Brendon McCullum is reportedly set to be sacked as England’s Test coach.
Amile Jefferson Update!
It was a bit surprising, at least to us, when Amile Jefferson left Duke for the Boston Celtics, but it’s clearly worked out well for him.
Currently, the Celtics have him coaching their Summer League team in Las Vegas, and that’s just a chance to learn more.
In this article, he talks about learning from former Duke coach and GOAT Mike Krzyzewski, and also what he’s learned from Joe Mazzulla and his other colleagues with the Celtics coaching staff.
Boston is playing in Las Vegas, and a nice side benefit of that this year is that there was a Brotherhood gathering in Sin City.
Among others, Jayson Tatum attended.
We don’t think this video is from the dinner, but it’s worth watching to see who former Duke stars think should take the last shot.
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Which Lions player would you like to grab dinner with?
Our relationship with professional athletes is always at a distance. But what if it wasn’t?
The Detroit Lions have a ton of charasmatic players throughout their locker room, and I’m sure on more than one occasion you’ve wondered (or dreamed) about hanging out with them outside of the realm of football. So for today’s Question of the Day, let’s explore that.
Which Lions player would you like to grab dinner with?
My answer: My first inclination is to cheat and say Dan Campbell, but since the question (that I wrote) explicitly says player, I’ll stick to a player.
There are a couple routes I could go with this. If I wanted to have dinner with someone who had awesome stories to tell, I’d probably go with rookie Skyler Gill-Howard (and his great origin story) or Ahmed Hassanein. We have all heard pieces of their origin stories. However, to hear their point of view through their eyes would be incredible. Plus, I’m sure they’d have even more stories to tell.
Or, I could simply just go with some excellent company. From my team experiences, guys like Colby Sorsdal, Sione Vaki, Derrick Barnes, Jack Fox, and Khalil Dorsey—among many others—are some of the nicest people in the locker room.
Finally, it would make sense to go with someone who would be extremely entertaining. If that’s the priority, I would likely go with someone like Kerby Joseph, Teddy Bridgewater, or Jameson Williams.
I’m a little more lowkey, so I think grabbing a beer and burger with a few of those people from the “nice” group would fit my vibes.
Which Lions player do you think would be the bet to grab a dinner with? Share your answer in the comment section below.
The Celtics filled the hole in their defense
In the wake of a franchise-altering Jaylen Brown trade, Brad Stevens spent the majority of his press conference hammering home the idea of optionality as a key to their path forward. The team has choices without locking themselves into any direction.
It’s hard to remove the emotions from this trade, but leaning on one of Stevens’ other favorite sayings, we can start to see things from a 10,000-foot view. From a higher altitude, the vision for Boston next season becomes more appealing.
As currently constructed, they have the makings of a great team, and most importantly, an elite defensive unit.
Last season, they fared well on that end with the 4th best defensive rating (111.7). They consistently found the right recipe to succeed, usually by dictating where other teams’ offense came from.
Looking at their opponents shot diet, just 20.8% of shots came at the rim, the best in the NBA by a decent margin. Similarly, they managed to push teams toward mid-range attempts. These factors contributed to them suppressing their opponents’ efficiency. They held teams to the third lowest true shooting percentage behind the Thunder and Spurs.
There was one hole in an otherwise strong defense.
The Celtics ranked 29th in opponent turnovers, and 29th in dTOV, which quantifies the amount of defensive net rating attributed to forcing opponent turnovers versus league average. Live-ball takeaways weren’t part of their formula, and their hands matched that, too. Boston ranked 6th lowest in deflections during the regular season, and the number cratered further in the playoffs, where they averaged the fewest in the league at 10 per game.
The absence of takeaways showed up on the other end of the floor as well. Boston had the fewest transition possessions per game in the league, and ranked 25th in points off turnovers. Without forcing live-ball mistakes, they miss out on chances for easy offense.
They still finished with the fourth-best defense in the league despite rarely forcing turnovers.
Of the three teams with better defensive ratings, the Pistons and Thunder ranked first and second in the league at generating turnovers. The Spurs ranked 28th, but made up for it with a 7’5 alien patrolling the paint.
Boston doesn’t have that kind of alien, so more disruption on the ball and in the passing lanes is the clearest lever to pull. That’s exactly what they added this offseason.
Paul George graded out at +1.0 dTOV last season, 93rd percentile among his position. He brought in 1.7 steals to go along with 4.1 deflections per game. He has extremely quick hands and reflexes allowing him to poke the ball free on drives or get a hand on a seemingly open pass.
Mitchell Robinson offers a similarly complementary defensive profile. His +0.3 dTOV ranks in the 85th percentile at center, backed by 1.2 blocks and 0.9 steals a game. He turns possessions over with a STOP% in the 90th percentile, which is a great boost for a team that didn’t have much defensive impact at center behind Queta.
They’ve added two core rotation pieces that historically grade out extremely well defensively, and fill some real gaps.
The draft additions are both signs of what the organization is valuing as well. Dillon Mitchell graded out in the 89th percentile in DBPM and 93rd in steal rate at St. John’s. Chris Cenac Jr. is a mobile big with a 7’5 wingspan and reason to believe he can be more impactful defensively than his Houston stats showed. A combined 9 stocks in their first Summer League appearance is a good introduction.
Put it all together, and Boston has the resources to supercharge their defensive identity.
They can let Hugo and Walsh hound ball handlers while White, Tatum, and George shrink the rest of the floor with their defensive playmaking and help instincts. Then there’s the combination of Queta and Robinson to send back shots at the rim.
For what it’s worth, the Celtics do a great job limiting opponent free throws. They’re tied for the third-fewest opponent free throw attempts allowed in the NBA at 21.2 per game. Being disciplined is a skill that they use to their advantage. But it can also be a sign of a less aggressive approach, reflected in their low forced turnover rates.
