Category: Sports News

SAN FRANCISCO — The direction of the Warriors’ offseason waits on Steve Kerr, so with the coach still undecided about his future, general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. also put his traditional postseason news conference on hold.

With Steph Curry and Draymond Green already addressing their futures following Friday’s play-in loss to the Suns that ended their season, that meant there wasn’t much of any consequence left as the remainder of the roster took the podium one-by-one Monday inside Chase Center.

Still, here’s one thing we learned about each player in the last time we hear from them before they regroup at the end of summer for a training camp that could look different from years past.

Al Horford: Still contemplating future

Horford described his first year with the Warriors as a “positive experience,” despite not getting the chance to chase a championship like he had hoped when he decided to leave the Celtics.

Horford, 39, possesses a player option for next season but said he’s undecided about his future. He did not rule out retirement and said he would talk it over with his wife, Amelia.

“Fortunately for me, I’m healthy. I feel good. I still feel like I can contribute and play at a very high level still. Those are all things that I’m going to look at,” Horford said. “Now that everything kind of gets quiet, you know, it’s something that I’ll reflect on all that.”

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De’Anthony Melton: Open to returning

Horford isn’t the only player with a decision to make, with Melton also holding a $3.45 million player option for next season.

The 27-year-old guard said he would “love to come back,” but he will take time to weigh his options, which should be more lucrative after re-establishing himself in his first year back from knee surgery.

“You’ve got to give yourself time to kind of decompress and see everything that’s going on, kind of let the dust settle,” he said. “I think that type of stuff is what I’m going to worry about next week.”

Brandin Podziemski: Hopes to sign contract extension

Melton’s backcourt partner won’t be a restricted free agent until after next season, but now that he is eligible for an extension to his rookie deal, the 23-year-old hopes it can get done this summer.

Podziemski, who took on more responsibility with Curry sidelined, said he look lessons away from watching the different ways Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody handled their contract situations.

“I want to be here for the long-term,” he said. “I think both seeing (Kuminga) and Moses do two different things for me helped, just seeing the goods and bads to both sides. I don’t think one is better than the other, but seeing that as a teammate and seeing how they handled both situations, I think is going to help me.”

Podziemski also walked back comments from before the season, when he said his goal was to be better than Curry. The brashness earned criticism inside and outside the organization.

“I know I’m not going to be better than Steph. He’s the only person that can be Steph,” Podziemski said. “So for me it’s just having that confidence, but understanding that I’m just trying to be the best version of Brandin Podziemski I can be, and wherever that kind of takes me in this career.”

Quinten Post: Foot injury won’t prevent him from playing with Dutch national team

An injury to his right foot prevented the 26-year-old center from appearing in all but one of the Warriors’ final 13 games, but he said he was gearing up to be ready for a potential first-round series.

“I kept trying to play through it, and I put myself back,” he said.

Post also lost playing time once Horford was healthy and the Warriors had added another big man in Kristaps Porzingis. Post and Porzingis are set to be unrestricted free agents.

In the meantime, Post said he hopes to continue to improve his defense, get leaner and “play a bunch of basketball.” That includes suiting up for the Dutch national team.

“I think I’ll be back in about two weeks and start ramping it up from there,” Post said of his health. As far as his future with the Warriors, he added: “I would love to be here for as long as possible.”

Will Richard: Plans to play Summer League despite hitting ‘rookie wall’

The Warriors looked like they found a diamond in the rough with Richard, the 56th overall pick in this past draft, but the rookie guard admitted he wasn’t the same player from about the All-Star break onward.

“It’s been a long season just from playing in the (NCAA) National Championship to predraft workouts, Summer League, training camp,” Richard said. “It’s been nonstop.”

Still, Richard said he planned for only a little downtime before getting back to work. He confirmed that he plans to play in the NBA Summer League this July for a second year in a row.

“I know it’s a big summer,” he said.

Joseph Savarino, the grandson of former Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, faces a misdemeanor charge of driving while impaired in a crash that resulted in the death of a 15-year-old boy in North Carolina.

