The New England Patriots fell short of their ultimate goal — a Super Bowl championship — losing to the Seattle Seahawks, 29-13. MVP runner-up Drake Maye nearly threw for 300 yards in the loss despite Seattle dominating most of the game. Maye operated most of the season with a rag-tag bunch of receivers, led by veteran Stefon Diggs.
But when you reach the biggest stage and Mack Hollins is your leading wideout, you may need to consider making some additions in the offseason. Matt Harmon and Scott Pianowski talked about what the Patriots can do to shore up the receiver position with a splashy addition on the latest episode of the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast.
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Pianowski begins by connecting the dots between New England head coach Mike Vrabel and Brown, the two having spent three seasons together in Tennessee prior to Brown being sent to Philly. Might a reunion make sense?
We know Brown was unhappy for most of the 2025 season with the Eagles. Still, the Pro Bowl wideout was able to post a fourth straight 1,000-receiving-yard season with seven touchdowns. Brown will turn 29 years old before the 2026 regular season and has four years remaining on his contract.
Harmon plays devil’s advocate to Pianowski and thinks it may not be wise to trade, say, the 31st pick in the 2026 NFL Draft in a deal for Brown, a player whom he views as in decline. Now, that doesn’t mean that Brown is “cooked,” but Harmon says we don’t normally see receivers return to elite status once the decline starts.
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Pianowski closes by saying, of course, you want someone who is trending up or draft somebody who can evolve into a top wideout. But teams aren’t usually jumping at the chance to trade a young, promising wide receiver, so the Patriots may have to take what they can get, whether that’s via trade, free agency or in the draft.
What the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs have done this century has made it look a lot easier than it is. Dynasties like that are possible but not the norm.
The Philadelphia Eagles know. They won Super Bowl LIX and it looked like their dominance would last a while. They had the best roster in the NFL, with stars on both sides of the ball. They blasted the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Then reality set in. The Eagles lost offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and didn’t adequately replace him. There were more injuries. Saquon Barkley wasn’t the same. Nobody seemed happy to be around each other. The Eagles were bounced in the first round of the playoffs. By the time the playoffs started, everyone knew they were too flawed to win another Super Bowl anyway. And they have plenty of questions going forward now.
So when we hear that perhaps the Seattle Seahawks are the NFL’s next dynasty, it’s worth being cautious.
There’s a reason Super Bowl hangovers are real. Winning a Super Bowl requires playing an extra long season. Climbing back up the mountain is a challenge and complacency is human nature. A team like the Seahawks also has to avoid bad luck, like key injuries. Any number of things can go wrong, even if we can look at the Seahawks and see a strong roster with a fantastic coach, not too many key pending free agents and the fifth-most projected cap space in the NFL at this early point in the offseason. There are no tangible reasons to believe the Seahawks can’t be the NFL’s best team again in 2026. But it’s a lot easier said than done. Ask the Eagles.
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Here are the way-too-early power rankings as a long offseason begins. (Click on the team name for our offseason preview.)
The Jets finished last season with Brady Cook at quarterback as they got blown out week after week. And they’ll begin next season at quarterback with … who, exactly? That’s a tough question to answer, and one that many teams are staring at to begin the offseason. It also will be almost an entirely new staff under coach Aaron Glenn after he had to change out many of his assistants following a rough season. That’s another bad sign. Drafting second overall is fine, but it’s not like there will be a quarterback worth taking there. New York has the 16th pick as well, which will help. But there won’t be much for Jets fans to get excited about, other than the possibility of drafting a new quarterback in 2027.
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The Cardinals might not technically have been the last team to hire a new coach, but they were clearly the most unappealing opening in the cycle. For good reason. The quarterback situation is a mess, the team as a whole took a step back and they play in a rough division. Mike LaFleur, Arizona’s new coach, has a lot of work ahead of him. Finishing last in the NFC West seems to be a near lock.
The hope for the Raiders is obvious. Barring a massive surprise there will be a new quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, who will be coached by Klint Kubiak. Kubiak was a hot name at the beginning of the cycle and the Raiders were fortunate to land him. Maxx Crosby’s future is a cloud over the offseason, and we’ll see how the Raiders handle that. The roster needs a lot of work but Mendoza, as well as Brock Bowers and Ashton Jeanty, provide hope for better days ahead.
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New head coach Jeff Hafley is not stepping into an easy situation. The Dolphins have to figure out what to do with Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill, then start the tough job of replacing them. Miami has mismanaged the cap and it won’t get easier if the team decides to move on from Tagovailoa. That could lead to a forced marriage of Tagovailoa and the Dolphins in 2026, after they were clearly moving away from him at the end of the 2025 season. This is what the start of a long rebuild looks like.
Robert Saleh was a good hire as head coach, and Brian Daboll could turn out to be a good addition as offensive coordinator. We’ll see how much Daboll really had to do with Josh Allen’s development, because he’ll be at the forefront of bringing Cam Ward along. Ward did play well down the stretch in a lost Titans season. The problem is that the roster around Ward is not good enough. Tennessee has the most projected cap space in the NFL as the offseason begins, and they need to turn that into some help for Ward.
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The Browns wish the Jaguars hadn’t been so good, because the pick they traded to Cleveland will be 24th overall. But combined with the sixth pick and a strong 2025 rookie class, there’s momentum building. Figuring out quarterback won’t be easy, and that’s a serious roadblock in Cleveland making up a lot of ground in the AFC North this season. But new coach Todd Monken has some foundational pieces already in place.
The Saints are among the teams with the worst cap situation in the NFL, but that’s nothing new. Pushing cap hits out to the future has been their mode for well over a decade. That makes it hard to be a big player in free agency, and they could use some more talent. What they need is to draft well, and they got a head start by getting quarterback Tyler Shough in last year’s draft. He had a good final second half of the season after taking over as the starter, and in an offseason in which many teams have no idea what the future holds at quarterback, the Saints know who their guy is. That’s a big help.
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The Giants will be a fun team to track next season. John Harbaugh gives them a legitimate head coach for the first time in seemingly forever. A young core has some exciting pieces, assuming Malik Nabers returns well from a torn ACL and Jaxson Dart continues to develop. This is still a 4-13 team and they’re miles behind the Eagles in terms of the talent on the roster, so it’s not all roses for the Giants. But there’s finally a path forward.
The Colts’ surging to the top of the NFL a couple months into last season feels like it happened a lifetime ago. It would be fine to believe they could replicate that, but Daniel Jones’ Achilles injury is one that could linger into next season. He’s also a free agent; the team will try to retain him but the injury complicates those talks. The team already traded its first-round pick for Sauce Gardner at midseason. There’s talent here but a lot of questions too.
