recovered enough from the calf injury he suffered two weeks ago to play during the warmup games in the Middle East. It includes a game Wednesday against Serbia, the team the U.S. will open Olympic play against in France later this month.
White was scheduled to fly to Abu Dhabi on Saturday and is expected to practice for the first time Sunday.
Before practice Saturday, Team USA was addressed and welcomed by its host in the UAE, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairman of global soccer power Manchester City and an avid NBA fan. Al Mubarak is the managing director and CEO of Mubadala, the emirate’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund that is involved in an expansive multiyear deal with the NBA and USA Basketball that is bringing high-profile games to the region.
Queen Camilla with Debbie Jevans chair of the All England Lawn Tennis Clubduring a visit to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, south west London, on day ten of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, Wednesday July 10, 2024. (Jordan Pettitt/Pool photo via AP)
Jamison Hensley is a reporter covering the Baltimore Ravens for ESPN. Jamison joined ESPN in 2011, covering the AFC North before focusing exclusively on the Ravens beginning in 2013. Jamison won the National Sports Media Association Maryland Sportswriter of the Year award in 2018, and he authored a book titled: Flying High: Stories of the Baltimore Ravens. He was the Ravens beat writer for the Baltimore Sun from 2000-2011.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — During one of the first practices of the spring, wide receiver Zay Flowers found himself in a precarious position.
As the Baltimore Ravens ran a run play to the outside, he turned around and saw 6-foot-2, 247-pound running back Derrick Henry charging right behind him.
Flowers immediately jumped to the side.
“I heard you scream,” Henry told Flowers.
“I had to get out of the way,” Flowers replied.
Henry, Baltimore’s top free agent addition this offseason, creates something in the Ravens’ backfield that has been missing: fear.
The stories of Henry shoving defensive backs to the ground and running over linebackers are well known in Baltimore. The Ravens’ impressive 2019 season — winning the AFC North with a 14-2 record — was shattered by Henry’s bulldozing of the Baltimore defense in the divisional round, including his ferocious stiff-arm of safety Earl Thomas.
Who remembers this Derrick Henry stiff arm from the #NFLPlayoffs last year?! 💪
While there has been talk about Henry slowing down at age 30, the Ravens envision the pairing of the two-time rushing champion with two-time NFL Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson will push Baltimore past its postseason roadblock and to the Super Bowl.
Much of the blame for the Ravens’ 17-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game has been credited to their lack of running the ball. Team officials have tried to explain throughout the offseason why Jackson handed the ball off to running backs only six times in the defeat. But, Baltimore’s best response to its commitment to the ground game came on March 12, when the Ravens reached a two-year, $16 million agreement with Henry.
“It’s going to be scary,” Ravens middle linebacker Roquan Smith said. “I told a couple of my friends in the offseason, maybe I’ll have to get some popcorn on the sideline while I’m watching those guys go to work.
“I think it’s a great piece added to us, and it’s going to help us get to where we want to be.”
Henry’s track record includes six straight seasons of 1,000 yards from scrimmage and double-digit touchdowns. It’s a level of consistent production that the Ravens have never had. In Jackson’s six seasons, Baltimore has had only one 1,000 running back — Mark Ingram in 2019 — but no one who comes close to Henry’s running style.
On his excitement of playing alongside Henry, Jackson said, “I just get the ball and [say], ‘Go, big guy, go.’ I’m cheering like the fans.”
The Ravens have had the NFL’s most dominant rushing attack over the past five years without having a dominant running back.
It has been Jackson who has elevated Baltimore’s ground game, leading the team in rushing in each of the past five seasons, which is an NFL record streak for a quarterback. That streak includes Ingram’s Pro Bowl 2019 season, and it’s one of the reasons no Ravens running back has carried the ball more than 202 times since Jackson became the starting quarterback midway through the 2018 season.
Baltimore’s split workload in the backfield doesn’t mesh with the usual game plan involving Henry, who always carried the Tennessee Titans’ running game. He has led the NFL in carries in four of the past five seasons, averaging 305 carries each year over that stretch.
“Well, I know this: If [Henry] carries it 300 times, we’re having a hell of a year. I can tell you that,” Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken said. “It means we’re running it a lot. It means we’re up in games. We want him to finish, [and] we want him to be the closer.”
ON THE FINAL day of Ravens minicamp, coach John Harbaugh was asked if there was any concern about the wear and tear Henry has accumulated over his eight-year career.
“I watched the wear and tear that he put on defenses, and ours included, over the years,” Harbaugh said.
The Ravens are banking on Henry going against the trend for aging running backs. Over the past decade, only three running backs have produced 1,000 yards rushing at age 30 or older: Adrian Peterson, Frank Gore and Raheem Mostert.
Last season, at age 29, Henry had one of his worst seasons in recent memory, stirring up questions about his age and decline. His average rushing yards per game (68.6) and yards per carry (4.2) were his worst since 2018.
But Henry’s struggles could be the result of the Titans’ below-average offensive line more than his running ability. He had 106 rushes where he was contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
He still has speed. Henry’s four carries when he reached a top speed of 20-plus mph were tied for fourth among running backs. He still can break tackles. Henry’s average rushing yards after first contact last season (2.21) ranked first in the NFL.
“I have mad respect for him and all the things he’s accomplished, and I still see he has a lot of tread left on the tire,” Smith said. “So I’m just excited for him to show the world exactly what he can do.”
Baltimore believes Henry can maintain a high production level because of what they call “an elite” work ethic. Henry reported for the first day of the Ravens’ offseason workout program and participated in the first organized team activity.
“I’m big on earning my respect from my teammates,” Henry said. “That’s all I want to do is earn the respect from everybody in this building and show them that I’m ready to come work, help everybody get better in any aspect that I can, be a leader in any type of way how I carry myself and by the way I work on the field [and] in the weight room and be attentive in meetings.”
Henry’s tenacious workouts in the offseason often go viral. In May, a social media post showing Henry sprinting up a hill behind the end zone of the SMU’s stadium received 345,000 views.
— Football’s Greatest Moments (@FBGreatMoments) May 25, 2024
This is the same mindset Henry brings to the Ravens’ weight room.
“He attacks everything with such a high level of intent — intent with tenacity,” said Scott Elliott, the Ravens’ strength and conditioning coordinator. “That’s why he’s Derrick Henry. That’s why what we’re going to help him do is keep that same trajectory.
“He’s had one heck of a career, [and] our goal is that it gets even better from here. [It’s] not [about] age, not years of service — none of that. He keeps getting better and better.”
NO RUNNING BACK over the past decade has averaged more rushing yards (85.3) against Baltimore, including the playoffs, than Henry.
But the Ravens weren’t prepared to see that serious side of him in the spring. A mistake in an offseason practice would ruin his day.
“It literally pisses him off to do anything wrong,” Ravens running backs coach Willie Taggart said.
Coaches remind Henry that it’s only practice. Coaches try to console him, pointing out that everyone makes mistakes.
“One thing about Derrick — he works,” Harbaugh said. “He is a worker, 100% every day, locked in, asks questions, ready to go at practice, in the weight room, training room. [I’m] very impressed. This guy is a true pro, ultimate pro.”
Even when Henry couldn’t make a voluntary practice, the coaches would still hear from him. He wanted to know everything that was going on. He’ll text Taggart about what plays they put in that day or ask a question about what he saw on film from that practice.
“He is not coming in here feeling like, ‘Hey, I’ve done this; I’ve done that.’ You don’t see any of that,” Taggart said. “It seems like he’s been a Raven all his life. He can fit in the room seamlessly. He’s been awesome.
“You kind of assume [that] a guy that’s had that much success will come in and have his way of doing things. Derrick wants to understand how we’re doing it, and he wants to do everything he can to help this football team win a championship.”
AFTER HENRY AND the Titans ended Baltimore’s promising season in 2019, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta met up with the coaching staff at the Pro Bowl. DeCosta was amazed by what he observed from Henry.
“I saw his humility,” DeCosta said. “This is a guy who ran for like — I don’t know how many yards that season [1,540] — and all the players kind of gravitated towards him that week, and it was a tremendous respect.
“That resonated with me as a guy who scouts for a living, and having the chance to kind of step aside and watch his career unfold. It’s been very impressive to me.”
DeCosta attempted to acquire Henry at last year’s trade deadline, and he thought there was “a reasonable chance” of getting it done. After getting over the disappointment of not landing Henry last season, the Ravens targeted Henry in one of the deepest free agent pools for running backs.
But not all the Ravens were sold on Henry being a fit in Baltimore. The Ravens have run their offense primarily out of the pistol formation, and Henry has traditionally lined up in an offense where the quarterback has been under center.
“I’m not going to lie, I questioned that until he got here,” Taggart said, “and [I saw] the big man move his feet, and I’m like, ‘Woah.’ It’s really impressive for a guy that size to move the way he does.”
For Henry, it’s a new team, a new offense and new opportunity. Many of the Ravens players see Henry as their final piece to win a championship. Henry sees the Ravens as his best chance to not leave the game empty-handed.
“I just love playing this game, and [I’m] going to continue to play until I feel like my time is up,” Henry said. “I’m excited for — [playing for] a great organization. … I’m really wanting to hold that trophy up at the end of the year.”
Issy Wong took wickets with her first two deliveries in dismissing all of Central Sparks’ top-three batters for ducks as Western Storm secured a massive 182-run win in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.
Wong, capped 14 times by England across all formats, hasn’t played for her country since September last year due to struggling with run-up issues.
In that last international appearance, a T20I against Sri Lanka, Wong’s two overs featured three no-balls, two wides and four boundaries.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
England Women’s head coach Jon Lewis discusses Issy Wong’s bright future and how his coaching staff are trying to help the bowling starlet become more consistent
Wong burst onto the scene in the summer of 2022, making her England debuts across all three formats, while she took a hat-trick in the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League in 2023 when bowling for Mumbai Indians.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Check out Wong’s incredible hat-trick against UP Warriorz for Mumbai Indians in the 2023 Women’s Premier League
Given her struggles since, the 22-year-old fast bowler served a reminder of her considerable talents as she bowled Eve Jones first ball with a yorker, immediately added Abigail Freeborn caught behind to find herself on a hat-trick and then added Chloe Brewer for a duck, out lbw in her second over.
Wong (3-20) – on loan at Storm from Sparks – might well have had herself a hat-trick had there been a third slip in place for her first delivery to Davina Perrin, only for a thick edge to fly through the vacated region.
Perrin ended up top scoring for Sparks with 42, but was one of only three batters to reach double figures as, chasing 285 to win, they were bowled out for a paltry total of 102 in 25 overs – off-spinner Chloe Skelton (3-8) also taking three wickets and Alex Griffiths 2-23.
Storm coach Trevor Griffin said after the win: “A total of 280 was a fantastic score and allowed our bowlers to go out and really attack their batters and Issy did that brilliantly.
“Issy has been fantastic for us, she has bowled well and worked hard and come in with a smile on her face and I thought she bowled with serious pace today.”
Earlier, Australia’s Amanda-Jade Wellington smashed 83 off 53 balls, while Storm captain Sophie Luff contributed 60 as they amassed 284 when asked to bat first.
Regardless of the result, both teams occupy the bottom two spots in the RHF Trophy, with Storm third win in 10 separating them a touch from Sparks at the foot of the table.
Watch the fourth T20 international between England and New Zealand at The Oval, live on Sky Sports Cricket from 6.15pm on Saturday (first ball 6.30pm).Stream the series contract-free with NOW.
England striker Ollie Watkins has said that he “wasn’t shocked” by his dramatic semifinal-winning goal against Netherlands and that he has “fire in my belly” to reproduce his heroics in Sunday’s European Championship final against Spain.
The 28-year-old scored a memorable 90th-minute winner in Wednesday’s semifinal with just his fourth touch of the game after he was introduced as a substitute by manager Gareth Southgate with nine minutes of normal time remaining.
Watkins’ goal in the 2-1 win ensured that England will play in the final of a major tournament on foreign soil for the first time in the county’s history when they face Spain in Berlin.
“It’s been an unbelievable feeling to be honest,” Watkins told a news conference on Friday. “I was taken back by the goal, but also I wasn’t shocked that I did that really because I have full belief in myself.
“I knew when I was going onto the pitch that I was going to score, I manifested it. I’d worked very hard to get to that point, so it’s been an amazing feeling, but I’m not shocked.
“I’ve got that fire in my belly ready whenever I’m called upon and hopefully I get the call to come onto the pitch again and then hopefully I can produce.”
Spain winger Lamine Yamal, who celebrates his 17th birthday on Saturday, has been one of the tournament’s outstanding individuals and Watkins admitted that England will need to be wary of a player he described as a “generational talent.”
