Tag: Fox Sport News

MILAN — Halfway through Tuesday’s women’s team combined event, the American power duo of Breezy Johnson and Mikaela Shiffrin could not have been in a stronger position.

Johnson posted the fastest time in the downhill portion of the competition, providing the greatest slalom skier of all time a cushion of six-hundredths of a second.

Advertisement

What happened next was another all-too-familiar Shiffrin collapse on an Olympic stage, one that will surely evoke memories of her nightmarish Winter Games in Beijing four years ago. It wasn’t just that the 30-year-old American failed to hold the lead. She wasn’t even able to keep herself and Johnson on the podium.

Shiffrin’s time in the slalom was just the 15th fastest among the 18 women who were able to complete the course. As a result, she and Johnson plummeted to fourth place, more than three-tenths of a second behind gold medalists Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria. Emma Aicher and Kira Weidle-Winkelmann of Germany took silver, while Americans Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan secured bronze.

The disappointing performance from Shiffrin denied Johnson what would have been her second medal of these Olympics. Only two days after she won Olympic gold in the women’s downhill, Johnson once again was in the form of her life on Tuesday, identifying the most direct line down the mountain and attacking it fearlessly.

Between the downhill and slalom portion of the competitions, Johnson tried to ease the mental burden on Shiffrin by reminding her lifelong friend that she already would be returning home with some hardware.

Advertisement

“Listen, there’s no pressure on my side,” Johnson told Shiffrin. “I already have my Olympic gold.”

Judging by the way Shiffrin skied, it looked like the pressure affected her. Shiffrin appeared uncharacteristically hesitant on the course, taking turns rounder than she normally does and quickly losing the cushion she had over Raedler and Huber.

After lunging across the finish line, Shiffrin stared at her time in disbelief when she realized it was not enough to keep her and Johnson on the medal stand. TV cameras captured Shiffrin embracing Johnson and apologizing at the finish line.

“Didn’t quite nail it,” she said after her run. “I didn’t quite find a comfort level that allowed me to produce full speed.

Advertisement

“So, I’m going to have to learn what to do, what to adjust in the short time we have before the other tech races.”

For Shiffrin, Tuesday’s race is a rocky start to what she hopes will be a redemptive Winter Games for her. Shiffrin was the favorite to win gold in a minimum of three of the six events she entered in Beijing four years ago, but the most accomplished World Cup skier of all time unfathomably came home with three DNFs and without a single medal.

Mere seconds into her defense of her 2018 Olympic gold medal in the giant slalom, Shiffrin lost her edge making a turn, skidded across the snow and missed the fifth gate. She made a similar error at the top of the slalom course in Beijing. It was the skiing equivalent of watching LeBron James go scoreless in an NBA Finals or Tom Brady throw six interceptions in a Super Bowl.

Shiffrin endured more hard times in November 2024 when a horrific crash in Killington, Vermont, sent her somersaulting over her skis and left her with a puncture wound in the abdomen. She expected to power through her recovery in time to return to competition in a couple months, but the post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the crash was far more debilitating than she expected.

Advertisement

In a first-person account of the ordeal in The Players Tribune last May, Shiffrin described involuntarily stopping in the middle of training runs and not being able to get her body to move like it needed to.

“It was almost as though I was no longer in control of my body,” she wrote.

Shiffrin eventually fought her way back from those setbacks and returned to her previous level. On Feb. 23, 2025, she became the first skier to win 100 career World Cup races. She has continued to stack up victories this season ahead of the Olympics.

Anywhere else, Shiffrin is the greatest slalom skier of all-time, a master of technique who excels at making the tightest possible turns to save precious nanoseconds.

On the Olympic stage, she’s still struggling to recapture that form.

Curling, which first became an organized sport in Scotland, traces its roots to the 1500s. Historians say paintings from the time depict people sliding rocks across frozen ponds. It took a few centuries for the world to appreciate all that feverish sweeping, though: Curling made its Olympic debut in 1924 — but didn’t return as an official competitive event until the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

Nearly three decades, the United States is guaranteed of winning its first medal ever in mixed doubles curling as Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin takes on Sweden for the gold medal on Tuesday.