There are two ends of the spectrum. The Pistons force the most turnovers per game, but they also allow the most opponent free throws in the league. The Thunder rank second in forcing turnovers, while allowing the seventh-fewest opponent free throws. Boston has room to force more turnovers without completely losing their free throw rate advantage.
They would be wise to amp up the pressure and take a few more calculated risks in the passing and driving lanes. The additions of George, Robinson, Mitchell, and Cenac Jr. all point in that direction. As a team that already wins the possession battle on offense, they have an opportunity to widen that gap on the defensive end.
Mazzulla was blunt about the collapse against Philadelphia, calling the criticism his staff faced deserved. The self-reflection could lead to a few places, but the numbers and film point to one. The defense had a hole. They’ve acquired the right tools to tweak the formula and become a more well-rounded defense that’s difficult to break.
The night my dad saw Larry Bird play—The History in Green
My dad was born a few years before the Boston Celtics, in 1943, and he grew up playing basketball in the small town of Forestburg, South Dakota.
His parents had traveled with his father’s construction crew in his early years, but settled down near the farm where his mother grew up when he reached school age.
He was a point guard for the Forestburg Buccaneers, who were coached by Quentin C. Miles, a legend in South Dakota basketball circles. Born in 1921, Q.C. grew up playing the game when there was still a jump ball after every made basket. Miles, who also taught physics and chemistry, coached Forestburg into the state’s B tournament in 1958, where my dad saw limited action as a freshman.
Dad watched basketball on TV whenever he had the chance, and that’s how he became a Celtics fan. They were televised fairly often, and dad wanted to play like Bob Cousy.
Life, of course, intervened. Dad went to Augustana College in Sioux Falls, where he took a degree in mathematics and then a Master’s in the same subject from the University of North Dakota—at the same time that a very young Phil Jackson was tearing up the hardwood there under the direction of Bill Fitch and Jimmy Rodgers.
He spent a year teaching at Minot State before being drafted into the Army. He spent three and a half years in Arlington, Virginia, where he met my mom, before returning to Minot State.
Things didn’t work out in Minot, and my dad ended up looking for work back home in South Dakota. He would later joke that the typical response at job interviews to his Master’s in math was, “so you’re an accountant…?”
He eventually landed a gig with the state doing budget projections and data analysis for the Department of Social Services, and proceeded to raise a family of six kids in a white ranch style house with black trim near an elementary school on the east side of Pierre.
Mostly he was home every night a little bit after 5:00. There were occasions when he’d have to work after hours, and sometimes we’d get to go to the office and see where he worked on those weekends or evenings.
But, again, mostly his job was a 40-hour a week undertaking that left him plenty of time for the rest of us.
I only remember one or two business trips from those years, and the one that stands out came in January of 1984, when he had to go to Kansas City, Missouri.
He and some of his staff were put up at the Adam’s Mark near the Truman Sports Complex, a once luxurious hotel that’s fallen on hard times. It’s been fixed up for the World Cup, and the hope is that it will be the center of a mixed use development in the future, but in 1984, it was a top of the line facility.
And on Tuesday, January 17, of that year, dad and one of his work buddies traveled into Kansas City to watch the Kings play the Celtics.
The Kings were just about at the end of their run in Kansas City. These Kings were a vagabond team, starting off as the Rochester Royals before moving to Cincinnati, and then into a situation where they split time between Kansas City and Omaha and carried an awkward designation using both cities. The Kings dropped Omaha from their name after three years, although they did continue to play the occasional game there.
The Kings would move to Sacramento a little over a year after my dad saw them play. When they moved, I remember him saying that he wasn’t surprised because there were plenty of empty seats when he was there. In Sacramento, the Kings spent two years playing in a refurbished warehouse while waiting for a permanent home.
While in Kansas City, the Kings played at the Kemper Arena, a dimly lit venue with a bit of an old-school vibe to it, featuring a steep upper deck that provided good sightlines at the expense of leaving fans feeling like they perhaps needed sherpas to assist them in finding their seats.
The arena opened in 1974 on the former site of the Kansas City Stockyards. It was named after Rufus Crosby Kemper, Sr., a member of a wealthy banking family who donated $3.2 million to the construction of the $22 million arena.
From the exterior, the arena is dominated by three huge structural assemblies that carry the roof; there were no windows to speak of in 1984, and no principal entry point, just four facades covered in white steel panels. There were luxury suites on the concourse level, a relative novelty for the time, and a total capacity of 16,659 for basketball.
Its roof collapsed in 1979, and it hosted the NCAA’s Final Four championship round in 1988; the winner, Kansas, was effectively the home team, hailing from Lawrence, not even an hour down the turnpike from the arena.
What is now the Hy-Vee Arena is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, being the first major U.S. commission for noted architect Helmut Jahn. It’s currently a multipurpose facility that targets youth sports. The arena has basically been split in half, with a floor added between the upper and lower decks creating two arenas stacked on top of each other.
But for one night in 1984, it was the place where my dad got to see Larry Bird play.
It was cold out, and dark, with temps in the teens and a light snow falling as my dad and 11,477 other fans trekked into the West Bottoms neighborhood off I-670 where the Kings played, just about a stone’s throw from the Kansas state line.
The Celtics were coached by KC Jones—his first year in that role—and the Kings were coached by Cotton Fitzsimmons, a Hall-of-Famer whose best years were coming up in a second stint coaching the Phoenix Suns. Cotton was in his last year with the Kings, with whom he managed to eke out a slightly better than .500 winning percentage over a six-year run—and this was no mean feat, by the way, as just five of the Kings’ 32 coaches have winning records.
The Kings were led by Eddie Johnson, Larry Drew and Mike Woodson (now an assistant coach with Sacramento), and were on their way to a 38-44 record.
The Celtics… well, the Celtics were on their way to another championship and another banner.