Asked if he could remember how he spent his 17th birthday, Watkins said: “I definitely wasn’t preparing for a final, I can tell you that. He’s an unbelievable talent. Everybody has seen what he can do. Generational talent.
“It is not often that you are scoring goals against France in the top corner in the semi-final of the Euros when you’re 16. Obviously he’s got the world at his feet and he’s miles ahead of me where I was at 16, 17.
“With social media and all the hype, being at Barcelona and playing for Spain, there’s a lot of hype around him. For me, I feel like you have to have a good close knit group of people around you to keep you grounded and focused. I feel I have that around me, keep me on the straight and narrow and be there as a sounding board.”
Watkins added that England need find a way to deal with Spain captain Rodri. The Manchester City midfielder very rarely loses a game and only saw his 79-match unbeaten run ended by Manchester United in the FA Cup final on May 25.
Asked who he felt is Spain’s key player, Watkins said: “I would definitely say Rodri, just from his experience of, obviously what he’s won at Man City and he’s very crucial for the build up for them defensively. I feel like he dictates games with the way he plays, so I feel like Rodri is the main man for them.”
If England were win their first European Championship title on Sunday, Watkins admitted that he would be up for teammate Kyle Walker‘s idea for the squad to get matching tattoos to commemorate the occasion.
“I haven’t got any tattoos, but I think I’d join in on that one. I think I’d go for the tattoo one. Yeah, I think it’s good,” he said.
There is one goal, and it’s always the same goal for USA Basketball. The only acceptable result from these Paris Olympics is another gold medal.
And the most recent gold was one of the toughest to get.
At the Tokyo Games three years ago, the U.S. trailed Spain by 10 in the quarterfinals, trailed Australia by 15 in the semifinals and beat France by only five in the gold-medal game. It was yet another reminder that in the international game, winning isn’t automatic for the Americans anymore. And frankly, that’s a notion they’re tired of hearing about.
“I hear a lot of people saying everybody’s catching up to us too, so that keeps us hungry, that keeps us motivated,” U.S. guard Devin Booker said. “We have a lot of respect for those guys, but basketball still lies here.”
Call that the mission within the mission for the U.S. in Paris: Winning is the goal, but there’s also a clear sense that it’d be nice to remind the rest of the world that — while there are great players hailing from all over the planet — no nation can put together a roster like the one the Americans have for these games. A 12-man roster, all of them All-Stars, led by veterans like three-time medalists LeBron James and Kevin Durant and an Olympic newcomer in Stephen Curry.
“It’s going to be historic for sure with this team, so I’m just happy to be a part of it, honestly,” said U.S. guard Anthony Edwards, one of the Olympic rookies on the roster. “I ain’t even thought about it too much. Just happy to be a part of it.”
There is history on the line: Durant could become the first men’s player with four Olympic basketball golds, James is seeking a fourth Olympic medal and the Americans are trying to win five Olympic titles in a row for the first time since winning the first seven competitions held from 1936 through 1968.
And the rest of the world is waiting.
Germany is the reigning World Cup champion, winning gold last summer in Manila. Serbia – the first U.S. opponent in France — and Canada also won medals at the World Cup, Canada captured its bronze by beating the Americans. And then there’s France, the home team, a squad that lost the gold-medal game to the U.S. at the Tokyo Games 87-82 after beating the Americans earlier in that tournament and now has both home-soil advantage and Victor Wembanyama leading the way.
“I can’t wait to face them,” Wembanyama said of the Americans.
If that matchup happens, it’ll be in the elimination rounds. France is in Group B, along with Germany, Japan and Brazil. The Group A pairing is Australia, Greece, Canada and Spain — which, top to bottom, would seem to be the toughest. And in Group C, it’s the U.S., Serbia, Puerto Rico and Olympic newcomer South Sudan.
Teams play a round robin against the others in their group. Following those three games, the first- and second-place finishers from each group make the quarterfinals along with the two best third-place teams.
“It just gets you back to just enjoying the, I guess you could say the purity of the game and what it takes to put a 12-man roster together,” Curry said. “And if everybody brings that right energy then we’ll get the most out of this experience.”
Spain is a perennial power and has a now six-time Olympian in Rudy Fernandez, the first men’s basketball player to qualify that many times. Greece has Giannis Antetokounmpo, Canada has Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray, and Australia is still feeling some momentum from three summers ago at the Tokyo Games.
Australia’s 0-for-forever run of medals in major international tournaments finally ended in Tokyo with the bronze, and Patty Mills insists the team can go for more this summer.
“From an all-around talent standpoint, you look at our team and the majority of us are in the NBA … and we’ve got a lot of young guys with a lot of experience, which we haven’t ever really had had before,” Mills said.
Germany won the World Cup last summer and basically brings back much of that team, but will have to deal with France in group play. The winner of their game probably should win the group.
Brazil and Japan will likely need to spring one upset to be assured of getting out of group, or could rely on the third-place spots to advance behind the clear favorites in Group B.
“Last summer’s experience was super special,” Germany’s Franz Wagner said. “Only when we got done did we realize what we had done as a group, not just the accomplishment of winning gold but realizing the chemistry we had as a team.”
Nikola Jokic didn’t even play for Serbia when his nation won silver at the World Cup last summer; adding him to the mix obviously makes that team look even tougher on paper. Puerto Rico won a qualifier earlier this month to get in led by Jose Alvarado, and South Sudan qualified based on its World Cup result a year ago.
The Serbia-U.S. game to open group play will set the tone.
“It will definitely be a spectacle,” Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovic said.
Serbia’s plan will be to use its years of familiarity with one another as the key to beating a team loaded with talent but one that practiced together for the first time earlier this month.
“We are aware that they will be a huge challenge and have a lot of continuity, a lot of players who have played together over the years,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said. “And that’s one of the reasons they’ll be as good as they’ll be.”
What should have been a showpiece game in the semi-final of the Copa America in Charlotte on Wednesday night descended into something more akin to a bar-room brawl as several Uruguay players, including Darwin Nunez and the captain Jose Maria Gimenez, clashed with Colombia supporters in the stands after the final whistle.
It was an ugly, chaotic and extraordinary scene that overshadowed a compelling match, raising serious questions about the security arrangements in place at the Bank of America Stadium as well as CONMEBOL’s decision to stage a game of this magnitude at a venue that was being used for the first time in the tournament.
Another match is taking place at the same stadium on Saturday, when Uruguay return for a third-place play-off against Canada, and there will surely need to be an investigation between now and then to establish the full chain of events that led to the unsavoury scenes that were circulating on social media in the aftermath of Colombia’s 1-0 victory.
Nunez was visibly upset after becoming embroiled in an incident in which punches were traded and objects were thrown in one of the blocks in the lower tier where the families and friends of the Uruguay players were located close to Colombia fans.
Darwin Nunez went into the stand after the match (Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
There was a mixture of anger and frustration in the voices of the Uruguay players afterwards.
“It’s a total disaster,” Gimenez, the Uruguay captain, said. “There wasn’t a single police officer. They showed up half an hour later. A disaster. And we were there, standing up for ourselves, for our loved ones.
“Hopefully, organisers take a little more precautions with our families, with the people and those around the stadiums. Because this happens every game. Our families are suffering because of some people who have a few drinks and don’t know how to drink, who act like children.”
The Uruguayan Football Association (AUF) has said it will analyse all the footage before deciding whether to make an official complaint. But it is clear the AUF believes it was an oversight to put the players’ friends and families in the same area as Colombia supporters without any sort of partition.
“I think there should’ve been some kind of barrier, especially because it was known practically from the beginning of the tournament that the Colombian fans were going to purchase 95 per cent of the tickets and that area (of the stadium) could get complicated,” Ignacio Alonso, the AUF president, said.
As for the actions of Nunez, Gimenez and others, Alonso maintained what they did was only to be expected in the circumstances. “The Uruguayan players reacted instinctively to what is natural: which is to defend and protect the children that were in that part of the stand, the women who were being assaulted, the wives, fathers, children and brothers who were there. It’s an instinctive response of a father,” he added.
The backdrop to all of this is that emotions had been running high at the stadium all night — Colombia played the entire second half with 10 men after Daniel Munoz was shown a red card just before the interval — but it was the final whistle, after seven minutes of stoppage time, that brought the first of two flashpoints.
Initially, there was a melee in the centre circle, where more than 40 players and staff congregated immediately after the game. Some Colombia and Uruguay players embraced one another while others — Uruguay’s Luis Suarez and Colombia’s Miguel Borja among them — became involved in an altercation. There was a lot of pushing and shoving elsewhere but, on the face of it, nothing more sinister than that.
Moments later, though, some of the Uruguay players started to sprint towards the touchline, in an area just to the right of their dugout. At first, it was unclear what was going on, other than that some children wearing Uruguay shirts were being carried out of the lower tier and onto the pitch.
The videos that emerged later provided a fuller picture and showed Nunez, along with Gimenez and the Barcelona defender Ronald Araujo, climbing up into the stand and angrily confronting Colombia supporters. As everything got more heated, Nunez appeared to be struck by one fan. The Liverpool striker also appeared to throw a punch back.
“’Some of the players had wives, small children, their parents, older relatives… They went to see how they were doing,” Suarez said. “Then those things started to happen, the images that you’ve seen. They (Nunez, Gimenez and others) were trying to protect their families. From what I saw, there were a lot of relatives and children affected. You’re left powerless in that situation.”
Contrary to what Gimenez thought, police officers were present at the scene, albeit they took some time — more than 60 seconds — to get the situation under control and needed the help of security personnel.
Prior to that, it had threatened to turn into a free-for-all as other Uruguay players and staff got involved, clambering over seats. Video footage appears to show Rodrigo Bentancur throwing an object of some sort into that area.
As for Nunez, he was clearly still irate and deeply upset by everything that had happened when he got down from the stand. The forward picked up a chair, ran towards an area where Colombia fans were goading him, and threw it into the wall below, prompting some of the Uruguay substitutes to drag him away.
Nunez looked extremely emotional at that point. He was consoled by one of the Uruguay backroom staff on the pitch and also by Suarez and Luis Diaz, the Colombia forward who plays alongside him for Liverpool.
As the dust started to settle and the fans spilt out of the stadium, there were Uruguay players still on the pitch holding their children. Matias Vina had a baby in his hands at one stage, Nicolas de la Cruz sat with his daughter on his knee on the floor, and Nunez was later pictured with a child on his shoulder.
Mathías Viña con su beba en brazos. Los jugadores de Uruguay tuvieron su reacción al ver que sus familias en las tribunas estaban rodeadas de hinchas rivales, los que ya habían tenido cruces en el partido pic.twitter.com/eaOuNfKlq4
The Uruguay players looked like they were in a state of shock as much as anything. “It was an ugly moment,” Sergio Rochet, the Uruguay goalkeeper, said. “It’s not nice to see these problems, especially when your family is only two metres away. We are sad to go out of the tournament and now we have to deal with this situation.
“From what I saw, they (the supporters) started throwing things. You try to stay away from that, but when you see that it’s your family, small children, it’s difficult. I was surprised by the lack of empathy from the Colombia players. I think they should have come to calm the waters.”
Like a lot of people in the stadium, the Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa had no idea what was going on at first. He said he initially thought his players “were going to thank the Uruguayan fans for the support. But then I learned that there were other kinds of unfortunate difficulties.”
As for CONMEBOL, South American football’s governing body issued a statement that made no reference whatsoever to any issues around a lack of organisation at the stadium — something that was evident in so many ways on Wednesday night — or safety problems.
“CONMEBOL strongly condemns any act of violence that affects football,” it said. “Our work is based on the conviction that soccer connects and unites us through its positive values. There is no place for intolerance and violence on and off the field. We invite everyone in the remaining days to pour all their passion into cheering on their national teams and having an unforgettable party.”
(Top photo: Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Flavor Flav realizes it’s an unexpected crossover.
The rap icon once had only a vague awareness of water polo, as he’d seen Olympic matches on television. But Flav has a new appreciation for the sport, marveling at the immense stamina required to play it, after recently signing a five-year sponsorship deal to serve as the official hype man for the U.S. women’s and men’s national water polo teams.
“What type of relationship does rap have with water polo? None,” said Flav.
Until now.
How the collaboration came together is well-documented: Maggie Steffens, the U.S. women’s team’s longtime captain, posted a photo of the players on her Instagram in May with a caption outlining challenges the athletes often face, including that players typically work multiple jobs while pursuing their Olympic dreams. She called on her followers to watch and support women’s sports.
Flav, who said his manager initially flagged the post, responded to the call, pledging his support. Thus, an unprecedented partnership was born. He and Steffens appeared together last Monday on “CBS Mornings,” where Flav announced he would give $1,000 to each team member and a Virgin Voyage cruise to the squad.
