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.
We’re back hoops fans with another Yahoo Fantasy x Arena Club drop for Week 17. Yahoo Fantasy Basketball Slab Packs are a brand-new weekly drop featuring real, graded trading cards of the hottest fantasy performers in the NBA.
If you’re new to Arena Club, here’s the lowdown. Arena Club is the premier online marketplace for sports cards, giving collectors a way to rip packs virtually, buy and sell graded cards and track their entire collection — all in one place. Whether you’re in it for the hobby, the thrill or the chase, Arena Club brings the excitement directly to your screen.
Each week, Arena Club curates real, graded NBA cards and builds two types of Yahoo Fantasy Slab Packs:
Every pack contains a graded card of an active NBA player — but the real treasure is the weekly Chase Cards, featuring some of the top fantasy basketball performers from the past week. These limited-edition hits can reach values up to 20x the cost of the pack.
Weekly NBA Slab Packs go live every Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET and remain available through Friday at 1 p.m. ET (or until they’re gone). It’s the ultimate mid-week boost for fantasy hoopers and collectors alike.
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To top it off, use promo code YAHOO at checkout for 20% off your first slab pack or card purchase on ArenaClub.com or the Arena Club app.
This Week’s Featured Players
Rip a slab pack today for a chance to pull one of the week’s biggest fantasy basketball stars:
Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
Wemby put on a show for Team World at the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, dropping 33 points collectively across two games (both losses) in just 20 minutes.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks
Giannis remains sidelined as we come out of the All-Star break with action on Thursday, and it’s unclear if he’ll be back for Milwaukee this season.
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Kawhi Leonard, Clippers
Kawhi competed with the old heads on Team Stripes during All-Star Weekend and went atomic in the round robin vs. Team World, scoring 31 of 48 points in just 12 minutes. You could argue it might be one of the best ASG performances of all-time.
Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves
Ant Man hit a couple of big shots for Team Stars at All-Star Weekend, scoring 13 points in nine minutes against Team World in the round robin. He would add another 8 in the championship to help Team Stars take it all home.
LeBron James, Lakers
Was this perhaps LeBron’s last All-Star Game? If it was, he didn’t go home a winner, scoring 5 points in a blowout loss to the Stars in the final.
Weekly Drops. Real Cards. Real Value. Real Thrill.
With new cards releasing every week based on real fantasy performance, the Yahoo Fantasy x Arena Club partnership delivers a constantly refreshing lineup of NBA stars — and the chase cards you’ll be talking about all season.
Don’t miss this week’s release.
Rip your slab pack, hit a chase card, and upgrade your collection today!
Orlando Magic forward Franz Wagner will be sidelined indefinitely due to needing more time to rehabilitate his high left ankle sprain, reports ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Wagner has been dealing with the injury since Dec. 7, which has caused him to miss all but four of the Magic’s games since it occurred. He sat out the rest of December and played just two games in January. He returned earlier this month just before the All-Star break, and appeared in two games.
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In his fifth year, Wagner has become one of the Magic’s young stars. Wagner had a breakout year last season, averaging career highs of 24.2 points and 4.7 assists per game. Orlando made the playoffs last season for the second consecutive year, although it was eliminated in the first round.
The Magic ended the season 41-41 and had to go through the play-in tournament to make the playoffs. Through 53 games this season, the Magic are 28-25 and currently in seventh place in the East. They’re sitting 1.5 games behind the Philadelphia 76ers, who are 30-24.
While Wagner has been hampered by this ankle injury and his numbers have dipped, he’s still tied for the team lead in points per game with Paolo Banchero at 21.3. Wagner is also shooting a career-high 36.5% from 3-point range this season.
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The timelines on high ankle sprains can vary depending on the severity. Wagner returned too early from the injury and will need to stay off the ankle for a while. However, missing Wagner in the lineup will hurt and could determine how much of a playoff push the Magic can make down the stretch. With 29 games remaining in the regular season, Orlando is just 3.5 games ahead of the 10th-place Atlanta Hawks in the East.
The San Francisco 49ers had injury issues that were out of their control this past season. They overcame those challenges to make the playoffs, but missing several key players undoubtedly capped their potential to make a deeper run.
The NFL’s league year doesn’t even start until March, but we already know the 49ers have another massive roadblock awaiting them.
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The 49ers announced they will play in Mexico City during the 2026 NFL regular season. That’s not too unusual, but it is unprecedented that they’ll play two international games next season in different continents. Add on the 49ers’ announced game in Australia against the Los Angeles Rams, and suddenly travel becomes a big issue.
The 49ers will travel more miles than anyone in the NFL next season and more than any team ever has. That’s a hefty challenge no other team is going to be dealing with next season.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and his team found out they’ll have a second international game this upcoming season. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)
(Michael Zagaris via Getty Images)
A new record for the 49ers
The 49ers will travel more than 38,000 miles. There’s the trip to Melbourne, Australia, the one to Mexico City, and also trips to face the Giants and Falcons in the Eastern time zone.
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If that sounds like a lot of travel for one season, it is. That mileage will break an NFL record, set by the Chargers when they traveled more than 37,000 miles last season, according to Bill Speros of Bookies.com. That’s despite having only eight road games in the 17-game schedule (that Mexico City game is a designated 49ers home game).
International travel can be tough on teams, and it can take a few weeks to feel back to normal. That’s why most teams take a bye week after playing an international game. And the 49ers will get two international games. They will be the first team to play two international games in non-consecutive weeks. The Jaguars have played two games in London before. Last season the Vikings played two international games in a row, but both of those were in Europe with one in England and the other in Ireland. What the 49ers are being asked to do hasn’t been done before.
The good news for the 49ers is there is a long break between the two international trips. John Ourand of Puck reported the game against the Rams in Australia will be in Week 1, with a specific day to be determined. The Mexico City game, with an opponent that will be determined later, will be in December.
But, that also means the 49ers have two international trips practically bookending their season.
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49ers have a big challenge
The 49ers’ leadership is happy to be making that second international trip.
“We are thrilled to return to Mexico and to play in front of one of the most passionate fan bases in the league,” 49ers CEO Al Guido said in a statement. “After two unforgettable experiences in 2005 and 2022 we are excited to reunite with the Mexico faithful.”
The players might not be so excited to have 38,000 miles to fly during the season.
This will happen more often with the NFL’s stated desire to get to 16 international games. There will be nine during the 2026 season. All that travel will make it tougher on the players, who already have a hard time getting through the expanded 17-game season healthy.
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The 49ers know all about that. They had numerous star players miss games last season, though coach Kyle Shanahan did a marvelous job to get them to a 12-5 record. They go right from that strife to having to deal with the toughest travel schedule the NFL has ever seen, at least in terms of flight miles. They have to do that while trying to navigate one of the NFL’s toughest divisions, with the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and NFC runner-up Rams.
The 49ers will get to see the world during the upcoming season. There will be a hidden cost attached.