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Keeping Jayden Daniels healthy is the most important factor in getting back to the playoffs. Washington also needs to remake a roster that was by far the oldest in the NFL last season. In most scenarios, a team that won only five games with a roster that old would be in deep trouble. However, Daniels is a massive difference-maker as long as he is healthy. Washington also has a good amount of cap space to build the roster back up around him.
The Panthers have every reason to feel good after winning the NFC South and almost knocking off the Rams in the playoffs. They should also not be fooled in thinking they’re further along than they are. They were an 8-9 team that had some ugly losses and needed a lot of help to make the playoffs. The biggest factor is whether Bryce Young graduates to being a more prolific passer, or stays the same up-and-down player he has generally been in the NFL.
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The Falcons are yet another team with quarterback questions. They reportedly plan to cut Kirk Cousins, but that leaves them not knowing if Michael Penix Jr. will be healthy enough for Week 1 or even if he’s the answer at the position. The James Pearce Jr. legal situation doesn’t help a defense that was gaining traction (and it doesn’t help that their 2026 first-round pick went to the Rams to take Pearce). New coach Kevin Stefanski has a lot to work with but a similar problem to one he had in Cleveland: His quarterback room is a potential problem.
Stop if you’ve heard this one before: The Vikings have a good roster and a big quarterback question. Minnesota going 9-8 with poor play from J.J. McCarthy most of the season speaks to their upside. But the main problem isn’t solved yet. It’s possible McCarthy takes a step forward in his second season as a starter (he also needs to stay healthy) but that is far from a sure thing. The Vikings fired GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and have said they want to bring in a veteran QB for depth, but good luck doing that when so many teams will be looking for a competent starter.
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The Buccaneers’ collapse in the second half was stunning. It was even harder to believe because the team was getting healthy right as the losses piled up. The Bucs decided to run it back with coach Todd Bowles, though he’ll be on the hot seat. There should be no question about the talent on hand, assuming Baker Mayfield shakes off whatever was causing his poor play in the second half. But after such an epic failure and blowing the NFC South, it’s hard to trust them.
The Bengals need consistent offensive line play and a defense, and that’s a lot to ask in one offseason. Cincinnati does have a surprising amount of cap flexibility to fill some holes, if ownership wishes to spend the cash. The Bengals have missed the playoffs three straight times in Joe Burrow’s prime, which is an organizational failure. Burrow’s injuries have led to some losses, but the Bengals’ inability to protect Burrow has led to some of those injury issues. It’s a critical offseason and there are many challenges.
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Dallas has to practically build a defense from scratch after last year’s debacle. They do have Quinnen Williams in the middle of the line as a start, and maybe new coordinator Christian Parker will lift the unit. But it needs a lot of work. The George Pickens situation will have to come to a resolution, as it seems the Cowboys will franchise tag him and he won’t be happy. But if that is resolved, the Cowboys are in good shape on offense. Everything should be poured into the defensive side. Two draft picks in the top 20 (the second pick is from the Micah Parsons trade) will help.
It’s a new era in Pittsburgh, with Mike McCarthy taking over for Mike Tomlin. Tomlin was a floor raiser who wasn’t getting the Steelers to their ceiling anymore. And that’s exactly what McCarthy has become, so it’s hard to see it as an upgrade. The Steelers’ biggest question (you know the drill, all together now … ) is they can’t be sure who their quarterback will be. Even if it is Aaron Rodgers, he’ll be 43 years old in December and you’re really gambling on him missing that age cliff again. Also, the Steelers’ defense looked old for a lot of last season. Pittsburgh will probably be what it has been, hovering around .500 with no chance of being a real contender.
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It will be hard to project the Chiefs. They had a rough record last season, but a lot of that was close losses early and an unwinnable quarterback situation late. Of course, Patrick Mahomes’ recovery from a torn ACL completely affects the outlook, especially early in the season. Kansas City still has plenty of pieces from the AFC championship team of two seasons ago, but that can be a long time in the NFL and it has been hard for Kansas City to restock the roster at key spots, like the offensive line. That task doesn’t get easier with the Chiefs having a mess of a cap situation to clean up in the offseason. There’s also a question of Travis Kelce’s future. However, nothing else matters much if Mahomes is on the sideline.
The Texans need to get some better talent around C.J. Stroud, particularly on the offensive line, and see if Stroud can get back to that rookie form that has been missing the last couple seasons. The defense was one of the top two in the NFL all last season. The offense just needs to come along and support that defense better. There’s still a chance for Stroud to emerge as a star for many years to come, but that prospect is a bit murkier than it was a couple years ago.
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Micah Parsons’ recovery from a torn ACL, after the Packers got aggressive to trade for him before last season, is the headline of the offseason. It was clear to see how Parsons raised the Packers’ ability to win a championship, and also obvious to see how much they missed him after the injury. The roster practically is what it is at this point, and they won’t have a first-round pick to get some instant energy from. Matt LaFleur has to figure out how to take this group to another level.
The Ravens will be fascinating in 2026. John Harbaugh is out and in comes a very young staff led by new coach Jesse Minter and offensive coordinator Declan Doyle. The youth movement could reinvigorate a team that fell woefully short of Super Bowl dreams last season, but it is risky. Also, what to make of Lamar Jackson? Last season was a mess, even when he came back from a hamstring injury. The Ravens still have a Super Bowl upside. But also for the first time in a long time, they’re a little tough to read.
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A year ago, we were all wondering if the Eagles were a dynasty. Then the 2025 season was rough. There was drama seemingly all season and the offensive coordinator situation was a mess. They hired Sean Mannion, who has two years of coaching experience, to be their new OC. That’s bold, and risky too. Does A.J. Brown return? Will Saquon Barkley ever rebound from his heavy-usage 2024 season? Can Jalen Hurts put a poor season behind him? There are enough blue-chip players, especially on defense, that the Eagles could look much better in 2026.
The 49ers need better luck on the injury front. But it’s a little more complicated than that. They’re an aging team. Injuries will be a bigger part of the equation as that happens. The 49ers need defenders Nick Bosa and Fred Warner to come back strong off injuries, and add pieces around them. They also need to hope that Christian McCaffrey doesn’t hit a wall after a massive usage season. Kyle Shanahan will get the most out of his team, but time is running out for this group to win a Super Bowl.
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The Bears came along fast in 2025. Often teams that take a big leap fall back the next year, but Caleb Williams should theoretically improve in his third season, especially with Ben Johnson coaching him. The defense could use some pieces, particularly in the pass rush, though it will be hard with the 25th pick or without a ton of cap space. Still, the roster was good enough for a division title and a playoff win, and there’s reason to believe the trajectory is still pointing up.