The 65-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer told The Athletic he plans to attend the Paris Games, cheering on the team as they aim for a fourth straight Olympic gold medal, a feat that has not yet been accomplished by any men’s or women’s water polo team.
“I’m there to hype them up. I’m there to try to get them into that spirit of winning that fourth gold medal,” Flav said with a confidence befitting his role. “… And I know we can do it. We’re gonna get it.”
Flav also said he plans to attend the women’s team’s final pre-Olympic home match against Hungary. He wrote in a post on X he’ll be at Tuesday’s match in Berkeley, Calif., and will take photos and sign autographs “before and after the game but not during the game” so he can stay locked in.
Imma be at the game on Tuesday,,, I will be taking photos and signing autographs before and after the game but not during the game,,, we all here to cheer on these women https://t.co/8AHYAtzE0R
“I’m trying to get as many people as I can involved,” he said. “Hopefully what I’m doing will open up the doors for other celebrities like myself to help sponsor these Olympic teams, because these (athletes) are out there busting their butts to make the United States look good.”
The U.S. women’s water polo team has welcomed the additional eyeballs as they go for an Olympic record. Coach Adam Krikorian, who has guided the United States to more Olympic golds than any coach on any team in women’s water polo, called it “a sport that’s been starving for attention and looking for notoriety.”
“We are a team that feels like, at times, we go unnoticed,” he said. “And so, when you have someone who’s in the spotlight share their love and their passion for our team, it’s touching. We love it. We embrace it. We hope it inspires others to hop on.”
Krikorian said he doesn’t mind if Flav’s interest encourages a bandwagon group to follow their journey this summer: “We’ll take ’em all. You didn’t need to be with us in the beginning.”
What any new fans will be rallying around is a squad synonymous with success. Since he was hired in 2009, Krikorian and the U.S. women have gone on a staggering run, claiming gold at the last three Olympics and six of the last nine world championships.
But Krikorian — a former UCLA water polo standout who calls the late basketball legend John Wooden his coaching idol — is less concerned with the results. The scores don’t even come up when his staff reevaluates a practice or a game. He preaches presence over perfection, a philosophy he highlighted when discussing Emily Ausmus, an attacker who Krikorian said has taken on a larger role as a defender “headfirst.”
At 18 years old, Ausmus is the team’s youngest player and represents a corps with no Olympic experience on a roster nearly split between first-time Olympians (seven) and returners (six). That experience level is a shift from the last Olympic cycle in Tokyo in 2021 when most players were part of the group that also won gold in Rio in 2016.
On the opposite end of the experience spectrum is Steffens, who helped lead the U.S. to gold at the last three Games. At the Tokyo Olympics, she became the all-time leading scorer in women’s Olympic water polo. And if the U.S. women get gold in Paris, Steffens will become the first water polo player to win four Olympic gold medals in a row.
Steffens, 31, can rattle off a list of younger players on this year’s roster with whom she connected in earlier phases of life, highlighting the full-circle experience for her this Games:
— Ryann Neushul, 24, is the third Neushul sister Steffens will play with at the Olympics. “I remember when she was just a kid,” Steffens said;
— Jenna Flynn and Steffens posed together for a photo at the Rio Games when Flynn was a young fan. “Now she’s at Stanford and here on Team USA and one of my closest friends on the team, and we’re 11 years apart.”
— Jewel Roemer is a Northern California native like Steffens, and Steffens grew up attending men’s scrimmages at Diablo Valley College coached by Roemer’s father. “I remember getting cute videos from (Jewel) saying, ‘Good luck.’”
— Ausmus attended camps and clinics organized by Steffens’ company, 6-8 Sports. “(She was) somebody we talked about five, six, eight years ago, like, ‘Oh my gosh, this girl’s so good and we’re really excited to see her potential.’”
“We’ve really created this special bond,” Steffens said of the younger group. “And I think as much as they look up to me as a leader and have looked up to me since they were kids and followed that path, I think what’s really amazing is I look up to them just as much.”
The U.S. women’s water polo team huddles during the Tokyo gold-medal match. The Americans are vying for a historic fourth straight Olympic gold. (Marcel ter Bals / BSR Agency / Getty Images)
Steffens is sincere in her praise, as she is in her belief in her teammates. Ashleigh Johnson, who is making her third Olympic appearance with Team USA, called Steffens “a dreamer in all senses.”
“When you’re around Maggie, anything is legitimately possible,” said Johnson, 29, the team’s goalkeeper who is widely considered the best in the world at her position. “She’s our captain, but as her friend, she will build a way for any dream to come true. And if you believe something, she believes it and you guys are going to accomplish it together.”
For example, Johnson said, Steffens typically encourages others while grinding through the hardest parts of training or pushing through a final swim set. Outside of the pool, Steffens is the one to land in a new city after 24 hours of traveling and either have a full itinerary ready or explore without a plan. She has an “Energizer Bunny attitude,” according to Johnson.
That boundless energy has carried over into other facets as Steffens and Johnson have become de facto ambassadors of their sport, a role that wasn’t always natural to them. In 2016, Johnson became the first Black woman to make the U.S. Olympic water polo team. She said, over time, she’s felt more empowered to speak about her experiences, share her story and champion diversity to inspire others.
Steffens, who joined the team when she was 15 years old, said it’s taken her 15 or 16 years to find her voice in terms of advocating for women’s athletes and more openly discussing the financial challenges of pursuing the sport.
Olympic water polo training takes place in Southern California, an area of the country with a notoriously high cost of living. In an Olympic year, training is six days a week and is essentially a full-time job for the athletes, Steffens said.
Payouts at the Games depend on the sport, country and finish, but the International Olympic Committee and each sport’s governing body have not traditionally paid winners. In a first for an international federation, World Athletics, which oversees track and field, announced in April it would award $50,000 in prize money to gold medalists at the Paris Games.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee gave athletes $37,500 for winning gold, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze at the Tokyo Olympics.
Steffens said she would play water polo — which doesn’t have a professional women’s league in the U.S. — if she made no money and had to couch surf, but her hope is for future water polo athletes to not have to work other jobs to support themselves while performing at the highest level.
“I would love to see in the future people retire much later in their career because they can afford to keep playing water polo and don’t feel like they have to retire at 22 to get a ‘real job,’” she said.
Any support helps, Steffens said, and Flav’s sponsorship is an example of the payoff she’s seen after posting about the topic.
“One thing that I love about water polo and about our team is it’s a very head-down, humble, hard-work mentality,” Steffens said. “And one of my dreams is to leave the sport and the women in this sport better than when I came in, and hopefully provide more opportunity, provide more exposure, let their stories be told, let their names be heard.”
Steffens knows there’s more work to do and more fans to rally. But each one counts, and so far, she’s hitting her goals.
GO DEEPER
From Stanford to Team USA, a water polo dynasty eyes an Olympic four-peat
(Top illustration of Maggie Steffens and Flavor Flav: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images, Jerod Harris / Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
“Wait,” the NFL Players Association executive director asks, weaving through a crowd of future star players and their entourages convened for a rooftop reception. “Which way is stage right?”
It’s the penultimate night of the NFL Players Association’s Rookie Premiere, a business and marketing orientation for 18 top first-year players. Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye and Brock Bowers are among those mingling, eating and drinking with peers, family members, friends, former NFL stars and current NFLPA business partners. They await the evening’s main event — an unveiling ceremony where the young players will see the game jerseys they will wear this fall.
This is the first Rookie Premiere for Howell, 58, hired by the NFLPA last June after an almost 30-year career at Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor and consulting firm with expertise in cybersecurity, engineering and espionage, where he spent his final years as chief financial officer and treasurer before retiring in December 2022.
Forgive him his directionally challenged moment. Howell has spent the last year crisscrossing the country — meeting with players, owners, agents, general managers, and head coaches on a fact-finding/relationship-building mission — and the fatigue is real. Now, as his first year on the job draws to a close, Howell just has this final obligation to fulfill.
If he can figure out where he’s going.
Finally, he reaches his landmark, and the ceremony proceeds without a hitch. Howell welcomes the ceremony’s emcees, former NFL quarterback Michael Vick and safety Ryan Clark, who impart words of wisdom before directing the unveiling of the jerseys. Howell then introduces the rapper Quavo, who performs a couple of songs before the rookies get their opportunity to pose with their new team-issued attire.
Once in the background, where he prefers to operate, Howell takes in the scene and floats between conversations with Vick, Clark, Williams and Fanatics founder Michael Rubin, his quest for information seemingly never-ending. The owner of a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Penn and an MBA from Harvard, Howell never envisioned working in the NFL universe. But now, the life-long sports fan and self-described “geek” is fully entrenched, with the opportunity to play a pivotal role in the league’s continued growth.
Howell prioritized meeting with players, owners, agents, general managers, and head coaches in his first year as NFLPA executive director. (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Kevin A. Koski / NFLPA)
Howell won his five-year term as executive director last June after a secretive 16-month process largely because his expertise, vision and preparedness impressed the members of the NFLPA executive committee. During his second interview for his position, Howell turned the tables on committee members, grilling the men who would decide his fate rather than fielding their questions.
“He had our entire budget and was going line by line and making comments like, ‘Hey, I’m curious about this. I think this should be changed — just seems like it’s way too high. I really want to look into this, this detail here,’ and ‘Hey, what does this team do? This seems like there might be some crossover here,’” said Washington Commanders running back Austin Ekeler, an NFLPA executive committee member.
“We were blown away. Like, this man didn’t have this information for that long, and he was giving us these analytical breakdowns of things that he would suggest.”
The finances of professional football may have been foreign to Howell, but numbers and business practices were not. Growing up in Philadelphia, Howell learned about business and the importance of a strong work ethic from his father, Lloyd Howell Sr. (“a serial entrepreneur”), and mother Jeanette, a teacher. His love of sports was cultivated during his formative years. Although competitive swimming was uncommon for Black kids in Philadelphia during the 1970s, Howell was one of the early members of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation swimming program (founded by legendary swimming coach James Ellis, the program’s success inspired the 2007 film “Pride”). Howell played football in high school, calling himself an undersized tailback, and received offers to swim collegiately.
Then, in August 1984, just two weeks before Howell was to leave for Penn, Jeanette died of cancer only months after her diagnosis. “It was the first time in my life where your safety net, your everything, it’s just gone,” Howell said. “I found myself forced to think about things in a much more proactive, anticipatory way.”
The analytical approach forged through tragedy served Howell well in college — and as he climbed the ranks in the business world.
“It started as a security reflex, protective thing. And then I found that it had good implications to other aspects to my life, whether it was in school, whether it was business decisions, you name it,” he said. “I found getting into that mode just had all these benefits.”
“Lloyd often uses the term ‘North Star.’ ‘What is the North Star? Where are we going — both organizationally and then for this specific issue? … And in his framing of that discussion, everyone just starts to understand and collaborate,” said Matthew Curtin, who formed a business relationship with Howell during a 25-year span as vice president of J.P. Morgan and then managing director of Bank of America. In March, Curtin followed Howell to the NFLPA, where he is now the president of NFL Players Inc., the union’s licensing and marketing subsidiary.
Despite a change in fields, Howell’s approach has remained the same.
“He has this ability just to dissect the union and open our eyes to things that we might have not really paid attention to or we might let slip through,” said Detroit Lions linebacker Jaylen Reeves-Maybin, who was elected NFLPA president this spring. “And for him being able to do that within a year and see his areas of where he wants to improve, I think that’s been impressive.”
Howell’s hiring did not come without controversy. Former NFLA president JC Tretter said last year the prior two executive director hirings had been too public, so the union’s 32-member board of representatives agreed to allow the 11-player executive committee to vet candidates and approved a constitutional amendment that allowed the names of the finalists to remain secret until it was time for team player representatives to vote their approval.
Then, a month after Howell’s NFLPA hiring, Booz Allen agreed to pay $377 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit alleging the company overcharged the U.S. government to help cover losses in other areas of its business. Booz Allen publicly disclosed the federal probe in June 2017, almost one year after Howell became CFO. A former employee who filed a civil complaint against the company in 2016 alleged in her lawsuit that she raised the issue of financial non-compliance for months with senior executives, including Howell.
His overall resume won over the NFLPA executive committee. Howell is not a lawyer, unlike his predecessor DeMaurice Smith, who during his 14-year tenure with the union negotiated two lucrative collective bargaining agreements with the league. Howell is also not a former NFL player, unlike the late Gene Upshaw, Smith’s predecessor, and a Hall of Fame Oakland Raiders guard who commanded the respect of owners.
The fact Howell was neither proved attractive.