Advertisement

Chances are if you didn’t grow up in Canada (where curling is most popular), you may think of the sport as people in funny pants — we’re lookin’ at you, Norwegians — pushing an oversized puck across a skating rink. Au contraire. Curling requires finesse, strategy and serious athleticism — the sweeping can burn up to 500 calories per hour. And because players use their brains as much as their bodies, people call it “chess on ice.”

Rules

For starters, players aim to guide heavy, granite stones across a sheet of textured ice toward a target area called the house that is split into four rings. (Consider curling a distant cousin of shuffleboard.) Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding the stones — also called “rocks” — toward the target. Each team has eight stones per end (five in mixed doubles), which is curling’s version of, say, a baseball inning. There are 10 ends in a tournament-style game (eight in mixed doubles).

Advertisement

This video shows the skill involved, from the movement the thrower uses to deliver the stone, to the sweepers trying to guide it where it needs to go in the target, aka the house.

The stone weighs 38 to 44 pounds. Players use brooms to smooth the ice and ease the stone’s path toward the house. If a player breaks a rule — like nudging the stone with their shoe — they should be “the first to divulge the breach,” according to the WCF. This sportsmanship expectation is part of what players call “the spirit of curling.”

Scoring

The objective is simple: The team that lands the most stones closest to the bulls-eye wins.
Players win a point for every stone that 1) lands in the house and 2) is closer to the “button” — or center of the house — than the closest opponent stone. (For example, if Team A has the closest stone and Team B has the second closest stone, Team A can only earn one point, even if the rest of Team B’s stones somehow ended up outside of the curling arena.) Teams can knock an opponent’s stone away from the house — and, through some vigorous sweeping, strategically place some stones as makeshift shields (guards) to protect others.

Advertisement

It is impossible, however, for both teams to score in an end, which last the amount of time it takes to throw all of the stones. Points are awarded only to the team that did better in each end. (Should a team tie, there are tie-breaker rounds.) The best possible score in an end is 8-0, which happens when one team gets all eight stones closer to the button than its opponent. This is called a “snowman” — curling slang for a perfect game.

Fun fact: Curling may be the nicest sport of all

Objectively. After each game, the winners traditionally buy the other team a round of drinks. From the WCF website: “Curlers play to win, but never to humble their opponents. A true curler never attempts to distract opponents, nor to prevent them from playing their best, and would prefer to lose rather than to win unfairly.”

Advertisement

Quick terminology

Bonspiel: A curling tournament.
Circles: The round scoring area, 12 feet in diameter, with concentric circles 1, 4 and 8 feet in diameter.
Curl: The rotating movement of a stone caused by turning the handle.
Delivery: The act of throwing a rock.
End: Similar to an inning in baseball; in an end, each team throws eight rocks, two per player in alternating fashion. Tournament-style games run for 10 ends.
Front End: The lead and second player on a curling team.
Heavy: A stone that is delivered with more than the desired amount of weight or force.
House: The round scoring area, 12 feet in diameter, with concentric circles 1, 4, and 8 feet in diameter.
Light: A stone that is delivered with less than the desired weight or force.
Rink: A curling team that consists of four players: the skip, third (vice-skip), second, and lead. Also refers to the place where curling is played.
Rock: Stone.
Sheet: The 146-foot-long area of the ice on which the game is played.
Skip: The player who calls the ice and determines the strategy. Almost always plays the last two rocks for his team (but may throw in a different order in some games.)
Sweeping: Using a brush to polish the ice in an effort to alter the action of the rock.

Since starting the season 15-4, in part thanks to a seven-game win streak down the stretch of November, the Los Angeles Lakers have yet to stack more than three wins in a row. They had another chance to accomplish that feat for the first time in the New Year on Monday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

With injuries sidelining reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 2025-26 NBA scoring leader Luka Dončić, Crypto.com Arena featured a physical contest that included a combined 52 free throws.