There’s almost nowhere for the Jaguars to go but down after a 13-win season. But Jacksonville shouldn’t fall too far if the strides we saw Trevor Lawrence make in Liam Coen’s offense are a sign of things to come. Getting Travis Hunter back after he missed most of the second half of the season due to injury will help too. The Jaguars don’t have their first-round pick due to that Hunter trade and aren’t in great cap shape, but the talent on hand is good enough to compete for another division title.
This will be everyone’s bounce-back candidate for 2026. Metrics said the Lions were still an elite team last season. They just lost a lot of close games against a tough schedule, which left them out of the playoffs. But the Lions’ talent is undeniable. The major key might be new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. There probably won’t be too many roster changes, which is fine because there’s more than enough talent to win the NFC North again.
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The Chargers are in a great spot. They won 11 games despite losing two stellar offensive tackles. You can’t assume Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater won’t be lessened by their season-ending injuries, but if they return near their normal level, Los Angeles could have an elite roster. Losing defensive coordinator Jesse Minter hurts, but adding Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator should be a plus for Justin Herbert. The Chargers also have the fourth-most projected cap space in the NFL. This could be the season the Chargers break through.
The Broncos’ highest-paid player each of the past two seasons has been Russell Wilson. That big dead cap hit comes off the books, and Sean Payton is always aggressive in free agency. Adding a running back, and perhaps another receiver, would help an offense that needed it at times. Bo Nix isn’t expected to be impacted by an ankle injury that ended his season. The defense will still be very good. There’s no reason the Broncos can’t win the AFC West again.
The Rams were one of the best teams in the NFL, and have pick Nos. 13 and 29 in the NFL Draft. They also will have Matthew Stafford back for another season after he won his first MVP. Cornerback is a big need, but those two first-round picks could help solve that. Finding a successor for Stafford is another pressing task, and we’ll see how the Rams go about that. But the Rams will be a popular Super Bowl pick next season, and for good reason.
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The Seahawks were the best team in the NFL last season and it’s hard to dispute that. There’s no reason to believe the Seahawks will slip, but it is hard to repeat for a reason. They also play in a very tough division. But the foundation is strong and will be for a while. Mike Macdonald profiles as the type of coach who will always get the most out of his defense, and he’ll be just 39 years old next season. The Seahawks should be very good for a while.
At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, Ryan Cochran-Siegle missed out on a gold medal by just .04 seconds. While he didn’t come that close in 2026, Cochran-Siegle once again took home the silver medal in the super-G.
His performance this time around, however, was arguably more impressive. Cochran-Siegle was the third skier to make his run Wednesday, posting a time of 1:25.45.
While he briefly led the competition, a number of other skiers — including Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt — threatened to knock Cochran-Siegle off the podium.
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It didn’t take long for the American to drop, as Switzerland’s Franjo von Allmen hopped into first with a time of 1:25.32. With Odermatt looming, though, Cochran-Siegle’s position was tenuous. Odermatt, who won the super-G at the World Cup in three straight years, was a massive favorite heading into the competition Wednesday. If he skied the way everyone expected, Cochran-Siegle would drop to third with standouts like Austria’s Raphael Haaser and Norway’s Adrian Smiseth Sejersted still to go.
But Odermatt took a slightly awkward turn about halfway through the race that knocked him off the gold-medal pace. That seemed to throw Odermatt off his game. After a blazing first portion of the race, Odermatt lost even more time after his midway stumble, finishing with a time of 1:25.60, putting him in line to take home the bronze.
That performance put Cochran-Siegle in a much better spot with a number of racers still left. With Odermatt failing to surpass Cochran-Siegle’s time, two other skiers would need to finish ahead of Cochran-Siegle to knock him off the podium.
While the odds were in his favor, it wasn’t a guarantee Cochran-Siegle would medal. In addition to Haaser and Smiseth Sejersted, there were three other skiers — Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr and Stefan Babinsky and Italy’s Dominik Paris — in the event who finished ahead of Cochran-Siegle at the 2025 World Championships in the super-G.
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Of that group, Haaser was already out of the medal conversation. He took the course just before Odermatt, posting a time of 1:25.89, which wasn’t good enough for a medal.
With Haaser out of the picture, Cochran-Siegle slowly watched as the other major threats fell short. Smiseth Sejersted, Babinsky and Paris didn’t come close to the podium and Kriechmayr wasn’t a major threat there either, despite posting a time in the top 10.
As the field quickly whittled down, it became apparent Cochran-Siegle’s spot on the podium was secure. Perhaps fans should have seen that coming. Cochran-Siegle’s only World Cup win in the super-G over his career came during a 2020 race in Bormio, Italy, where Wednesday’s competition was held.
Allmen’s position was secure, too. His time held up, giving him the gold in the super-G. It’s his third gold medal at the Milan Cortina Olympics, as Allmen finished first in the downhill and helped Switzerland win gold in the team combined event. Odermatt was able to hold on and win the bronze.
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The medal is Cochran-Siegle’s second in the Olympics. He also took home the silver medal in the super-G in 2022, barely losing to Matthias Mayer in Beijing. Mayer shockingly retired later that year, and did not take part in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Cochran-Siegle also took part in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, but did not medal at the Games that year.
It was a historic day for Team USA at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics on Tuesday. The American team won five medals in five different sports, something it has never accomplished in a single day at the Olympics.
But none of those medals were gold.
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That already changed early Wednesday, as Elizabeth Lemley secured a gold in the moguls. The U.S. should be well-positioned to contend for the gold in multiple other sports Wednesday as well. Speed skater Jordan Stoltz — aka the next Eric Heiden — will finally take the ice for the 1,000 meters, a race in which he set the world record back in 2024. After helping Team USA win the team event, Madison Chock and Evan Bates will see if they can capture the gold in the ice dance Wednesday.
In addition to that, Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby had some impressive training runs in doubles luge Tuesday, and could contend for a medal in the event.
But before all that happens, there were a number of early morning events on Wednesday.
Here are the top stories of the day so far:
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1. Elizabeth Lemley, Jaelin Kauf take gold and silver in moguls
All four American women advanced to the moguls final Wednesday, but only two performed well enough to advance to the final run. Those two — Elizabeth Lemley and Jaelin Kauf — absolutely smashed it in the final.
Lemley turned in a fantastic performance, surging ahead of the pack to take the gold with a score of 82.30. At the time of her run, Lemley’s score sat four points higher than her closest competitor … until Kauf made her run.
Kauf was similarly dominant with her performance, scoring an 80.77 and winning the silver medal. The two Americans were the only members of the competition to score above 80.