“Because he’s an outsider — because he doesn’t have a stake in the game or a dog in the fight, I think that’s what made him come off as even more genuine in his efforts,” said free-agent safety Michael Thomas, an NFLPA executive committee member. “He’s very real and responds at a high level based off of his knowledge of business. … ‘Well, you know, no, I’ve never worked with NFL owners. But I’ve worked with billionaires before. I haven’t actually talked to (NFL broadcast partners) ESPN, CBS and Fox, but I’ve worked with billion-dollar companies. …
“Either you have that acumen and you have that high-level IQ, or you don’t. He’s smooth in the way he talks, but it’s genuine as he tries to understand and help us understand instead of trying to talk over you or be condescending.”
Once elected as NFLPA executive director, Howell wasted little time trying to learn the mindsets and priorities of both players and the owners. Throughout last season, he embarked on a league-wide tour to meet with each locker room and as many owners and/or general managers as possible.
Establishing a personal connection with NFL owners is vital to Howell’s mission. He believes that without strong relationships and receptiveness, he will fail in his quest to get owners to begin viewing players as business partners rather than commodities. As he met with the 25 owners (or ownership teams) who agreed to sit down with him, Howell worked to learn their perspectives and to educate them on players’ views.
“(They were) well-intended and, I felt, sincere people,” Howell said. “They have been engaging on some of the topics that we’ve talked about. They haven’t — with a few exceptions — they haven’t just been like, ‘Hell no. That won’t happen.’ Some of the topics, it’s more like, ‘Well, it’s complex. We’re gonna have to think about it.’ And I think they’re being sincere in that regard.”
On his Dallas tour stop, Howell scheduled a meeting with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at team headquarters at “The Star” in Frisco, Texas. But when he arrived, Howell was greeted by Jones, his three children, and a host of grandchildren.
“It was important that my family meet him because he’s a part of what we are and he represents the constituency that deserves that from me,” Jones said. “So, it was not only respect deserved, individually speaking, but also as much about the respect owed because he represents all of the players.”
During the more than hour-long visit, the Joneses and Howell talked business — from playing surfaces to player contracts, team facilities to the current and future CBAs — and family. Howell left the meeting having earned Jerry Jones’ respect. He is someone who “wants to get out in front of things and help remedy things before things become a problem,” Jones said. “To me, he seems like someone that can look around corners. … I think that trait’s one of the best.”
Howell’s short-term goals include working on playing surfaces, offseason structures, penalties and fine enforcement. (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Kevin A. Koski / NFLPA)
The NFL declined multiple requests to speak with Roger Goodell for this story, but Howell believes he has established a good working relationship with the commissioner. Their behind-the-scenes work last fall resulted in less-stringent punishments for gambling rules violations on non-NFL contests, which was viewed as a win for the players, but Howell still sees room for improvement on a wide range of issues.
He wants NFL owners to consider an evolution of contracts that includes equity stakes for players. Lionel Messi got such a deal last year from MLS club Inter Miami CF, which gave the soccer star a two-and-a-half-year contract worth up to $150 million that included a future ownership stake in the team.
This spring, news leaked that the NFLPA’s executive board was considering a proposal that would dramatically alter the offseason workout schedule to begin in late June rather than April.
“We are the beneficiaries of growing revenue, popularity, you name it. But nothing lasts forever,” Howell said. “So we have to look at it and evaluate what could be better. What could we do? How do we get in front of this? … We should know what the economics are and then how to optimize it. And for the benefit of all, not just one group.”
Earlier this year, Goodell publicly said the league would eventually like to move to an 18-game regular season. Barring a revision agreed to by both the league and the union, the current CBA prevents that expansion until its expiration in 2030, but Howell sees no point in waiting to begin deliberations.
“I’m glad Roger said 18. I’m glad that he’s leaning into international (games),” Howell said. “I think it gives our guys the opportunity to kind of get their thoughts together, get our position together, to say, ‘This is what and how we’re thinking about it.’”
Howell noted that discussions need to occur about how the additional game would affect, among other things, field surfaces, bye weeks, international travel, practice squads and player compensation. “It sounds attractive. Who doesn’t want to see more football, myself included?” Howell said. “But all these other things have to be worked out.”
Players will not readily agree to an 18-game regular season. And owners will not readily agree to incentives for which players ask. So Howell believes the best way to avoid a lockout in six years is to start talking now.
“It makes no economic sense for anyone to have a strike or a lockout,” he said. “The world’s most popular sports league is going well. How do we keep that going? A lockout is an irrational thing. What’s more rational is, ‘Hey, if I could grow this two times, if I could grow this three times, then we should figure out what the agreements would need to be.’
“That’s what rational private-sector people do.”
Smith presided over CBA negotiations in 2011 (which included a four-month lockout) and 2020, and while those deals ultimately proved lucrative for all involved, the players believed a change in approach was necessary.
“As we talked through the search process about what we needed in the next person, we decided we needed more than just a labor lawyer,” Thomas said. “Because of how much the business of the game has grown, we felt like we needed somebody who can take us even further, help us run as a business, speak the same language as these owners, and Lloyd is exactly that.”
Howell enters Year 2 on the job with eyes on short- and long-term goals. By next summer, he wants to have begun effecting change in NFL playing surfaces, offseason structures, penalties and fine enforcement. Meanwhile, he’ll continue working toward solutions on more complicated matters, like revenue sharing, expanded seasons and teaming with the NFL in its quest for a lasting stake in the international market.
“It all takes time, and we have to approach it all with a healthy amount of analysis, a healthy amount of scrutiny,” Howell said. “But the North Star should definitely be: How do we all get on the same page toward increasing the value of this already growing enterprise?”
The rookies have questions, and Howell has answers.
Amid the marketing tutorials, photoshoots and memorabilia-signing sessions at the Rookie Premiere, Howell picked off players here and there for face-to-face meetings. He wants to establish relationships and start educating the rookies on how the union can help them throughout their careers and beyond. If there’s one thing he learned during his league-wide tour, it’s that far too many NFL players didn’t know about the benefits the NFLPA has to offer.
Given the chance to pick Howell’s brain, players capitalized. Some, like No. 1 pick Williams — the Chicago Bears’ business-savvy quarterback, who made millions in Name, Image and Likeness earnings his final season at USC — had questions about the history and purposes of the salary cap. New England Patriots wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk sought insight on how the league’s fine system works and the assistance that players receive from the NFLPA during the appeals process. Others wondered about benefits, offseason structures, the likelihood of an 18-game season and its impact on rest and recovery time.
Howell made seven figures at Booz Allen and $2.2 million in compensation from the NFLPA in 2023, per Sports Business Journal, but people close to him said he views the union role as a mission. He is fueled by the chance to position current and former NFL players for life-long financial stability and to provide the quality working conditions necessary for improved physical and mental health.
In some ways, the divorced father sees his two adult sons in the young men he now serves. And a deep dive into the history of the NFL and the journey of its players has bolstered Howell’s resolve.
“I’ve always liked challenges even if initially they seem insurmountable,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a hero complex. I don’t know if it’s just a glutton for punishment. But to be able to go into a situation that has a lot of challenges and the odds are stacked against you and to prevail … this is making a difference for young men who are entering into a very complex industry with tremendous pressure.”
(Illustration: Eamon Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Lev Radin / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images)
It’s no exaggeration to say that prospects across the country have had the course of their lives changed thanks to a strong showing during camp season. Let’s take a look at five such prospects in the West that saw their stock rise dramatically in June.
The Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei offense is so loaded with elite players but Bowman will not go unnoticed. He’ll actually be in the running for the top spot in the 2027 tight end rankings after he wowed during spring practice and then looked good at the OT7 finals among many other events this summer.
Bowman is already all of 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, has speed and toughness, can catch the ball in a crowd and has shown on numerous occasions that he can take over a game if the football comes his way. If someone told me that Bowman was a 2025 tight end, I wouldn’t be surprised at all and he would be up toward the top of the rankings in this class.
Texas, USC, Georgia, Alabama and others are all involved already before Bowman starts his sophomore season as he will clearly be one of the top tight end prospects in his class.
*****
On his X profile, Briggs lists his positions as quarterback, tight end, wide receiver, defensive back, strong safety, kick returner and punt returner. That’s fair since the 2026 tight end from Visalia (Calif.) Mount Whitney basically does it all on the football field and his recruitment took off in June as college coaches trekked to Central California.
Briggs is a 6-foot-6, 200-pound prospect so he’s definitely pretty but he’s also a playmaker especially on offense where he lines up as a receiver but probably projects as a fast, versatile tight end in college.
In late May, Edmunds had five offers. By the end of June he was closer to 20 with some of the biggest programs coming after the 2027 quarterback from Huntington Beach, Calif.
Edmunds is a pocket passer at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, and he’s phenomenal there with an easy delivery, placement all over the field and definitely an advanced feel for the position as someone who’s just entering their sophomore season.
Ohio State is definitely an early school to watch as he has a relationship with new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and loved his visit there but Notre Dame, Penn State and some SEC programs are also very involved.
*****
The word from Utah’s summer camps is that Kaufusi was by far the best and most dominant prospect there regardless of position and clearly the top dog along the defensive line where he’s following a family legacy with the Utes as he committed there in June.
At 6-foot-6 and 265 pounds, the Salt Lake City (Utah) Skyline prospect and Utah pledge has all the size, athleticism and power to shine in the Utes’ defensive front and for a group known for dominating by physical will, Kaufusi should fit in perfectly.
Because he committed this summer and he’s a Utah lock, many other programs have moved on but his ranking is about to go up.
The 2026 tight end from Honolulu (Hawaii) Kamehameha does not play a traditional tight end role; he usually comes out of the backfield in an H-back situation in the passing game but it’s clear he has phenomenal skills.
What stands out most about Purcell is that he has awesome hands, catches every ball thrown his way even when it’s thrown behind him and then he has speed once he gets into his route.
June was a huge month for the 2026 prospect as Tennessee, Nebraska and a bunch of other programs got involved and as more coaches see him, the more they’ll get interested.
James Anderson enjoyed a fitting farewell to Test cricket as England routed West Indies by an innings and 114 runs on the third morning of the series opener at Lord’s.
Anderson claimed three second-innings wickets in his 188th and final Test to end up with 704 in his career, third on the all-time list behind Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708).
The 41-year-old produced a peach of a delivery – angling in, then curling away – to nick off Joshua Da Silva (9) having walked out to a guard of honour from both sets of players before West Indies resumed on 79-6 and trailing by 171 runs.
Anderson had the chance to take the winning wicket – just as Stuart Broad had done when he bowed out from cricket in the final Ashes Test at The Kia Oval last summer – but he dropped West Indies’ Gudakesh Motie in his follow through.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Anderson dismissed Joshua Da Silva with a peach of a delivery to claim his 704th Test wicket
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Stuart Broad could not believe it as Anderson missed a relatively simple catch that would have seen him take a wicket with his final ball
That left the 12-wicket Gus Atkinson to polish things off just over an hour into the day’s play when Jayden Seales holed out at deep midwicket, with West Indies rolled for 136 in 47 overs.
Atkinson is the first England bowler to take a 10-wicket match haul on debut since John Lever in India in 1976 and the first to do so at home since Alec Bedser against India at Lord’s in 1976.
He also bounced out Alzarri Joseph (8) and then bowled Shamar Joseph (3) off stump on the final morning, as he backed up his 7-45 in the first innings with 5-61 in West Indies’ second dig.
Anderson received another guard of honour as he left the field and will now take up a role as bowling mentor for the rest the summer, despite wishing he was not being forced into retirement as England prepare for the 2025/26 Ashes series in Australia.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ahead of his final day of Test cricket, Anderson was given an emotional guard of honour by both sets of players
England thrash inexperienced West Indies at Lord’s
The bulk of the damage for West Indies was done on day one with Kraigg Brathwaite’s side bundled out for 121 as they were shredded by Atkinson in overcast conditions.
There were occasional bright spots for West Indies in the game – opener Mikyle Louis shaped up nicely on debut and produced a stunning run out, while Seales claimed four wickets.
But the inexperience of the batting line-up means England will be red-hot favourites to wrap up a series win with a match to spare in the second Test at Trent Bridge from Thursday, albeit that they will not have Anderson in their XI.
Thursday 18th July 10:00am
Matthew Potts and the uncapped Dillon Pennington were the seamers in the squad omitted at Lord’s so one of them will likely play in Nottingham, perhaps both if England opt to rotate the attack.
Highlights for England at Lord’s included the performances of new boys Atkinson and Jamie Smith.
Atkinson bowled with pace, hostility and no little skill, while Smith kept crisply either side of showing his qualities with the bat in a knock of 70 from 119 balls.