Advertisement

A scrappy Thunder bunch, which leads the league in defensive rating for the second straight season, outlasted the Lakers 119-110, pulling away in the final minute.

Although Oklahoma City (41-13) had dropped its previous two games in the absence of Gilgeous-Alexander, who will be out through at least the All-Star break, and has looked increasingly vulnerable this season, the Thunder are still the defending NBA champions and the Western Conference’s top team.

Plus, they’re 2-0 against the Lakers (32-20), currently the fifth-place team in the West. More than just eight games separate the Thunder and the Lakers in the conference standings, according to LeBron James.

“That’s a championship team right there,” James told reporters postgame. “We’re not.”

The 41-year-old James was then asked what’s keeping the Lakers from joining the Thunder in that echelon.

Advertisement

“We can’t sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes, and they can,” he said bluntly. “That’s why they won a championship.”

James scored 14 of his 22 points in the second half of the loss. He also logged 10 assists and six rebounds. Austin Reaves, in his fourth game back from a calf injury, pitched in 16 points off the bench. Marcus Smart finished with 19 points and went 4 of 7 from deep.

But James, Reaves and Smart each missed a 3-point attempt in the final 40-some seconds, as the Thunder held on to win, bolstered by a clutch-time, midrange jumper by Jalen Williams that made it a 115-110 game with 51.9 seconds remaining. Williams had a game-high 23 points, most notably 10 in the final five minutes.

In James’ eyes, shotmaking and 50-50 balls made the difference.

Advertisement

While the Lakers’ defense has been criticized during the JJ Redick era, including by Redick himself, and they rank 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating this season, James maintained that defense wasn’t the problem on Monday against the Thunder.

James conceded that the Lakers let Isaiah Joe get way too many 3-point looks in the first half and weren’t executing their switches to a high enough level. Joe hit four 3s and scored 19 points.

“But I mean, listen, for the majority of the second half, I thought we was really good defensively,” James said. “We didn’t have that many lapses.”

Redick was even pleased with his group’s effort overall.

Advertisement

“I think when you play the best teams — and Oklahoma City is clearly — you know, you have to have a really high level of effort and you have to have a really high level of execution,” Redick said, per ESPN.

“It’s got to be both, and I thought for the most part our effort was fantastic. In key stretches of the game, our execution wasn’t great.”

Regardless if it’s execution, effort or energy, these Lakers are too often missing a key ingredient for championship-level success. James called them out after a setback against the defending champs.

LIVIGNO, Italy — Imagine, if you can, being one of the best freestyle skiers in the world. A former gold-medal winner, even.

And then imagine arriving in Italy to defend that gold medal — in your mother’s home country, no less — and finding a slopestyle course with obstacles so daunting that you were only able to complete the tricks you mapped out one out of 10 times in practice.

Advertisement

That’s the mind space Alex Hall found himself in Monday night: A champion filled with doubts, but in a way that was oddly freeing him of the burden that came along with trying to repeat what he did four years ago in Beijing.

This was not the competition for Hall to try and strategize or manage his way to the podium. It was full send, from the drop-in to the bottom, leaving nothing in the tank.

“I went to bed just knowing, like, the odds of getting a medal are so slim,” he said. “Because everyone’s so good and the run I was going to try and do, the chances of landing that [were small].”

And if that’s the way things were going to turn out, Hall was fine with it. Because even amongst freeskiers, who are a different breed altogether, Hall is about as laid-back as it gets.

Advertisement

He just loves to ski, man. The competition brings the medals, the opportunities and the money, but when he won the gold in Beijing with a high-risk, high-reward run that’s now the stuff of legend in this sport, he brought it home and put it in a sock drawer.

Winning and losing? It’s practically the same. In a sport this capricious — one run, judged by people who could never come close to doing what Hall does — you just keep trying stuff and maybe at exactly the right moment it’ll be good enough to win.

“The four years in between [Olympics], it didn’t ever feel like there was a day where I was like, ‘I’ve got to go train so I can get [another] medal’ or ‘I’ve got to go train so I can beat this person,’” he said. “I’m just gonna go ski, and I like skiing, so in a way it felt effortless because you’re just excited to go ski every day.”