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While Lemley and Kauf were guaranteed podium spots with one racer to go, there was a chance they could get pushed lower on the podium. Jakara Anthony came into the event as the favorite after winning gold in the moguls in 2022. But Anthony slipped during the final, finishing eighth and securing the gold and silver for Team USA.
2. Chloe Kim looks ready in halfpipe qualifiers
Chloe Kim entered the 2026 Games aiming for her unprecedented third consecutive gold medal in the halfpipe. And while Kim was considered a favorite to get the job done, a shoulder injury just a couple weeks ago resulted in the American facing more questions than normal before heading to the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Well, Kim answered all those questions during qualifiers Wednesday. She turned in a massive performance with her first run, ending any doubts about her health being an issue.
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Kim will wear a shoulder brace when she takes the halfpipe in Thursday’s final. If her run in qualifiers is any indication, the brace won’t hold her back at all.
3. Ryan Cochran-Siegle takes silver again in super-G
Ryan Cochran-Siegle set the tone early in the super-G on Wednesday. As the third skier to make his run, Cochran-Siegle led the pack immediately, and then was forced to watch as other major threats tried to knock him off the podium.
In the end, only Switzerland’s Franjo von Allmen was able to top Cochran-Siegle, giving the American his second straight silver-medal finish in the super-G at the Olympics. Cochran-Siegle also took home the silver medal in the event in 2022.
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His spot on the podium was not a guarantee. The big threat, Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, was expected to knock Cochran-Siegle down to third, which would have made for a more stressful finish for the American. But Odermatt took a slightly awkward turn at the halfway point that knocked him off his game. He wound up finishing third in the event.
Highlight of the morning
It certainly didn’t look like Elizabeth Lemley’s first time in the Olympics. Lemley was electric during her final moguls run Wednesday, earning an 82.30 score to obliterate the competition. The only other athlete who came close to touching Lemley’s run was her country-mate Jaelin Kauf, who earned a silver medal.
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While both performances were impressive, Lemley’s was truly a sight to behold, one worth watching multiple times.
If you feel like you need a glossary to follow snowboarding and freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics, you’re not alone.
These sports, which have migrated from the X Games culture into the mainstream, have a language of their own. Words like “rodeo” (a backward flip while also rotating horizontally), “cork” (an off-axis rotation that can be done frontside or backside) and the all-important “grab” (literally just grabbing the ski or snowboard with the hand during a trick) will be repeated dozens of times by commentators during the competition.
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Rather than focusing on the terminology, the best way to consume these sports is simply by watching and appreciating the daring nature of the tricks, which happen in a matter of seconds but contain multiple elements of spins and flips and grabs that are designed to impress a panel of judges.
The more audacious and creative the trick, the higher the score — if the skier or snowboarder can execute it and land cleanly back on the ground.
But this is not like a concert where a musician gets up on stage and plays their greatest hits over and over again. The bar for what’s required to win is constantly being raised, meaning a significant part of a competitor’s time between Olympics is spent simply developing new ideas.
“The tricks we’re doing now are already a lot harder than they were three or four years ago,” said freestyle skier Alex Hall, who won the slopestyle gold medal four years ago in Beijing with a so-called “pretzel” trick that he landed for the first time on his final practice before the event. “So everyone’s learned a bunch of new stuff. And [last] spring, I learned some stuff. I don’t want to release anything yet, but you’re always working on something new.”
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What does that entail? It can be a surprisingly long and arduous process just to get to the point where a competitor feels comfortable trying it on their skis or snowboard.
“We do so much summer training on trampolines or water ramps and jump training so when we bring those tricks to snow, we are at a 90% land percentage,” said Jaelin Kauf, who won the silver medal in moguls four years ago. “[We have to be] so confident that we’re going to be able to land and execute them, and we spend so much time working on that air awareness to be comfortable flipping around and getting a little lost in the air.”
Here’s how Alex Ferreira, a freestyle skier who specializes in the halfpipe and has medaled in the last two Winter Olympics, described his process of developing new tricks and getting ready for competition in a sport that’s all about pushing boundaries:
Step 1: Forming an idea
“You think about it, you see it in your head. You think it possibly could work.
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“Some steps can take two days. Some steps can take two years. And I’ve been stuck in all different types of the steps. A lot of trial and error. Definitely a lot of trial and error.
“I would say there’s a set line between style and degree of difficulty. Most people are not concerned mostly with flipping and twisting to get a higher score, but they’re more looking for something that looks nice in the air.
“I’m maybe a bit more of a conservative, and I’m proven wrong every single day. When I think the ceiling is here, people push it up higher and higher.”
Alex Ferreira during a training run at the US Grand Prix at Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort. (Dustin Satloff/U.S. Ski and Snowboard/Getty Images)
(Dustin Satloff via Getty Images)
Step 2: Practicing indoors at a training center
“I try it on the trampoline. Then from there I’ll rollerblade into a foam pit or into an airbag. And then from there I’ll do it on plastic and jump off a jump into an airbag — a giant airbag — with skis on. These airbags are 300 feet long, 100 feet wide and 15 feet thick of air. So they’re giant machines.
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“I’ll do that probably at least 100 jumps. It just depends on how quickly the mind can grasp the concept. I picked up the right side double cork 1260 in like 20 minutes. It was super easy for me. I don’t know why. And then the switch unnatural double cork 1080 took me four years.”
Step 3: Building confidence
“When you’re doing all these different simulations, these training mechanisms, you’re simulating what you’re going to do on snow, and you’re building that kinesthetic air awareness. So are there times where you feel a little less confident in your air awareness? Yeah, there definitely are just like, there’s times when you’re less confident in going up and asking a girl out or something like that. It’s very natural human thing to happen to you. For the most part, I’ve been able to have strong conviction in the flips and twists and take-offs and landings.
“I’m very aware, extremely focused, trying to practice as much as I possibly can beforehand so that when it does come time to do the trick on snow, the mentality is, of course, I’m nervous, but I always like to think about the nerves are making you more focused and more in the zone.
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“Everybody [is] taking it more seriously. I remember back when I was coming up, if you went to a training camp in the fall, that was pretty rare. Now people are going to one, two, three training camps in the span of three months, and they’re 100% going in the fall. So there’s a level of professionalism that wasn’t there before.”
Step 4: Checking conditions, forming a gameplan
“You have to change your mind quite a bit. If the stars align, it’s sunny, it’s not windy and there’s an open area in the halfpipe that you have a moment to do a trick that you’ve been really working and you know now is the time, you will still have to push yourself internally. And then there will be other times when the gameplan changes. For instance, it starts to become windy. The clouds are rolling in. The light has changed. It’s snowing, it’s slower. Don’t do this right now. Preserve yourself and come back another day.
