Author: rb809rb

  • Former UCLA guard Amari Bailey, who’s played 10 NBA games, is reportedly seeking college eligibility

    The line between college and pro sports has never been more blurred, and Amari Bailey is reportedly up for testing its obscurity.

    The former UCLA guard, who was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round of the 2023 NBA Draft and then played 10 games on a two-way contract for the Hornets during the 2023-24 season, is seeking college eligibility.

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    No one has gone back to play in college after logging NBA minutes. His goal is to play one more season in the collegiate ranks, according to an ESPN report Friday.

    “Right now I’d be a senior in college,” the soon-to-be-22-year-old Bailey told ESPN. “I’m not trying to be 27 years old playing college athletics. No shade to the guys that do; that’s their journey. But I went to go play professionally and learned a lot, went through a lot. So, like, why not me?”

    Bailey has reportedly hired an agent and a lawyer and is prepared to challenge the NCAA in court. He explained to ESPN that he has some regrets about leaving UCLA after his freshman season, during which he averaged 11.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in 2022-23.

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    That season, the Bruins won 31 games and reached the Sweet 16. Bailey was the fourth-leading scorer on a squad that featured Miami Heat first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr.

    He arrived at UCLA as a five-star prospect from Sierra Canyon, where he teamed up with Bronny James and other high-profile prospects outside of Los Angeles. Bailey was the No. 12 overall recruit in the 2022 class, according to Rivals.

    After his rookie season with the Hornets, he signed with the Brooklyn Nets but spent the 2024-25 season in the G League. He was cut this past summer, according to ESPN.

    “It’s not a stunt,” Bailey said, per ESPN. “I’m really serious about going back. I just want to improve my game, change the perception of me and just show that I can win.”

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    Last month, in the wake of 2023 second-round pick James Nnaji joining Baylor, NCAA president Charlie Baker insisted the NCAA “has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract).”

    Nnaji, a 21-year-old 7-foot center from Makurdi, Nigeria, never signed an NBA contract. Instead, he remained in the FC Barcelona organization, although he did play in NBA Summer League games for the Hornets and New York Knicks, as recently as last year for the Knicks.

    Nnaji’s arrival at Baylor has been overshadowed recently by another 7-footer, Charles Bediako, and his return to Alabama. Bediako, 23, hadn’t played for the Crimson Tide since the 2022-23 campaign. He went undrafted after that season and ultimately embarked on a G League stint. He did, however, sign a two-way contract with the San Antonio Spurs in 2023.

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    Last week, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to allow Bediako to return to Alabama and play for the Crimson Tide.

    Bailey heard his name called in the draft 10 picks after Nnaji, and he signed the same type of contract as Bediako.

    Bailey believes playing 65 NBA minutes shouldn’t differentiate him from those two players. He’s aiming to join a college team for next season, per ESPN, which reported the potential team would have to petition the NCAA for a waiver to permit him to play.

    If denied that waiver, Bailey and his legal team could file a lawsuit.

  • Vikings GM losing job against backdrop of Sam Darnold’s Super Bowl berth seems directly related — but Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s decision wasn’t that wild

    Mere months after the Minnesota Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as general manager and Kevin O’Connell as head coach, I sat down with each during their offseason practices to better understand their philosophy.

    I learned about their visions for elevating the talent on their roster and their beliefs about the threshold of talent required to win a championship.

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    Discussions, particularly with Adofo-Mensah, turned to his philosophy around quarterback.

    “I’ll be frank: The one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down is quarterback,” he told me in May 2022, because teams are “more likely to win” the Super Bowl “if you have that quarterback.”

    Then he added: “It’s very unlikely to have that quarterback.”

    With the Vikings firing Adofo-Mensah on Friday after four seasons and an additional four-week delay, those sentiments are worth revisiting.

    Because going forward, NFL decision-makers may re-examine the decision Adofo-Mensah made and pivot in another direction. But a year ago, the Vikings’ GM followed a decision-making path that was common in the NFL: Trying to avoid overpaying a player at a key position if they didn’t believe that player could take them to the Super Bowl.

