We’re at the part of the fantasy basketball season where sitting on your hands is a strategy — but it’s a bad one. The Yahoo standard league trade deadline is March 5, which falls in Week 19. After that, you’re not reshaping your roster — you’re managing around it. With fantasy basketball playoffs starting in Week 21 for most Yahoo standard leagues, there are only a few weeks left to make changes and lock in for a shot at the fantasy playoffs.
As of early Wednesday, we’re still waiting on injury reports and updates on some key players, so here are four principles for deciding whether to trade or drop a player at this point in the season.
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Veterans on tanking teams are a liability
This one’s always uncomfortable because we’re talking about names you recognize. But late in the season, incentives shift fast. Teams outside the playoff race start experimenting — younger guys get more run, veteran’s minutes dip or even get DNP’d.
Players I’d drop right now are:
Trae Young, Ja Morant, Jordan Poole, Malik Monk
If you’re contending, I’d be shopping these players before March 5:
Kings: DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis and Russell Westbrook
Pelicans: Zion Williamson and Trey Murphy III
Bucks: Giannis Antetokounmpo and Myles Turner
Nets: Michael Porter Jr. and Nic Claxton
Pacers: Pascal Siakam, Ivica Zubac and Andrew Nembhard
Jazz: Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George
Name value has a shelf life and right now is when you can still cash it in for someone with more late-season potential. Once the deadline passes and losing teams go full tank, you’re either riding it out or cutting them. Teams like the Jazz have viable replacement-level players like Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski ready to go if they want to hold out Markkanen and George.
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Just look at the Western Conference standings. The Grizzlies are in 11th place, 5.5 games behind the 10th-place Clippers. Memphis is not catching up for a Play-In appearance; neither will any of the teams beneath the Grizz. It’s a valid concern rostering any high-caliber fantasy assets on those teams down the stretch.
Trade players with unfavorable schedules
Atlanta’s looking suspect on the schedule front and not enough managers are paying attention.
The Hawks play eight games across Weeks 18-20. That’s the fewest in the league. Week 19 is a two-game week, and several of their games throughout the next three weeks land on nights where your lineup is already full.
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If you’re on the bubble and rostering high-valued Hawks, now might be a good time to test the trade market to get players who can offer 11 or 12 games during that span. Don’t get me wrong — Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu can generate enough value across categories to hold. But Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels and CJ McCollum? I’d consider moving them before the March 5 fantasy trade deadline.
Chicago and Phoenix are in a similar bracket, playing just nine games over the next three weeks. It’s not the end of the world, but you’re still potentially missing out on some volume, especially in points leagues. Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Mark Williams, Jalen Green and Collin Gillespie are all guys worth shopping if you can get something back before the deadline.
Downward trends are a bat signal to drop players
A 6-8 week decline in usage, shot attempts, defensive stats or minutes isn’t a slump — it’s a role shift. And once that recalibration becomes visible across multiple categories, the market often won’t pay for past production.
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Here’s how to approach it:
Before March 5, shop the player if season-long averages still look strong
If there’s no trade interest, that’s your signal that the value has already adjusted
If the trend continues into Weeks 18-19, dropping becomes the rational move
A player who fits this criteria is Lakers C Deandre Ayton. His numbers and production have been trending down for three months. The problem is, he’s unlikely to get much on the trade market, so you can cut him and grab someone off waivers. A player like Kings big man Max Raynaud could garner 80-90% of Ayton’s production. That’s not being reckless, that’s playing the percentages.
Availability beats upside right now
Teams get cautious this time of year. If a guy is sitting back-to-backs, on a minutes restriction or “managing something” — you need an answer before March 5. Can you move them on season-long name value? Great. Someone like Jalen Williams comes to mind as he re-tweaked a hamstring injury that already cost him 10 games before the All-Star Break.
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If not, (depending on the player) hitting the wire for four guaranteed games from a decent contributor can be more useful than a couple of shaky appearances from a bigger name — especially when you’re still fighting for playoff seeding. Joel Embiid, Jakob Poeltl, Markkanen, Kristaps Porziņģis and Darius Garland are several players whose injury history will factor into late-season absences.
Every roster spot needs to justify itself
My framework for trading or cutting a player is: look at every player and ask the hard questions. Are they trending up? Is the role secure? Are they in a favorable position to help you win the next three weeks? Are their games actually startable? And if you put them on the trade block today, would anyone actually want them?
If the answers aren’t convincing, don’t wait for clarity that probably isn’t coming. Trade while you still can. Drop when the math says to and stream with purpose. This is the final moment to switch up your strategy for a chance at a fantasy championship.
MILAN — Abbey Murphy couldn’t resist being aggressive Monday night when Swedish goaltender Emma Soderberg clumsily handled the puck behind her own net.
The American provocateur charged toward Soderberg to try to poke the puck away, slamming into the Swede hard enough to jerk her head backward and send her sprawling.
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After referees assessed a minor penalty on Murphy for goalie interference, Swedish defender Jessica Adolfsson intercepted the American on the way to the penalty box and shoved her in the chest with her right hand. Murphy theatrically fell to the ice, drawing a roughing penalty on Adolfsson and nullifying the Swedish power play.
The sequence was still fresh in the minds of Swedish players when speaking to Swedish media outlets after their 5-0 semifinal loss to the U.S. Soderberg accused Murphy of hitting her “right in the head” and questioned why the American didn’t receive a more severe penalty. Defender Mira Jungåker called Murphy’s alleged flop “pathetic” for someone “as skilled as she is.” Adolfsson said she takes pride in serving as her goalie’s “bodyguard.”
“If you want to lie down and cry on the ice after a little push, you can do that,” Adolfsson continued. “I can’t do anything about that.”