According to WRAL News — an NBC TV affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina — Savarino is accused of hitting a cyclist riding their electric bike at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 18, at the intersection of Cole Mill Road and Wyndham Lane in Durham, North Carolina. WRAL reports that the boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to online records from the Durham County Sheriff's Office, Savarino, 26, was booked into jail at 2:45 a.m. ET on Sunday, April 19, before posting out on $100,000 bond on Monday, April 20.

REQUIRED READING: Best fits: 10 college basketball transfers who are perfect for new teams

According to a public report of the incident obtained by WRAL News, Savarino told police he had been drinking earlier in the night, and that his blood alcohol content level registered at 0.11 on a breathalyzer test. WRAL also reported that a judge issued an order to revoke Savarino’s driving license.

Savarino is the son of Krzyzewski's daughter, Debbie Savarino, according to a 2024 article from the Raleigh News & Observer.

Krzyzewski has been retired from coaching since the end of the 2021-22 season. He served as the Blue Devils' coach for 42 seasons and posted a career overall record of 1,129-309.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joseph Savarino, grandson of Mike Krzyzewski, charged with DWI

The NBA held its draft tiebreaker drawings on Monday, April 20. It is worth clarifying what this process actually is, as this is not the Draft Lottery itself. Instead, the league uses these drawings to establish the order among tied teams before the lottery takes place, ensuring each team receives the appropriate odds (for lottery bound teams) or settles tiebreakers accordingly (for the 16 teams picking outside the lottery).

The Sixers do have a first-round pick in play, one that was directly affected by Monday’s tiebreaker. Philadelphia holds Houston’s first-round pick, acquired as part of the Jared McCain trade, and the Rockets finished the regular season at 50-32. Houston found themselves in a tiebreaker situation with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who finished with an identical record. Following a coin flip, the NBA awarded the Rockets the 22nd pick, which belongs to Philadelphia.

While it is only one slot, winning this tiebreaker is a win. Every position matters, especially in this draft. Most talent evaluators consider this class to run particularly deep, with viable prospects expected to be available as far down as picks 20 to 25. With the Sixers slotted at 22, it is a good place to be whether they keep and use the selection or ship it out for immediate help.

As for the Sixers’ own first-round pick, it will be conveying to Oklahoma City as part of the Al Horford deal that sent him to OKC for Danny Green and Terrance Ferguson. Philadelphia finished the regular season in a three-way tie with the Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns, prompting a coin flip to determine picks 16, 17 and 18. While it was always known this pick would head to OKC, Monday’s drawing officially locked in exactly where it will land, slotting in at 17. With that, the long running obligations stemming from the Horford trade are now fully resolved.

Armed with the 22nd pick, the Sixers will have some significant decisions to make in the coming weeks and months. They are right in range to pounce if a coveted name slides down the board, but having a first-round selection also opens the door to moving up or down in ways that simply would not have been realistic without it.

Trading the pick outright remains on the table as well. In the past, I have been bullish on Philadelphia’s ability to move first-round picks mid-draft despite speculation to the contrary. This time around feels different, however. The league has taken notice of this draft class’s talent, and there will be no shortage of teams looking to shuffle their positions and lock up their preferred prospects. The Sixers may find the market for this pick more active than ever.

However it plays out, the 22nd pick gives Philadelphia a legitimate asset and real flexibility heading into one of the more compelling drafts in recent memory. The next few months should be interesting to see play out.

Knicks two-way center Trey Jemison III and his fiancée Alex Jean Glover are a sports power couple.

In a recent TikTok video, Glover, who is a professional volleyball broadcaster for numerous networks, explained that she can’t make it to the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks because “mama’s gotta work” — and she doesn’t want to be a stay-at-home WAG.

“Dont kill me but I’m not gonna be able to make it to those playoff games. Working in sports, I would say, is one of my biggest blessings, but with my fiancé playing in the NBA, I can’t make it to all of the big accomplishments,” Glover, who is a former Division 1 athlete for the SMU women’s volleyball team, said in a “get ready with me” video posted before New York’s 113-102 Game 1 victory at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

Glover explained that she scheduled herself to work volleyball games before the Knicks clinched a playoff berth.

“That poses the question of, ‘If you knew it was during playoff time, why would you take it?'” she said. “If I waited for every single time the NBA had something come up… I wouldn’t work at all.”