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    When the Vikings decided last March not to re-sign quarterback Sam Darnold, they factored in multiple variables.

    SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 30: Sam Darnold #14 of the Seattle Seahawks and Justin Jefferson #18 of the Minnesota Vikings embrace after the game at Lumen Field on November 30, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)

    Sam Darnold shares a moment with former teammate Justin Jefferson after a Seattle victory on Nov. 30, 2025. (Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)

    (Jane Gershovich via Getty Images)

    There was, of course, 2024 10th overall pick J.J. McCarthy in the building, and he was expected to fully rehabilitate before the season’s start.

    There was also, the Vikings believed, a chance to keep the quarterback whom they’d signed in November when he became available: former New York Giants starter Daniel Jones.

    And then there was the philosophy of Adofo-Mensah, who believed in a threshold of championship talent.

    “If you don’t have [that threshold], you don’t win — that’s very binary,” Adofo-Mensah said during the 2022 OTAs sit-down. “The way you can screw up in this job is deceiving yourself that you’re there.”

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    [Get more Vikings news: Minnesota team feed]

    Adofo-Mensah’s discussion of a talent threshold may have been cast in more quantitative language than that of most NFL decision-makers. But his reasoning and philosophies resembled those which teams had preached for decades.

    Realism about a team’s place in the competitive lifecycle is integral, coaches and executives often admit off the record and occasionally on it (see: the Cleveland Browns’ statement this week when hiring head coach Todd Monken). And the most important position, they say often, is quarterback.

    Adofo-Mensah agreed with that. He believed in maintaining draft picks to increase the chances of finding the next Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady. And he worried about going all in on a quarterback who had not proven to be that ultimate winner.

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    So when Darnold had one very good season last year, to follow six NFL seasons with nowhere near that level of success, the Vikings were not ready to ignore their high draft pick.

    Adofo-Mensah reflected on that in a Jan. 13 interview with Vikings reporters, discussing how he’d stay up at night wondering about the process. But ultimately, as he said, disappointing results don’t always mean the process was poor.

    “It’s easier to go and be revisionist and results-based, but going to really think through what we had at the time, I still understand why we did what we did,” Adofo-Mensah said earlier this month. “In my conversation with Kevin, just doing the analysis we’ve done, we’ve set a standard here for winning when we’ve gotten a certain level of play in that position, allowing us to be explosive enough on offense to set the table for how we play defense, special teams and things like that.

    “So our conversation is about returning the room to a competitive, deep-enough standpoint to get that play style, that ability to win games.”

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    Darnold, whom the New York Jets selected third overall in 2018, posted his career-best year in the process, completing 66.2% of his pass attempts for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

    The Vikings won 14 games in that process, but they also lost their regular-season finale and wild-card game. In those two games, Darnold completed 53% of his 81 pass attempts and threw one touchdown to one interception. In the playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams, he absorbed nine sacks.

    So the Vikings decided not to offer the three-year, $100.5 million payday the Seattle Seahawks did. Seattle gave Darnold $37.5 million guaranteed at signing and $55 million in total guarantees, per Spotrac.

    MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - OCTOBER 20: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah general manager of the Minnesota Vikings looks on before the game against the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium on October 20, 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

    Under general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings went to the playoffs twice in four seasons. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

    (Stephen Maturen via Getty Images)

    Minnesota also lost Jones when the Indianapolis Colts paid him $13 million with the chance to start. Jones led the Colts to an 8-5 start before tearing his Achilles, completing 68% of his passes for 3,101 yards, 19 touchdowns and 8 interceptions.

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    The Vikings made a key firing right after two men at the position he was most tasked with fixing succeeded elsewhere. That influenced the decision to move on. But this dismissal is not as simple as a one-year quarterback failure. And it’s not as simple as a firing on the basis of Darnold advancing to the Super Bowl.