Abbey Murphy celebrates her goal in the U.S. victory over Sweden in the semifinals. (RvS.Media/Robert Hradil/Getty Images)
(RvS.Media/Robert Hradil via Getty Images)
There is no other player in women’s hockey more gifted than Murphy at getting under the skin of rival teams. The 23-year-old from the suburbs of Chicago has driven Olympic opponents crazy with her unprecedented blend of mind-blowing skill, relentless motor, prolific trash talking and penchant for embellishment.
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In the U.S.’s 5-0 group-stage thrashing of rival Canada, Murphy drew not one, not two, but four Canadian penalties. Murphy was also the first to respond when Italy’s Franziska Stocker cross-checked one of her American teammates, shoving the Italian twice and then following with a stiff left jab to the face mask. She smirked as she skated to the penalty box, chirping at Stocker the whole way.
Murphy is tied for third among players at these Olympics with seven points, but her two goals and five assists only hint at her impact. She is the emotional spark plug for a juggernaut U.S. team that enters Thursday’s gold-medal match against Canada having demolished its first six Olympic opponents by a combined score of 31-1.
“Obviously you love to have her on your team,” American defender Haley Winn said. “Whether it’s a goal, an assist or a big hit, she’ll do whatever it takes for our team to win.”
Though Murphy is the first in her family to play hockey, her toughness is a product of how she was raised. Her father, Ed, is a Marine veteran and former college football player. Her mother, Lynne, is an emergency room nurse and a former college softball star. Both her older brothers were athletes, Patrick a college football player at Division III Carthage College and Dominic an all-American wrestler at Division II St. Cloud State.
“Whenever there was a fight, my dad would love it and my mom would be like, ‘Cut it out, cut it out,’” Murphy said. “We would never stop until someone got hurt or someone took it too far.”
Then, laughing, she added, “It worked pretty well for all three of us.”
Murphy took an interest in hockey after an across-the-street neighbor taught her how to roller blade. Her parents bought her some hockey skates, enrolled her in youth hockey programs and then watched her thrive, first competing against boys and later for the all-girls Chicago Mission Youth Hockey Club.
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By 16, she earned a spot on the U.S. roster for the U-18 World Championships.
By 18, she blossomed into the University of Minnesota’s second-leading points scorer as a freshman.
By 19, she became the second-youngest player to make the U.S. Olympic team for the 2022 Games in Beijing.
When Murphy left the University of Minnesota to join her U.S. Olympic teammates in Milan, she was the Gophers’ runaway leader in goals (36), assists (25) and penalties taken (23). She also had just produced one of the plays of the year at any level of hockey, a highlight-reel bounce pass that hockey analyst John Buccigross called “the greatest assist of all time.”
The inspiration behind Murphy’s YouTube-worthy assist was watching Michigan State forward Ryker Lee pull off a similar pass in early January. Murphy said she didn’t plan on attempting it in a game. It just happened.
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“I think the biggest thing I’m proud of is the eyes it put on women’s hockey,” she said. “That’s my most important takeaway from it — a lot of people commenting, ‘Oh my God, women’s hockey, this is awesome.’”
Murphy has produced several more moments on the Olympic stage that have gotten the hockey world buzzing.
There was her slick no-look pass from the corner that caught Canada’s defense by surprise and set up Hannah Bilka for the easiest goal she’ll ever score.
And there was the moment against Italy when she rushed to Bilka’s defense after the hit from Stocker that Murphy perceived as dirty.
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“Anyone in front of the net that gets cross-checked, I’m not going to just watch that happen,” Murphy said. “That’s not me. I’m not just going to let it go. But obviously our coach says find that fine line. Don’t get in trouble. Don’t do anything stupid that’s going to keep me out of the next game.”
With the possible exception of her hit on the Swedish goaltender, Murphy has effectively traced that razor’s edge. She has been a menace for U.S. opponents, a threat to score, set up a teammate or draw a penalty at any moment.
American forward Kirsten Simms plays for the University of Wisconsin and has faced Murphy a handful of times per year in college the past few seasons.
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When asked about Murphy earlier in these Olympics, Simms smiled and said, “When she’s on your team, it’s a lot more fun.”
Expectations are high in South Bend for Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr; he opens as the +700 favorite to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy at BetMGM. The Fighting Irish currently have +700 odds to win the national championship, tied for the second-best odds with Oregon and Texas — and right behind favorite Ohio State at +600.
Texas QB Arch Manning (+800) and Oregon QB Dante Moore (11-1) have the next-best Heisman odds, followed by Ohio State QB Julian Sayin (12-1) and Indiana QB Josh Hoover (12-1).
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Superstar Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith has the best odds for any non-QB at 14-1.
Here are the Heisman odds for every college football player listed at BetMGM, entering the 2025-26 season:
Heisman Trophy odds
CJ Carr: +700
Arch Manning: +800
Dante Moore: 11-1
Julian Sayin, Josh Hoover: 12-1
Jayden Maiava, Jeremiah Smith, Sam Leavitt: 14-1
Gunner Stockton: 15-1
Darian Mensah: 16-1
Marcel Reed: 22-1
John Mateer, Brendan Sorsby, Byrum Brown: 25-1
Bryce Underwood: 35-1
Malachi Toney, LaNorris Sellers: 40-1
Demond Williams Jr.: 45-1
Austin Mack: 50-1
Rocco Becht, Kevin Jennings, Bear Bachmeier: 66-1
Lincoln Kienholz, Keelon Russell, Conner Weigman, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele: 80-1
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100-1
Kewan Lacy, Nico Iamaleava, Austin Simmons, Drew Mestemaker, Bo Jackson, Ahmad Hardy, Noah Fifita, Cam Coleman
125-1
Christopher Vizzina, Anthony Colandrea
150-1
Dylan Raiola, Alberto Mendoza, Kamario Taylor, Cutter Boley
175-1
CJ Bailey, Cameron Dickey
200-1
Nick Marsh, Charlie Becker, Malik Washington, Mark Fletcher Jr, Alonza Barnett, Ryan Williams, KJ Jackson
225-1
Aneyas Williams, Hollywood Smothers, Nate Frazier, Jaylen Raynor, Maddux Madsen, Mason Heintschel, J’Koby Williams, Colton Joseph, Justice Haynes, Jordan Marshall, LJ Martin
250-1
Kenny Minchey
300-1
Isaac Brown, DeSean Bishop, Billy Edwards Jr., Turbo Richard
350-1
Julian Lewis
500-1
Danny Scudero, Nick Minicucci, Jordan Faison, Broc Lowry, Dylan Riley, Caden Creel
Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving will miss the remainder of this season as he continues to rehab his ACL injury, the team announced Wednesday.
