The Pittsburgh Penguins are off to a 2-1 start this season, and they have played a bit better than most had expected up to this point.
And their AHL affiliate is off to a hot start, too.
On Saturday and Sunday, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) Penguins earned back-to-back victories - first a 2-1 win over the Hartford Wolfpack and then a 4-1 victory over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. And there are already 12 different players who have been involved on the scoresheet for WBS.
On Saturday, forward Valtteri Puustinen opened the season scoring for the WBS Penguins in the second period with the Penguins trailing Hartford, 1-0. They carried the tie into second intermission, and then, a little more than three minutes into the final frame, defenseman Owen Pickering shot one from the point and through traffic to write the final 2-1 score.
Aidan McDonough registered the first goal of the game on the power play a tick more than four minutes in, and the primary assist came from Tristan Broz, who impressed many with his NHL training camp. Avery Hayes - another camp standout - tallied WBS's second power play goal of the game on a feed from Ville Koivunen, who was playing in his first AHL game since being re-assigned from Pittsburgh.
Helge Grans cut the deficit to 2-1 for Lehigh Valley on a power play of their own late in the second period, but in the third, Broz took it home. In the early part of the third, he pounced on a rebound in the slot off of a Koivunen shot, and then he added the empty-net goal at the end of the night to cap off the 4-1 win - giving him three points on the evening.
— Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (@WBSPenguins) October 12, 2025
On the young season, there are four players with multiple points on the season in Broz (3), Hayes (2), Koivunen (2), and Sam Poulin (2). WBS's next set of games starts Friday, when they play a weekend back-to-back against Hartford and the Bridgeport Islanders.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers in the eighth inning of a 2-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1 of the NLCS at American Family Field on Monday night. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The reason the Milwaukee Brewers are in the National League Championship Series is because of plays like the one that ended the fourth inning Monday night.
A strange, one-in-a-million, 400-foot double-play in which one Brewers fielder made a spectacular defensive effort, and another never lost awareness of a wacky situation — highlighting the underappreciated skillset and sound fundamentals that made them baseball’s winningest team this season.
The reason the Dodgers are here, however, is because of how they can respond to adversity — settling the panic with their dominant starting pitching, rallying at the plate with their star-studded lineup and suffocating an opponent with a record $415-million payroll’s worth of talent.
In their 2-1 win in Game 1 of the NLCS at American Family Field, that was ultimately what made the difference.
The evening’s most memorable moment might have been that fourth-inning cluster, when the Dodgers had the bases loaded with one out, only to come up empty when Max Muncy had a potential grand slam robbed (but, crucially, not caught cleanly) and two Dodgers were retired on forceouts at home plate and third base.
But, the most important contributions came after that, with Freddie Freeman’s home run in the sixth inning giving the Dodgers the lead, and Blake Snell’s scoreless eight-inning, one-hit, 10-strikeout master class ensuring they wouldn’t relinquish it — even with some heartburn from the bullpen at the end.
“Obviously, there were some crazy things that happened,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s not going to come easy.”
But, “for us to find a way to get out of that,” Muncy added, “it's huge."
Muncy was in the middle of the night’s craziest play, when he came to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning.
What followed was a confounding, and nearly consequential, disaster. One both self-inflicted by the Dodgers’ lack of awareness, and compounded by the Brewers' ability to do the little things so well.
As Muncy’s ball soared to the wall, Brewers center fielder Sal Frelick jumped, got a glove on it, and then — at least it seemed initially — caught it on a bobble. At third base, Teoscar Hernández tagged up once, then again, before finally breaking for home plate as the Brewers turned a relay play in.
What no one on the Dodgers noticed in the moment: Left field umpire Chad Fairchild waving his arms in the outfield, signaling (correctly, as replay would later show) that the ball had bounced off the top of the wall before Frelick finally secured it. That meant, instead of a sacrifice fly situation, a force play was suddenly on for the defense.
Thus, when catcher William Contreras caught the throw home just ahead of Hernández’s slide, Hernández was out even without a tag. And as the other Dodgers runners stood motionless on base — still thinking Frelick had cleanly made the catch — the ever-aware Contreras ran over to third himself and stepped on the bag, forcing out Will Smith after he had failed to advance from second.
“I'm still kind of confused as to what all went down,” Muncy said.
“All of a sudden, you turn around and there's runners everywhere,” crew chief and first base umpire James Hoye added to a pool reporter.
The big mistake on the play was Hernández’s decision to re-tag third before racing home, a superfluous move thanks to a quirk in MLB’s rulebook. Even if Frelick had made the catch cleanly, Hernández could have left the base as soon as the ball first hit Frelick’s glove (similar to a bobbled sacrifice fly the Dodgers successfully executed in a game against the New York Mets earlier this season).