Boston was wrapping up a three-game road trip. They had just suffered their worst loss of the season, a 106-87 drubbing at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks, on Sunday. In that game, Bird hit just three shots on thirteen attempts.
Kansas City was coming off a win against the hapless San Diego Clippers, who were themselves just about to relocate to Los Angeles.
My dad had been watching the Celtics play on TV for more than half his life by this point in time, and he was finally going to get to see them in person.
They did not disappoint.
Larry Bird hit 15 of 21 shots and finished with 38 points, nine rebounds and thirteen assists, while Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale finished with 20 points apiece. As a team, the Celtics shot 59%.
They shot 67% in the first quarter and established their final nine-point margin of victory by the close of that quarter.
To their credit, Kansas City kept Boston honest despite enduring a poor shooting night from the team’s stars, Eddie Johnson and Larry Drew (a combined 11-32 from the field). On the offensive end of things, they were led by reserve center Lasalle Thompson and Mike Woodson, who finished the game with 21 and 18 points, respectively.
The Kings made things interesting early in the fourth quarter, clawing their way back from a sixteen-point deficit to draw nearly even with the Celtics, 95-94, with just under nine minutes left in the game.
The Celtics responded with a 20-9 run.
Bird, McHale and Parish accounted for fifteen of those twenty points.
Bird was at the peak of his abilities in 1984, the first of three consecutive years in which he would win the league’s MVP award, and he was the unquestioned star of a game that featured four future Hall-of-Famers.
After the game, Kings rookie Dane Suttle said, “He lets people see what they came to see.”
For a kid from Forestburg, this was certainly true.
P.S. If you want to see a great photo from that game, click here. We don’t have the rights to this photo, but I can still share it from my Newspapers.com account.
Why Mo Diawara’s Summer League struggles are a big nothingburger
To start what should be a pretty obvious point to get across, if you seriously have concerns about a player because of Summer League, you should do the following:
- Use your free will to turn the game off
- Do something else (read a book, watch the World Cup, go outside)
- Watch a YouTube video of the Finals run
- Relax
The greatest prospect of all time could go 1-for-45 in a Summer League game, and it wouldn’t matter at all. The only use of Summer League is extra reps for young guys, and so that fans can get a quick look at the shiny new toys they got in that year’s draft.
As someone who is very opposed to Shiny New Toy syndrome, I too have fallen for our latest toy, ol’ Double (K)Nickel’s
But while Nickel has looked outstanding as a spot-up shooter, pretty much everyone else sucks. Pacôme Dadiet has done some good things, and Jack Kayil looked solid in the second half on Saturday, but other than that? Yeesh. The one center they have is doing this.
Frankly, watching them is a chore. They’ve scored a pitiful 65 and 49 points in their two games. The latter total is the first time in 10 years that someone scored less than 50 in a Vegas Summer League game. The 2016 Kings, led by Skal Labissiere, are not ones to emulate.
It’s fair to have been extremely disappointed in just how feeble they’ve looked, even if we’re literally just over four weeks removed from an NBA championship and this roster has as little projectable talent as humanly possible.
Over the next three games, the four guys we’ve been looking forward to seeing will continue to be showcased, but you really have to hope we can at least get something out of Mo Diawara, who’s been… bad, to say the least.
But here’s the neat part. It doesn’t matter.
Hell, this isn’t even the “well, it’s only Summer League” excuse. For a player specifically like Diawara, this setting is literal hell for him.
I worried in my pre-summer storylines piece from earlier this week that Diawara would be tasked with handling the ball too much. While he’s not completely running point guard, he’s getting pretty much all of his touches 30+ feet from the basket as an initiator.
He is not an initiator.
Summer League is for testing boundaries and challenging guys with roles they aren’t comfortable with. For Diawara, the Knicks are giving him some truly unreasonable challenges.
A guy with a very limited offensive bag at the moment is being tasked with initiating an offense with negative firepower (except for Nickel). Pretty much every shot he’s taken is either a grenade, contested, or not in rhythm. I didn’t watch much of Saturday’s game with other things on TV, but Friday’s looked like the team was intentionally trying to make things harder for him.
Diawara is a sponge. His play quality reflects that of his teammates.
We saw him have some extremely impactful minutes in the regular season when he had real NBA rotation players around him. This is the same guy who fearlessly rained threes on the Western Conference champions and locked up Jaylen Brown.
The ugliest minutes for Diawara have come when his teammates around him are at his level. Starting when he was permanently booted from the rotation in late March to all the garbage time minutes he received in the playoffs, he looked clunky. His shots were way off, his touches were in awkward spots, and he was asked to do too much.
Now in Summer League, he is the best player out there. When a 20-year-old who was picked No. 51 overall less than 13 months ago is the best player on the floor, that’s a problem. It’s even more of a problem when there’s no point guard to run the show.
Ultimately, that’s what makes this look so ugly. The entire offense is disjointed because there’s no floor general to stabilize it. It’s five headless chickens running around trying to put a ball in the basket. Their shot quality is disgustingly bad.
I was disappointed when I saw Tyler Kolek wasn’t doing Summer League because I feared this. I truly believe that you’d be seeing a lot more quality looks and Diawara being able to really do what made him so effective last year off the ball if he had a maestro like Kolek out there.
Does Kolek have anything to prove out here? Probably not, but for a guy who received zero seconds of meaningful playoff action, he isn’t totally above this.
Ultimately, if you decided not to watch a second of the next three games, I wouldn’t blame you. We’ve watched too much good basketball of late to see our logo associated with whatever this is. Hopefully, things get better with Kayil seemingly fully integrated into the plans now.
At the end of the day, we’re still champs until we ain’t.
Jack Kayil, Knicks’ 20-year-old draft pick, doesn’t want to be stashed overseas
LAS VEGAS — Jack Kayil, the Knicks draft pick from Germany, made his desire clear Saturday: He doesn’t want to be stashed overseas.