“The decision wasn’t easy, but it’s the right one,” Irving said in a statement. “I am grateful for the Mavericks organization, my teammates and our fans for their continued support throughout the process. I am looking forward to coming back stronger next season. The belief and drive I have inside only grows.
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“And I wanted to send a huge shoutout to ALL of my brothers and sisters out there who’ve torn their ACL or gotten injured doing what they love to do every day. THANK YOU for the inspiration. No fear!”
Irving’s agent, Shetellia Riley Irving, told ESPN: “This is about Kyrie being 1000% when he comes back and giving himself the best chance to chase a championship next season.”
Irving hasn’t appeared in an NBA game for nearly 12 months. His last game with the Mavs was on Mar. 3 of last season, a 122-98 loss against the Sacramento Kings. He played just over nine minutes during that game, scored seven points, and then suffered a season-ending knee injury.
In 2024, the Mavs advanced to the NBA Finals on the backs of Luka Dončić and Irving, and it looked like Dallas would be a Western Conference contender for the foreseeable future. Two years later, Dončić is a Laker and Irving is approaching an entire year without touching the hardwood.
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When Irving does return next season, he’ll be heading into his 15th NBA season at age 33. The former No. 1 overall pick has been a phenomenal player and one of the best point guards in the league for well over a decade, despite his injury history. Irving is a nine-time All-Star, three-time All-NBA selection and won an NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016.
MILAN — Quick, name the skater who’s been on the ice more than anyone this Olympics. No, it’s not Alysa Liu or Ilia Malinin. The skater who’s spent more time on the ice than any Olympian won’t medal at these Games, but he’s nonetheless opening up the image of skating in an entirely new way.
After every skater finishes their routine, Jordan Cowan steps onto the ice to accompany them to the kiss and cry couch. He circles them, capturing their emotions while deftly skating backward to accompany them off the ice. There are plenty of jobs that one can step into with no experience, but “skating cameraman” most definitely is not one of them.
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Cowan grew up in Los Angeles, but fell in love with ice dancing and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to train. He was good, too, joining Team USA as an ice dancer; alongside partner Anastasia Olson, he finished 7th in the U.S. national championships in 2012.
Camera operator and former ice dancer Jordan Cowan on the ice after Alysa Liu of United States performs during the short program. (REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli)
(REUTERS / REUTERS)
All the while, though, he was working with video, making funny clips and enjoying himself. A child of Los Angeles, his first love was film. After he retired from skating, he observed how cameras in ballroom dancing were revolutionizing the viewing experience. Steadicams can move with the dancers, bringing a new dimension of intimacy to shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”
And then an idea hit him: What if a camera could move with skaters?
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Cowan is a freelance videographer, working in Madison Square Garden filming the Knicks and Rangers. But he knew there was an untapped opportunity for on-ice filming, so he began developing his own Steadicam rig, a hybrid of various systems and equipment tailored specifically to his needs. He founded On Ice Perspectives to provide skating camerawork for TV and national competitions. He’s filmed three U.S. championships, including breakout moments with stars like Amber Glenn:
The Olympics represent a new level of fame and responsibility. “This is a very traditional kind of sport, filmed mostly the same way for the last 50 years,” Cowan says. “Fans love the tradition of ice skating. So having a camera on the ice is a very important privilege. I respect it a lot.”
In these Olympics in Milan, Cowan enters the rink after the skaters have finished their routines, giving a sweeping, cinematic view of their faces in joy or devastation. He skates in slow, sweeping arcs around them, carrying a camera — he says it weighs about as much as a heavy bag of groceries — out in front of his chest, capturing the spectrum of emotion on skaters’ faces.
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“I recognize and respect their emotional privacy,” he says. “I’m trying to bring the audience closer to the story, getting the audience to empathize. The skaters understand that I’m not there to put a camera in their face, but to show them in the best light possible.”
He also tries to remain unobtrusive. Two skaters he’s filmed before — Great Britain’s Lewis Gibson and Canada’s Paul Poirier — were excited to see he was on the ice … but only when they saw him filming other skaters. They hadn’t even noticed him while he was on the ice in front of them.
“That’s the best feedback I can get,” Cowan says. “I’m not taking anything away from the skaters on the ice.”
That’s in part because he blends into the ice. Cowan sports a sharp custom-made white suit, a tribute, he says, to the fashionable host city of Milan.
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“Sometimes I’m caught in a wide shot,” he says, “so instead of trying to make a feeble attempt to hide myself, I tried to match the mood of skaters in expensive designer costumes.”
Saturday night will bring the famed skater’s gala, an exhibition of the figure skating medalists and special invitees where Cowan will get the opportunity to shine. “That’s my specialty. I love filming live shows,” he says. “It’s a celebration, a performance to please the crowd.” Freed of the concerns about competition, both Cowan and the skaters will be able to cut loose, enjoy the pleasure of performing, and bring the audience along for the skate.