    “It’s not about any one decision or move,” team owner Mark Wilf said Friday after the team announced Adofo-Mensah’s dismissal. “We looked at the decision cumulatively. We just didn’t feel confident going through the entirety of the offseason, an additional draft and free agency with this structure.

    “We have an urgency to create a winning football team and establish sustainable success.”

    The Seahawks showed this season that a quarterback without All-Pro histories, a track record of playoff wins and a cemented place in the top tier of the position in the league can, indeed, make it to the Super Bowl.

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    The recipe is leaning not only on the quarterback but also on a strong run game, excellent scheme and top-tier defense. The recipe also included giving a quarterback time to develop: Darnold is succeeding with his fifth team in his seventh NFL season. He’s succeeding in his third year learning the Shanahan-McVay system.

    The Vikings can remind themselves that McCarthy is only one year into playing and two into learning the principles.

    His story is not yet closed.

    And while Adofo-Mensah’s successor, like most NFL general managers, may wonder if he should worry about not burning down the quarterback position, Darnold will be a glaring reminder that players given time, and plans given a chance, can succeed just as a superhuman like Mahomes, who waited behind Alex Smith his rookie year.

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    “We understand there will be questions on the timing and why now,” Wilf said Friday. “I think you know how we want to operate as owners. We want to avoid knee-jerk reactions, be pragmatic, thoughtful, methodical making these decisions.”

    Perhaps the Vikings then will be pragmatic, thoughtful and methodical with their next decision at quarterback.

  • Lakers’ Luka Dončić records triple-double in first half during blowout 142-111 win over Wizards

    The Washington Wizards likely would’ve preferred for Luka Dončić to sit out Friday’s game to give his sore left ankle a rest.

    Instead, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star played against the Wizards after being listed as questionable earlier in the day on the NBA’s injury report due to left ankle soreness. And he was explosive from the game’s opening tip of a 142-111 win.

    Dončić scored 11 of the Lakers’ first 20 points and assisted on two Deandre Ayton baskets on his way to finishing the first quarter with 17 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists as the Lakers scored 41 points in the opening 12 minutes.

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    By halftime, he already had a triple-double with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists as the Lakers went to the locker room with a 77-48 lead. Oh, and he only played 19 minutes in the first half.

    [Subscribe to Yahoo Sports NBA on YouTube]

    Demonstrating that it was simply his night, Dončić posed after making a lob pass to Jaxson Hayes (before Hayes even finished the dunk) and banked in a 3-pointer for the Lakers’ final score of the second quarter. Lakers coach JJ Redick wasn’t too impressed by the bank shot during his halftime interview, however.

    “Sometimes, he gets bored. So it did not surprise me,” Redick said on the Spectrum SportsNet broadcast. “He did not call it, though.”

    Dončić insisted after the game that he intended to bank the shot in, however.

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    He hrottled down in the second half, sitting out the entire fourth quarter with the Lakers holding a big lead. Dončić finished with 37 points, 11 rebounds, 13 assists and 3 steals. The NBA’s leading scorer has tallied 30 points or more in seven of his past 10 games.

    By the end of the game, it was Bronny James who entertained the fans at Capital One Arena with a breakway dunk from a steal by Jake LaRivia.

    Prior to that, LeBron James gave the fans a highlight with a reverse dunk on a lob pass from Marcus Smart.

    The elder James scored 20 points, while Bronny tallied four. Ayton added 28 points (his second-highest total of the season) with 13 rebounds, while Rui Hachimura provided 11 points off the bench.

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    [Get more Lakers news: Los Angeles team feed]

    The Lakers have won of five of their past seven games and improved to 29-18 as they wrestle with the Phoenix Suns for the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference. Los Angeles continues its eight-game road trip with a Sunday primetime matchup against the New York Knicks.

    For the Wizards (12-35), Malaki Branham scored a team-high 17 points. Alex Sarr followed with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, while Kyshawn George and Bub Carrington each scored 13 points. Washington next hosts the equally struggling Sacramento Kings (12-37) on Sunday.

