Category: Sports News

One thing that we see every so often across sports ahead of a championship series is the “Guaranteed Ring”.

When a player plays for both finalists in a sport, they’re essentially secured a ring, as all players who suited up for a specific team in a season usually get one for their efforts, no matter how small or inconsequential.

It’s most common in MLB due to the sheer amount of roster turnover. Buddy Kennedy and Jose Ureña both played for the Blue Jays and Dodgers in 2025, but neither were in either organization by the time the World Series rolled around

Every so often, though, you get it in the NBA. Two recent examples include Torrey Craig in 2021 and Anderson Varejão in 2016. As the prophecy foretold, it happened once again in a five-year increment.

Jeremy Sochan was born in Guymon, Oklahoma, on May 20, 2003, to two former Division II basketball players. His mother, Aneta, was of Polish descent, coming from a long line of professional athletes that even has roots in the resistance of Nazi occupation in World War II with Sochan’s great-grandfather, Zygmunt.

As a child, Sochan moved from Oklahoma to France to England, where he spent much of his childhood before returning to the United States to play high school basketball in La Porte, Indiana. After leading the Polish U16 team to the 2019 FIBA U16 European Championship Division B title, he earned a scholarship to play for Scott Drew at Baylor, where he turned himself into a top-flight NBA prospect.

After briefly playing overseas with OrangeAcademy in Germany, he joined the Bears in 2021-22, where he averaged 9.2 points and 6.4 rebounds, being named the Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year as part of a stacked Baylor team that earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament a year after winning the national championship in 2021. While they were upset in the second round, Sochan had established himself as a promising prospect, enabling him to forgo his remaining eligibility to declare for the 2022 NBA Draft.

Sochan was the perfect encapsulation of teams preferring traits over college production. While guys like Jalen Brunson fall to the second round, guys like Sochan rise with their youth, size, and skill. He was an advanced passer for someone of his archetype, and despite his offensive game being very limited, teams saw a player who still had a lot of room to grow.

That’s what convinced the San Antonio Spurs to draft him ninth overall over notable players like Santa Clara’s Jalen Williams, Memphis’ Jalen Duren, and, of course, Ousmane Dieng. As the franchise’s first top-10 pick since Tim Duncan 22 years earlier, there might’ve been some unfair expectations put on him right away, but the team believed in him as the future piece of the next Spurs’ dynasty.

Things started out pretty well. In his first season, he averaged 11 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.5 assists as a consistent starter for a dreadful Spurs team. He flashed signs of brilliance, putting up 30-8-5 against a Suns team that went to the Finals in January, but things changed that offseason for both him and the franchise.

That dreadful season resulted in Victor Wembanyama falling into their hands. After wandering the desert since Kawhi Leonard’s departure and hoping that someone from the Sochan, Josh Primo, Keldon Johnson, and Devin Vassell quartet could break out, they were gifted the best prospect the league had seen since LeBron James.

That immediately meant everyone else was relegated to second fiddle, and while Sochan was likely never going to be a star with his offensive limitations, the fact that he was overshadowed just a year into his career might not have helped. Statistically, his next two seasons didn’t look bad at all, as he slowly improved as a shooter and seemed to form a great bond with Wemby on and off the court.

He even infuriated all Knicks fans everywhere with his 21-point performance on Christmas Day at Madison Square Garden, buoyed by going 3-for-3 from downtown.

But the cracks in the foundation showed. They seemed not to really know where to play Sochan, who was yanked around from being a wing to the team’s point guard to even being a small-ball center. His versatility made him able to weather many situations, but this was a guy who was barely able to buy a drink. That, coupled with his spacing concerns given his poor shooting, slowly degraded his play as things got worse.

The Spurs were suddenly blossoming into a powerhouse, benefitting from lottery luck in three consecutive seasons to build a young core. Guys like Johnson and Vassell settled into roles as valuable role players, but Sochan got lost in the shuffle. His minutes slowly dwindled towards the end of November and he was out of the everyday rotation by December.

In the final year of his rookie contract, it was time for a divorce. On February 11, the Spurs waived their former lottery pick just two months before free agency, but it was early enough to allow him to suit up in the NBA playoffs. Two days later, he put pen to paper with the New York Knicks.