“Being on ice, getting to film skaters during their tricks, having people at home watch it live and behind the scenes,” he says, “it’s even better than a front-row seat.”
MILAN — There are bad omens, and then there are the grim tidings that rose up before Mikaela Shiffrin in the most important race of her life. Olympic preparation can take you a long way, but it can’t quite prepare you for what she saw in front of her as she prepared to take her second, and final, run in the women’s slalom in Cortina.
Shiffrin had laid down the fastest time in the first run, meaning she had the chance to watch every single medal-capable skier post their second run before she skied. Two skiers before Shiffrin’s turn, Sweden’s Cornelia Oehlund was carving out a fast time — 0.22 ahead of the leaders’ pace, to start — when disaster struck from nowhere. Oehlund’s left pole snapped, leaving her holding the stub and scrambling for balance. She held on as long as she could, then spun out and failed to finish.
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An even worse fate awaited Germany’s Lena Duerr, the second-fastest skier in the first round. As Duerr pushed onto the course, her right ski clipped the wrong way around the first gate, an instant disqualification seconds into a potential medal run. That’s an elementary-level mistake, and a heartbreaking one.
Shiffrin had to watch all this unfolding right in front of her as she prepared to ski her second run. But this wasn’t any ordinary race; Shiffrin can, and does, handle those with ease. This was the Olympics, the demon that has tortured and tormented Shiffrin for so many years now. On her back hung the weight of expectation, pressure, condemnation, anxiety.
And somehow, for the first time in eight years, she used all that weight to propel her, not drag her down. Shiffrin fired down the course in Cortina at such a speed that she increased her already-massive lead over the field, from 0.82 to 1.5 seconds. She claimed her third Olympic gold medal, and reclaimed her headspace.
“It’s just so much effort and work and focus and preparation for two runs of 47, 50 seconds,” Shiffrin said. “To actually be in the right mentality in the right moment is nearly impossible.”
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According to NBC, Shiffrin’s margin of victory was the largest since 1998. She’s now the first American woman skier to win three Olympic gold medals, and has the distinction of being both the youngest and oldest American woman to win gold.
More than that, though, Shiffrin won back her legacy. One of the cruel ironies about the Olympics is that it’s better to be a one-and-done medalist than a win-a-few, lose-a-bunch multi-time Olympian. Beijing blanked Shiffrin; she didn’t even finish three of the events she entered. Milano-Cortina was a bit kinder — she at least made it down the mountain in her earlier events, though at underwhelming-for-her speeds.
With every event that passed without hardware, though, the muttering grew louder. Was Shiffrin spooked by the Olympics? Cursed? How could the most decorated World Cup skier in history dominate everywhere else on the calendar except these two weeks every four years?
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Shiffrin has been upfront about her mental health challenges, from the Olympic drought to the PTSD she suffered after a horrific crash in 2024. And while there’s far more attention paid to the mental strains and struggles of Olympic athletes now than ever before, that doesn’t make those struggles go away. Sharing your challenges with the world can keep them a bit more manageable, but there’s no gold medal for sharing.
So that’s why Wednesday’s race was so critical for Shiffrin. Imagine if she’d fallen short yet again. Imagine if her pole had broken, or if she’d caught that first gate, or suffered any of the other hundred woes that would have kept her off the podium. Imagine the questions that would have followed her, the media second-guessing, the social-media garbage, the internal anxieties that would have wracked her for another four years, and maybe for forever.
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“There will always be criticism, but I was here to earn the moment and that is going to require some risk,” she said. “Risk of not finishing. It’s also risk of being criticized, and to accept that. (It is) not the easiest thing to do, but in the end today we were able to do that.”
She stared that grim future in the face … and she flat-out skied right through it.
“I wanted to be free, I wanted to unleash,” she said afterward. “It’s not easy to do that, but I’ve been so focused every single day.
“… In the end, today, showing up — that was the thing I wanted most. More than the medal. Now, to also get to have a medal is unbelievable.”
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In an Olympics where pressure is becoming a key subtext, Shiffrin met the moment, and made it hers. She rewrote her legacy at full speed, high in the mountains of Cortina.
NBA skills coach Drew Hanlen joins Kevin O’Connor to break down the season’s hottest topics, from star player development to the reality of tanking in the league. Drew shares inside stories about working with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jayson Tatum and others and explains why self-belief can be both a gift and a curse for rising talent.
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(0:48) When will Tatum return for Celtics?
(12:13) Player development & Deni Avdija
(21:43) Can Hornets maintain their winning ways?
(26:25) How can NBA stop tanking?
(31:09) Joel Embiid’s recovery and development
(43:02) How teams use data & analytics to improve
(49:03) Chris Paul retires from NBA
(56:43) How will defensive coaching evolve?
(01:00:11) Future of the All-Star game
Joel Embiid #21 of the Philadelphia 76ers looks on during the game against the LA Clippers on February 2, 2026 at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images)
An already difficult Olympics took a turn for the worst for Lindsey Vonn. The 41-year-old skier revealed Wednesday her dog Leo died a day after Vonn’s crash in the downhill event ended her Olympic comeback.
Vonn announced the news on Instagram, saying she had to say goodbye to Leo from her hospital bed in Italy.
Vonn credited Leo for providing emotional support when the skier needed it. She said he had been with her since her second ACL injury and watched the Sochi Olympics with Vonn, who could not compete at the event due to that injury.
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Vonn also added she’s undergoing yet another surgery Wednesday. It would mark at least her fifth operation since her crash in the downhill Feb. 8. Vonn came into the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics already dealing with another torn ACL, which she sustained days before the Olympics began.