Glover added that she missed Jemison’s first NBA G-League start with the Westchester Knicks, as well as the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup, where the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 124-113 in the championship game in Las Vegas in December.

“Before Trey got with me, he knew he was getting a working baddie,” she said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.

“That being said, we’re OK with it. I absolutely love my job down. It actually allows me to see him more than I would if I had a normal 9-5 with being I able to do something that I love, being able to travel and see Trey for weeks at a time. I don’t have complaints. I want to be there… But a girl’s gotta work.”

Glover also explained that she often gets asked why she works so much.

“Because I want to work. It’s OK if you don’t want to work… I will also say this with my full chest: People glamorize the life of a stay-at-home WAG. That is a hard job to have. Basically your whole life is revolving around someone else’s schedule and then you can add another component if you have children.

“It’s not as easy as it looks. Running a household while you’re trying to keep everything together is difficult and it can be so easy to lose yourself in the midst of it all… It’s a lot harder than these women are making it look from the outside.

“… Props to all the girlfriends and the WAGs and everybody holding it down for these men. Happy playoff season and go Knicks.”

Glover and Jemison got engaged last August

She previously shared that they met when he slid in her DMs in the fall of 2024.

Glover graduated from SMU in 2023. She finished her SMU volleyball career playing 92 sets and recording 80 kills with a .367 hitting percentage and 93 blocks — and finished tied for seventh all-time for most matches played as a Mustang with 126.

Glover added that she’ll be watching the Knicks while on the road at work.

“Mama’s gotta work, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be SAT during the games,” she captioned her post. “As always GO NY GO.”

Game 2 of the Knicks-Hawks best-of-seven first-round series is set for Monday night at MSG.

With six ties among teams with identical regular season records, the NBA held random drawings on Monday to help determine the order for the 2026 Draft. 

The Knicks were among those teams after finishing with the same record as the Lakers (53-29). 

New York won the tiebreaker over Los Angeles via the drawing, meaning they now own the 24th overall pick. 

That is the first of three selections for the Knicks this year, with the other two being second-rounders, one of which comes via the Washington Wizards. 

New York's last first round selection was Pacome Dadiet at 25th overall in 2024, because they shipped out their first rounder last year as part of the Mikal Bridges trade. 

The NBA Draft takes place on June 23-24 at the Barclays Center. 

With Steve Kerr’s future up in the air, the Warriors are reportedly considering a larger “organizational reset” if their longtime coach opts not to run it back for a 13th season.

While it remains to be seen who will be coaching Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Co. next season and beyond, there is less uncertainty when it comes to Golden State’s front office.

Mike Dunleavy Jr. will be pulling the levers no matter what direction the Warriors go, according to a report from Anthony Slater and Ramona Shelburne on Monday. Per ESPN, the Golden State general manager quietly signed an extension earlier this season and has multiple years remaining on the deal.

Dunleavy, 45, is a former Warriors player who took over the top job in the front office when Bob Myers departed in 2022 following Golden State’s fourth championship in eight seasons.

Myers saw the difficult decisions coming down the road, many of which will come to a head for Dunleavy this offseason. Top of mind is Kerr, whose contract expired after their play-in loss to the Suns and spoke openly about whether returning for a 13th season was the right choice for him.

According to ESPN, citing anonymous team sources, Golden State would like Kerr, 60, to commit to a multiyear extension if he does decide to come back.

If Kerr does walk away, like Green believes he will, that could lead to larger changes for what has been the league’s most stable organization since he teamed up with Curry and Green in 2014.

Not only would the Warriors be expected to include several external coaching candidates in their search, they could also look to the college ranks, according to ESPN. Florida’s national championship-winning coach Todd Golden, who previously led the University of San Francisco, is one potential name.

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Within the league, former Pelicans coach Willie Green was mentioned by ESPN as a possibility to return to the Warriors’ staff, where he was an assistant under Kerr from 2016-19.

If the Warriors opt to move forward with what team sources described to ESPN as a potential “organizational reset,” it could involve further changes to the coaching staff and the roster.

While Steph Curry stopped short of publicly endorsing Kerr after they were eliminated, he said he wanted “Coach to be happy” and that “he knows how I feel about him.” At the same time, Curry acknowledged Golden State needed to change things up after an injury-riddled 37-45 finish.