Instead, Hernández’s delay allowed the throw home to beat him. Afterward, Roberts acknowledged that his outfielder, who did not speak to reporters postgame, “just had a little bit of a brain fart.”
“Teo knows the rule,” Roberts said. “He owned it.”
The other problem was that neither Smith nor third base coach Dino Ebel apparently saw Fairchild, who was out of their sight line deep in the outfield, signal that the ball had not been caught, leaving Smith standing on second as Contreras went to force him out at third.
The Dodgers did challenge the play, but there was no changing the call.
In the scorebook, it went down as a 400-foot, ground-into-double-play.
“That’s really frustrating,” Smith said. “That was really close to being 4-0.”
For a brief moment, it left the team on the verge of falling into a familiar Brewers’ trap: Struggling with Milwaukee’s talented pitching staff, denied by its typically stellar defense, and one mistake away from losing to a team with inferior talent.
Freeman, however, flipped the script with a towering home run that carried just deep enough to right in the sixth inning for his first home run of this postseason.
Freddie Freeman hits a solo home run in the sixth inning for the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Brewers on Monday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
And from there, Snell never let the Brewers rally back.
In one of the greatest individual pitching performances in Dodgers postseason history, the already streaking two-time Cy Young Award winner ascended to a different level of dominance, facing the minimum number of batter over his eight-inning annihilation.
He erased his only baserunner, which came on a flare single from Caleb Durbin to lead off the third, by picking him off later in the inning. He struck out 10 batters, setting a personal playoff career high, and did it on just 103 pitches. Of his 69 strikes, 22 came on swing-and-misses against a Brewers offense that was one of the best in baseball this season at making contact. And by the time it was done, he’d added his name into the Dodgers’ October history books.
In what Roberts later acknowledged was a “50/50” decision, he decided to remove Snell for the bottom of the ninth inning, after a bases-loaded walk from Betts had doubled the Dodgers' lead to 2-0. He trusted his newly dominant closer Roki Sasaki for the final three outs.
Only this time, the 23-year-old rookie didn’t have his typical command, or his usual 100-mph velocity.
With one out, Sasaki walked Isaac Collins to start the danger. Then, Jake Bauers hammered a full-count fastball (that only clocked 97.3 mph on the radar gun) for a ground-rule double.
That was followed by a sacrifice fly from Jackson Chourio, and another walk to Christian Yelich. Suddenly, Roberts was trudging out to the mound, taking the ball from Sasaki while summoning Blake Treinen.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts removes reliever Roki Sasaki from the game in the ninth inning against the Brewers on Monday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“He was off just a little bit,” Roberts said of Sasaki, who had not allowed a run previously since joining the Dodgers bullpen the last week of the regular season. “I thought his stuff was still good, but just missing. I don't know if there was carry-over from the three innings [in the NLDS]. ... With the three days off, I felt good with him.”
Treinen didn’t make things easy on himself either, issuing a walk to Contreras that loaded the bases and brought the Brewers’ home crowd roaring to life.
Suddenly, it all felt so similar to the Dodgers’ 2021 NLCS against the Atlanta Braves, when they squandered their most recent attempt at a World Series title defense with walk-off losses in the first two games of that series.
This time, though, the Dodgers survived.
Treinen got Brice Turang in a two-strike count, then fanned him on a fastball Turang chased up and out of the zone. Just like that, the fourth-inning double-play was turned into a footnote, ensuring Snell’s historic gem was rewarded with a winning decision.
“We knew from the get-go it was going to be a battle,” Freeman said. “But when you get one for Blake, you're feeling good.”
Unsurprisingly, the Philadelphia Flyers may have finally stumbled on an answer to their defensive woes, even if it's only temporary.
Continued struggles prompted the Flyers and head coach Rick Tocchet to make a change on defense, with Egor Zamula getting swapped out for Emil Andrae, who was only just called up from the AHL Lehigh Valley Phantoms, against the Florida Panthers on Monday night.
Andrae, 23, played just 10:22 - the second-lowest amount of ice time on the Flyers, against the Panthers, but that is, to a degree, a byproduct of needing to earn Tocchet's trust.
With Andrae on the ice at 5-on-5, the Flyers actually out-attempted the back-to-back Stanley Cup champs by a 7-1 margin, according to Natural Stat Trick. Andrae's astounding 87.5% Corsi share at 5-on-5 was tops on the Flyers by over 16%.
On paper, the heavy and physical Panthers were a nightmare matchup for the 5-foot-9 Swede, but instead, he stood tall in the limited minutes Tocchet gave him. First test passed.