Advertisement

It’s a nice approach to life, isn’t it?

It also turned out to be an incredibly effective approach Tuesday, as Hall backed up his Beijing gold with Italian silver, coming up a mere .53 points shy of Norway’s Birk Ruud, who has been the best slopestyle skier in the world for the last couple years.

“Maybe, in a way, I’m almost more proud of it,” Hall said of the medal hanging around his neck as he made his way through a thicket of interviews. “I’m  really proud of myself for keeping up with how good everyone is nowadays. The tricks people are throwing in slopestyle runs now were big air tricks two or three years ago, so the fact that I’m able to stick with the young guns and put a run down that I’m really proud of is pretty cool. Walking away with any medal is a huge success.”

Of course it would have been storybook for Hall to win a second gold, particularly here. His mother is from Bologna, and he has an Italian passport. He spent much of childhood in Europe, learning to ski just across the border from here in Switzerland where his parents were college professors.

Advertisement

Of all the athletes wearing the Team USA logo at these Games, no one has felt more at home in these surroundings.

“It feels like a place I know and a place I’ve been in,” he said. “It just feels like another day skiing, in some ways, which is so cool and allows you to, like, really sit back and just enjoy it.”

Which, at its heart, is what freeskiing is all about: Competitors rooting for each other to stomp their runs, land their tricks and let the judges sort out the microscopic, barely perceptible differences between a good performance and a great one.

“In our sport, every event is a different winner,” said American Mac Forehand, who finished 11th. “It’s not consistent at all. Just to get on the podium is huge no matter the event.”

Advertisement

But it does say something about the 27-year-old Hall that he has come up with some of his best stuff twice now on the biggest stage in the sport.

And coming up half a point short against Ruud, an almost perfect technical skier who generally makes this stuff look way easier than it is?

Hall leaves with zero what-ifs.

“None at all because I knew the run I tried was so hard that I’m surprised I even landed it in three tries,” he said. “When you do one of these runs and it’s that hard, you just black out. You drop in and forget everything you did and end up at the bottom. You don’t really remember how it was. I knew there was a slight mistake in there, but I didn’t know how severe it was.”

Advertisement

The judges did not penalize Hall much at all, and his score of 85.75 held up as second-best despite 10 other competitors getting a chance to displace him.

“We’re always rooting for each other and always want everyone to throw down their best runs,” Hall said. “The run I threw down, it wasn’t as crisp and perfect as the Beijing run, but in the months leading up to the Olympics I knew if I could get any medal I’d be so stoked. And there’s a lot to be said about just being stoked about how you ride.”

MILAN — Another day, another music licensing controversy in figure skating. But this one, it appears, will end with everyone happy.

Amber Glenn, part of the gold medal-winning American team, uses a section of the song “The Return” by CLANN in her free skate routine. CLANN — a.k.a. Seb McKinnon — noticed, and wondered how exactly this happened.

“So just found out an Olympic figure skater used one of my songs without permission for their routine,” McKinnon wrote. “It aired all over the world… what? Is that usual practice for the olympics?”

Advertisement

The International Skating Union permitted skaters to use songs with lyrics starting in the mid-2010s, opening up a massive new category of potential songs, but also opening up a raft of rights issues. Performing, say, Bizet’s “Carmen” doesn’t require rights clearance because that work is in the public domain, but performing a Lady Gaga song requires the complex negotiation of rights for performance, broadcast, remixing, remixing with choreography, among other needs.

And sometimes, not every box gets checked. After the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, American pairs skaters Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier were served with a lawsuit for the alleged unsanctioned use of Heavy Young Heathens’ “House of the Rising Sun” in one of their routines. The suit, which also named NBC for broadcasting the performance, was settled later that year for an undisclosed amount.

Since then, U.S. Figure Skating has sought to work proactively with music licensors such as ASCAP and BMI. But the federation notes that the ultimate responsibility lies with the skater and their team to avoid legal entanglements.