Initially, it seemed like the Knicks would embrace him as an opportunity to play both a small-ball five role and a traditional backup power forward role, but he seemed like a square peg in a round hole with how Mike Brown tried to utilize him in the first few games. By the end of February, he was reduced to garbage time.

But even though he wasn’t playing and some believed he was a waste of a roster spot, he added something that doesn’t show up on the box score. Good vibes.

Sochan has always been a popular figure in every locker room he’s been in and has formed a nice bond with Josh Hart over their Premier League rivalry. He didn’t throw a hissy fit on the bench when he wasn’t playing. He didn’t alienate his teammates, unlike some buyout options, but he was ready when he was needed to be called upon.

The first three rounds? He wasn’t needed. Due to the many blowouts, he got some garbage time run, which even included scoring 10 points in less than four minutes in Game 5 against Atlanta, but he didn’t play any meaningful minutes through the end of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Then it just so happened that his former team was on the other side in the NBA Finals. Just two months removed from being in that locker room, Sochan became an asset. When the Knicks went over film, he would be their man on the inside.

Seems like he was pretty right about this, huh?

And the neat part about how this story ends up? His first meaningful minutes of the postseason came in this series. He played nine seconds in Game 3, three minutes in Game 4 due to shenanigans with the entire center rotation, and the final nine seconds of Game 5.

In Game 5, he was pestering his former teammate all game long. The exact one that dislodged his place in the Spurs’ organization. The man whose arrival started his path towards this current moment.

In the end, when the Knicks ended their 53-year title drought, guess who the man who contested the final shot was? It was Jeremy Sochan, who probably had maybe the most unnecessary contest of all time, considering the monumental risk of fouling with a four-point cushion, but we’d only remember that beyond this week if something bad had happened.

But it didn’t, and that’s how he became an NBA champion.

–

(P&T will be doing player-by-player article tributes over the next few weeks to commemorate the special team that ended our long, half-century nightmare)

With the Finals officially over, silly season is fully upon the NBA. Every team is now in the offseason and the league’s focus turns to the draft, the offseason and the future.

For the Lakers, that means a look at an upcoming free agency that will be incredibly important. One of the first pieces of business the team will need to take care of is Austin Reaves, who will almost certainly decline his player option.

While the most recent reports suggested that Reaves is looking for the max and is expected to have suitors elsewhere around the league, it seems the general consensus around the league is that he’ll remain in LA.

On Sunday evening, longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein reported that the expectation is Reaves will re-sign with the purple and gold in free agency.

The Lakers are widely expected to re-sign Reaves, whose fondness for Lakerland as well as his blossoming backcourt partnership alongside Luka Dončić are regarded as strong lures that suggest the sides will ultimately come to terms on a new pact.

After Austin spent most of the season saying he wanted to be a Laker and wasn’t even looking for the biggest payday possible, his team has tried to regain some leverage. First, they made it clear they were expecting a max deal and, last week, it was reported that the Nets and Pistons could be among the teams to pursue Reaves in free agency.

However, according to Stein, all the signals Reaves put out about wanting to remain in LA may be scaring teams away from making an offer for him.

Yet it is unclear what sort of external interest Reaves will generate after his strong production over the past two seasons … at least partly due to the inherent skepticism that stems from trying to woo him away from the Lakers. Brooklyn and Detroit have been mentioned as potential Reaves suitors, but neither is seen as a certainty yet.

A similar situation played out the last time Reaves was set for free agency. All signs were pointing to him remaining in LA, but in that instance, he was set for restricted free agency, so teams didn’t want to bother tying up cap space only to have him return to the Lakers.

This time, they may see it as a pointless venture to spend time negotiating a deal with Reaves as opposed to working out deals with free agents who actually might want to sign with the team.

If this is how teams feel, then perhaps it means the Lakers can agree to a more team-friendly deal if — or when — Reaves re-signs.

For now, though, it’ll be a lot of posturing from both sides in the final weeks leading up to the start of free agency.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.

Jalen Brunson could barely find the words.