"Yeah, that's a tough situation for him to come into, first game coming up from the minors," Tocchet said of Andrae after the game. "I thought he did a really nice job. Give the kid a lot of credit."
Andrae's placement in the lineup may not be permanent, as Cam York's return from injury looms, and Rasmus Ristolainen is expected to eventually come back, but he was a lineup staple for the Flyers last year even when those two were healthy.
How Tocchet chooses to arrange his blueline in that scenario remains to be seen, but Adam Ginning and Noah Juulsen have continued to struggle to move the puck and make plays.
With Andrae, that's not a concern, and that's why he played against the Panthers. That gamble paid off in spades as the Flyers ran off with an impressive 5-2 win in their home opener in front of a raucous crowd.
The 23-year-old didn't give Tocchet and the Flyers any reason to remove him from the lineup, so expect Andrae to continue to build on a very solid season debut at the NHL level.
The Knicks, playing without a single starter and several key reserves, got worked over by the Washington Wizards, 120-103, for their first preseason loss of the year on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
In their fourth preseason game of the year, the Knicks decided to sit Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Ariel Hukporti, Mitchell Robinson, and Landry Shamet. Head coach Mike Brown said before the game that he intended to start Hukporti and play Shamet, who is one of three veteran players on a non-guaranteed contract fighting for one roster spot, but both were ruled out due to illness.
In their place, Malcolm Brogdon, Deuce McBride, Jordan Clarkson, Pacome Dadiet, and Guerschon Yabusele went out as the starting five with the plan to give the players of the second unit and those on the roster bubble an extended run.
“I thought our starters did not bring the energy,” Brown said after the game. “This is probably our worst basketball game overall. We did it in spurts: we weren’t very good to start the game, we weren’t very good to start the third quarter.”
Washington capitalized by shooting the lights out, 68.3 percent in the first half and 53.7 percent for the game. New York made up for the lack of defensive production with a rough shooting night, 41.9 percent in the first half and 44.4 percent for the game.
The plus-minus for the starting five was not pretty: Clarkson minus-29 in 21 minutes, Dadiet minus-20 in 24 minutes, Yabusele minus-33 in 23 minutes, Brogdon minus-30 in 18 minutes, McBride minus-26 in 28 minutes.
But, always the teacher, there was a positive to take from a game that didn't go their way.
“Great film to learn from because we made a lot of mistakes that have been uncharacteristic of who we've been so far, even in practice, we've played a lot better than this in terms of what we’re trying to do offensively and defensively,” Brown said. “Great learning experience, we’ll all grow from it, and, hopefully take that step forward instead of just thinking we took a step backwards because we didn’t play well tonight.
Here are the takeaways...
- Dadiet took advantage of some good early looks, knocking down a pair of early threes. There were a few times when the 20-year-old looked a bit lost on the defensive end. He finished with eight points on 2-for-7 shooting (2-for-6 from deep) with six rebounds (two offensive).
Ahead of the game, Brown highlighted how the Knicks are going to look for opportunities this year to get Dadiet time as they really like his upside.
"He's just gotta continue to understand how big he is," Brown said. "He's long. He's a big wing. And at times, he doesn't utilize it. We always talk about playing big, playing big, playing big. And he doesn’t utilize it all the time. And that’s just being young. At times, he’s a little quiet and he’s a little unsure of what he should be saying or doing.
"So we keep trying to throw him into the fire as much as possible. It’s something that I’d like to do come regular season. I don’t know how many minutes he’s gonna get per game. But he definitely has a chance to be a player in this league for a long time, and you wanna help try to speed that development up because you see a lot of good things.
"You see he can run, you see he can cut, he’s big… you see he does a petty good job of finishing and shoot the basketball. And you couple that with his ability to play defense, and you have a pretty good young prospect, especially for his age.”
- An area of concern: The Wizards were able to get good looks and forced an early timeout by Brown. The defense is still a work in progress for this bunch of Knicks as they learn the new head coach’s system and Washington took advantage, connecting on 65 percent from the floor (13 of 20) in the first quarter for a 36-26 lead. That continued in the second, with the visitors making seven of their next 10 field goals en route to shooting 71.4 percent in the period (15 of 21 and 5 of 9 from three) for a 75-52 halftime edge. Naturally, the Wizards opened the third with an 11-0 run on their way to building a 34-point lead at one point before the Knicks clawed their way back to a more respectable deficit.