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“On the first day of training, and you can see it and feel [the quality of the halfpipe]. You can watch the other competitors. And if you can see that the level is high and they’re doing a lot of their harder tricks, that would give me a little bit more inclination to start doing my harder tricks. Usually, I kind of set the tone. Now that I’m the older version of myself, and I’m kind of one of the older people in the sport, I’ve always been like, ‘Okay, if I can land the predecessor of the really hard trick, if I can land it about halfway down the wall, then I know I should be safe. That’s kind of my rule of thumb.
“Some of the competitors will kind of hold everything close and tight to their chest. I will 100% ask, ‘Hey, what do you think about the third hit or the fourth hit?’ And then they’ll give [their opinion]. They’ll release the information reluctantly, usually at first, and then they’ll have a question for me. I’ll answer it right off the gun, because they could have just saved my life. So I don’t hold anything. It’s a very much open sport. The chips are going to fall where they may. You’ve either put in the work or you haven’t. We’re going to have a contest. I’m going to land my run. I hope you land your run, but we’ll see who wins.”
Step 5: Time to go
“Very rarely would I pull an audible and go off script. It would only be in the case of in the middle of the run, if I think I made a mistake, you have about a second and a half from the time you landed to the time you’re going to take off again. So you really need to have a good idea, or you need to have strong conviction to be able to change your run on a dime. I’ve only changed my run probably five times in my whole career.
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“If I saw somebody do a brand new trick that I’ve never seen before, I wouldn’t necessarily go off my script. I would still stay on my script and do the best job that I possibly can, and then maybe come back the next week and try and implement a new trick.
“There’s no way you can get to the top without taking a few good, strong crashes. Once you do take a crash, you learn quickly.”
Tanking in the NBA is getting out of hand. Jaren Jackson Jr. made his debut with the Utah Jazz and had 22 points through three quarters. Then he sat down and watched a 15-point lead disappear. So did Lauri Markkanen. And so did Jusuf Nurkić. Utah lost. That was the point.
Every year, tanking happens. But the scale of it this season is staggering, and it’s undermining the product. The Jazz are not alone in their mission to intentionally lose. The Grizzlies traded away Jackson and aren’t rushing back Zach Edey or Ja Morant. The Pacers rested six veterans in a loss against the Jazz last week. The Bucks are keeping Giannis Antetokounmpo away from the court for as long as possible. Trae Young and Anthony Davis haven’t played yet for the Wizards. The Bulls flipped half the team for a nonsensical roster with eight guards on it. The Nets and Kings aren’t trying to win. Neither are the Mavericks. Even the team that just hit the jackpot is back in the tank.
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That’s nine teams. We’re not even at the All-Star break. This is happening despite a 2019 lottery reform that flattened the odds so the three worst teams share a 14% chance at the top pick. That was supposed to fix things. It hasn’t. No team is tanking to the extremes of the Process Sixers. But more teams are tanking into the top 10, because odds in the middle of the lottery now have a real chance of jumping into the top four like the Mavericks did one year ago, leaping from 11th to first to take Cooper Flagg. Since the 2019 reform, 11 of the 28 top-four picks have gone to teams with seventh-or-worse odds. Under the new rules, the NBA has matched decades of lottery chaos in just seven years.
(Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
That’s one reason tanking has reached this scale. The other? An absolutely stacked 2026 draft class. There are at least three players worthy of the first pick: Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU forward AJ Dybantsa and Duke big Cam Boozer. Even beyond them, the rest of the top 10 is stacked. Executives believe this draft has a chance to be historic.
“What’s happening is largely a byproduct of this draft class,” said one general manager of a playoff team. “But that doesn’t make it right. The league office needs to make an example out of someone. That’s how you send a message.”
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Adam Silver could punish a tanking team if he wanted with a massive fine or by stripping a pick. But tanking lives in gray areas. Is Utah resting stars in the fourth quarter more punishable than Washington keeping its new acquisitions in street clothes? The Jazz got fined $100,000 last year for resting Markkanen. In 2023, the Mavericks got hit for $750,000 for tanking out of the play-in and into the lottery. But teams treat those fines as a tax for better draft odds. The NBA’s draft system directly rewards losing, and as long as that incentive exists, front offices will exploit it. Enforcement becomes Whac-A-Mole.
Plenty of half-measures have been floated over the years — wins-based odds, multi-year standings formulas, tournaments for lottery teams — but every one of them still ties record to draft position, which means every one of them can be gamed.
Is tanking inevitable? What if you could design a system that completely severs the link between losing and draft position? Here’s an idea: I call it the Lottery Wheel.
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The basics of the Lottery Wheel
The premise is simple: remove a team’s record from the draft equation entirely. Use predetermined lottery odds assigned years in advance to every team. Those odds rotate annually. This system retains randomness through a lottery draw, and those odds would remain tradable, which would create an entirely new market for teams to rebuild without needing to lose on purpose.
The Lottery Wheel works by dividing the NBA’s 30 teams into five tiers of six teams each. Every tier is assigned a percentage of the total lottery odds, and those odds are distributed equally among the six teams within that tier.
The Jazz are sitting their top players in fourth quarters in an attempt to tank games … in February. (Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images)
(Rich Storry via Getty Images)
All 30 teams would be eligible for the lottery, not just the 14 teams that miss the playoffs. Why? Because if only non-playoff teams are eligible, you recreate a tanking incentive at the margins. Under any 14-team lottery in which all playoff teams are excluded, a team on the bubble has a genuine reason to lose its way out of the playoffs to retain lottery position.
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Before the system launches, the NBA would seed every team into its starting position on the wheel based on cumulative record, with the worst teams selecting first. Once every team has its spot, the wheel locks in and rotates automatically.
The tiers would rotate on a five-year cycle, meaning every team passes through every tier exactly once over five years. The rotation is staggered — Tier 1, then Tier 3, then Tier 5, then Tier 2, then Tier 4 — so that no team ever has back-to-back premium years. Everyone knows where they’ll be. Records are irrelevant. Odds are determined solely by which tier the wheel assigned to you that year. There is literally zero incentive to lose.
The Lottery Wheel’s odds
The NBA’s current lottery implementation talks about odds in the context of 1,000 combinations assigned to teams. For simplicity, the Lottery Wheel could use 600 combinations to evenly distribute odds within each tier:
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Tier 1: 40 combinations per team (240 total)
Tier 2: 25 combinations per team (150 total)
Tier 3: 18 combinations per team (108 total)
Tier 4: 11 combinations per team (66 total)
Tier 5: 6 combinations per team (36 total)
A Tier 1 team has roughly a 6.7% chance at the No. 1 pick. That’s the best seat at the table, but it’s less than half of the 14% the current system gives the worst team. Even Tier 5 teams carry a 1% chance, which is comparable to what the 13th-worst team gets under today’s rules. No tier is a dead year.