In Glenn’s case, that meant a hasty negotiation with McKinnon, though specifics weren’t revealed. “The issue of music rights can be complex and confusing, and it seems like there was a hiccup somewhere in that process,” Glenn said in a statement. “I’m glad we were able to clear things up and I’m excited about the possibility of collaborating with Seb moving forward.”

Other skaters haven’t been quite so fortunate; Russia’s Petr Gumennik was forced to change his music just two days before his individual skate because of licensing concerns. Spanish skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté managed to salvage his “Minions” music after a last-second rights issue made worldwide news.

Advertisement

“It was a dream come true to perform at the Olympic Games, and to have Seb acknowledge my performance and congratulate me afterward made the moment even more special,” Glenn said in her statement. “It’s my sincere hope that I was able to help create new fans of both figure skating and Seb.”

Glenn will skate to McKinnon’s music in her individual program next Thursday.

Competing for your country in the Olympics is arguably the highest honor an athlete can achieve. While participating in professional sports leagues is important, athletes often speak of representing their countries as an elevated experience compared to their everyday jobs.

While winning a medal at an international event like the Olympics is one of the ultimate displays of lifting up and supporting your country, that’s not the only reward for athletes who reach the podium. A large number of countries pay athletes for winning medals at the Olympics, with some offering significant bonuses for the accomplishment.

Advertisement

Which countries pay the most per medal at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, and which countries don’t pay at all? Thanks to a handy list compiled by USA Today, we have that answer.

An unexpected country leads the way in that category. Singapore offers $788,907 to athletes who win a gold medal at the 2026 Games. The country will pay out $394,497 for silver-medal winners and $197,282 for bronze medalists, per USA Today. Those are the highest totals for all three medals. No country will shell out more for silver and bronze medals than Singapore.

Why is that unexpected? Well, the country has won a total of six Olympic medals over its history in the Games, which began in 1948. Notably, the country has never won a medal at the Winter Olympics. That stat is somewhat misleading, however, as Singapore didn’t start competing at the Winter Olympics until 2018. Prior to that, the country only appeared in the Summer Olympics.

The rest of the top five features — in order — Hong Kong ($767,747 for gold), Italy ($213,418 for gold), Poland ($211,268 for gold) and Slovenia ($162,672 for gold).

Advertisement

Italy is already set to shell out some cash for gold medals, as the host country picked up two golds in the first couple days of the 2026 Olympics.

Of the 25 countries that responded to USA Today’s inquiry, Team USA ranks in the middle of the pack. The United States pays $37,500 to athletes who win a gold medal, $22,500 for silver medalists and $15,000 for bronze-medal winners. Those figures rank 15th out of the 25 country sample.

Some countries — like Belgium, Poland and Slovakia — take things even further by offering monetary rewards to athletes who finish between fourth and eighth place, per USA Today. Poland even goes an extra step when it comes to gold medalists. In addition to a $211,268 payout, gold medalists from Poland also receive “a Toyota Corolla, fully furnished two-room apartment, painting, holiday voucher and jewelry,” per USA Today.

Notably, three countries that responded to USA Today do not offer monetary bonuses to athletes for winning medals at the Olympics. Those countries are Great Britain, Sweden and Norway. While those three don’t offer compensation for medals, they do provide financial assistance to athletes ahead of the Olympics.

As of Tuesday morning, Norway — the country with the most gold medals and overall medals in Winter Olympics history — has already won six gold medals at the 2026 Games.

The two worst words an MLB pitcher can hear in spring training are “elbow inflammation.” After a full offseason of rest, an early elbow injury can derail a player’s season before it even begins.

The Atlanta Braves were the unfortunate recipient of those words Tuesday, as promising young starter Spencer Schwellenbach will be placed on the 60-day injured list due to right elbow inflammation.

Advertisement

The team is hoping the 25-year-old Schwellenbach is dealing with bone spurs and not a more serious issue.