The 24-year-old, who displaced Surrey team-mate Ben Foakes as England wicketkeeper, began his innings in measured fashion before accelerating once left batting with the tail.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Watch the best of Jamie Smith’s 70 from 119 balls on debut for England at Lord’s
Ben Stokes’ return to bowling was also a huge boost for England, with the skipper getting through 18 overs in the match having fully recovered from knee surgery.
He bowled eight overs unchanged in West Indies’ first innings and then 10 in a row in the second during a game in which he passed 200 Test wickets, becoming only the third player, after Sir Garfield Sobers and Jacques Kallis, to marry that achievement with over 6,000 runs.
Anderson’s milestones were the takeaways from the game, though, with the seamer also passing 40,000 balls bowled in a Test career that that began in 2003 and is unlikely to ever be replicated.
Anderson: Playing for England the best job in the world
James Anderson, speaking to Sky Sports:
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Anderson reflected on the end of his 21-year Test career when he spoke to Sky Sports’ Nasser Hussain in the England dressing room
“It’s been quite an amazing week. I’ve been overwhelmed with the reaction of the crowd and everyone around the ground, and the lads as well. I’m just proud of what I’ve achieved.
“This morning was emotional with the two teams lined up, and the reaction from the crowd was pretty special. I’m still trying to hold (tears) back. I am just really proud.
“Playing for 20-odd years is an incredible effort, especially for a fast bowler, so I’m happy I’ve made it this far and happy I’ve been lucky enough to stay injury-free pretty much throughout my career.
“Playing for England is the best job in the world and I’ve been privileged to do it for a long time.”
Watch day one of the second Test between England and West Indies, from Trent Bridge, live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10am on Thursday (first ball to be bowled at 11am).
Stream Sky Sports live with no contract on a Month or Day membership on NOW. Instant access to live action from football, darts, cricket, F1, tennis, golf, rugby league, rugby union and more.
Turron Davenport covers the Tennessee Titans for ESPN. Turron is a former collegiate football player at Cheyney University and is a native of Philadelphia, and he has authored/co-authored four books. You can catch Turron on ESPN Radio on his show “Talking with TD” and you can follow him on Twitter: @TDavenport_NFL.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Second-year Tennessee Titans safety Matthew Jackson‘s first NFL snap is one he’ll always remember. Having grown up in a housing complex called CWA Plaza in the shadows of Nissan Stadium, the Titans’ home was in eyesight of his residence — where all he had to do was cross the street to be on the premises.
So when Jackson lined up alongside veteran kicker Nick Folk as part of the coverage unit for the season-opening kickoff against the New Orleans Saints, the only thing he could think of was how electrifying the setting was at the Caesars Superdome as he donned the colors of the team that he grew up envying, and everything seemed like a movie.
“That was probably the biggest atmosphere of my life,” Jackson told ESPN. “You don’t forget when the bright lights are on and that was probably the loudest stadium I ever played in.”
The Superdome attendance dwarfed the size crowds Jackson was used to playing in front of in college at Eastern Kentucky. And there definitely weren’t waves of people piling in to watch Jackson play at Hillsboro High School in Nashville.
Jackson was born in Chicago, but he moved to Nashville with his mom and brother when he was a year old.
His mother, Andrea Clark, had Jackson at the age of 19. She received a full scholarship through the United Negro College Fund to attend Fisk University in Nashville at the time, but it required her to start school soon after taking a year off. So she moved south, where she worked a customer service job on top of school to make ends meet once they arrived.
It wasn’t until the first grade that Jackson started playing organized football. Clark needed to find an outlet that allowed her son to burn off extra energy. Jackson’s teachers used to call Clark sometimes because they felt he was disrupting the learning environment.
“I put him in football so I wouldn’t lose my job,” Clark said. “I wanted to prevent myself from having to keep leaving work.”
Football practice was the outlet Jackson needed.
“Football was an answer that I didn’t know I was praying for because I was like, ‘I don’t know how to handle him,’” Clark said. “He’s always been so high energy.”
JACKSON WAS A standout in track and field as a long jumper in addition to football during his high school days.
Attending a magnet school like Hillsboro offered Jackson the opportunity to get away from the type of neighborhood he grew up in. He had to get up early in the morning to take two city busses to get to school.
“Understanding where I grew up, where I was going to go to, as far as what zone school I was in, I knew it was a better opportunity,” Jackson said. “I could have ended up like the regular statistics, either being shot dead or gang banging at my zone school and not taking the smart way or the career path.”
Jackson admittedly didn’t get the same attention as some of the more prominent Nashville area high school football players. While other local players in Jackson’s class received offers from bigger schools, programs like Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee State along with Murray State, Samford, UT Martin came calling for him.
Jackson’s dad, Brian, who still resides in Chicago, simply told him he’d just have to work a little harder than some of his peers. Ultimately Jackson decided to play for Eastern Kentucky where he moved to linebacker. That’s when things really started to come together.
As a redshirt junior, Jackson started six out of eight games in 2020 where he had 79 tackles, and he cemented himself as a pro prospect the following season when he earned the first of two consecutive All-Atlantic Sun Conference selections. A career-high 102 tackles in 2021 landed Jackson as the Atlantic Sun Conference defensive player of the year and Buck Buchanan Award finalist, which is given to top FCS defensive player.
The final year at Eastern Kentucky was good enough to gain invites to college all star games like the Dream Bowl and the National Gridiron Showcase. But Jackson was without an agent since most of them abandoned him after he suffered a concussion midway through his senior season.
Local agent Zach Spires, from Aspires Sports Management, found out about Jackson through a client named Shedrick Kirk. Jackson and Kirk, who plays for the Nashville Kats Arena Football team, trained together at X3 Performance and Physical Therapy Center in Nashville.
Jackson’s parents paid for his training at X3. His dad, who also played high school football, saw the vision and saved up money over the years. Clark took on a second job to help cover the expenses. X3 was their choice because they wanted Jackson to stay close to Nashville where he had a support system to help with his daughter, Summer, who is now 3.
Eastern Kentucky’s pro day was next, with 12 teams in attendance, none of which were the Titans. But Titans scouting coordinator Patrick Woo had his eyes on Jackson and helped get him to the team’s local pro day. Safety coach Scott Booker, who has since moved on to the Buffalo Bills, also took interest in Jackson.
Despite playing outside linebacker in college, Jackson tested well in safety drills resulting in he, and Colton Dowell, being asked to stay after the pro day to talk with then-coach Mike Vrabel.
The Titans selected Dowell, a wide receiver out of Tennessee-Martin in the seventh round, and like Jackson, Dowell attended high school (Wilson Central) locally. Jackson signed with the Titans as an undrafted free agent, joining Eastern Kentucky teammate TK McLendon Jr.
“I think the Titans were the best fit, so we got that deal done,” Spires told ESPN. “We had a few undrafted free agent contract offers, and the Titans just wanted him to come to minicamp.”
JACKSON HAS FOND memories from attending Titans games as a kid. He remembers the glory days of Chris Johnson, who became the sixth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season in 2009, and seeing former 2015 No. 2 pick Marcus Mariota‘s career get off to a hot start in Tennessee as well. When he was in high school, Jackson became a fan of former Titans safety Kevin Byard III — who was traded last season to the Philadelphia Eagles — because they played the same position.
Before the trade, Jackson’s locker was directly across from Byard. It was a perfect opportunity to learn from one of the best. Byard invited Jackson to train with Jeremy Holt, of AthElite Performance in Nashville, to prepare for training camp.
The extra work paid off as Jackson secured a spot on the 53-man roster. But cutdown day was a rollercoaster ride.
Jackson was at the rookie hotel when his phone rang. A Titans representative told him to report to Vrabel’s office. Jackson walked in and Vrabel was sitting there with general manager Ran Carthon.
Instead of leading off with a statement like, “You made the team,” Carthon and Vrabel pointed out things Jackson needed to work on. At that point, Jackson embraced what would come next — even if that meant he was getting released. Then they told him he made the initial 53-man roster.
“It was just a dream come true at that point,” Jackson said.
Jackson played mostly on special teams and finished with six tackles in 10 games last season. Entering Year 2, Jackson will likely work with the second unit at safety behind starter Amani Hooker when the Titans report for training camp on July 23.
Despite moving to Nashville as a toddler, Jackson said he “kind of grew up as a Bears fan” as well. So a little extra may be on the line when the Titans open the season at the Chicago Bears on Sept. 8. “That should be a big one,” Jackson said with a smile.
The All-Star break is almost upon us, when the baseball world will pause to watch some of the biggest names in baseball participate in the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas.
The break might be a welcome reset for a number of clubs such as the Yankees, Mariners and Royals, who have all dropped more than half of their games since mid-June and hope to stop their respective skids. On the other hand, teams like the Phillies, Guardians, Orioles and Red Sox are all riding hot streaks that they’ll try to continue in the second half.
So, where do all 30 clubs stand ahead of some of the most anticipated baseball events of the summer?
Our expert panel has combined to rank every team based on a combination of what we’ve seen so far and what we already knew going into the 162-game marathon that is a full baseball season. We also asked ESPN MLB experts David Schoenfield, Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers, Alden Gonzalez and Jorge Castillo to weigh in with an observation for all 30 teams.