Every team would receive 40, 25, 18, 11, and six combinations over the five-year cycle. That’s exactly 100 per team. The system is perfectly equitable by design. No franchise is advantaged or disadvantaged over time. The only variable is which years your premium odds fall.
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How the order is determined
The top six picks are determined by a weighted lottery draw. All 30 teams are in the pool, and their odds are based on their tier assignment, plus whatever odds were acquired via trade. Each pick is drawn individually.
Here’s how those odds look:
Tier
Combos
#1 Odds
Top 3 Odds
Top 6 Odds
Tier 1
40
6.7%
19.5%
37.5%
Tier 2
25
4.2%
12.6%
25.2%
Tier 3
18
3%
9.1%
18.8%
Tier 4
11
1.8%
5.7%
11.8%
Tier 5
6
1%
3.1%
6.6%
Picks seven through 30 are slotted by tier. After the lottery draws the top six, the remaining teams fill in by tier order: all remaining Tier 1 teams go first, then Tier 2, then Tier 3, and so on. Those picks could be determined by randomizing their placement with a mini-lottery, similar to a reform idea presented by Boston Celtics executive Mike Zarren, which helped inspire my first Wheel concept published over a decade ago.
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The second round would follow the same tier-based structure for every pick in the round, with placement randomized within each tier.
You might be thinking: A 6.7% chance seems kinda low for Tier 1 teams. True. But because of how slotting works, a Tier 1 team’s floor is the 7-12 range. That’s a lottery pick in today’s system.
Owners of bad teams will ask: “Why would I vote for a system that stops rewarding me for being terrible?” But the Lottery Wheel shifts the rebuilding engine from losing games to winning trades.
The trade market would change
Under the current system, teams trade future draft picks. With the Lottery Wheel, odds would also be tradable. And that changes everything. Draft capital would also have a known, quantifiable value attached to it. It turns draft capital into a liquid currency. That’s a fundamentally different rebuilding engine for teams trading away or acquiring odds.
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Here’s an example: It’s the 2036 trade deadline. Toronto is at the top of the standings and in its Tier 2 year for the draft. That means Toronto has 25 combinations, a 4.2% shot at the first pick and a 25.2% chance at a top-six pick. In today’s NBA, a contender’s first is usually a pick in the 20s and rarely the centerpiece of a rebuild trade. But under the Lottery Wheel, suddenly a contender’s pick has value. And New Orleans, a non-contender in its Tier 5 year, has a player that Toronto desires. So the Pelicans acquire that pick from the Raptors to increase their odds, and the Raptors get a player to compete for a title.
That’s an approach that doesn’t exist in the current system, and it’s the kind of transaction that would replace tanking as the primary engine of rebuilding.
The honest problems
I’m not going to pretend this system is flawless. It isn’t. Let me address the biggest concerns head-on.
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1. Chronically bad teams lose their safety net
This is the most legitimate objection. Under the current system, if you’re terrible for seven straight years, you get seven straight years of great odds. There at least appears to be a path out for terrible teams. Whereas, with the Lottery Wheel, you get one Tier 1 year, and in my proposal those odds are only 6.7%.
“You’re asking bad teams to give up the one thing that makes being bad tolerable,” said an executive who heard my proposal.
Fair point. But the current system doesn’t necessarily help chronically bad teams either. Only one team with under 20 wins (Minnesota in 2020) has actually secured the top overall pick since the rules were changed in 2019. The most common outcome for the teams with the best odds? The fifth pick. This has happened seven times for the 21 teams that have had 14% odds. In other words, the NBA has already effectively removed the safety net. And unlike today, a bad team doesn’t have to stay bad to improve its position. It can acquire better odds through trades at any point in the cycle, or simply get lucky in any given year. Even Tier 5 teams have a shot at the top six.
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2. A contender could win the first pick
Yup. It’s possible. But that’s already possible under the current system, with the Thunder holding the rights to an unprotected first courtesy of the Clippers. In 2017, we saw the Celtics land the first pick with a pick they acquired from the Nets.
The lottery is inherently unpredictable. And so is the draft. Great players can be found anywhere. The Lottery Wheel makes it more of a regular thing for good teams to get high picks, but the question is whether it’s better for randomness to exist within a system that incentivizes winning or one that incentivizes losing. If the price of eliminating tanking is that sometimes a great team lucks into a great player, that’s a price worth paying.
The modern day draft is no longer “compensation for being bad.” It’s simply how new talent enters the league. But losing is still rewarded because of the probability of moving up. That needs to change. And if a contender landing in Tier 1 feels like too much of an advantage — between the lottery odds and the guaranteed slotting floor of picks seven through 12 — the league could simply expand the weighted draw beyond six picks to soften that edge.
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3. The known draft class problem
Everyone in the basketball world has a rough sense of which draft classes are loaded three to four years out. It’s not an exact science, of course. But a team whose Tier 1 year falls in a weak class gets unlucky through no fault of its own.
This was one of the classic criticisms of the Zarren “wheel” idea: If teams know in advance when they’ll be positioned well, elite prospects can time their draft entry to land in preferred situations. With modern NIL and two-year college stays on the horizon, that dynamic becomes even more plausible.
4. Expansion breaks the math
The NBA is almost certainly expanding to 32 teams at some point in the 2030s. Thirty divides cleanly into five tiers of six, but 32 doesn’t. The league would need to adjust to either four tiers of eight, or vice versa, or have tiers with uneven group sizes.
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5. Some teams are still going to stink
Even if draft incentive disappears, teams will still protect assets with load management and minutes limits, and still prioritize development over short-term wins, and still make financially motivated choices by ducking the tax and dumping salaries. So yes, the Lottery Wheel removes draft-driven tanking, but it does not magically create 30 teams playing like it’s Game 7 every night.
Every one of those problems is an edge case, an optics concern, or something patchable with rules tweaks. But the numbers and percentages are adjustable. The structure is the point. The core mechanic is simple: Your record has nothing to do with your draft position.
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Realistically, a system like this couldn’t take effect until the 2030s. Teams have already traded picks over the next seven years under the existing rules. This is around the time when expansion is expected. Restructuring the draft alongside expansion would give the league a natural window to start from scratch with enormous benefits.
The benefits of the Lottery Wheel
With all 30 teams in the pool, you’d see teams on the playoff bubble like the Bucks, Bulls, Grizzlies and Mavericks all still competing for a spot this year if their odds weren’t tied to being in the lottery.