Despite that injury, Vonn vowed to compete at the Games. She managed to get through some training prior to the downhill event, but her run ended after just 13 seconds, when she clipped a gate with her shoulder and crashed.
Vonn needed to be airlifted off the course and taken to a hospital, where she underwent at least four surgeries. Vonn announced Tuesday that she had arrived back in the United States, though had not been cleared to stand just yet.
LIVIGNO, Italy — At roughly 2:30 in the afternoon Wednesday, as the three medalists in women’s aerials celebrated and prepared to take their places on the podium, freestyle skier Kaila Kuhn made her way through the media zone.
She had hoped, even perhaps planned, to be changing into the puffy, sparkling white suits Team USA brings for medal ceremonies. Instead she was here, still wearing her helmet and goggles, answering questions about why she wasn’t able to land the trick she had envisioned in her mind.
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“The ladies that made it on the podium had their best day,” Kuhn said. “And I didn’t.”
Of course, that wasn’t quite the full story. About half an hour before that, Kuhn was down to her last chance to make the cut for the six-person final where previous scores are erased and it all comes down to one takeoff, one trick and one landing.
And she absolutely nailed it, just as you’d expect for someone who won the World Championships in aerials last year.
But when it came time to do it again — one jump for the whole thing?
All it took was one little mistake, a slight loss of balance on the landing. And just like that, the four-year clock began on her next chance at an Olympic medal in her most important event.
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“I went into the last Olympics really excited to be there. It’s a privilege that I have worked so hard over these last four years that I am upset that I didn’t get a medal [this time],” the 22-year-old said. “It’s just a little bit gut-wrenching missing that podium.”
At practically the same moment, on the other side of the country in Cortina, someone who has grown to know far too much about that kind of disappointment was feeling entirely different emotions.
Ilia Malinin attempted the most difficult routine in figure skating, and it wound up costing him a spot on the podium. (James Lang-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS)
A third Olympic gold medal for Mikaela Shiffrin won’t really change much about her career or her place in Alpine skiing history. But in the present moment, after eight years of answering questions — and perhaps indulging her own doubts — about whether she was going to do it again when it mattered most, all it took was one race to never have to deal with allthat ever again.
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But that’s the Olympics: Four years of narrative hinging on one run, one race decided by a fraction of a second, one score, multiplied for Team USA across 232 athletes.
It’s absurd to judge a competitor, much less an entire national effort, on an endeavor where the margins are so ridiculously thin and the range of emotions for individuals will be so wildly different as they leave the Milan Cortina Games.
And yet, with a little more than four days of Olympics remaining, it seems appropriate time to ask: Is 2026 shaping up to be a success or disappointment for an American contingent that came here with high hopes of surpassing the record 37 medals it won in Vancouver 16 years ago?
It’s probably a mixed bag.
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As of Wednesday afternoon, Team USA stood in third place on the medal table with 24 total — only one behind second-place Italy — but the expected gold rush led by American stars has not materialized. Given what’s left, surpassing 37 seems like a long shot. However, with seven gold medals at this stage and some prime opportunities remaining thanks to both hockey teams and speed skater Jordan Stolz, there’s a decent chance the U.S. can surpass its high-water mark of 10 golds set at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.
Will that be a cause for celebration or reason to lament missed opportunities? It’s fair to consider both.
What if Kuhn had been able to land the run she had in her mind when she stood at the top of the hill Wednesday, knowing a few seconds was going to win or lose a medal?
At the same time, this is what the athletes sign up for. They all know that. One chance — sometimes one jump — defines four years of work. There’s no choice but to live with it.
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“Absolutely,” Kuhn said. “That’s just kind of the way the cloth is cut.”
But the story is not yet written. More days, more events, more medals remain out there for dozens more American athletes who will leave here either ecstatic or heartbroken and begin the long climb once again.
That’s what makes the Olympics so special and why we must savor every moment still to come.
With All-Star Weekend in L.A. now concluded, the NBA-watching world’s attention now turns to the league’s annual sprint to the finish line. We’re less than two months away from the end of the 2025-26 NBA regular season, and there’s still plenty to figure out.
Let’s start figuring it out together, highlighting some of the most important things to keep an eye on between now and mid-April, starting with the race for the Larry O’B:
Who’s got the best shot of winning the 2026 NBA championship?
According to multiplepublicpostseasonprojectionsystems, that’d be the Oklahoma City Thunder, who hit the stretch run at 42-14, with a three-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs for the top spot in the Western Conference.
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That’s not nearly as comfortable a cushion as it seemed like the Thunder would have a couple of months ago, as they were annihilating the league in the midst of a 24-1 start and looking like a bona fide threat to challenge the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors’ all-time record of 73 regular-season wins. But the combination of a soft early-season schedule getting tougher — best exemplified in the arrival of multiple games against the Spurs, a compelling stylistic counterpoint for the defending champs — and a series of ailments that has Oklahoma City sitting third in total games lost to injury has thrown some speed bumps in what had previously been an exceedingly smooth ride. The most notable right now: an abdominal strain for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the favorite to repeat as the league’s Most Valuable Player, that has sidelined him since Feb. 4.
While the Thunder are no longer on pace to break the all-time wins record, they are still, like, really, really good: owners of the NBA’s No. 4 offense and No. 1 defense, outscoring opponents by a league-leading 12.2 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions. That would be tied with the 2007-08 Celtics for the third-best single-season efficiency differential in Cleaning the Glass’ database, which goes back to 2003, behind only the 2016-17 Warriors and … last year’s Thunder.