The Phillies lead all teams with seven All-Star selections, setting a franchise record. Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Alec Bohm were elected as starters, while starting pitchers Zack Wheeler and Ranger Suarez made it along with relievers Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm. The Phillies had never had six All-Star reps before, with five making it on six different occasions, most recently in 2011 (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Shane Victorino, Placido Polanco). Turner becomes the first Phillies shortstop to make it since Jimmy Rollins in 2005 and the first to start since Rollins in 2002. Wheeler has already said he won’t pitch in the game, but Suarez says he wants to pitch. Harper just came off the injured list, but if he does start at first base, he’d be the first Phillies starter at first since John Kruk in 1993. — Schoenfield
Record: 57-35 Previous ranking: 2
Jordan Westburg was all over snub lists after the reserves were announced Sunday. Two days later, the outrage was quelled when the third baseman was named the Orioles’ fourth All-Star, replacing Boston’s Rafael Devers on the squad. While most of the attention goes to All-Star starters Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, Westburg has quietly been one of the most productive hitters in the majors, slashing .280/.327/.512 in his second season. He ranks in the top 15 in the American League in both wRC+ and Fangraphs WAR. The Orioles have the best record in the AL and arguably the deepest lineup in the majors. A fourth All-Star was warranted. — Castillo
Record: 55-38 Previous ranking: 4
Tyler Glasnow was selected to his first All-Star team on Sunday. Two days later, lingering tightness in his lower back forced him to the IL, where he joined a who’s who of Dodgers starters on the shelf — Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Emmet Sheehan, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin. The Dodgers have a starting pitching problem. A pretty big one, actually. They’re now counting on four rookies and one James Paxton to make up their rotation. And one of those rookies, Bobby Miller, allowed 19 runs in 17⅓ innings after returning from a shoulder injury and was optioned to the minor leagues on Tuesday. So, yes, the Dodgers will need rotation help before the trade deadline. — Gonzalez
Record: 57-34 Previous ranking: 5
Cleveland will send five players to the All-Star Game: starters Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan, plus first baseman Josh Naylor, DH David Fry and closer Emmanuel Clase. For Ramirez, it’s his sixth All-Star selection and his first time starting since 2018. It’s the first time Cleveland has had five All-Star reps since six made it in 2018 (Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Michael Brantley and Yan Gomes) and Kwan is the first outfielder since Brantley was selected that year. Fry is one of the biggest surprises of the first half, a 28-year-old minor league veteran who made the team out of spring training as a utility player. — Schoenfield
Record: 56-38 Previous ranking: 3
Aaron Judge and Juan Soto were named All-Star Game starters last week, with Judge leading all vote-getters. Duh. Clay Holmes was named the Yankees’ third All-Star on Sunday, as chosen by league officials. Huh? Holmes was unequivocally one of the best closers in baseball until the middle of June. He didn’t allow an earned run in his first 20 appearances. But he has given up nine runs, eight earned, and blown two saves over his past seven outings, a stretch that mirrors the Yankees’ recent nosedive. It would’ve made more sense for the players to have voted in Holmes, but for the league to choose him over other more worthy relievers when the Yankees already had two representatives was a surprise. — Castillo
Record: 54-39 Previous ranking: 7
Christian Yelich is back! What a first half for the longtime star of the Brewers after some down moments over the past few seasons since he won the MVP award in 2018. He was never awful (outside of 2020) but between some back issues and a drop in power, Yelich didn’t look like a guy who could get back to those elite numbers from the past decade. But he has done exactly that, making his third All-Star team despite missing almost a month with an injury. It helps to lead the league in hitting, including a nifty .329 batting average against left-handed pitching. Everyone loves a comeback story, and Yelich’s return to the elite in the league is a good one. — Rogers
Record: 51-40 Previous ranking: 6
The Braves made an important statement over the weekend, taking two of three from the Phillies. In the finale on Sunday, Reynaldo Lopez pitched six shutout innings to run his record to 7-2 and lower his ERA to 1.71. He was then rewarded with his first All-Star selection. Fellow starter Chris Sale and DH Marcell Ozuna also made it. Sale made it to the Midsummer Classic seven consecutive seasons with the White Sox and Red Sox from 2012 to 2018 and started the game from 2016 to 2018. He’s the only pitcher to start three straight All-Star Games. Ozuna was selected for this third All-Star Game, but first since 2017 with the Marlins. — Schoenfield
Record: 53-40 Previous ranking: 8
The Twins, despite owning the seventh-best record in the majors, had just Carlos Correa make the initial AL roster. They deserved more love. Jose Miranda‘s historic streak of hits in 12 consecutive at-bats came too late for real consideration, but Byron Buxton, Willi Castro and Ryan Jeffers had the numbers to warrant a selection. The vote here goes to Castro. Positional versatility has become more valued than ever, but reciprocating accolades don’t exist for utility players. Castro, 27, is having a career year at the plate, posting a 128 wRC+ in a team-high 93 games while making at least 10 starts at five positions (2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF). Maybe it’s time MLB creates a utility spot for each roster. — Castillo
Record: 50-41 Previous ranking: 12
Devers had quite the weekend. Off the field, the third baseman was named an All-Star for the third time in his career. On it, he terrorized the Yankees in the Bronx yet again, going 7-for-12 with three home runs as the Red Sox took two of three games from their rivals at Yankee Stadium. His 16 home runs in 57 career games at Yankee Stadium are the most of any visitor since the start of the 2017 season. He’s enjoying the best season of his stellar career, slashing .292/.377/.587 with 21 home runs and a 162 OPS+. And he’s done it all with a sore left shoulder that has bothered him since spring training, costing him 11 games in early April, and will keep him from participating in the All-Star Game. — Castillo
Record: 51-43 Previous ranking: 9
The Mariners might not seem like a first-place club, but they do in fact still lead the AL West and have topped the division for nearly two months. That being the case, perhaps they deserved more than one All-Star, which turned out to be righty starter Logan Gilbert. Gilbert is a no-brainer, but you can make a case that George Kirby has been even better. Rather than picking one over the other, both should have made it. Also, Cal Raleigh is right there in the second tier of catchers, joining Salvador Perez (who made it), Logan O’Hoppe and Ryan Jeffers. Raleigh has been one of the most valuable defenders in baseball and, at the plate, leads the woeful Mariners offense in win probability added. — Doolittle
Record: 48-44 Previous ranking: 11
With Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez both named starters through the fan balloting, this season marks just the fourth time the Astros have had multiple starters in an All-Star Game. Both are deserving. So, too, is injured outfielder Kyle Tucker, who has been out for more than a month. That he still made the AL roster shows just how well he was playing before going down and underscores the fact that the league is short on star-level performances from outfielders. Houston didn’t have any major oversights, though starter Ronel Blanco had to merit some consideration. Altuve joins Roberto Alomar and Rod Carew as the only AL second basemen selected at least six times by the fans. He’s pretty good. — Doolittle
Record: 49-47 Previous ranking: 13
Fernando Tatis Jr., previously named one of the National League’s starting outfielders, is expected to remain out through at least the end of the month because of a stress reaction in his femur. But fellow high-priced star Xander Bogaerts could return from his shoulder injury as early as Friday. And the Padres’ other high-priced star, Manny Machado, has heated up. Machado is slashing .298/.348/.496 since the start of June, a run culminated by a walk-off home run against the D-backs on Friday. The Padres went on to lose the next four games. But if Machado can stay hot, they’ll be in good shape. — Gonzalez
Record: 51-43 Previous ranking: 10
What’s the bigger surprise: That the Royals got four All-Stars on the AL squad for the first time since 2016? Or that all four of those players deserved it? Or that all four players not only deserved the honor, but that the process actually recognized them? That Bobby Witt Jr., Salvador Perez, Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans all are headed to Arlington is not just a testament to Kansas City’s surprise success this season, but how much of that success has been a product of the top players on the roster. Witt deserved to start, but it’s hard to argue with the fans for voting Henderson as the AL’s game-opening shortstop. As for Lugo, he deserves to start the game for the AL, and if that happens, there’s another surprise given preseason expectations. — Doolittle
Record: 48-44 Previous ranking: 15
It’s kind of an interesting twist that a current wild-card team has just one All-Star and he’s the closer. But that’s how good Ryan Helsley has been for St. Louis, finishing a league-leading 38 games on the mound with an MLB-leading 31 saves. It’s Helsley’s second All-Star appearance as he has quietly put together a really good career, both as a middle man and ninth-inning expert. The Cardinals aren’t using him to clean up dirty innings this season, which saves some wear and tear on his arm. That bodes well for the second half. With a save percentage of 94% so far, Helsley is a big reason St. Louis is in playoff position. — Rogers
Record: 46-47 Previous ranking: 16
First base in the NL is a tough field to crack, but when you’re identifying players who were snubbed from the initial unveiling of All-Star rosters, Christian Walker is undoubtedly among the most prominent. Walker is the sport’s best defensive first baseman, a back-to-back Gold Glove Award winner who rankssixth in outs above average — among all positions, including the ones with more playmaking opportunities — since the start of 2022. This year, he has taken his offense to another level, his adjusted OPS jumping to 137. That his All-Star snub came shortly after he belted five home runs in one three-game series from Dodger Stadium made it all the more glaring. — Gonzalez
Record: 46-45 Previous ranking: 14
Pete Alonso is the Mets’ lone All-Star representative, and he will also participate in his fifth consecutive Home Run Derby. Alonso was a bit of a controversial choice over Arizona’s Walker, who is having a more productive all-around season. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo also have a sizable edge in WAR over Alonso and would have been better choices, but it was a bit of a roster crunch at their positions.
Mookie Betts and Elly De La Cruz were elected by the players at shortstop (while Turner was elected starter), and CJ Abrams was selected as the Nationals’ rep, so there were already four shortstops (although Betts is injured). Teoscar Hernandez, Jackson Merrill and Bryan Reynolds were the player-elected backups at outfielder. Heliot Ramos also made it, and since the Giants already had a rep in Logan Webb, the league could have left off Ramos and gone with Nimmo there and Walker instead of Alonso. — Schoenfield
Record: 44-49 Previous ranking: 19
That the Rangers landed two players on the AL roster for an All-Star Game they are hosting is both about right and disappointing. It’s also questionable that the right two players made it. It’s hard to argue with closer Kirby Yates’ selection. At 37, Yates has climbed back to the level he was at in 2019 before getting hurt, when he was one of baseball’s most electric relievers. He’s not as dominant but just as effective, and that’s been a godsend for the Texas bullpen. Marcus Semien is a great player, but he has been struggling for weeks, and there were other, more deserving players on the Rangers, such as infield mates Josh Smith and Corey Seager. Smith in particular would have been an inspired selection. — Doolittle
Record: 44-49 Previous ranking: 18
Hunter Greene’s path to becoming an All-Star has been full of ups and downs, but, ultimately, for every step backward, he took two forward. And even though he has his share of control problems — he currently leads the league in HBP — he has harnessed his immense talent to the point of dominating hitters when he’s on his game. Last season, he gave up a hit per inning pitched, whereas this year he’s given up just 76 in 104 innings. That’s lowered his WHIP from 1.420 to a sparkling 1.141. That’s a lot fewer baserunners to contend with despite the occasional hit batter. His selection for the game in Arlington cements him as the Reds’ ace. — Rogers
Record: 45-48 Previous ranking: 20
Heliot Ramos was basically an afterthought when he was called up to reinforce an injury-ravaged Giants outfield in the early part of May. Now he’s an All-Star — the first homegrown Giants outfielder to receive that honor since Chili Davis way back in 1986. He’s a deserving one, too. Ramos, a 2017 first-round pick who’s still only 24, has slashed .301/.372/.530 with 13 home runs while locking down center field in place of an injured Jung Hoo Lee. The Giants’ season has been marred by injuries and underperformance, but Ramos (and Logan Webb, surprisingly also a first-time All-Star) has been a major bright spot. — Gonzalez
Record: 45-47 Previous ranking: 17
In a lineup featuring Yandy Diaz, the reigning AL batting champion, and Randy Arozarena, it’s been Isaac Paredes leading the offensive charge for the Rays. The third baseman will be Tampa Bay’s lone representative at the All-Star Game, and deservedly so. Paredes is batting .265 with a team-leading 15 home runs and .830 OPS. His emergence represents another win for the Rays’ front office, which acquired him and a draft pick from the Tigers for outfielder Austin Meadows before the start of the 2022 season. — Castillo
Record: 44-48 Previous ranking: 21
It’s one of the greatest accomplishments for a young player: getting drafted one summer and then making MLB’s All-Star team the next. Paul Skenes is already a star, and now the world will get to see him on one of the biggest stages. He shouldn’t start the game — that’s reserved for those who have accomplished more in the first half — but everyone needs to see him throw an inning of 100 mph fastballs. That’s part of the fun of the Midsummer Classic. — Rogers
Record: 44-49 Previous ranking: 23
It’s telling of their season that the Cubs have $20 million-plus players all over the diamond, but it’s a rookie — Shota Imanaga — who is their lone All-Star. Another rookie, first baseman Michael Busch, probably should have made it, while Ian Happ’s late first-half surge didn’t net him a bid either. It underscores the point that Chicago has a bunch of solid players but no current or budding superstars. They don’t grow on trees, but most championship-caliber clubs — by definition — have one or two of them. The Cubs are still looking. — Rogers
Record: 44-49 Previous ranking: 24
Two of the Tigers’ most prominent young players, Spencer Torkelson and Colt Keith, have taken their lumps this season. But another, Riley Greene, has thrived. On Sunday, Greene, the 23-year-old No. 5 pick from five years ago, was named to his first All-Star team, joining teammate Tarik Skubal, who’s a legitimate Cy Young contender. With Torkelson in Triple-A and Kerry Carpenter injured, Greene has been counted on to carry a mostly anemic Tigers offense and has responded by producing an .849 OPS, 17 homers and five triples in 92 games. His defense in left field has also been solid. — Gonzalez
Record: 42-51 Previous ranking: 22
CJ Abrams had an All-Star-caliber first half and was rewarded with his first All-Star selection. Hopefully it will be the first of many, as only one Expos/Nationals shortstop has ever made it more than once. The complete list: Hubie Brooks (1986, 1987), Wil Cordero (1994), Mark Grudzielanek (1996), Cristian Guzman (2006), Ian Desmond (2012), Trea Turner (2019). None of them started, so the Nationals have never had an All-Star starter at shortstop — or third base. Longtime third baseman Ryan Zimmerman did start one All-Star Game, but it was in 2017 after he had moved to first base. Abrams certainly has a chance to have the best season for a Nationals shortstop. He’s on pace for 6 WAR; the franchise record is 4.7, shared by Turner and Brooks. — Schoenfield
Record: 42-50 Previous ranking: 25
Toronto’s offense has been putrid, ranking in the bottom five in MLB in runs scored per game, but it’s not Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s fault. Guerrero, 25, elected by fans as the AL’s starting first baseman, has rebounded after a slow start, batting close to .350 with six home runs since June 19. On the season, he’s registering a .290/.364/.454 slash line with 13 home runs and a 132 OPS+. Just two other qualified Blue Jays (Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Justin Turner) have an OPS+ north of 98. It’s the fourth All-Star nod for Guerrero, who will be the last-place Blue Jays’ only representative in Texas. — Castillo
Record: 38-54 Previous ranking: 26
By rule, someone on the Angels had to be on the roster. It turns out that their lone representative will be starter Tyler Anderson, added by the league office at the end of the process. Anderson is deserving, however, and can hold his head high as he flies off to Texas. As a headliner on the trade deadline rumor mill, maybe the biggest question is whether some aggressive suitor will pry him away from the Halos before the All-Star Game actually gets here. While the Angels were short on All-Star candidates in general, a solid argument could be made for Logan O’Hoppe as a member of the tier of AL catchers one level below Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman. — Doolittle
Record: 35-59 Previous ranking: 27
Sometimes you have to dig deep to find an All-Star on a dreadful team, but that’s not the case for Oakland thanks to the presence of scintillating reliever Mason Miller. Miller has been one of the game’s very best relievers and is a big reason why, as bad as the Athletics have been, things could be a lot worse. The A’s probably don’t need more than one representative, given their place in the standings, but it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if Brent Rooker had been selected as the AL’s second DH behind Yordan Alvarez. In a world where Miller had not broken out, perhaps Rooker would have been Oakland’s default choice. — Doolittle
Record: 33-60 Previous ranking: 29
Fans tend to shrug at the concept of every team having to be represented at the All-Star Game, but a Rockies club that has been one of the sport’s worst got a very deserving All-Star nod in the form of Ryan McMahon. For years, McMahon has been an elite defender at third base but has hovered around league average offensively. Now, in his age-29 season, his bat has finally lined up with his glove, his OPS rising from .759 the past four years to .801 this season. The Rockies haven’t done a lot of things right in recent years, but signing McMahon to a six-year, $70 million extension before the 2022 season was clearly a sound decision. “What’s the saying, ‘Always a bridesmaid, never a bride?’” McMahon told reporters upon getting his first All-Star invite. “I feel like I’m getting married finally.” — Gonzalez
Record: 32-60 Previous ranking: 28
Unsurprisingly, the Marlins ended up with just one All-Star in reliever Tanner Scott. He was really their only reasonable option, but he’s having an excellent season with an ERA under 2.00, overcoming some wildness early on (he had 17 walks in his first 17 innings). Scott becomes the first Marlins reliever to make it since Fernando Rodney and AJ Ramos in 2016. (Rodney had spent most of that season with the Padres but was traded to the Marlins before the All-Star Game.) A trade could also be in Scott’s future, as he’s a free agent after this season. — Schoenfield
Record: 27-68 Previous ranking: 30
For the first time since 2009, a Chicago team won’t be sending a position player to the All-Star Game, but the White Sox have made up for that by sending arguably the AL’s best first-half pitcher. Garrett Crochet doesn’t have all the counting stats, such as wins or innings pitched, that some counterparts have, but in terms of the eye test, he might be at the top of the list. The team has been careful with his workload, considering he’s starting for the first time in his career, but Crochet leads the league in one counting stat: strikeouts. Every single pitch he throws, save his changeup, has a strikeout percentage of 30% or higher. He’s simply been electric. — Rogers
LONDON — Jasmine Paolini kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back, against Donna Vekic in what would become the longest Wimbledon women’s semifinal on record — after dropping the opening set, after being two games from defeat in each of the last two sets, after twice trailing by a break in the third.