More games would have meaning, making the regular season matter more. You would not see teams throwing out idiotic lineups or coaches installing bad game plans meant to increase their chances of losing. Instead, the focus shifts to winning games and developing players.
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The Lottery Wheel also changes the conversation around resting players. The league’s player participation policy would still exist since stars should play in marquee games. But the league would no longer have to guess whether a team is resting a player or tanking. That suspicion disappears. This is important not just for optics but for the genuine integrity of the league. The NBA has fully embraced sports betting and is making money off fans betting on games. Games that some teams are intentionally losing. The league can’t partner with sportsbooks and profit off fan engagement while allowing teams to deliberately lose.
The on-court product improves, and so does the off-court spectacle. This is a bigger, better TV product than the current four-pick drawing involving only non-playoff teams. With the Lottery Wheel system, every fan base in the league is watching because their team has skin in the game. Drawing only the top six picks keeps the truly franchise-altering picks subject to chance, while letting the tier structure do its work from pick seven onward.
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No system is perfect. The Lottery Wheel has edge cases and implementation questions that would need to be worked through. But the question facing the NBA isn’t whether a new system would be flawless. It’s whether it would be better than what we have.
Fans are paying the price. Buying tickets days in advance is a gamble when you don’t know if the stars you’re paying to see will actually play. The league knows this is an issue, which is one reason why it created the NBA Cup (to give the early part of the season more meaning) and the play-in tournament (to make the playoffs more attainable for more teams). The NBA is an entertainment product, and it’s not just competing with other sports leagues anymore. It’s competing with everything: Netflix, YouTube, every other piece of content fighting for attention. The games need to matter.
The league’s open-mindedness for experimentation to improve that product is admirable. But the flattened odds have failed at influencing teams to care more about putting the best team on the floor every night of the long season. Nine teams are tanking before the All-Star break. Others will join them in the weeks ahead. The problem isn’t going away. The league needs to stop tinkering and start reimagining.
“You won’t see that this year,” Jazz general manager Austin Ainge said in June when asked about Utah’s tanking approach. He lied. And until the NBA stops rewarding teams for losing, they all will.
Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll will reportedly miss the World Baseball Classic and is in danger of missing Opening Day due to a broken hamate bone in his right hand, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
The 25-year-old Carroll reportedly sustained the injury during batting practice Tuesday.
Carroll wasn’t the only player to sustain a hamate bone injury Tuesday. Baltimore Orioles infielder Jackson Holliday will also miss time this season due to the same injury.
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Carroll’s injury comes as a massive blow to both Team USA and the Diamondbacks. He was likely to be one of Team USA’s starting outfielders in the World Baseball Classic. With Carroll sidelined, Minnesota Twins star Byron Buxton could be in line for more playing time in the tournament, and Team USA will likely add another outfielder to its roster as Carroll’s replacement.
It’s an even bigger loss for the Diamondbacks, who have gotten two fantastic seasons from Carroll since he made his major-league debut in 2022. After a bit of a down year in 2024, Carroll bounced back with a .259/.343/.541 slash line in 2025. That performance was good enough to send him to his second All-Star Game, win him a Silver Slugger and help him finish sixth in the MVP voting.
While Carroll has battled ailments throughout his career, he has never been at risk of missing significant time due to an injury. He might not miss much time in 2026, either, as the recovery time from hamate bone surgery is roughly four-to-six weeks.
But even if Carroll is able to return by — or shortly after — Opening Day, he could battle lingering effects from the surgery. Players who sustain hamate bone injuries typically take some time to fully recover their power. That could be a significant limitation for Carroll, who hit a career-high 31 home runs last season.
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That will also be a concern for Holliday, whom the Orioles have already ruled out for Opening Day. Holliday, 22, doesn’t rely on his power as much, but he could still experience aftereffects from the surgery. Holliday is coming off a season in which he slashed .242/.314/.375 over 649 plate appearances. He was expected to open camp as the team’s starter at second base and likely would’ve been a popular breakout candidate due to his status as the former No. 1 overall prospect.
In addition to those two, New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor will also be sidelined in spring training due to a hamate bone injury. Lindor’s injury was reported Tuesday, and he reportedly had surgery on Wednesday. He is still expected to be ready for Opening Day.
If you’ve seen Netflix‘s newly-released docu-series Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, you’ve got a good handle on the competitive and often dramatic world of ice dancing (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?!). And now you’ll get to see three of the ice dancing pairs who were profiled in that series competing for gold at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Team USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates, France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron and Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are among those competing in the free dance final on Wednesday, and you can catch it live on Peacock and USA starting at 1:30 p.m. ET
For a complete schedule of every figure skating event at this year’s games, a rundown of who is on Team USA, and how to watch, keep scrolling. And if you want to learn even more about every event at this year’s Winter Games, here’s a guide to everything you need to know about the Milano Cortina Games.
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How to watch the free dance figure skating final at the 2026 Winter Olympics
For $17 monthly you can upgrade to an ad-free subscription which includes live access to your local NBC affiliate (not just during designated sports and events) and the ability to download select titles to watch offline.
Where to watch the free dance figure skating final on TV:
Wednesday’s free dance figure skating final coverage will air live on USA at 1:30 p.m. and you’ll find continued coverage at 2:15 p.m. on NBC, which you can stream on DirecTV, Hulu + Live TV and more. A late-night re-air will also be broadcast on USA at 1:30 a.m.
How to watch Olympic Figure Skating free without cable:
Who is on the Team USA Figure Skating team?
These are the sixteen skaters on Team USA’s figure skating team:
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Amber Glenn (Women’s Singles)
Isabeau Levito (Women’s Singles)
Alysa Liu (Women’s Singles)
Ilia Malinin (Men’s Singles)
Maxim Naumov (Men’s Singles)
Andrew Torgashev (Men’s Singles)
Madison Chock and Evan Bates (Ice Dance)
Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko (Ice Dance)
Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik (Ice Dance)
Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea (Pairs)
Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe (Pairs)
2026 Olympic Figure Skating Schedule:
Wednesday, February 11
Figure Skating Preview: 1:15 p.m. (USA, Peacock)
Free Dance Part I: 1:30 p.m., re-air at 1:30 a.m. (USA, Peacock)
Two years after she was a controversial snub by Team USA ahead of the 2024 Olympics, Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will finally make her senior national team debut. Clark was named to the 2026 USA women’s World Cup qualifying team Wednesday, along with Angel Reese, Kelsey Plum and other WNBA stars.
Clark, 24, is coming off an injury-riddled second season in the WNBA. She was limited to just 13 games with the Fever, averaging 16.5 points and 8.8 assists per contest.
Following that injury-riddled year, Clark proved healthy enough to take part in Team USA’s camp a few months after the WNBA season ended. She made her camp debut in December, when she announced herself as fully recovered after quad, groin and ankle injuries during the WNBA season.