You couldn’t blame him. The man had just done the one thing he’d organized his whole life around, and he did it as the player few outside his own family ever forecasted would be the one standing there. No longer the overlooked NCAA champion. More than the second-round pick with potential to overcome his measurables. The guy who surprised Utah in the playoffs that one year. Now? Well, now that kid is the champion. The Finals MVP. He told the sideline he had no words, that he was just in awe, and for a few seconds, the kid who always had an answer didn’t have one.

I was sincerely happy for him. I still am. This is one of the great sports stories, and the fact that he isn’t ours anymore doesn’t take that away. We cheered for this guy. We watched him grow up in Maverick blue. He went and did something enormous, and there is real pride in having been there at the start of the pro leg of this journey. There is also, if I’m honest at one in the morning, the ache of what could have been.

Lisa Salters asked him afterward what he’d been telling himself about closing the game out. His confidence, Brunson said, comes from his work ethic. Every time he got the ball down the stretch, he was thinking about the summers, all of them, as far back as he can remember. About being, in his words, “me alone in the gym.” All those hours with no crowd and nothing at stake, cashing out at last on the loudest stage in basketball.

The way he cashed it is the part that should make every doubter wince. San Antonio built a roster engineered to erase a player exactly like him. Length everywhere. Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle, and Devin Vassell hounding the point of attack, long and rangy and athletic, and Victor Wembanyama waiting at the rim as the most terrifying shot-blocker in the league. Brunson gave up size and reach to all of them and beat them anyway. Herky-jerky, start and stop, a half-beat ahead possession after possession, outthinking a defense designed to think faster than he could. He poured in fifteen in the fourth quarter, one clutch shot after another, and there was nothing all that San Antonio length could do about a man who had already seen every counter in an empty gym years before. Too small, they always said. Doubted his whole life. He just kept finding a way.

Charles Barkley has spent years calling him the greatest free-agent signing in NBA history. After tonight, the room finally stopped arguing.

Here’s the hard part. The Dallas part.

This is not a missive about a franchise that should have spotted a legend. He went 33rd for reasons that made sense at the time, and when Mark Cuban shrugged that he had “no idea” Brunson would become this, I’ll grant him that one. Concede the scouting. The malpractice lives in what came next.

By Tim MacMahon’s reporting in The Wonder Boy, Brunson wanted to stay. He was eligible for a four-year extension worth up to roughly $55.5 million, and his family was so eager to put down roots in Dallas that they’d have taken less than the max. The security meant that much to him. He grew up watching his father, Rick, work through a journeyman’s NBA career on one nonguaranteed contract after another, training three times a day every summer just to earn a training-camp look, never sure when a team would move on from him. For a son raised on that, a guaranteed deal in Dallas carried a weight beyond the dollars: it was the safety his father’s career had never once promised.

The front office wouldn’t commit to it. They wanted to keep him movable, to dangle as bait for a co-star next to Luka, and they kept one eye on the luxury tax they’d ducked ever since 2011. So they waited. Through training camp. Past the January window when his camp said he would sign right then. And by the time they finally slid the same number across the table, he had outgrown it. A structuring flub on his rookie deal meant Dallas didn’t even hold the right to match. He walked for nothing. His father’s verdict was that the Mavs could have made the choice hard, and instead they “made it easy.”

Sit with the cruelty of that. This is the precise kind of player the Mavericks spent that entire era clearing cap space to chase in free agency. A natural leader. A low-ego, locker-room-raising winner who makes everyone around him better. They had him. They grew him. And because they could not stop keeping their options open long enough to back the believer right in front of them, they let him leave for the price of a goodbye.

We just passed fifteen years since 2011. You and I both remember how much had to break right that spring, how rare that alignment is, how a whole franchise’s one shining season can hinge on every piece fitting at once. The Knicks just ended a fifty-three-year wait. That is the math that turns this from a grievance into a warning: self-inflicted wounds in roster building are exactly how a fifteen-year drought hardens into a fifty-three-year one.

I have heard it said that the acquisition of Kyrie Irving effectively balanced the scales for having lost Brunson to the wind less than a year prior. To think so is pure folly and underestimates the causality of burning future assets – the 2029 first sent to Brooklyn in the Irving package – to atone for past mistakes. Think about it long enough, and loving the Mavericks post-2011 can feel like the basketball version of 12 Monkeys or Memento. We now bank on the creativity and gem-finding skills of Ujiri and company to save the Cooper Flagg era (itself an unlikely dollop of grace) from the sins of the past.