“I’ve only been in one locker room for the last 17 years,” he said. “Before you win the title, there’s only like those first two years, you’re building the foundation for what a championship team looks like, even though you have no idea what that really meant, then you accomplish it and everything else is based off of that.

“It’s been that way since 2015. … With how the game is played now, with how fast it is, how young and athletic it is, all those things, we kind of have to put everything on the drawing board and get back to just being competitive every single night.”

Kerr acknowledged after the loss that every coaching job has “an expiration date” and that “sometimes it’s time for new blood and new ideas.” Curry agreed but said he believed Kerr was up to the task.

“You have to adapt and evolve, for sure,” he said. “I think Coach is fully capable of doing that and thinking outside the box as we go. But to his point, your spirit has to be in it. Your mind has to be in it. Your coaching staff. Every dynamic has to be on that journey with you.”

Sixers work through ‘pretty painful' film session going into Game 2 vs. Celtics originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

BOSTON — The Sixers certainly did not breeze through their film session Monday.

In the wake of a 32-point playoff-opening loss to the Celtics, head coach Nick Nurse said the team watched Game 1 “in its entirety.”

“You’ve got to look at what’s there,” Nurse said following his team’s practice at Harvard University. “Obviously, it was pretty painful to watch. There were a lot of things that we didn’t do very well and a lot of things out of character. So it was long. Lots to look at, lots to talk about.”

Entering the playoffs, multiple Sixers had highlighted the importance of “attention to detail.” The team had a rough Sunday in that regard.

The Sixers’ defense was nowhere near its disruptive best and Boston’s star duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for 51 points before subbing out for the non-competitive fourth quarter. 

“It was more so a lot of miscommunications, not being on the same page altogether,” Quentin Grimes said. “Nothing crazy, but we’ve just got to be on the same page for 48 minutes. … We watched that and we’ve got a good feel for how can play tomorrow.”

The Game 1 film was full of frustrating misses.

The Sixers were 0 for 12 on three-pointers classified by NBA.com as “wide open” (closest defender six or more feet away). And, according to Cleaning the Glass, they shot just 12 for 22 (54.5 percent) at the rim. The Celtics were 16 for 18.

“It’s a make-or-miss league,” Justin Edwards said. “The basketball Gods weren’t on our side. I expect them to be on our side tomorrow.”

While greater precision with Nurse’s schemes and sharper in-game adjustments will be necessary Tuesday, some of the Sixers’ problems in Game 1 were obviously intangible.

Andre Drummond believes the team will have a better, more focused collective mindset in Game 2. 

“Take some pressure off ourselves,” Drummond said. “I think we were so excited to be out there that we made little mistakes we normally wouldn’t make. We were hesitant on shots that we normally aren’t hesitant taking. Not that anybody’s nervous or scared, I think we’re just so excited to have made it this far and be a part of something bigger than ourselves compared to what happened last year. I think just those jitters kind of took over. 

“So I think we’re going to be fine. … A lot of the mistakes we made, we can control. So just be prepared. We watched film for a little while today, so we understand what needs to be changed and we’re ready to go.”

The Sixers’ hope is that their thorough review of Game 1 leads to a much different Game 2 performance.

“We needed that,” Drummond said. “We could’ve just come here, walked through our sets and prepared for tomorrow. But I think physically watching what we did to kind of beat ourselves, things we could’ve done better and could’ve done more … it was very long and very detailed. There’s a lot of things we wrote on the board that we need to do tomorrow.

“I think we’re ready, I think we’re prepared. … Regardless of what the score was, I think we needed to get that game under our belt to kind of feel what the atmosphere is going to be, and I think we’ll be fine.”

The latest on Embiid

On the injury front, Joel Embiid (appendectomy recovery) was still the one player listed as out for either side going into Game 2. The Celtics listed Ron Harper Jr. as probable with a right ankle sprain.

A Sixers official said Monday that Embiid has started a strength and conditioning program post-surgery in Philadelphia. He had the procedure on April 9 and was back around his teammates for the first time last Wednesday when the Sixers won their play-in tournament game vs. the Magic.