“My goal is to play in the NBA,” the 20-year-old point guard said after his summer league debut in an ugly 70-49 loss to the Spurs. “That’s why I went into the draft.”
Kayil was picked 39th overall last month but took a while to join the Knicks amid reports of a contract dispute with his team in Berlin. On the contract problems, Kayil was mum — “there were things going on that I don’t want to get into,” he said — but it’s clear he wants to stay with the Knicks.
“It’s not my decision, so I’m just trying to show myself in the best way, and it is what it is,” he said, adding later, “I’m super happy I also got drafted, and we’ll see what happens in the next days, weeks, whatever.”
If he joins the NBA next season, Kayil is a candidate for a two-way contract and perhaps development in the G-League.
He showed playmaking potential Saturday, but overall the Knicks’ offense was atrocious — similar to Friday’s loss to the Nets.
Kayil, who didn’t play Friday, finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three assists on 5-for-14 shooting in 21 minutes.
He and fellow rookie Tyler Nickel were the only offensive threats for New York, with Mohamed Diawara going scoreless in another dud.
“It’s difficult to say [what the differences are from the German league],” Kayil said. “It’s only one game. For me, it still feels like basketball, and [I] try to play the right way. And everywhere, it’s kind of same. It’s obviously different players to play against and a different kind of speed and everything. But I’m used to different systems, so it wasn’t difficult to adapt to that. So for me, it wasn’t that big of a difference.”
TJ Saint, the Knicks’ summer league coach, was complimentary.
“Really liked him. Started watching him on film after the draft,” Saint said. “Thought he could get in the paint. Thought he had a quick burst.”
Knicks’ second-round pick Tyler Nickel already showing his 3-point prowess
LAS VEGAS — For obvious reasons, Tyler Nickel prefers to wear No. 5.
But that uniform was taken by Knicks guard Jose Alvarado. So Nickel settled for double-nickel.
“T-Nick is my nickname, but a lot of people call me T-5,” said Nickel, the No. 47 overall pick in last month’s draft. “So [No.] 5 has been me. So when [No.] 55 was available, I was like, ‘OK, I can’t get [No.] 5, so [No.] 55 is cool.’ ”
If Nickel carves out an NBA career, he’ll be defined by a different digit — 3.
As the second-round pick demonstrated in his first two summer league games, his greatest asset is his proficiency from beyond the arc.
Nickel dropped six treys on 10 attempts Friday against the Nets, the lone positive in a blowout defeat that featured ugly performances from summer league vets Mohamed Diawara, Pacôme Dadiet and Dillon Jones.
On Saturday, Nickel again was the Knicks’ leading scorer with 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting in 30 minutes in the Knicks’ 70-49 loss to the Spurs.
“I definitely feel like I have some comparisons in the league. I feel like I’m a mix of some different guys: my size, my strength, my shooting ability,” Nickel said. “I feel really comfortable shooting off the move, so like [Detroit’s] Duncan Robinson, [Cleveland’s] Max Strus, [Boston’s] Sam Hauser. But then I have my own type of way of being. So it’s kind of a mix of a lot of people but also myself.”
All those players, including Nickel, have two things in common: They’re catch-and-shoot specialists, and they’re white.
“Hey, listen,” the 22-year-old Vanderbilt product laughed when told he was making just white-player comparisons. “They got roles in the league.”
Nickel, who is from Virginia and talks with a Southern twang, will struggle to stay on an NBA court if he can’t competently defend.
It’s considered his weakness, but the 6-foot-7 Nickel has the size to make it work with enough effort.
According to TJ Saint, coach of the Knicks’ summer league team, Nickel committed to defense during minicamp last week.
“He’s been shooting all right. His defense has actually been impressive in the camp,” Saint said. “When we were in the airport the other day, I went over to talk to him, and he was studying our playbook, so I already like where he’s at, getting ahead of the game.”
Despite his promise, Nickel is unlikely to command a standard contract for the defending champs.
He’s a candidate for a two-way deal, though, and that should all be sorted out during training camp in late September into October.
Nickel’s 18-point game against the Nets drew the attention of Josh Hart, who tweeted during the action, “[No.] 55 got a chop,” in reference to the forward’s shooting stroke.
As Kevin McCullar Jr. and especially Diawara demonstrated last season, there always could be unexpected opportunities for young players.
In the meantime, Nickel’s wearing two 5s in Vegas and taking 3s.
“I heard my name called [at the draft], and seeing it being the Knicks, I was super excited,” Nickel said. “Obviously, a championship organization. I thought it was perfect; a perfect situation to see what winning is all about. The standard that they hold everybody to in the program, I feel like it’s perfect for me to be on.”
Vegas intel
Everybody is awaiting The Decision 2.0 from LeBron James — including another future Hall of Famer on the market.
According to a league source, Russell Westbrook is a candidate to join the Heat but not if LeBron signs in Miami.
Westbrook, 37, is a diminished version of his former MVP self but still averaged 15.2 points over 64 games last season with the Kings.
James, meanwhile, is sifting through his options in free agency. Miami, Cleveland and Philadelphia are considered the front-runners.
Westbrook and James were teammates with the Lakers for 1 ½ seasons and struggled, winning just 33 games and falling to 11th in the West in 2021-22.
Diamondbacks 9, FTD 2: Greetings from Chez Tawa?
After a somewhat surprising (and surprisingly emphatic) win against the Doyers last night in their house thanks in large measure to Tim Tawa busting out, it seemed honestly pretty unlikely to me that we’d knock them off again, especially with Yoshinobu Yamamoto taking the mound for them and Brandon Pfaadt going for us. Don’t get me wrong, it has seemed like Pfaadt definitely worked some things out during his brief time in Reno, but his two very good starts since he’s been back have been against the Giants and the Padres, neither of whom are exactly poster children for “fierce and difficult competition” at this point in the season. The Dodgers, on the other hand, sport the best record in baseball, and Yamamoto has definitely earned his spot on the All-Star Game roster for the National League this year. So. My expectations were not high, is what I’m saying.