So let yourself look ahead. Barring something catastrophic, what we watched tonight is a Hall of Fame résumé manifesting in real time. More years of contention. More years leading that franchise. Some will tell you he was already a lock, and that tonight only burned off the last of the doubt.

Somewhere down the line, a kid in a Brunson jersey is going to ask why his guy ever wore blue and white. We had him first. The people who ran the team then couldn’t bring themselves to keep him.

The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired Dennis Schroder in a deal alongside Keon Ellis with the Sacramento Kings for De’Andre Hunter around the trade deadline. Schroder was more of a salary match for the Cavaliers, but remained a mainstay of the Cavaliers’ rotation during their Eastern Conference Finals run.

All grades are based on our usual expectations for each player.

Regular Season Stats *with Cavaliers*

• 8.2 points
• 2.3 rebounds
• 4.3 assists
• 40.1% FG
• 29% 3PT FG
• 86.1% FT

Schroder is a tough guy to grade. The stat line speaks for itself; the guy had little to no juice for 70% of the games he suited up for the wine and gold. Schroder, after being traded to Cleveland, was putting on his 11th uniform in 12 years.

With a resume like that, it would be fair to expect that Schroder gets moved around for a reason. The idea of Schroder might be more appealing than the actual on-court result. That is how the acquisition resonates with me at the time of writing this post.

Schroder can have his moments on the floor. The 32-year-old guard can still show bursts off the dribble with an ability to get to the cup with ease at times. However, it was once Schroder actually had to score that I found the most frustrating. He would either put too much muscle behind these layups on a good look or throw an errant pass into traffic.

Schroder could not reliably space the floor either. In the postseason, the Cavaliers were reliant on converting on looks from the perimeter. Therefore, the opportunities and clean looks were there for him. Schroder, a career 34% three-point shooter, endured the worst shooting splits of his career with Cleveland. Not only did he have lower volume, 2.1 looks from three, but he also converted just 29% of those opportunities for the Cavs.

How much of this is because he was constantly the playing release valve for Donovan Mitchell and James Harden? Not much. I think that Schroder’s remaining juice is just running out.

Where Schroder stood out on the floor was the energy he displayed. It felt like at various times Schroder would provide the spark needed to wake the Cavaliers from the lull they were in. Every team needs a guy like Schroder, someone who will call them out for sleepwalking through stretches of the game. It was clear that this Cavaliers team and coaching staff respected Schroder’s voice.

While it is unlikely that Schroder will be on the team in 2026-27, as his salary is ludicrous at $14.8 million. The team needed more of what Schroder provided with his voice. His on-court production left much to be desired; therefore, he seems destined to be on his 12th team in 13 years next season.

Grade: C–

The Boston Celtics know they can’t run it back next season as-is.

This past season’s run was admirable. The team managed to salvage Jayson Tatum’s 62-game delay and clinch the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with 56 wins before the postseason. But their 33.7 percent 3-point shooting clip against the Philadelphia 76ers, coupled with a frontcourt that was railroaded by Joel Embiid, forced Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens to carefully assess the shocking first-round exit.

Less than a week after the Celtics blew their first 3-1 series lead in franchise history, Stevens, during his end-of-season press conference, emphasized his desire to “generate looks at the rim.”

Stevens, on behalf of the team’s brass, referred to dunks as the preferred shot over the three. That statement was both a confession of where the Celtics went wrong against Philadelphia and an indictment of where Stevens wants to go moving forward as Boston enters a crucial offseason.

Boston ranked dead last in the playoffs in 2-point field-goal attempts and 25th in the regular season, finishing behind six non-playoff-contending teams. Rolling out Neemias Queta as the starting center, along with Luka Garza on the bench and Nikola Vučević added at the trade deadline, the Celtics struggled throughout their campaign to pressure the rim, and it caught up to them.

The disappointment and frustration in Stevens’ voice during his final meeting with reporters signaled a lesson learned. The problem now is finding a solution, and the early offseason rumblings across the league suggest Stevens has his eye on a 6-foot-11 answer: Giannis Antetokounmpo.