Even if the team gets “good” news on Schwellenbach, he’ll still miss the first two months of the 2026 season. Players start accruing time on the 60-day IL once Opening Day happens, and that stint can be backdated by a maximum of three days, guaranteeing that Schwellenbach will miss significant time even in the best-case scenario.

Since making his major-league debut in 2024 with Atlanta, Schwellenbach has flashed future ace upside. As a rookie, he posted a 3.35 ERA over 123 2/3 innings. The advanced stats backed up that performance, making him a popular breakout candidate in 2025.

Advertisement

He lived up to those expectations early last season, posting a 3.09 ERA over his first 17 starts. Then Schwellenbach sustained a fractured elbow in what the team called a “freak accident.” At the time of the injury, he had a 2.2 fWAR and was a candidate to receive Cy Young Award votes if he continued to pitch well down the stretch.

It was one of many injuries sustained by key Braves players last season. As a result of all those injuries, the team finished 76-86, its worst win total since 2017 — excluding the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.

While the Braves initially believed Schwellenbach could return in September, that didn’t happen. He made his final major-league appearance in late June and entered the offseason hoping to be fully recovered by spring training.

Advertisement

The injury puts a damper on both the Braves’ chances in 2026 and Schwellenbach’s development. When he’s been on the mound, Schwellenbach has looked like a future superstar who could carry a team’s rotation. But injuries in two straight seasons have raised questions about his ability to handle a full major-league workload. And given that this is the second significant injury to Schwellenbach’s throwing elbow, there’s no guarantee he’ll show the same upside once he’s ready to return.

Even with this injury, the Braves are expected to bounce back in a major way in 2026. The team is projected to win 91.5 games and the National League East, per FanGraphs.

Advertisement

If the Braves can live up to that projection — and Schwellenbach’s injury proves to be relatively minor — there’s still a chance he can return in time to pitch meaningful games in 2026.

New England Patriots rookie offensive lineman Will Campbell raised eyebrows after he declined to take part in interviews following the team’s 29-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 60. Campbell struggled in the contest, giving up 14 quarterback pressures in the loss. Because of that, his refusal to speak after the game drew attention.

Campbell, 22, apologized for that decision Tuesday, saying he was dealing with a lot of emotions after the game and wanted to get his head on straight.

The Patriots’ entire offensive line struggled against a ferocious Seahawks defense in the Super Bowl. The Patriots allowed six sacks in the loss. While Campbell was the most obvious part of the team’s offensive line’s struggles, he was far from the only player to allow pressure to reach Drake Maye.

Advertisement

For Campbell, however, those struggles became a trend throughout the entire postseason. After turning in a solid regular season, Campbell — the No. 4 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft — performed like one of the worst tackles in the playoffs.

Turns out, there was a reason for that, as Campbell revealed Tuesday he tore a ligament in his knee at some point this season. Campbell said he didn’t want to use the injury as an excuse for his struggles.

It’s unclear exactly when Campbell sustained the injury, though it could explain why the rookie saw his performance take a dive in the playoffs. During the regular season, Campbell ranked as the 32nd-best left tackle in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus’ metrics. While that figure wasn’t elite, it wasn’t necessarily bad considering he was a rookie adjusting to the NFL.

Advertisement

Campbell wasn’t the only key member of the Patriots who battled a notable injury during the Super Bowl. Maye had a shoulder injury he sustained during the AFC championship game against the Denver Broncos. Maye received pain-killing injections in his shoulder prior to taking the field in Super Bowl 60. The 23-year-old quarterback revealed Tuesday that he will not need offseason surgery to correct the issue.

In addition to talking about his injury, Maye also provided some thoughts on playing with Campbell. The quarterback had nothing but good things to say about Campbell’s ability and future in the NFL.

Head coach Mike Vrabel has confirmed that, despite the difficulties faced during the postseason, he is fully committed to Campbell as New England’s starting left tackle.

After a disappointing end to an otherwise promising season, Campbell and Maye will look to come back better than ever next season. Campbell, in particular, will have a lot to prove considering the way his season ended, even if the injury was to blame.