But you know what? I was completely wrong! Hooray! It didn’t look great to start, as Yamamoto made very short work of the top of our lineup in the first, sitting down Ketel Marte, Geraldo Perdomo, and Corbin Carroll, with only ten pitches thrown. But Pfaadt came out for the bottom of the first, and only needed five pitches to retire Shohei Ohtani, Andy Pages, and Freddie Freeman. Not too shabby.
And it pretty much continued that way through five innings—Brandon Pfaadt outpitching and outperforming the 2025 World Series MVP. Our hitters started hanging longer and more patient at bats on Yamamoto, the Dodgers hitters failed to do so with Pfaadt. Tim Tawa got the Diamondbacks’ first hit with two outs in the second with a fly ball single to center. Sadly, however, he was immediately picked off first base before Yamamoto had to throw another pitch, which was embarrassing. It broke the seal, though, at least, and we started driving Yamamoto’s pitch count up from there, with James McCann reaching on the Max Muncy throwing error with one out in the top of the third and Tommy Troy drawing a six-pitch walk. Nothing more came of that, sadly, as Marte popped out to third, and Perdomo flew out to left after a long at bat, but we made Yamamoto throw 25 pitches in the inning. Pfaadt, on the other hand, cruised through the second and third innings, retiring the Dodgers in order as he completed his first run through their lineup with only 27 pitched needed to record his first nine outs.
The Diamondbacks drew first blood as well in the top of the fourth, after Gabriel Moreno drew a six-pitch walk with one out and then got to third on a Max Kepler grounder that snuck through the right side of the infield and into right field for a single. Tim Tawa then hit a grounder to third that Max Muncy frankly made an amazing play on, but Moreno was running on contact and Muncy’s only play was to throw to first, where he just nabbed Tawa while Gabi crossed the plate for the first run of the game. 1-0 DBACKS
Pfaadt got himself into some trouble in the bottom half of the inning, as Ohtani lined a single to left and Andy Pages hit a ground ball that got between Perdomo and Nolan Arenado for another single. Freddie Freeman then hit a slow roller to Perdomo, and while he and Marte tried to turn two, they were only able to get the force on Pages at second, putting runners on the corners with only one out. But where early 2026 Brandon Pfaadt would have started nibbling and melted down to give up a big inning, July Pfaadt buckled down, induced Mookie Betts to pop out to second and then got Muncy to ground out to put up another zero and preserve the lead.
Both pitchers seemed to regain their composure a little bit in the fifth, with both Yamamoto and Pfaadt retiring their respective sides in order. Tommy Troy fouled a pitch off his knee in the top of the frame, and then had to leave the game (with Jorge Barrosa taking his place) in the bottom when he plowed into the wall in center field making a play on a long fly ball by Teoscar Hernandez. So that wasn’t great, but no damage was done, score-wise, at least.
And then the sixth inning happened.
Yamamoto came out to start the sixth with his pitch count sitting at 76 pitches thrown. He promptly walked Perdomo on four pitches, which was nice, and then struck out Carroll on four pitches, which was less nice. Moreno singled to right, advancing Gerry to third, and a Max Kepler sacrifice fly to deep center allowed Perdomo to score the second run of the ballgame. That brought Tawa to the plate again, and Tawa bounced a ball up the third base line for a double that, despite third base coach JR House putting up the stop sign, scored Gabi from third.
You can’t see it in the clip, but what I think I loved most about this play was that not only did Gabi run through the stop sign, he almost bowled over House himself as he was turning the corner around third and heading home. So that was kind of hilarious. Dave Roberts, meanwhile, apparently really wanted Yamamoto to get through the sixth inning, because he had him intentionally walk Nolan Arenado to get to James McCann, who one might have supposed would be the easier out. This turned out not to be the case, however, as McCann hammered the second pitch he saw in the at bat up and out and over the wall in left for a three-run dinger:
Barrosa flew out to left, at long last, for the third out of the inning, but we’d secured Brandon Pfaadt’s lead. 6-0 DBACKS
It turned out to be a good thing, too, as it turned out that Pfaadt didn’t have a whole lot left in the tank. He’d gotten through five innings of Dodgers with only 59 pitches thrown, but the wheels came off for him in the bottom of the sixth. Tommy Edman led off the inning with a line-drive double to right, and after recording a one-pitch out to Ohtani, Brandon surrendered three straight singles to Pages, Freeman, and Betts. Edman and Pages scored, and Pfaadt’s night was abruptly over, as Torey Lovullo pulled him for Brandyn Garcia, who was making his second relief appearance in as many days. Garcia did the business, though, striking out Max Muncy looking and getting Kyle Tucker to line out to Perdomo for the third out. 6-2 DBACKS
Landon Knack, activated today from the 60-day injured list to give Los Angeles some length after they used nearly their entire bullpen last night, came on for the top of the seventh, and promptly gave back one of the runs by loading the bases with one out. He hit Perdomo with a pitch, then walked Carroll and Perdomo. Max Kepler flew out to right, allowing Perdomo to tag from third and score. 7-2 DBACKS
Kevin Ginkel pitched a clean bottom of the seventh for us, and Knack came out for the eighth and was greeted by back-to-back solo home runs from Nolan Arenado and James McCann, who went deep for the second time in the game.
So that was fun. 9-2 DBACKS
And that accounts for our final score, as Juan Morillo put up a zero in the eighth and Philip Abner, recently recalled from Reno, put up a zero of his own in the bottom of the ninth.
Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
BINGO!: Brandon Pfaadt (5 1/3 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, +19% WPA)
Bango: Tim Tawa (5 AB, 3 H, 1 R, 2 RBI, 2 2B, 1 K, +13% WPA), James McCann (4 AB, 2 H, 2 R, 4 RBI, 2 HR, 1 K, +12% WPA), Max Kepler (3 AB, 1 H, 2 RBI, 1 K, +10% WPA)
Bongo: Ketel Marte (5 AB, 0 H, 0 R, 2 K, -9% WPA)
This was kind of an interesting WPA sheet, and frankly an interesting game for the offense, as all of the meaningful offensive production came from the bottom six players in the lineup. Go figure. And Tawa, for the second game in a row, was the WPA leader for the offense—+13% today, and a whopping +23% yesterday. It’s certainly a small sample size, but I begin to wonder if, when he was called back up from Reno this last time, Timmy reached out to Christian Walker and arranged to sublet Dodger Stadium from the hand-downs historical owner of that ballpark. Could be.
Anyway, we had a lovely and lively Gameday Thread tonight, with 315 comments at time of writing. Comment of the Game, by popular acclaim and because they are certainly not wrong, goes to Webb Gemz for this observation regarding our new heir apparent at first base:
Of course, given the propensity of fans a Chavez Latrine to bat beach balls around in the stands, that could also be an explanation for the phenomenon. We’ll have to see if Timmy continues to see pitches that way once we’re back at Chase. Here’s hoping, though.
And I did not expect to be typing this sentence, but stop by with your brooms in hand tomorrow as we go for the sweep against the Doyers tomorrow in the last game of our last series before the All Star Break! Mitch Bratt takes the mound for us, replacing the apparently destined-for-the-IL Zac Gallen, while Emmet Sheehan goes for the Evil Floral Delivery Conglomerate. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time. Hope to see you, because if we don’t, that can only mean that you are simply the worst kind of Frankfurter (i dunno, blame Trappkory)!
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!
Arthur Kaluma is making a loud case for a two-way contract
LAS VEGAS — They say America is the land of opportunity, but in the NBA world, that place can be narrowed down to Las Vegas in July.
On Saturday, the Lakers were shorthanded against the Mavericks with Cameron Carr ruled out shortly before tip. Arthur Kaluma took advantage of the opportunity.
He was magnificent in LA’s 91-70 win over Dallas, scoring 34 points on 11-16 shooting from the field, including six of his 10 3-pointers.
“It’s just his confidence,” Lakers coach Ty Abbott said about Kaluma’s game after the win. “And understanding of how to play without the ball in your hand. Last night was a situation where he’s just finding windows, he’s crashing, he’s creating extra possessions, getting putbacks, tip-ins, and he’s getting fouls, and he’s taking advantage of smaller defenders. Today, he had some actions run for him and he was ready.”
A performance like this puts a spotlight on a player and left many wondering if the Lakers should make him a permanent member of the roster.
LA has all three two-way spots by Chris Mañon, AK Okereke and Peter Suder, so Kaluma would have to unseat one of those players. However, just because someone is signed to a two-way contract today doesn’t mean it’ll be that way tomorrow.
While Mañon has had some quality games, Okereke and Suder have struggled during Summer League. And with a performance like this, Kaluma is making a compelling case for LA to figure out how to give him a two-way contract before someone else does.
In LA’s first game in Las Vegas on Friday, he was literally perfect from the field, knocking down all five of his shots and scoring 18 points. Saturday was more of the same.
Kaluma wasted no time getting to work. He scored the team’s second basket with a nice pump fake and then a drive inside. Kaluma absorbed the contact and finished in the paint.
He repeated this process throughout the first half, and then, when the opportunity to hit a three presented itself, he took advantage with a pair of makes from beyond the arc.
During the second half, Kaluma stayed hot. Whenever the Mavericks were threatening a comeback, he seemed to hit a timely three to keep them at bay.
Kaluma has been part of the Lakers ecosystem before. He played with South Bay last year and was also on the Summer League roster. With a year of professional development under his belt, he’s been able to showcase it in Las Vegas.
“There’s a certain hunger that you have to have in order to be successful in the G [League],” Kaluma said. “And I feel like that drive that I had my first year in it pushed me into this summer to really get better and work on my game and come here and have the opportunity to perform at Summer League.”
That’s the thing about a player like Kaluma: he’s trying to carve out a role, so he’ll be hungry and ready for any chance he gets. The moments have arrived for him during Summer League and he’s delivered.
Everyone at Summer League has something to prove. The top draft picks want to prove they are worth the hype. The second-year players are trying to prove they don’t need to be here and the two-way guys want to keep their spots or earn standard deals.
Kaluma fits outside of this box. He is an Exhibit 10 player trying to keep his career going and find a role at a higher level. Thanks to his play this weekend, that moment could happen sooner rather than later.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
Dodgers' White House visit: Mookie Betts among players not expected to go to DC
Members of the Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to visit the White House to be honored for winning the World Series in 2025.
President Donald Trump will greet the Dodgers on July 23.
Los Angeles secured back-to-back titles after beating the Toronto Blue Jays in a thrilling Game 7. The Dodgers also won the title in 2024, knocking off the New York Yankees in five games.
The Dodgers also captured the Fall Classic in 2020, which was the franchise's first championship since 1988.
The Dodgers visited the White House in April 2025 to celebrate the 2024 World Series. Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw were among the players that attended.
The team will make the trip to Washington, D.C. on an off day between series against the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets. It's in the midst of a demanding stretch of games for the Dodgers, playing nine games in 10 days.
Betts told the California Post on July 11 that he wasn't expected to appear at the White House. Betts plans on skipping the festivities and claimed the decision wasn’t political. He stated that he wanted to spend the day with his family, which includes his newborn daughter.
Kiké Hernández is also not expected to make the trip. He is currently on a minor league rehab assignment.
Which Dodgers will not visit White House?