And all the while, this is what Paolini kept telling herself Thursday: “Try, point by point” and “Fight for every ball.”
Paolini never had won a match at the All England Club until last week and now will participate in her second consecutive Grand Slam final, thanks to a rollicking 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) victory over the unseeded Vekic across 2 hours, 51 minutes on Centre Court.
“This match,” said the No. 7-seeded Paolini, who faces No. 31 Barbora Krejcikova for the title, “I will remember forever.”
As will many of the thousands who were present or the millions watching on TV.
“It was,” Paolini said, “a rollercoaster of emotions.”
The same could be said of the second semifinal, which lasted 44 fewer minutes but contained its own share of plot twists as 2021 French Open champion Krejcikova came back to eliminate 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Whoever wins on Saturday will be the eighth woman to leave the All England Club with the title in the past eight editions of the tournament.
Krejcikova trailed 4-0 at the start, reeled off four of five games to take the second set, then earned the pivotal break to move ahead 5-3 in the third against Rybakina, who entered the day with a 19-2 career mark at the All England Club.
“During the second set, somewhere in the middle, I was getting my momentum,” Krejcikova said. “And when I broke her, I started to be in a zone — and I didn’t want to leave the zone.”
Still, it couldn’t approach the drama produced by Paolini and Vekic.
Consider: Vekic, making her debut in a Slam semifinal, ended up claiming more points (118-111), delivering more winners (42-26) and breaking serve more often (4-3).
“She was hitting winners everywhere,” Paolini said.
But Paolini never went away, eventually converting her third match point when Vekic sent a forehand wide. This showing on the grass courts at Wimbledon follows Paolini’s runner-up finish to Iga Swiatek on the red clay at the French Open last month.
Paolini, a 28-year-old from Italy, is the first woman to get to the title matches at Roland Garros and the All England Club in the same season since Serena Williams in 2016.
“These last months have been crazy for me,” Paolini said with a laugh.
Her win was anything but easy. Exhausting would be a more appropriate word.
Vekic often was in obvious distress, crying between points and while sitting in her changeover chair late in the third set — because, she said afterward, of pain in an arm and a leg — and often looked up at her guest box with a flushed face. She iced her right forearm between games.
“I thought I was going to die in the third set,” said Vekic, who repeatedly closed her eyes, sighed or shook her head during her news conference.
“I didn’t know how,” she said, “I could keep playing.”
How surprising is Paolini’s recent surge?
She never had managed to make it past the second round at any major tournament — losing in the first or second round in 16 appearances in a row — until she got to the fourth round at the Australian Open in January.
And then there’s this: Paolini’s career record at Wimbledon was 0-3 until this fortnight. Indeed, she did not own a single tour-level win on grass anywhere until a tuneup event at Eastbourne last month.
Krejcikova, a 28-year-old from the Czech Republic, is not nearly as out-of-nowhere, given that she has been a Grand Slam champion and ranked No. 2 in singles, as well as a seven-time major champ and No. 1 in doubles. She’s also now 6-2 at major tournaments against past Slam champs.
Her mentor, the late Jana Novotna, won Wimbledon in 1998, and Krejcikova teared up while speaking about her influence.
“I have so many beautiful memories, and when I step on the court here, I’m just fighting for every single ball, because I think that’s what she would want me to do,” Krejcikova said. “I just miss her very much. I miss her so much.”
Like Krejcikova, Paolini needed about 1 1/2 sets to get going. Her never-give-up attitude was apparent at 4-all in the second, when she sprinted with her back to the net to put her racket on a lob, somehow getting it back over the net, and Vekic badly missed an overhead.
Paolini held there to lead 5-4, then broke for the set with a forehand winner, looked up at her guest box — where her relatives and her doubles partner, Sara Errani, were on their feet — and screamed, “Forza!” (“Let’s go!”)
Vekic, playing her fifth three-setter in six matches, headed to the locker room before the last set, recalibrated and came out strong. She broke in the opening game, helped by a forehand return winner on a second serve, followed by Paolini’s missed forehand on an 11-stroke exchange.
Soon Vekic led 3-1. After a later trade of breaks, she was up 4-3.
“I believed I could win,” Vekic said, “until the end.”
But Paolini steadied herself, her racket and her resolve — and now gets a second chance to play for her first Slam trophy.
There was something else on her mind as she got ready to head to the locker room, though.
“Now I’m going to the ice bath,” Paolini said, “because my legs are a little bit tired.”
Lex Cyrus wrestled with his decision but, after narrowing his choices down to Penn State and South Carolina, the Pennsylvania native decided to commit to the Gamecocks.
The Harrisburg (Pa.) Susquehanna Township star has been to the South Carolina campus multiple times and felt very comfortable in that environment and with the coaches.
“It’s a place I really feel like I can grow, even though it’s not close to home,” Cyrus said. “The people, especially being with the team, made me feel comfortable. All the guys were just cool and everybody is just nice and happy to see you and glad you’re there.
“I have a good relationship with coach Mike Furrey,” he said. “I visited twice and on both visits it just felt like a place I can be. I could see myself there. He’s definitely shown me that he has the experience. He’s worked with guys in the past and he’s done it himself. On my visit and even when he calls me, we talk about a lot really more than just football. About things like how he’s going to develop me in life and beyond football.
“They really like guys that they can move around, versatile guys,” said Cyrus. “They said that’s why they’re recruiting me, because I can do a lot of things and that’s what they look for in their offense.
“I talk to Tyshawn (Russell) on the team,” he said. “He’s a receiver from Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg. He’s enjoyed being there and this is only his second season. He saw the field a lot last year. He thinks they’re going to have a big year this year.
Cyrus is an explosive and versatile receiver that head coach Shane Beamer, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, and receivers coach Mike Furrey will be able to move around to create mismatches. At 5-foot-10, 170-pounds Cyrus is on the smaller side but he has a 6-foot-3 wingspan and he is a burner. He’s posted a 10.4-second 100m time along with a 4.4-second shuttle and vertical jump of more than 32-inches. Last season Cyrus amassed more than 1,100 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns.
[ad_2]
Adam Friedman, Rankings Director and National Transfer Portal Analyst
Jamie Smith struck a half-century in his first Test before Ben Stokes took his 200th wicket and James Anderson his 703rd as England closed in on a resounding victory over West Indies in the series opener at Lord’s.
Smith’s 70 from 119 balls, in which he pulled a six out of the ground, followed Surrey team-mate and fellow debutant Gus Atkinson’s seven-wicket haul on day one as West Indies were skittled for 121.
Smith was one of five players to pass fifty in England’s 371 all out in reply, with Joe Root (68) and Harry Brook (50) also backing up opening-day half-centuries for Zak Crawley (76) and Ollie Pope (57).
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Check out the best of Jamie Smith’s debut half-century
England’s lead was 250 when Smith was last man out, and West Indies crumpled to 79-6 in the final session to trail by 171 at stumps.
With the tourists reeling at 38-4 when Atkinson bowled Kavem Hodge (4), there was a realistic chance of a two-day finish, and England were sensing that again when Anderson (2-11) made it 55-5 by nicking off Alick Athanaze (22) for his 703rd wicket, in what is his 188th and final Test match after 21 years of service.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
James Anderson dismissed Kraigg Brathwaite and Alick Athanze to move on to 703 Test wickets
Jason Holder (20 off 59) and Joshua Da Silva (8no off 16) – both of whom were out to Atkinson for ducks in the first innings – battled to take the game into at least a third day, although England appear nailed on for a 1-0 lead in the three-match series ahead of next week’s second Test at Trent Bridge.
The final moment of the day was Holder fencing Atkinson (2-27) to Pope at short leg – Stokes rewarded for adopting a short-ball ploy on the day he became only the third player, after Sir Garfield Sobers and Jacques Kallis, to complete the double of 200 Test wickets and 6,000 Test runs during a lung-busting 10-over spell.
Anderson, meanwhile, ousted Windies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite (4) for the eighth – and last – time in the format while passing the milestone of 40,000 balls bowled in Tests.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ben Stokes took his 200th Test wicket as England ripped though West Indies on Thursday
Future star Smith vindicates selection
As England bid farewell to Anderson, the focus is on preparing a side for the away Ashes in 2025/26 – Atkinson was picked with that series in mind and so was Smith, preferred to Surrey colleague Ben Foakes as wicketkeeper-batter owing to his demonstrative batting.
That was evident when he heaved Jayden Seales (4-77) for a monster maximum over deep midwicket, a few overs after clubbing Shamar Joseph into the seats over square leg.
Smith batted at a fine tempo throughout, striking eight fours in addition to those sixes and got off the mark with a boundary when he hauled a Gudakesh Motie drag-down through midwicket, but he was by no means ultra-aggressive.
The 23-year-old played a few loose swishes, understandable on debut, but was largely composed, while he looked to accelerate once the dismissal of Chris Woakes (23), with whom he added 52 from 94 balls for the seventh wicket, left him with the tail.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gudakesh Motie produced two superb deliveries to bowl Stokes and Joe Root at Lord’s
Smith’s eye-catching debut was one of many highlights on a sun-kissed Lord’s day, which included West Indies spinner Motie bowling Root and Stokes (4) with gorgeous deliveries – Stokes seeing his middle stump uprooted as a ball turned sharply out of the rough.
Mikyle Louis also ran out Shoaib Bashir (0) with a brilliant direct hit for the penultimate wicket before Smith heaved Seales to deep backward square, meaning Anderson did not get to face a ball in what is likely to be his final Test innings.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Mikyle Louis produced a sensational piece of fielding from distance as he ran out Shoaib Bashir
The 41-year-old then hardly shipped a run in West Indies’ second innings as he bowled accurately, economically and and with supreme skills and was rewarded when he bowled Brathwaite with a delicious nip-backer before Athanaze edged low to Smith behind the stumps attempting a drive.
Stokes, meanwhile, pinned Kirk McKenzie (0) lbw and nicked off Louis (14), while he was a whisker away from running out Holder late on after a stunning pick up and off-balance throw.
England build big lead in series opener
England had begun day two on 189-3 with a lead of 68 and swelled that advantage to 123 before Brook was caught hooking a short ball from Alzarri Joseph, a few overs after pounding the seamer’s namesake Shamar Joseph into the stands over square leg.
The wicket, which ended a stand of 91 with fellow Yorkshireman Root, led to debate about Brook’s approach against the short ball, with his Test average against bouncers a lowly 28.20 compared to his overall batting average just shy of 50.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Harry Brook smoked one short ball for six but then fell taking on another
Stokes’ recent form may also be a concern with the skipper dismissed for single figures in each of his last five Test knocks and not making a half-century since the series opener against India in Hyderabad back in January.