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Making the World Cup qualifying roster doesn’t guarantee Clark will make Team USA for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, but it is her first step toward that goal. While Team USA has already qualified for the 2026 FIBA World Cup, the team will use the qualifying tournament as a way to prepare for the World Cup.
Being named to the qualifying roster doesn’t guarantee Clark will make the final World Cup roster either, though, again, it puts her in a pretty strong spot.
Team USA should be pretty stacked heading into the qualifier, which will take place between March 11-17 in Puerto Rico. In addition to Clark, other WNBA stars like Reese, Plum, Paige Bueckers, Dearica Hamby, Sonia Citron and Jackie Young will play in the qualifying tournament.
From there, Team USA general manager Sue Bird will determine the team’s roster for the 2026 World Cup, which will take place in September.
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For the World Cup qualifier, Team USA will be coached by Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson. Natalie Nakase of the Golden State Valkyries, Nate Tibbetts of the Phoenix Mercury and Stephanie White of the Indiana Fever will serve as assistant coaches during the qualifiers.
Team USA is seeking its fifth straight win in the World Cup. The women’s team has been a dominant force in the tournament, winning the World Cup eight of the past 10 times the tournament was held.
You have questions about the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, which for the first time pits the USA vs. World in a round-robin tournament of three teams across four 12-minute games.
It is confusing, and the story of how we got here is a long and winding one, featuring a ton of wrinkles to the format, each of which has failed to inspire competition from the players.
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Let us summarize that story for you, as we answer your questions.
When is the 2026 NBA All-Star Game?
The 2026 NBA All-Star Game is on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET on NBC.
Prior to that: The celebrity game, Rising Stars competition and HBCU Classic will be held in succession on Friday, beginning at 7 p.m. ET; and the slam dunk and 3-point contests, as well as the return of the Shooting Stars competition, will highlight All-Star Saturday, which begins at 5 p.m. ET.
NBC will air all events for the first time since 2002.
The Los Angeles Clippers will host the 2026 NBA All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome, which opened its doors to fans in 2024. The arena features a unique wall of stands on one end.
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An interesting wrinkle: Steve Ballmer’s Clippers are currently under investigation by the NBA for allegedly circumventing the salary cap. Kawhi Leonard, whose alleged no-show job at Ballmer-funded Aspiration is central to the investigation, is an All-Star this season.
Who is in the 2026 NBA All-Star Game?
The rosters, as selected by conference, in alphabetical order:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Deni Avdija, Portland Trail Blazers
Scottie Barnes, Toronto Raptors
Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets
Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
Luka Dončić, Los Angeles Lakers
Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
Brandon Ingram, Toronto Raptors*
Shai Gileous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks
Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers
LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets
Norman Powell, Miami Heat
Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers*
Pascal Siakam, Indiana Pacers
Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets
Karl-Anthony Towns, New York Knicks
Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets*
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
* Alperen Şengün was named as an injury replacement for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (abdominal strain). Brandon Ingram was named as an injury replacement for Stephen Curry (knee). NBA commissioner Adam Silver also selected Kawhi Leonard to the game in order to balance the rosters under the new USA vs. World format.
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What is the new All-Star Game format?
The new format will feature a round-robin tournament between three teams — two made up of players from the United States (USA Stars and USA Stripes) and a third consisting of international competitors (Team World). Each roster must include at least eight players.
Because the original 24 All-Star selections resulted in nine international players and 15 from the U.S., the commissioner added Leonard to the U.S. player pool.
Here’s how the teams have been divided for the 2026 All-Star Game:
USA STARS
USA STRIPES
TEAM WORLD
Scottie Barnes
Jaylen Brown
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Devin Booker
Jalen Brunson
Deni Avdija
Cade Cunningham
Kevin Durant
Luka Dončić
Jalen Duren
Brandon Ingram
Nikola Jokić
Anthony Edwards
LeBron James
Jamal Murray
Chet Holmgren
Kawhi Leonard
Alperen Şengün
Jalen Johnson
Donovan Mitchell
Pascal Siakam
Tyrese Maxey
Norman Powell
Karl-Anthony Towns
Victor Wembanyama
Each team will face each other once in the elimination stage:
Game 2: Stripes vs. Game 1 Winner
Game 3: Stripes vs. Game 1 Loser
The two teams with the best records will advance to the championship game. If all teams finish the round robin with a 1-1 record, the two teams with the highest point differential will play each other for the title.
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Each game will be 12 minutes.
In last year’s All-Star Game round-robin tournament, each member of the winning team received $125,000 and each member of the runner-up team received $50,000.
So why is there a new format, and why is it so confusing?
The All-Star Game was once held between teams from the Eastern and Western conferences, facing each other in what looked a lot like an NBA game — four 12-minute quarters and intense competition among the greatest basketball players in the world.
Somewhere along the way, most likely as parties and corporate sponsorships took greater priority throughout the weekend, the players stopped caring as much about competition.
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As players took the game less seriously, scores for the first time soared into the 190s in 2016 and 2017, and in 2018 the NBA changed its All-Star Game format for the first time.
For six years, the NBA named two captains who selected their 12-man teams from the 24-player field. That stretch featured a number of wrinkles, including an Elam Ending and a playground-style draft, each meant to inspire more competition among the players, and each failing most every year.
2018: Team LeBron 148, Team Stephen 145
2019: Team LeBron 178, Team Giannis 164
2020: Team LeBron 157, Team Giannis 155
2021: Team LeBron 170, Team Durant 150
2022: Team LeBron 163, Team Durant 160
2023: Team Giannis 184, Team LeBron 175
The January 2020 death of four-time All-Star Game MVP Kobe Bryant, who epitomized effort across 18 appearances in the exhibition, did inspire an uptick in intensity that year, when a team captained by LeBron defeated one captained by Antetokounmpo 157-155.
The resurrection of the All-Star Game was short-lived, however, and in 2024 Silver reverted to the East vs. West format. It did not go well, as the East beat the West 211-186.
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So, Silver instituted a just-as-confusing round-robin tournament last year, featuring three teams of All-Stars and a fourth of Rising Stars, and that, obviously, did not go well, either (Shaq’s OG’s beat Chuck’s Global Stars 41-25).
Rather than scrap the game entirely, ending what was once one of its signature events, Silver made another effort to inspire the same from the players in this confounding USA vs. World round-robin format.
The only thing that will truly change the level of competition is care from the players, who are more incentivized to remain healthy for the teams that pay them millions. If — and that’s a big if — the new format inspires increased competition from players who want to represent their countries, much like the Olympics elicits effort, bring it on.