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Several other metrics — average margin of victory, Simple Rating System score (which accounts for a team’s point differential and strength of schedule), era-adjusted net rating — suggest that we’re still looking at one of the five to 10 best teams of the last several decades here, even with all the injuries … and when they’ve actually had Gilgeous-Alexander, first-time All-Star big man Chet Holmgren and 2024-25 All-NBA selection Jalen Williams on the floor, they’ve blown opponents’ doors off. Provided Mark Daigneault can get his main dudes intact and ambulatory by April and May, they’re still looking like the team to beat.
Who’s got the best shot of making sure that doesn’t happen?
Well, how about the Detroit Pistons, who have spent the last three and a half months hearing from everybody about how the Eastern Conference is wiiiiiiiiiiiide open, in spite of the fact that they’re friggin’ 40-13 — actually a few thousandths of a percentage point ahead of OKC in the race for the NBA’s best record and, with it, home-court advantage throughout the 2026 NBA playoffs — with the NBA’s second-best defense supported by a top-10 offense, led by surefire All-NBA selection Cade Cunningham?
Or maybe the Spurs team that announced itself with authority in December by overwhelming the Thunder three times in a two-week span; that ranks seventh in offensive efficiency and third on the defensive end; that boasts perhaps the league’s best three-headed backcourt monster in De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and rookie Dylan Harper; and that features arguably the sport’s most singular force in 7-foot-forever game-changer Victor Wembanyama?
Detroit and San Antonio have some company in the race to unseat Oklahoma City. The Nuggets, who took the Thunder the distance in the second round of last year’s postseason, still have three-time MVP Nikola Jokić, newly minted All-Star Jamal Murray, the NBA’s best offense and a core that, when healthy, can go toe-to-toe with anybody. (It’s just that the “when healthy” part is proving tough tocome by right now.) The Rockets and Timberwolves have had their ups and downs of late, but we discount teams that took OKC to double-OT on opening night and have made the last two Western Conference finals at our own peril.
The three East teams jockeying for position below the Pistons can all talk themselves into their chances, too. The New York Knicks (who knocked off Detroit in last spring’s opening round) have shaken off their post-NBA Cup hangover, winning 10 of their last 12 heading into the All-Star break and sitting tied with San Antonio (whom they beat in the NBA Cup final) for the league’s fourth-best net rating. Just ahead of them: The Boston Celtics, who’ve brilliantly navigated an injury-and-finance-motivated offseason overhaul to generate the NBA’s No. 2 offense and No. 8 defense, with Jaylen Brown getting All-NBA buzz, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard performing brilliantly in larger roles, Joe Mazzulla getting the most out of a shuffled-up rotation … and Jayson Tatum, potentially, getting closer to a return.
And hot on Boston and New York’s tails: The Cleveland Cavaliers, who won 11 of 12 heading into the break, are tied for the NBA’s best record since Jan. 1, and who made the biggest win-now addition of any Eastern team at the trade deadline when they brought in James Harden to pair with Donovan Mitchell in what’s looking in the early going like an awfully potent backcourt:
Whether any of those teams have the goods to outclass Oklahoma City four times in seven games remains to be seen. That more than a handful of teams can harbor realistic hopes of doing so, though, ought to set up a pretty compelling home stretch.
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Health obviously matters for everybody … but for whom might it matter most?
It’s not exactly revelatory to say that teams don’t function as well without their best talent, and typically need all hands on deck to win the title. But something doesn’t need to be surprising to be true; which team survives the next seven weeks unscathed will likely go a long way toward determining which of them can survive the postseason gauntlet, too.
Denver jumps out to me. The Nuggets are 17-6 with Aaron Gordon in the lineup, and 18-14 without him. They’ve hammered opponents by a whopping 22.2 points per 100 possessions with Jokić, Murray and Gordon all on the floor — a mark that drops to a still-very-good-but-not-nearly-as-overwhelming 7.4 points-per-100 when Jokić and Murray play without Gordon. Hamstrings are notoriously fickle beasts; Denver’s chances of being able to mount a credible challenge to OKC out West likely rest on whether Gordon’s can hold up come springtime.
I’m keeping an eye on Cleveland in this context, too. Swapping Darius Garland for Harden was a move aimed at limiting injury liability — while Garland’s a decade younger than the Beard, he’s been less durable overall and missed a ton of time this season dealing with multiple toe sprains — but the Cavs also come out of the break with Evan Mobley sidelined by a calf strain.
On one hand, “calf strain” has become perhaps the two scariest words in the NBA, as our Tom Haberstroh covered earlier this season, so nobody wants to rush Mobley’s return. On the other, Kenny Atkinson and his coaching staff would surely love to see the reigning Defensive Player of the Year back on the floor as soon as possible, to increase the number of opportunities he has to get reps with Harden and give Cleveland’s revamped core time to jell. (Also: Max Strus, the starting small forward on last season’s 64-win Cavs team, hasn’t played a second as he recovers from offseason surgery to repair a Jones fracture. Do we see him before the playoffs? If so, how long does it take him to get up to speed, and what does that mean for Cleveland’s wing rotation?)
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Over in New York, the Knicks will be waiting with bated breath to find out if reserve guard Miles “Deuce” McBride can return in time for the postseason after undergoing surgery to repair a core muscle injury earlier this month. While the trade-deadline addition of Jose Alvarado has helped steady New York’s rotation in his stead, the health of McBride — the Knicks’ best shooter and point-of-attack defender off the bench, and a player who opens up multiple lineup options for head coach Mike Brown — could go a long way toward determining if the Knicks have enough firepower to advance beyond the Eastern finals this time around. Ditto for oft-injured center Mitchell Robinson, who has been on a load-management plan all season, and whose offensive rebounding and paint protection make him an incredibly important swing piece for New York — despite averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game.