  • Kansas’ Darryn Peterson to return for star freshman showdown against AJ Dybantsa and No. 13 BYU

    Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson was not listed in the injury report for Saturday’s ranked matchup against No. 13 BYU.

    Peterson missed No. 14 Kansas’s last game against Kansas State after suffering an ankle injury in the second half of Tuesday’s win over Colorado. He has played in only 10 of 20 games this season after dealing with a hamstring injury and cramps.

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    When Peterson is on the floor, he produces. The 19-year-old is averaging 21.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.9 assists, and shooting 42% from behind the arc.

    On the other side will be BYU 6-foot-9 freshman AJ Dybantsa. Dybantsa was the only freshman in the 2025 class ranked above Peterson coming out of high school.

    The 19-year-old freshman is second in the country in scoring, averaging 23.6 points, and adds 6.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. Last weekend, Dybantsa scored 43 points on 15-of-24 shooting and going 4 of 5 from three against Utah.

    Dybantsa and Peterson also have a history of matching up against each other in high school. Peterson has won both of their two matchups. In their last matchup, Peterson stole the show with 58 points and the game-winning 3-pointer in Proflic Prep’s 88-86 win over Utah Prep. Dybantsa finished the game with 49 points.

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    The two freshmen also faced off against each other in the McDonald’s All America Game. Peterson scored 18 points and was named the Co-MVP with Duke’s Cam Boozer. Dybantsa scored 13 points.

    The two have been linked to one another since their days together at the U16 trials for Team USA. They are also contenders to be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.

  • No. 3 Michigan holds off No. 7 Michigan State’s second-half comeback for 83-71 win in East Lansing

    No. 3 Michigan held off a rousing second-half comeback by No. 7 Michigan State for a 83-71 road win at Friday night.

    The Wolverines looked as if they would earn a decisive victory in East Lansing, finishing off the final three minutes of the first half with a 13-6 run. However, MSU’s Coen Carr may have hinted at what was to come with a thunderous dunk for the last basket of the half.

    Three minutes into the second half, the Spartans began what would become a 9-0 run to cut Michigan’s lead to 46-41. That turned into an 18-9 surge that tied the score at 55-55 on a Jason Kohler 3-pointer at the 7:57 mark.

    Jeremy Fears Jr. stole an Eliot Cadeau pass 30 seconds later for a fast-break layup that put Michigan State on top, 57-55. The two rivals exchanged leads twice before a Will Tschetter 3-pointer and two Morez Johnson Jr. free throws gave the Wolverines a three-point foothold.

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    Michigan State twice closed to within one point, but Michigan created some distance with a Johnson dunk and Cadeau 3-pointer for a 69-63 lead. With three minutes remaining in the game, the Wolverines outscored the Spartans 6-3 to build its margin back to 10 points, 75-65. MSU couldn’t get closer than seven points the rest of the way and Michigan pulled away by knocking down eight free throws.

    Yaxel Lendeborg led the Wolverines with 26 points and 13 rebounds. He converted 13 of 15 free throws to help lift Michigan to the win. Cadeau followed with 17 points and 6 assists, as Michigan improved to 20-1 (10-1 in the Big Ten) for the season.

    For the Spartans, Fears scored a game-high 31 points with 5 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 steals. Kohler added 12 points and 5 boards for Michigan State, who dropped to 19-3 (9-2 Big Ten).

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    Michigan lost both of its games against Michigan State last season, including a 79-62 loss in the regular-season finale in East Lansing. But the Wolverines and head coach Dusty May seemed to be better prepared for the environment at the Breslin Center.

    “This was electric; I’m not saying we got a very warm welcome,” May said afterward. “But this was a good sign for our guys to be able to battle in this type of physical game, and come up with enough rebounds and loose basketballs to get over the hump against a team we struggled with last year.”

    May went on to say his team didn’t adjust well to physical play against Big Ten opponents and tried to address that with recruiting players for this season.