- Mookie Betts
- Kiké Hernández
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers' White House visit: Mookie Betts among players not expected to go to DC
2026 Mets Draft profile: Shane Sdao
A Montgomery, Texas native, Shane Sdao attended Lake Creek High School in Montgomery, a school that opened in 2018 due to overcrowding at the city’s primary school, Montgomery High School. The left-hander helped turn the school’s fledgling baseball program into a winner. In their first year of existence, the Lions went 7-7 on the season. In 2021 and 2022, the two years that Sdao lettered and pitched for the varsity team, they went 20-12-1 and 23-6, respectively, advancing to the Texas Region III-5A quarterfinals both times. In both years, the left-hander was named to the First All-District Team, the Second All-Greater Houston Team, and was the Texas District 5A All-State honorable mention pitch in his senior year.
Despite the accolades, Sdao was far from a draft follow. The left-hander garnered very little attention from scouts and evaluators due to his relatively uninspiring repertoire and advanced age. The southpaw already had a commitment to Texas A&M in place, and after no MLB teams called his name in the 2022 MLB Draft, Sdao attended the College Station institution.
The left-hander appeared in 22 games in his freshman season with the Aggies, starting two games and coming out of the bullpen for the remaining 20. In total, the 19-year-old posted a 4.78 ERA in 43.1 innings, allowing 54 hits, walking 15, and striking out 46. He was used in a similar manner in his sophomore season, starting 5 games and coming out of the bullpen for the remaining 15. Sdao was better in virtually every regard, posting a 2.96 ERA in 48.2 innings, allowing 42 hits, walking 9, and striking out 55. The Aggies made it to the 2024 College World Series finals, losing to the University of Tennessee, but they did so without the left-hander, who injured his elbow starting against the University of Oregon in the Super Regionals.
Sdao’s injury turned out to be the worst-case scenario: a UCL tear that required Tommy John surgery to fix. The left-hander redshirted in 2025, missing the entire season. Despite being injured, Sdao received numerous financially lucrative bonus offers from multiple MLB teams who were looking to float a deal with him while he recovered from surgery. He ended up rejecting those offers and decided to return to Texas A&M in 2026.
The results were not exactly there for Sdao in his redshirt junior season. More important than anything else, he was able to take the mound and his stuff was more or less where it was before the Tommy John surgery, but the results were ugly. Appearing in 17 games, starting 13 of them, Sdao posted a 7.03 ERA in 71.2 innings, allowing 98 hits, walking 20, and striking out 83. In particular, the longball was a problem; he allowed 16 home runs over the course of the season.
The 22-year-old Sdao stands 6’3”, 185-pounds. He throws from a three-quarters arm slot, extending off the mound well and incorporating a high leg kick and a long arm action through the back. He is a strike thrower, and keeps hitters off-balance with a deep repertoire that includes a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, cutter, and changeup. At present, none of his pitchers are better than average offerings, but as he continues recovering from Tommy John surgery, his fastball and slider stand to improve the most.
His fastball sits in the low-to-mid-90s, and in the past the left-hander has been able to ramp it up and hit the high-90s with the pitch. Even before the ligament surgery that kept him off the field in 2025, Sdao lacked consistency with the pitch and its velocity often fluctuated, more often settling into the lower end of that velocity band and rarely exceeding 95 MPH. The pitch lacks the power to be a true strikeout offering, generating below-average whiff rates, but Sdao still has had success with the pitch thanks to his ability to command it and its rising action; in the past, it has been measured possessing 2300 RPM, an average-to-above-average spin rate for a fastball.
The left-hander’s slider is his main secondary pitch, and he uses it against left-handed and right-handed batters alike. A sweeping slider in the low-80s, the pitch has a bit less horizontal movement than most sweeping sliders, but Sdao has become skilled at dropping his arm angle a bit when throwing it, telegraphing the pitch but at the same time giving it the illusion of having more lateral movement than it actually does.
Against right-handed batters, Sdao utilizes a mid-80s changeup, but the pitch has been supplanted in usefulness by an upper-70s curveball and an upper-80s cutter that he recently added to his repertoire.
In 2026, as mentioned, Sdao had a problem with home runs, but in general, he had some major issues keeping the ball down. As compared to his prior two seasons with the Aggies, where he averaged a 41.7% groundball rate, 20.9% line drive rate, and a 37.5% flyball rate, the left-hander had a 31.7% groundball rate, 24.3% line drive rate, and a 43.9% flyball rate in 2026.
Lakers' Arthur Kaluma erupts for 34 points in breakout Summer League performance
The door opened for Arthur Kaluma to show his worth for the Lakers in the NBA Summer League on Saturday night.
He did so in a big way.
Kaluma had 34 points and five rebounds during the Lakers’ 91-70 win over the Dallas Mavericks at the Thomas & Mack Center.
He was 11 for 16 from the field and six for 10 from three-point range.
Read more:Adou Thiero shows progress while leading Lakers to Vegas Summer League win over Thunder
Late in the fourth quarter, Kaluma lined up a three-pointer, setting his feet and scoring from 29 feet out. He flashed three fingers and smiled. His teammates on the bench stood and cheered, as did the fans.
Kaluma played for the South Bay Lakers last season. He averaged 14.6 points per game, 4.9 rebounds and shot 55% from the field, 37% from three-point range.
Kaluma wasn’t alone in helping the Lakers improve to 2-0 in Summer League play.
Adou Thiero ran the court, took a lob pass from Chris Mañon and threw down a two-handed dunk. He had another solid outing with 15 points and four rebounds. He shot just four for 12 from the field, but was a plus-15.
Lakers rookie guard Cameron Carr was unable to get more reps because of a right thumb contusion that kept him sidelined.
Carr, the 24th pick in the NBA draft, is averaging 17 points per game.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto has rough start as Dodgers drop series to Arizona
The Dodgers’ 9-2 loss to the Diamondbacks on Saturday wasn’t enough to prevent them from going into the All-Star break with the best record in the majors — that much is ensured. But the uninspired all-around performance sealed a series loss on the final weekend of the season’s first half.