It’s also worth monitoring a pair of potential returns. If Tatum’s able to get back on the court from his Achilles rupture before the postseason, it could dramatically shift the title chances of a Celtics team that could certainly use his shot creation, shooting, rebounding and size on the perimeter. And while there’s only “small hope” that Fred VanVleet can return to the floor before season’s end after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee back in September, that’s not no hope. Adding an experienced, decorated veteran point guard could do wonders for a Rockets offense that ranks 24th in half-court scoring efficiency and 24th in points scored per possession overallsince Jan. 18 — the last game that offensive rebounding machine Steven Adams played before suffering a season-ending ankle injury.
We haven’t mentioned them yet, so we’ll take a moment here to consider the Philadelphia 76ers — 30-24, in sixth place in the East, equidistant from the Nos. 2 and 10 seeds — and note the eternal quandary that is The Health of Joel Embiid.
Since a rocky and rickety start to the season as he worked his way into form and rhythm after being limited to 19 games last season by recurring knee issues, the big fella has looked … well, kinda-sorta like the big fella! Embiid has averaged 30 points, 8.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 33.8 minutes per game over the last two months, shooting 55.5% inside the arc, 37.5% beyond it and 86% at the free-throw line while taking nearly 10 freebies a night. The Sixers are 19-12 with Embiid in the lineup, and 11-12 without him; they have outscored opponents by 5.5 points-per-100 with him on the floor, and beenoutscored by 3.4 points-per-100 with him off it.
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Philly has undergone a sea change this season, becoming oriented primarily around the backcourt of All-NBA point guard Tyrese Maxey and rookie thunderbolt VJ Edgecombe. Even so: The best version of the Sixers is the one with the 7-foot, 280-pound behemoth out there dominating from the block and the nail, and making opponents think twice about venturing into the paint … which is why it arched an eyebrow that Embiid missed the Sixers’ last two games before the All-Star break with right knee soreness, and that the team plans to re-evaluate that knee after the break.
One last quick note on the champs: While I think Daigneault’s pretty comfortable with just about whatever configuration he needs to throw out there, you’d imagine he’d like the starting five from last year’s title team — Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, Holmgren, center Isaiah Hartenstein and guard Luguentz Dort — to log significantly more than 41 shared minutes over the final couple of months. And if SGA’s abdominal strain and J-Dub’s ongoing right hamstring issue persist … well, things could get awfully interesting in the title picture.
Did the trade deadline meaningfully impact the playoff race?
Maybe — if the Garland-for-Harden swap elevates the Cavs as much as Vegas and several projection models seem to think it might, and if Ayo Dosunmu can give the Timberwolves the extra snarl and bite they’d been missing in their backcourt.
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For the most part, though, the biggest swings at the 2026 NBA trade deadline — Anthony Davis joining Trae Young in Washington, Jaren Jackson Jr. joining Lauri Markkanen in Utah, Ivica Zubac landing in Indiana — were more about impacting the playoff picture next season than this one.
(And if you’re interested in reading an awful lot about this year’s trade deadline, by all means, please dig into my Winners and Losers column. It’s not gross old food. It’s tasty leftovers!)
How’s the MVP race shaping up?
Um … kind of weird, thanks to the collision of multiple first-half injuries and the 65-game threshold for postseason award eligibility.
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Gilgeous-Alexander’s case to go back-to-back is already strong on the merits. He’s been even better this season than he was last year, carrying the Thunder through the aforementioned raft of injuries back to the top of the West. Best player on the NBA’s best team, first or second in damn near every advanced stat, on pace for the most efficient 30-point season in NBA history, a positive contributor to the NBA’s best defense, the league’s top clutch performer — SGA’s earned his spot in pole position in the race. The gap’s widened, though, because so many of his peers missed time early.
With more than 20 games missed due to calf, knee, adductor and ankle injuries, Giannis Antetokounmpo is already eliminated from consideration. A hyperextended left knee put Jokić on the shelf for 16 games, putting him a whisper away from ineligibility himself. A calf strain and a knee injury have cost Wembanyama 14; a handful of leg injuries have knocked Luka Dončić out for 12 (and counting). Add it all up, and Gilgeous-Alexander has played several hundred more minutes than all of those would-be contenders; even if they remain eligible, it feels like it’s going to be tough for them to catch him (though his own abdominal-strain-induced absence could help them close the chasm).
Those heavy hitters missing the ballot would aid the candidacies of players like:
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Cade Cunningham, who’s averaging 25.3 points, 9.6 assists (second in the NBA, behind Jokić), 5.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game, as the straw that stirs the drink for the East-leading Pistons;
Jaylen Brown, efficiently shouldering a Luka-level workload as the No. 1 option for the surprising Celtics;
Anthony Edwards, averaging 29 points per game on 49/40/80 shooting splits while learning how to serve as the Wolves’ ostensible point guard;
Donovan Mitchell, for much of the season the lone constant keeping the Cavs afloat in the race for home-court advantage in the East;
Jalen Brunson, the leading scorer, playmaker and crunch-time orchestrator for the third-seeded Knicks; and
Tyrese Maxey, leading the league in minutes, scoring and assisting at career-high levels, and elevating the Sixers amid the absences of Embiid early in the season and Paul George now.
All this MVP talk has me wondering about the races for the other awards. Who’s in the running for those?
Well, here’s Kevin O’Connor’s take on the state of the awards races as of All-Star, plus our staff awards roundtable at the midway point of the season a couple of weeks back.
The most fun race to monitor is probably Rookie of the Year, where the 2025 NBA Draft’s No. 1 pick, Cooper Flagg of the Dallas Mavericks …
… and his old college roommate, No. 4 overall pick Kon Knueppel of the Charlotte Hornets …
… and No. 3 pick VJ Edgecombe of the Philadelphia 76ers …
… have all been instant-impact, immediate tone-changing starters for their respective teams. It’ll be awesome to watch them try to break through the rookie wall, run through the tape, and try to top each other over the final couple of months.