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    Following wins over No. 5 Nebraska and the No. 7 Spartans, Michigan is off until next Thursday when it hosts Penn State (9-12). Michigan State travels to Minnesota (10-11) for a Wednesday matchup.

  • Veteran reliever David Robertson’s retirement creates uncomfortable fact for the Yankees

    Veteran MLB reliever David Robertson announced his retirement Friday, ending a playing career that saw him appear with eight different teams over the course of 18 years.

    Nine of those years were spent with the New York Yankees, who selected him in the 17th round of the 2006 MLB Draft. He reached the majors two years later and, in his second season, won his only World Series ring with the Yankees’ 2009 champion team.

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    Robertson was the only active player remaining from that 2009 team, and that creates quite the historical fact as we head into the 2026 season.

    [Get more Yankees news: New York team feed]

    With no Robertson in the majors, there will not be a single active player in MLB who has won a World Series ring with the Yankees. How rare is that? It’s been true for only one other MLB season since the Yankees’ first World Series title in 1922, a span of 104 years.

    That season is 1995. And now 2026 is set to join it, as well as potentially 2027, and 2028, and so on.

    You don’t need a baseball historian to tell you the Yankees regularly won the World Series from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Obviously, MLB had players with Yankees World Series rings throughout that time. Most of them were still playing for the Yankees, thanks to the reserve clause.

    NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 31: David Robertson #30 of the New York Yankees in action against the Detroit Tigers during in a game at Yankee Stadium on August 31, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

    David Robertson played the first seven years of his career with the Yankees, then returned in 2017 and 2018. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

    (Rich Schultz via Getty Images)

    Over the course of Yankees history, the team has had three notable World Series droughts: from 1962 to 1977, from 1978 to 1996 and 2009 to present. To find a player whose career spanned the first drought, you can look up Al Downing, who received light work with the 1961 and 1962 Yankees but lasted in MLB until his retirement with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977.

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    For 1978 to 1996, the closest any player comes is Hall of Famer Rich “Goose” Gossage, who was an All-Star on the 1978 Yankees and kept playing until 1994, his age-42 season. He did spend a season out of MLB in 1990 while playing for Japan’s Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, but that gap is covered by former teammate Willie Randolph, who played until 1992, and assorted others.

    There was the mini-drought from 2000 to 2009, obviously covered by Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite and more, and then this one.

    To be clear, this is just a fun little fact. The Yankees are not panicking because David Robertson retired. Still, it underscores how far the Yankees have drifted from their history over the past couple decades.

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    The club had a chance to break the drought in 2024, but ran into a Dodgers team that has now usurped its status as MLB’s Big Bad. The pressure is going to keep building with every year that passes without a new set of players with Yankees rings.

  • Stephen Curry’s knee injury not believed to be major after early exit vs. Pistons, Steve Kerr says

    Even a quarter of Stephen Curry is a high cost for the Golden State Warriors these days.

    The Warriors star exited Friday’s game against the Detroit Pistons early with right knee soreness, finishing with a team-high 23 points on 7-of-16 shooting (4 of 10 from 3-point range). After the game, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he didn’t believe Curry’s knee injury was “anything major,” but the team will know more on Saturday.

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    Curry went to the locker room near the end of the third quarter, grimacing and limping slightly after some awkward contact on an and-1. He remained in the locker room at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and the Warriors soon ruled him out for the rest of the game.

    The Warriors managed to hang around despite Curry’s injury, cutting the deficit to three points midway through the fourth quarter, but ended up losing 131-124 to the East-leading Pistons.

    Curry had been dealing with a knee issue over the course of this week. He reportedly first felt something in his knee on Saturday and was listed as questionable with right knee soreness for Sunday’s game, but still played that day. However, he did miss Monday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, the second leg of a back-to-back.

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    He went on to play 28 minutes against the Utah Jazz on Wednesday and didn’t carry an injury designation going into Friday’s game, but clearly the injury resurfaced.