“It was a clunker,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The last three out of five [or] four out of five games, it just hasn’t been clean baseball. So when you give teams free bases, extra outs, it’s hard to win a game, regardless of opponent. ... We’ve got to find a way to win a game [Sunday] to feel somewhat better about going into the break.”
The Dodgers (61-35) put little pressure on the Diamondbacks pitching staff. And Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto wrapped up his first-half campaign with his highest-scoring start of the season; he surrendered six runs in six innings.
“He still had a really, really, really good first half,” Roberts said.
Over the All-Star break, Yamamoto (2.85 ERA) will get the week to rest. Before the game Saturday, oberts confirmed Yamamoto, an All-Star for the second consecutive year, will not pitch in the game.
The timing of his start Saturday, three days before the Midsummer Classic, suggested as much. Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to have his left knee drained coming out of the All-Star break and will not travel to Philadelphia. So Justin Wrobleski, who was added to the National League roster Saturday, is the only Dodger set to pitch in the All-Star Game.
Yamamoto held the Diamondbacks (48-47) to one run through the first five innings. But his final inning quickly unraveled. It started with a leadoff walk and peaked with a three-run home run from James McCann.
The Dodgers finally rallied for two runs in the sixth and then fell quiet again. The Diamondbacks then scored three runs against Landon Knack in his three-inning season debut coming off the injured list.
Read more:Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski added to National League roster for All-Star Game
Yamamoto’s uncharacteristic sixth inning ended his streak of quality starts at five, including two that lasted eight innings or more. He leads the team with 110⅔ innings pitched.
“Overall, there’s good outings,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “And also physically, condition-wise, it’s been good. And I hope that I can carry this into the second half.”
Yamamoto’s workload, along with Wrobleski’s emergence, has helped the Dodgers weather injuries to pitchers who were expected to be major contributors.
In a promising sign for closer Edwin Díaz’s recovery timeline, he started a rehab assignment with single-A Ontario on Saturday. Díaz made just seven appearances for the Dodgers before undergoing an operation to remove loose bodies from his right elbow in late April.
“He’s been throwing pretty effortlessly, free, maybe a week after he started throwing,” pitching coach Mark Prior said.
He estimated that Díaz would return in about three to four weeks if his progression goes smoothly.
Blake Snell — who also had loose bodies removed from his pitching elbow, undergoing a NanoNeedle Scope procedure on May 19 — threw two simulated innings to batters Saturday.
Snell is scheduled to begin a minor-league rehab assignment next weekend, Roberts said. Prior believes Snell will need at least four to five outings, likening it to a spring training buildup.
“The goal would be to get him fully built up to 90ish pitches before he comes back,” Prior said.
Tyler Glasnow, who had been sidelined for more than two months with a lingering back injury, threw a bullpen session Friday.
“It was like 95, 96 [mph] in his ‘pen, but he does that rolling out of bed when he’s healthy,” Prior said. “But it’s a good sign.”
Glasnow has had plenty of back and forth in his rehab, however. Twice he started playing catch only to be shut down when back spasms returned.
“The schedule is starting to move with a little bit more consistency than it had been,” Prior said. “So he’s in a good spot.”
Glasnow is scheduled for another bullpen session on Monday.
Read more:Dodgers' top MLB draft pick Bo Lowrance eager to emulate Freddie Freeman, Corey Seager
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Arthur Kaluma dominates in Lakers win over Mavericks
Behind a remarkable performance from Arthur Kaluma, the Lakers earned their second win in as many nights at the Las Vegas Summer League, knocking off the Mavericks, 91-70.
Kaluma poured in 34 points, helping the Lakers pull away in the fourth quarter. LA remains undefeated in Vegas and has won four straight games this summer after dropping its opener.
The Lakers had a rough start, going down by five. Tobi Lawal and Ryan Nembhard scored all of Dallas’ points. Adou Thiero scored the first points for LA, converting on a three-point play.
Jon Elmore provided a spark off the Lakers’ bench, scoring six points. Peter Suder also had productive minutes off the bench for Los Angeles with four points. Zhaire Smith converted on a fadeaway jumper to put the purple and gold up by two at the end of the first.
Mavs rookie Morez Johnson had a solid start to the second period for Dallas, scoring six points. Arthur Kaluma was the only Laker to score early on a layup. Both teams were shooting 47% from the field.
Dallas was up by two when Los Angeles called a timeout.
Out of the break, Thiero was fouled and converted to tie the game. Kaluma continued to shine, pushing his point total to 12, the first Laker in double figures. LA’s shooting took a slight dip to 45% while Dallas was shooting 50%.
The half ended with the teams exchanging triples. Kaluma’s impressive half got even better as he now had 18 points and was shooting 75% from the field. At halftime, the Lakers were up by three.
Both teams missed seven shots combined to start the third period. Tobi Lawal was the first player from either team to score, converting on one free throw for two points. William Hickey got the Lakers on the board with a layup. Kaluma drained his third 3-pointer of the game.
At the 5:46 mark, LA was up by four.
Chris Mañon was another spark for Los Angeles with his six points. The rest of the quarter belonged to the Lakers as they built a lead of 10 going into the fourth period. The purple and gold beat Dallas by seven in the third.
After a jumper from Johnson started the final frame, LA responded with a 7-0 scoring run. Kaluma knocked two more triples, giving him 34 points for the game.
The rest of the fourth happened.
Key Player Stats
Kaluma finished with 34 points and five rebounds. Thiero ended with 15 points, going 4-12 from the field. Mañon had 10 points with eight rebounds.
Peter Suder scored 14 points in 17 minutes. Smith logged six points with three assists and two steals. Elmore pitched in with six points, four rebounds, five assists and three steals.
The next Lakers Summer League game will be against the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday at 7:00 PM PT.
You can follow Karin on Twitter at @KarinAbcarians.