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Speaking of transformational rookies: What’s the State of Our Tanking Union in 2026?
Um … strong, I guess?
By which I mean, there’s definitelya lot of tanking going on, with a number of teams engaging in all manner of roster-management chicanery: “exercising extreme caution” in not getting the stars they just traded for on the floor, sitting starters for entire fourth quarters, selectively resting large chunks of your rotation on the same night, etc. — in pursuit of a plum position at the bottom of the standings. And the NBA has definitely resumed its efforts to try to fine and shame teams out of doing it, with reports circulating that the league’s Board of Governors and competition committee have been talking over prospective fixes. And it was definitely the main topic of conversation heading into All-Star Weekend, which was definitely not what Silver and Co. wanted.
I guess strength isn’t necessarily always positive.
This is what happens when what the NBA says it wants — every team making its best possible effort to compete to win every night — collides with the reality that the NBA continues to conduct its annual player entry draft through a lottery system in which losing more increases your chance of getting a better pick.
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NBA teams need talent to win, and the people who run NBA teams — especially those in smaller, non-glamour markets without much history of winning bidding wars for top free agents — understand that their best shot at securing that talent is by finding it in the draft. As long as that’s true, and as long as there are draft classes capable of delivering those franchise-shifting talents — like Wembanyama, like Flagg or, potentially, like AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer or Caleb Wilson in the 2026 class — front offices will use whatever tools and tactics they can to improve their chances of landing one. Unseemly though it may seem.
If the league office wants to levy a six-figure fine for conduct detrimental to the league or flouting the player participation policy … well, that’s the cost of doing business, and, if the odds wind up in your favor on lottery night, a speeding ticket gladly paid, in the grand scheme of things.
The new changes floated back in December all feel like half-measures likely to bring their own unintended consequences; more revolutionary proposals like abolishing the draft, The Wheel, tombstone wins or punishing tanking by taking away teams’ ping-pong balls feel too radical for this league office to seriously consider. Which leaves us exactly where we’ve been for more than a decade now: with everybody just kind of yelling at, past and around each other, while executives call the plays they think will give them the best chance of success, coaches grit their teeth and run them, and players get caught in the crossfire.
In any event: The three teams currently in position to have the best odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft are the 12-44 Kings, 14-39 Wizards and the 26-30 Hawks, thanks to the much-discussed deal on the night of the 2025 draft that sent Derik Queen from Atlanta to New Orleans in exchange for control of the 15-41 Pels’ unprotected 2026 first.
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Just behind that top three: the 15-40 Pacers and the 15-38 Nets. Fall into the bottom five, and you’ve got at least a 10.5% chance of winning the draft lottery, and at least a 42% chance of a top-four pick.
Some other bottom-of-the-standings things to keep an eye on:
The Wizards owe their 2026 first to the Knicks if it lands outside the top eight picks. If they finish with a bottom-four record, they’ll be guaranteed to keep it; finish with the fifth-worst record or better, and there’s a chance it’ll convey to New York. This is why I wouldn’t anticipate us seeing very much of new additions Trae Young and Anthony Davis over the final two months of the season. (If the pick doesn’t convey, the Knicks will instead get two future second-round picks.)
As part of the deal at last Thursday’s trade deadline that brought them bruising center Ivica Zubac, the Pacers owe the Clippers their 2026 first-round pick — but only if it winds up being fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth. As it stands, Indiana — which entered the All-Star break with consecutive wins over the Knicks and Nets — has about a 48% shot at landing a top-four pick and a 52% chance of giving the pick to L.A., according to Tankathon. There are going to be some folks white-knuckling it in Indianapolis on lottery night. (Oh, and we’re probably not going to be seeing Zubac for a while, either.)
Two other picks currently slated to be in the lottery will be on the move, too. The Spurs have the rights to the Hawks’ 2026 first-round pick from 2022’s Dejounte Murray trade, and the Thunder have the Clippers’ 2026 first from the 2019 blockbuster that sent Paul George to L.A. and SGA to OKC.
Which other parts of the standings should we be keeping a close eye on?
Let’s go with:
The tops of each conference, with just one game separating OKC and Detroit for the league’s best record and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs;
Nos. 2 through 4 in the East, with the Celtics, Knicks and Cavaliers separated by a game and a half; and
The Western fights for both home-court advantage in Round 1 and the right to avoid the play-in, with just three games separating the third-place Nuggets and seventh-place Suns, with the Rockets, Wolves and Lakers all nestled in-between.
It’s also worth keeping an eye on how the final couple of months set the table for some major offseason stories.
Now that Giannis stayed in Milwaukee past the trade deadline, when does he return to the lineup, and what does the state of play look like for the Bucks heading into yet another high-stakes offseason? Will the red-hot Hornets sprint past the largely moribund Magic and Heat in the Eastern play-in picture? If so, might significant changes need to be in the offing in Orlando and Miami?
Can Stephen Curry get healthy enough to rip off a post-ASB heater and make Golden State dangerous in the play-in? What can Ja Morant and the Grizzlies do to rehabilitate his value ahead of a potential offseason trade? Will the Clippers find themselves seriously considering starting life after Kawhi Leonard? (Will the NBA’s findings in the ongoing Aspiration investigation force them to?)
Are we watching the final weeks of LeBron James as a Los Angeles Laker? Hell, are we watching the final weeks of LeBron in the NBA, period?
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… maybe not.
I know, I know: that’s a lot of questions. But the sprint to the end of the season tends toward revelation — toward showing us exactly who players and teams are, what they want to be, and how they plan to get there. We might not get all the answers over the next two months. Watching to see how many we do get, though, seems like a pretty decent way to pass the time.