    As usual, a significant Curry injury would be the last thing the Warriors need right now. The team is still learning how to navigate life without Jimmy Butler, who was knocked out for the season by a torn ACL last week.

    Friday’s loss means Golden State is now 2-4 since Butler’s injury, with losses to the Toronto Raptors and Dallas Mavericks. For now, they remain in eighth place in the Western Conference at 27-33, with a 3.5-game cushion to avoid the second play-in game.

  • Lindsey Vonn withdraws from super-G race a day after crash, no update on Winter Olympics status: ‘Doing my best right now’

    A day after a crash that threatens her availability for the Winter Olympics, Lindsey Vonn withdrew from her scheduled World Cup super-G race on Saturday but provided no definitive update on her status for next week’s Games.

    Vonn injured her left knee after a fall during Friday’s World Cup downhill race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. She posted on Instagram on Saturday that she would not be racing in the super-G.

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    “Doing my best right now,” she wrote in the post.

    Vonn has yet to rule herself out from competing in the Olympics despite the injury. After a social media account that tracks prediction markets declared, “Lindsey Vonn being airlifted days before the Winter Games is a brutal market correction. The public had bet on the narrative, but physics had the final say,” Vonn offered a terse reply: “Physics had the final say? No, I have the final say.”

    Early in Friday’s run, Vonn lost balance following a jump and skidded into safety nets while on her back. After being tended to for several minutes by medical personnel, she stood up by using her poles to steady herself while grabbing at her left knee.

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    Vonn skied slowly to the finish line, stopping several times, before limping into a medical tent. She was then airlifted out via helicopter.

    In a post on her Instagram, Vonn said Friday she’s “discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams.

    “This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics… but if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback. … My Olympic dream is not over.”

    The 41-year-old Vonn was the third skier to crash in the World Cup race in Crans-Montana. The race was canceled following Vonn’s run due to poor visibility.

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    “The main reason is the safety of the athletes,” said Women’s World Cup Race Director Peter Gerdol. “The visibility was getting worse and worse, they couldn’t see the race line properly and it caused mistakes. We saw six athletes starting and all six had some mistakes. This was a sign that it was a high-risk situation. We know that our sport is a risky sport, but the feeling was too much risk. That’s why the Jury decided to stop the race.”

    Vonn retired in 2019, but felt her competitive spark return after watching the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. She underwent knee replacement surgery in 2024 and in December won her first World Cup race in nearly six years to validate her comeback. She won again earlier this month.

    Vonn won gold in the downhill and bronze in the super-G at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and picked up another bronze medal in downhill at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang.

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    The Olympic women’s downhill will take place on Feb. 8 at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

  • Nikola Jokić goes for 31 points in first game back from knee injury to lead Nuggets past Clippers

    Nikola Jokić returned to the court Friday night at home, and in his first game back from a knee injury that sidelined him for a bit more than a month, he recorded 31 points and 12 rebounds on a minutes restriction, leading the Denver Nuggets to a 122-109 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

    In 25 minutes of action, he made 8-of-11 attempts from the field and 13-of-17 shots from the free-throw line, as the Nuggets (33-16) took down the Clippers (22-25), who had won 16 of their previous 19 games, including nine of their last 10.

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    The three-time NBA MVP had been out since he suffered a bone bruise while hyperextending his left knee on Dec. 29.

    Jokić had missed 16 straight games. But because he returned when he did, the standout center’s in position to be eligible for the league’s end-of-season awards.

    While there are some exceptions, a player generally must play a minimum of 65 regular-season games to be considered for those awards, per a league rule that was instituted ahead of the 2023-24 season in an attempt to combat load management.

    Jokić has now appeared in 33 outings this season, and the Nuggets have 33 games remaining, meaning that he’ll likely have one absence to spare the rest of the way.

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    Jokić is averaging 29.7 points, 12.2 rebounds and career-high 10.8 assists per game while shooting 60.8% from the field, including a career-high 43.9% from 3.