However, the all-rounder often saves his best for the most crucial moments and the ball he fell to at Lord’s on Thursday was an absolute beauty – the first of two Motie delivered late in the morning session as he also castled Root with an arm ball.
Plus, Stokes duly stepped up with the ball in the evening, pushing his side closer to a comprehensive win and a fitting farewell for Anderson.
Watch day three of the first Test between England and West Indies at Lord’s live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10am on Friday.
Stream Sky Sports live with no contract on a Month or Day membership on NOW. Instant access to live action from football, darts, cricket, F1, tennis, golf, rugby league, rugby union and more.
Ahead of its quest for a fifth straight Olympic gold medal, Team USA’s men’s basketball team began its exhibition schedule Wednesday night with an 86-72 win over Canada in Las Vegas.
Following a slow start — including missing its first six shots — the Americans clicked in the second quarter as the Canadians went cold from the field. Team USA outscored Canada 16-2 in the paint in the second and carried a 41-33 lead into half.
Despite a run from Canada out of halftime, the U.S. extended its lead throughout the end of the third quarter and the fourth. Four Americans finished in double-digit scoring with Anthony Edwards leading the way with 13 points. Anthony Davis recorded a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. RJ Barrett led Team Canada with 12 points.
Team USA will now turn its attention to Australia on Monday when the teams meet in an exhibition in Abu Dhabi.
Before then, what were the biggest takeaways from the win over Canada?
play
0:16
Steph lobs to LeBron for a USA alley-oop
Steph Curry throws an alley-oop to LeBron James who slams it home.
1. Team USA’s performance against Canada was _____.
Tim Bontemps: Very encouraging. Team USA did not play well at all — it committed 17 turnovers and generally looked disjointed, particularly on the offensive side. And yet, Team USA cruised to a double-digit victory over one of its two biggest challengers for the gold medal next month (the other being France). On top of all that, Joel Embiid — who is still ramping back up after playing through a knee injury in the NBA playoffs — looked like he had a healthy amount of rust to knock off. This game only reinforces how clearly Team USA is favored over the rest of the field in Paris.
Bobby Marks: A good test. Nothing against Cooper Flagg and the select team, but playing in front of a sellout crowd against a Canadian team featuring Jamal Murray, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dillon Brooks was a good test. Team USA did treat the game like an All-Star Sunday, but it seemed like a preview of what should be expected in France.
Dave McMenamin: A blueprint to follow for when the games matter. So long as the U.S. defends and gets out in transition, the fact that this roster had so little time to coalesce ahead of the Olympics shouldn’t matter — it held Canada to 33.7% shooting while racking up 11 steals and 9 blocked shots. By creating so many running opportunities, shot distribution wasn’t an issue — all 10 players who got in took at least four shots, and no player attempted more than 10.
Ohm Youngmisuk: Better than expected. Canada is a formidable opponent with Gilgeous-Alexander and Murray. It would have totally been expected and understandable if Team USA came out rusty after convening a few days before, but it flashed plenty of potential — offense, defense, size and versatility. We didn’t get to see an opponent test Team USA inside because of Canada’s lack of size. And it will be interesting to see how the U.S. adjusts when defenses take Stephen Curry’s outside shooting away and some of its stars fall into foul trouble (like Embiid fouling out late in the fourth quarter). But for the first outing, Team USA should be pleased.
Bontemps: Something no one with Team USA was concerned with nor took seriously. Edwards said he was happy to come off the bench during that same media session. He looked terrific Wednesday playing as part of a second unit featuring Bam Adebayo, Anthony Davis, Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum that seemed like it would be a real asset if coach Steve Kerr sticks with it. Edwards already is well known for making bombastic comments, and this was just another one. As Adebayo said Sunday, “Everyone on this team is a No. 1 option.”
Marks: Not surprising. Anytime Edwards steps on the court there is a strong belief that he is the best player. The same confidence and swagger he had in the playoff series wins over the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets was on full display in the first half. Team USA came out of the gates disorganized, and it was Edwards’ energy along with the second unit that erased an 11-1 start by Canada. Team USA has at least five No. 1 options on this roster, and whether Edwards is starting or coming off the bench, he should be considered one of them.
McMenamin: Missing context. Before Edwards made the declaration, he was asked about the role change in being the Wolves’ go-to guy and then likely coming off the bench for Team USA. His point was that just because he might have a substitute spot in the rotation, that doesn’t mean it will come with the mindset of demotion. So long as he is on the floor — no matter the teammates, opponent or location — Edwards will play with supreme confidence.
Youngmisuk: Him expressing confidence in his skills. Edwards might be the most athletic player on Team USA, and he will almost certainly provide the most electric highlights of the Olympics. He will get shots up, but when games get tight and Team USA needs scoring, especially outside scoring, I still believe Curry will be Kerr’s go-to option. The U.S. will need Curry’s outside shooting in FIBA-style basketball, and Embiid’s ability to be a mismatch also could be a primary option.
3. How will Kawhi Leonard’s absence impact Team USA in Paris?
Bontemps: This is nothing against Leonard, one of the best two-way wings of his generation, but I don’t anticipate it being that big of an issue. That just speaks to the wealth of talent at coach Steve Kerr’s disposal. Team USA now doesn’t have Leonard — but it still has Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, LeBron James, Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker and Anthony Edwards to play on the wings. And it can play any of its three centers — Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo — together. Plus, Derrick White is an elite perimeter defender and an excellent off-ball offensive player. In short? This team should be just fine.
Marks: I was surprised Leonard was chosen considering the knee issues he has incurred over his career, including a season-ending right knee injury in the LA Clippers’ first-round loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Leonard is an MVP candidate when healthy, but it is hard to see what impact he would have had, especially if there were a minutes restriction in place. The positive is that Grant Hill, managing director for Team USA, quickly found a replacement.
McMenamin: As we learned through Kobe Bryant’s impact on the Redeem Team, there’s power in a superstar at that level pouring all of his effort into being a defensive stopper and that being contagious throughout the team. Leonard — one of the fiercest defenders the league has ever seen — could have filled that role for this team had he been healthy. So, yes, it’s a loss. But the choice to replace him with White was pitch perfect. White might not have the stature of a two-time Finals MVP like Leonard, but based on what we’ve seen from White in Boston, he’ll have no problem making defense his top priority.
Youngmisuk: When Leonard is healthy, he is one of the best two-way players in the world. His ability to score from the midrange over any defender, shoot the 3 and then be a lockdown defender with size would have been invaluable. The two-time NBA Finals MVP was never going to be at his peak considering the inflammation in his surgically repaired right knee. White’s defense on smaller and quick guards and ability to switch will help ease the loss of Leonard, while helping Jrue Holiday, Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards and Bam Adebayo as the team’s best defenders. There are going to be games when Team USA needs someone who can stop penetration and cool down a hot opponent while also hitting 3s, though.
4. What should be the starting lineup for Team USA?
Bontemps: Four of the five spots in Wednesday’s opener should stay that way for the duration: Stephen Curry, Jrue Holiday, LeBron James and Joel Embiid. Curry, James and Embiid are the three locks to start; Holiday, arguably the best perimeter defender on the planet, can then guard the opposition’s top playmaker while being a fantastic connector offensively. As for the fifth spot, my guess is it’s Kevin Durant (currently hurt with a calf injury) who eventually gets the nod over Jayson Tatum (who arrived at camp late).
Marks: I am not going to overreact and say Steve Kerr should shake up the lineup just because of the slow start against Canada. I am sticking with four of Wednesday’s starting five (Holiday, Curry, James and Embiid) and replacing Devin Booker with Anthony Edwards. If Team USA does face France in the medal round, Kerr can counter Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert with Embiid and Anthony Davis.
McMenamin: Start with James, Curry and Durant (once he recovers from his calf strain) for obvious reasons. They are the three best players of their generation, and this is their first — and most likely only — time teaming up together in the Olympics. Then group them with the two most versatile defenders left on the roster: Holiday in the backcourt and Davis in the frontcourt. Holiday takes the opposing player’s principle ball handler; Davis is tasked with patrolling the paint.
Youngmisuk: Holiday, Curry, Tatum, James and Embiid make a lot of sense. Holiday can take on the opposing team’s best offensive perimeter threat and help with all the little things, such as offensive rebounding, as well. Curry’s outside shooting will be crucial for Team USA’s success. Until Durant is able to come back healthy, Tatum should be the starter alongside James. And Embiid can anchor the interior with Davis splitting minutes with him at center off the bench.
MILWAUKEE — Tobias Myers pitched eight scoreless innings, Rhys Hoskins and Willy Adames hit home runs, and the Milwaukee Brewers cruised past the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-0 on Wednesday night.
Myers (6-3) didn’t allow a hit until Bryan Reynolds’ leadoff single in the fourth. The rookie right-hander gave up four hits, struck out six, walked one and threw 103 pitches in his 13th start.
“It was one of those nights where I felt like I pretty much had everything going,” Myers said.
He credited catcher William Contreras for leading him through the outing.
“William was doing an amazing job setting up in the right spot,” Myers said. “He’s reading the hitters on every single pitch and I’m just putting my trust in him and trying to hit my spots.”
It was the second time this season that Myers pitched eight innings without allowing a run.
“Tobias was attacking,” manager Pat Murphy said. “We played great defense behind. We hit in the clutch. That was the name of the game. We stayed with it for nine innings.”
Sal Frelick, who had three hits, including a double and a triple, said Myers’ pitching style allows him to go deep into games.
“I don’t think any of us are surprised anymore,” Frelick said. “You know what you are getting when you roll him out there. He’s going to attack the zone.”
The NL Central-leading Brewers scored twice in the first off Martín Pérez (1-5) on two-out, run-scoring hits by Adames and Frelick.
Contreras’ double in the fourth drove in two more to extend the lead to 4-0. Hoskins’ 417-foot blast into the second deck in left in the fifth gave Milwaukee a 5-0 advantage. The Brewers added another run in the seventh on Andruw Monasterio’s RBI single.
Adames hit a three-run homer in the eighth to cap the scoring.
Pérez, whose struggles in Milwaukee continued, gave up five runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings. He surrendered nine runs and 11 hits, including five home runs, in five innings in a 10-2 loss at American Family Field on May 15.
“I’m strong mentally,” Pérez said. “I’m going to keep doing my thing and have a better second half and try to help the team a little bit more. I still believe in myself and this team.”
The Pirates had homered in 12 consecutive games at Milwaukee entering Wednesday, including five times on Tuesday.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Pirates: SS Oneil Cruz was out of the starting lineup for the second consecutive day with hamstring tightness. “He’s getting better. He ran today and he’s taking ground balls,” manager Derek Shelton said.
Brewers: LHP DL Hall (left knee sprain) sustained a contusion to his pitching arm when hit by a comebacker in what was to be a final rehab start for Triple-A Nashville on Tuesday night. Hall is expected to be shut down for three to 10 days and the rehab assignment extended, Murphy said. …INF Joey Ortiz (neck) is likely to be sent to High-A Wisconsin for a brief rehab assignment before possibly rejoining the team over the weekend. …RHP Joe Ross (lower back) pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings in a rehab outing at Nashville on Wednesday night.
UP NEXT
RHP Paul Skenes (5-0, 2.12 ERA), the first rookie pitcher to represent the Pirates in the All-Star Game, takes the mound for Pittsburgh in the series finale Thursday. RHP Aaron Civale (2-6, 5.18) will make his second start for the Brewers since being acquired from Tampa Bay on July 3.
The team announced Tuesday that two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Josh Allen is changing his last name to Hines-Allen to pay “tribute to Joshua’s maternal side of the family and the other relatives who have worn ‘Hines’ and ‘Hines-Allen’ on their jerseys.”
Hines-Allen’s sister, Myisha Hines-Allen, plays for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. Sisters Kyra Hines-Allen (Cheyney University) and LaTorri Hines-Allen (Virginia Tech, Towson) also played college basketball. In addition, Gregory Hines, Josh Hines-Allen’s uncle, was drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 1983 after a Hall of Fame career at Hampton University, while another uncle, Keith Hines, played basketball at Montclair State.
“Legacy is forever, and I’m proud to carry that tradition on the back of my jersey, following in the footsteps of my family, who have donned the Hines-Allen last name with so much pride and joy,” Hines-Allen posted to Instagram on Tuesday.
In a video accompanying the post he said, “My last name has been changed, but I’m still that person. And I will continue to play like it, play even better.”
The Jaguars announced that Hines-Allen will host a jersey exchange for fans in September.
Hines-Allen, who registered a career-best and Jaguars franchise-record 17.5 sacks last season, was rewarded by Jacksonville with a five-year contract extension in April.