In April, Antetokounmpo praised Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla — midway through his award-winning job as the NBA’s Coach of the Year. The Greek Freak has had it with the Milwaukee Bucks, and the expectation is that Giannis officially departs this offseason. Boston is said to be in the running, although the price of negotiating for a two-time league MVP could put Stevens and the front office in a compromising position with homegrown Celtics star Jaylen Brown.

Brown has been the name linked to trade rumors once again. Four years ago, Boston discussed a potential trade for Kevin Durant with the Brooklyn Nets involving Brown. That triggered feelings of frustration as Brown began to side-eye the Celtics. Now, as the centerpiece in another blockbuster trade rumor implying Boston’s appetite for an upgrade, the relationship between Brown and the Celtics could reopen that very rift.

With at least some idea of what’s happening in Boston’s front office, Brown has already been cryptic about his messaging.

“The neighbors rice always smells better,” Brown posted last Thursday on X.

During his latest livestream, Brown vaguely touched on his future by re-asserting his confidence in what’s ahead following his career-best run with the Celtics — he averaged 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists, shooting over 47 percent across 71 games.

“A lot of people think they’ve seen the best version of me, and you stand corrected,” Brown told his FCHWPO Twitch livestream on Sunday night.

“No matter what the situation is, no matter what the case is, I feel confident in a sense where I’m coming into my physicality, my mental game, my weaknesses are turning into my strengths, and you have not seen the best of Jaylen Brown. I look forward to next season. We’ll see where the chips fall, but I’m excited about that.”

The risk for Stevens and the Celtics could be a rupture beyond repair, regardless of whether or not the team acquires the Greek Freak. Since the Miami Heat are also rumored to be in the mix, there’s no guarantee Antetokounmpo successfully forces Milwaukee to agree to a deal with Boston, leaving Brown’s standing with the franchise in a possibly murky spot.

If Stevens does strike a deal with the Bucks to bring Antetokounmpo to Boston, then it’s water under the bridge. If not, Brown could easily barge to the front office and demand a trade to a place where he’ll be the No. 1 once and for all. It’s already been confirmed that to some degree, Brown enjoyed being in the driver’s seat this past season and views himself as a player capable of doing that full-time.

The Athletic’s Sam Amick and Eric Nehm reported that the Celtics “pose a serious threat” in the Giannis sweepstakes if the 10-time All-Star expresses a willingness to sign a four-year, $275 million extension with Boston. It’s also likely that a third team would be necessary to facilitate any trade for Antetokounmpo, which would also likely become Brown’s next home if that scenario plays out.

So far, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Atlanta Hawks are possible third wheels floated around — both of which offer an unoccupied driver’s seat to Brown.

Some interpreted Brown’s post-Game 7 loss stream as confirmation that he wants to be the lead dog for a team. Others consider that perspective to be overblown and miscontextualized. What isn’t known is how Stevens and the Celtics view Brown’s comments.

In the final three minutes of the team’s season, Brown denied a wide-open Queta of an assist and instead deferred to Payton Pritchard for a corner three. Pritchard’s miss, with a chance to give Boston a lead over Philadelphia in Game 7, proved Brown’s decision to be costly. Stevens’ comments proved that even though Brown doubled down less than 24 hours later on his livestream, his decision doesn’t reflect what the Celtics want.  

It’s certainly difficult to imagine Stevens trading away Brown, the team’s third overall draft selection in 2017, whom Stevens coached for the first five seasons of his career. In 2023, Stevens signed Brown to a five-year, $304 million extension with the Celtics, making him the then-highest-paid player in NBA history.

However, it’s even harder to imagine Stevens staying pat after the Celtics squandered another opportunity at the NBA Finals, in a historically brutal fashion, no less.

Major changes are required this offseason. Not minor tweaks. Three years ago, Stevens blueprinted an overhaul that featured a handful of difficult departures and rewarded the Celtics with their 18th championship banner.

Heading into a season that’ll be significantly more difficult, especially in the East, Stevens understands another big swing — maybe his greatest yet — could supply restoration for the C’s.