    [Get more Nuggets news: Denver team feed]

    The Nuggets went 10-6 in Jokić’s absence, the longest of his 11-season career. They are currently third in the Western Conference standings.

    He sustained the injury during a loss to the Miami Heat.

    Late in the first half, Jokić’s left knee buckled in the paint after his teammate, Spencer Jones, accidentally stepped back onto the big man’s left foot. Jones was trying to guard the Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. at the time.

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    Jokić hit the deck and rolled around in pain. He eventually limped off the court.

    The Nuggets managed to stay afloat without their best player. They got a boost from their supporting cast. Namely, wing Peyton Watson averaged 22.1 points in the 15 games he played without Jokić. For reference, he posted 10.7 points per game in his previous 30 contests this season.

    Even with Jokić back, Watson kept that up Friday versus the Clippers, chipping in 21 points. Denver also got 22 points off the bench from Tim Hardaway Jr.

    But Jokić’s comeback was timely.

    The Nuggets announced Thursday that forward Aaron Gordon will be re-evaluated in four-to-six weeks after aggravating the right hamstring strain that previously sidelined him this season. Gordon is averaging a career-high 17.7 points per game, third best on the Nuggets in his 12th year in the league.

  • Bills reportedly hiring Broncos defensive passing-game coordinator Jim Leonhard as DC

    The Buffalo Bills took a chance on Jim Leonhard after he didn’t hear his name called during the 2005 NFL Draft. Buffalo brought aboard the undrafted, undersized former walk-on Wisconsin safety, and that’s where he began his 10-year NFL playing career and ultimately spent four seasons.

    More than a decade later, he’s reportedly headed back, this time as a 43-year-old coach after serving as the Denver Broncos’ defensive passing-game coordinator the past two seasons.

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    The Bills are hiring Leonhard as their new defensive coordinator, per multiple reports. Leonhard, who doubled as Sean Payton’s assistant head coach in 2025, will now be Joe Brady’s DC in Buffalo.

    Leonhard joined the Broncos’ staff ahead of the 2024 season, during which he also coached a defensive-back room that featured NFL Defensive Player of the Year Patrick Surtain II, now a three-time All-Pro cornerback.

    He last held a DC gig at his alma mater. Not long after wrapping up a 431-tackle, 14-interception NFL career, Leonhard was Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator from 2017-22. The Badgers clocked out top 20 in scoring defense in five of those six seasons, placing top 10 four times. He finished the 2022 campaign as Wisconsin’s interim head coach.

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    This coaching cycle, Leonhard interviewed with the Los Angeles Chargers and Baltimore Ravens as well, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, but Leonhard will be responsible for a Bills defense that allowed the 12th-fewest points per game (21.5) this season yet ranked 28th against the run, giving up 136.2 yards per game on the ground.

    [More Bills news: Buffalo team feed]

    Leonhard will replace Bobby Babich, who was the Bills’ DC under Sean McDermott from 2024-25. McDermott was fired after Buffalo’s turnover-ridden, 33-30 defeat to the Broncos in the AFC divisional-round of the playoffs.

    The hiring of Leonhard is an important one, given that Brady’s forte is offense and the Bills have struggled to come up with key stops in the postseason in recent years.

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    Earlier this week, Buffalo promoted Brady from OC to head coach. Brady, 36, has been on the Bills’ staff since he arrived as quarterbacks coach in 2022. He’s now building a staff of his own.

    That includes Leonhard, plus another former Broncos assistant, Pete Carmichael Jr. Carmichael, a longtime New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator, reunited with Payton in Denver, where he spent the past two seasons as a senior offensive assistant. He’s an OC again in Buffalo.

    A handful of years removed from college, Brady worked under Carmichael in 2017-18 as a Saints offensive assistant. Payton hired Brady back then.

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    “So proud of him,” Payton said of Brady on Tuesday. “Just spoke to him two days ago. You want to see guys that come in and work that are part of your staff.

    “You want to see them have success, not the other way around.”

    Leonhard’s one of those guys, too.