The 13-win Indiana Pacers have the second-worst record in the NBA. This has been a lost season for a team without its centerpiece in two-time All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton.

Haliburton, of course, won’t play the rest of the way, as he’s still recovering from an Achilles tear that spoiled the Pacers’ championship bid in Game 7 of last year’s NBA Finals.

Advertisement

With a top-three pick on the horizon, it’s no surprise Indiana’s in no rush for newly acquired big man Ivica Zubac to make his Pacers debut.

Head coach Rick Carlisle told Indianapolis’ 1075 The Fan on Tuesday that the former Los Angeles Clippers center won’t play in Indiana’s two remaining games before the All-Star break — road contests against the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively — and it could be even longer before he returns to the court.

“I don’t think he’s going to play for a while. He’s got a lingering ankle situation,” Carlisle said, alluding to a left ankle sprain the 7-footer sustained during a Dec. 20 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Zubac, who spent the first nine-plus seasons of his career in L.A. — first with the Lakers after being picked in the second round of the 2016 draft and then with the Clippers after being traded midseason in 2018-19 — expedited his return to the Clippers’ lineup this winter. In fact, despite what Carlisle described as an injury that was deemed to require a four-to-six week recovery, Zubac missed only five games prior to making his way back to the floor for a Clippers squad that was just starting to find a groove after beginning the 2025-26 campaign 6-21.

Advertisement

“This is a guy that’s played 95% of his games since he’s been in the NBA, and he pushed to come back early,” Carlisle said. “And so there’s just something in there still. There’s some discomfort. There’s some swelling.

“You admire the guy for slugging through, but, at this point, it makes zero sense for him to be out on the floor in an NBA game if he’s not feeling as close to 100% as possible. So I don’t know the timetable. He will not play in these two games, and we’ll see what’s what when we come out of the break.”

Zubac is averaging 14.4 points and 11 rebounds per game this season. He’s shooting 61.3% from the field, he’s got 24 double-doubles, and he’s a reigning NBA All-Defensive second-teamer.

Advertisement

Carlisle considers the 28-year-old Zubac a top-10 center in the league right now. He also puts former longtime Pacers big man Myles Turner in the same category.

Turner surprisingly left Indiana to sign with the rival Milwaukee Bucks this past offseason.

“Myles was terrific, and Myles could do a lot of things,” Carlisle said Tuesday. “Myles could pick and pop. Myles became a very good roller. Myles had a big body, all that kind of stuff.

“Zubac, the element that he brings, he’s bigger than Myles, a little longer, I think. His game is more around the basket with brute force and strength and skill. And look, our game’s going to look different with him out there than it did with Myles.”

Advertisement

Carlisle discussed the importance of having the kind of size that Zubac offers in today’s NBA, which he said is predicated on more than just speed.

Zubac is one of the league’s best rebounders. He’s also a renowned screener.

Paired with four-time All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, Zubac could help the Pacers establish some dominance on the glass.

When Haliburton finally comes back, he and Zubac will surely connect on lobs, too.

Indiana gave up wing Bennedict Mathurin, forward Isaiah Jackson, two first-round picks and one second-round pick for Zubac and forward Kobe Brown.

Both teams made the trade with the future in mind. The Pacers will take their time with Zubac and his ankle injury.

With the fresh fantasy baseball season approaching, it’s time to get you some tiered rankings from my Shuffle Up series. Use these for salary cap drafts, snake drafts, keeper decisions or merely a view of how the position ebbs and flows. We’ll kick off the series with catcher.

The numbers are unscientific in nature and meant to reflect where talent clusters and drops off. Assume a 5×5 scoring system, as usual.

Advertisement

Additional positions will follow regularly for the next two weeks.

More Tiered Rankings

The Big Tickets

• $31 Cal Raleigh, Mariners

• $24 William Contreras, Brewers

• $21 Shea Langeliers, Athletics

• $20 Hunter Goodman, Rockies

Raleigh’s expected regression season will likely bring him down to something like a .235 average with 40 homers. The Mariners will use him every day, giving him DH time when he needs a defensive rest. Last year was more fun on the road, away from the Marine layer: .267/.380/.619, with 32 of the home runs. The depth of the catcher position keeps me from taking Raleigh in Round 2, while still respecting him as a rankings outlier.

Last year was the weakest in four seasons for Milwaukee’s Contreras and he still checked in as the C4, buoyed by his run production and on-base skills. He’s resourceful enough to steal the occasional base and last year’s .260 average is probably his floor. Stepping into an age-28 season, I could consider Contreras at his current Yahoo ADP in the low 60s.

Advertisement

Goodman’s batting average crashed by 59 points on the road, but he also conked 18 road homers and had similar slugging percentages in both columns. The Rockies prioritize him in the lineup, giving him 39 starts at DH. Although the Colorado lineup lacks the depth of past seasons, Goodman at least will be in the top half of the order, where the production is. He’s still a decent value in the mid-80s for Yahoo ADP.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]

Legitimate Building Blocks

Ramírez’s Yahoo ADP continues to lag about 50 picks behind his global ADP, and although some of that is noise from two-catcher versus one-catcher formats, it still reflects an opportunity. Ramírez already has plus power, shows the willingness to run, and can at least approach a neutral average as his plate discipline matures.

Advertisement

Although the best hitting backstops will routinely see DH time when they’re not available to catch, Smith doesn’t have that luxury in L.A. with Shohei Ohtani locking up the DH slot. It means Smith will probably have top-five rate stats at the position, but his counting numbers — despite being in a loaded lineup — will be mildly disappointing.

I had to take Rice’s salary down a buck when Paul Goldschmidt re-signed in New York, likely setting up a platoon situation at first base. Rice still gets the heavier side, of course, and you like his career trajectory as he prepares for his age-27 season. You can’t blame the Yanks for giving Rice a partner after he slashed .208/.271/.481 against southpaws, though there’s also the idea of letting him play all the time and see if growth happens. The Yankees rank first and third in runs scored over the last two years, so we like to invest here.

Diaz lost a chunk of his average last year, but bad luck was at play — his BABIP fell by 61 points and his expected stats (.268 average, .465 slugging) validate his bat. You’d like a few more walks, but 18-20 homers are in play, and he’s still holding a career .279 average. Houston’s lineup is no longer a playland — the Astros were 21st in runs last season.

Advertisement

Talk Them Up, Talk Them Down

• $12 Alejandro Kirk, Blue Jays

• $10 Adley Rutschman, Orioles

• $10 Gabriel Moreno, Diamondbacks

• $9 Samuel Basallo, Orioles

• $9 Francisco Alvarez, Mets

• $9 Dillon Dingler, Tigers

• $6 J.T. Realmuto, Phillies

Rutschman was a god as a rookie, very good his second year, tailed off in Year 3 and collapsed last season. Okay, oblique injuries were part of the story, but what especially concerns me is that Rutschman’s career arc closely tracks to Matt Wieters; same team, same position. Wieters had his best WAR seasons at age 25 and 26 but was hurt and/or ineffective the rest of his career. I’ll allow my heart to root for a Rutschman turnaround, but I can’t spend fantasy capital on him.

Realmuto still bats for a credible average, but the power continues to fade — he slugged just .384 last year. He also had a 91 OPS+ in 2025, the first time in a decade he’s been a below-average offensive player. Stepping into his age-35 season, it’s a good time to eschew Realmuto, even with an inexpensive ADP. Player development is not always linear, but player decline almost always is.

I’ll target Alvarez with the Mets, looking for an inexpensive way to tap into what’s likely a top-five offense. Alvarez is still only 24 and just needs a reasonable health runout to push into the top 10 at the position. He’s already given us a 25-homer season, and his walk rate continues to creep forward.

Advertisement

Bargain Bin

• $4 Tyler Stephenson, Reds

• $4 Carlos Narváez, Red Sox

• $2 Moises Ballesteros, Cubs

• $2 Keibert Ruiz, Nationals

• $1 Edgar Quero, White Sox

• $0 Patrick Bailey, Giants