- Clarkson connected on three of his first five attempts (2-for-4 from three) in the first. He led the Knicks with 10 first-half points (4-for-7 shooting) and should have had a few assists if some open looks had gone down. It wasn't a great shooting night from deep, 7-for-24 (29.2 percent) in the first half and 6-for-18 (33.3 percent) after the interval. Clarkson finished with 12 points on 4-for-11 shooting (2-for-5 from deep) with one rebound, four turnovers, and zero assists.
Brown said the Wizards didn’t do anything “tricky,” they were “just in the right spot defensively.”
“They tried to play the way that we’ve been playing throughout the preseason, every day in practice and it showed at times to be very good basketball,” he said, adding that overall, it wasn’t good enough. “We needed to do better collectively as a unit when it came to doing the little things, starting with boxing out we weren’t great at it. Defensively, we weren't great in our shifts, and we’d been pretty darn good in those two area so far.”
- One of the culprits hurting Clarkson's assist numbers was McBride, who was 1-for-5 in the first half, missing all four of his attempts from three, with two turnovers and two fouls in the first half. McBride found his range at the start of the fourth with consecutive threes to cut the deficit to 19. He finished with 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting (2-for-9 from three) with two assists and a rebound.
- Brogdon, another one of the three vets on a non-guaranteed deal, got off to a cold start shooting (2-for-7 from the floor) in the first and committed three fouls; he did add three assists. He appeared a step slow on the offensive end. His night ended with four points on 2-for-7 shooting with three assists, two rebounds, and a steal.
- Yabusele made his first three of the preseason in the first to go along with two assists in the early goings, and showed off a jump hook in the second. The new Knick made another three midway into the third, just the team’s second field goal out of their first 12 attempts of the quarter, which cut it to a 30-point deficit. He ended with 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting with five rebounds (four offensive) and two assists.
- Tyler Kolek had a solid second quarter with seven points, three assists, and a steal. He had a nice run of three straight buckets to end the third, cutting the deficit to 100-75. Kolek finished with a team-high 20 points on 7-for-13 shooting (1-for-5 from three) with six assists, four rebounds, and a steal. He finished a plus-10.
“I thought the guys coming off the bench, they did a great job, Tyler gave us great minutes," Brown said.
- Trey Jemison III added nine points with four rebounds and was a plus-11 in 15 minutes. Tosan Evbuomwan had seven points and four rebounds and was a plus-17 in 15 minutes.
The Knicks conclude their preseason slate with a Friday night tilt against the Charlotte Hornets at MSG. Tip is set for 7:30 before New York opens the regular season on Oct. 22.
There are several Pittsburgh Penguins' prospects who have been making headlines as of late.
But there is one prospect who has quietly been putting up numbers.
Forward Mikhail Ilyin, 20, is in his fourth season with the Severstal Cherepovets of the KHL. So far this season, Ilyin has registered three goals and nine points in 14 games, and he has continued to impress.
Selected by the Penguins in the fifth round (142nd overall) in 2023, the 6-foot, 180-pound right wing is known for his playmaking ability as well as his hockey IQ. Ilyin has been playing in a league of grown men since he was 17 years old, and he continues to get better and better with each passing year.
Pretty much every scoring play Ilyin is involved in nowadays involves dangling, maneuvering, net-crashing, and elite playmaking vision. The forward - who we ranked 12th on our Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2025 List - is certainly showing some NHL potential up to this point.
Mikhail Ilyin scores his 3rd of the season and extends his point streak to 6 games! He’s been locked in lately — consistent, confident, and making an impact every game. pic.twitter.com/klZdnAQEiP
The level of filth on this zone entry from Mikhail Ilyin.... This is the good stuff. Full mixtape Monday. Had to post this one now. pic.twitter.com/gUVXQz3Xl9
Ilyin signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Penguins this summer, and he is playing for Severstal on loan this season. He attended Penguins' Prospect Development Camp in July.
The Florida Panthers opened the road portion of their 2025-26 schedule on Monday night in Philadelphia.
Unfortunately for the Cats, the game didn’t go nearly as well as the three they played on home ice, as they lost for the first time this season, 5-2 to Philly.
Playing in their home opener, it was the Flyers that got things started in the scoring department.
Sean Couturier forced a turnover off the stick of Uvis Balinskis which led to the puck on the stick of Tyson Foerster.
A couple quick moves through the slot and snapshot past the blocker of Daniil Tarasov saw the Flyers take the lead 8:54 into the game.
That’s how the score would remain for a while, thanks in part to some continued success from Florida’s penalty kill.
The unit extended its perfect start to 9-for-9 with a tough kill midway through the second period in which Eetu Luostarinen was stuck playing without a stick for a large portion of the time Florida was down a man.
A turnover by Carter Verhaeghe as Florida was entering Philly’s zone led directly to a breakaway goal by Couturier that doubled the Flyers’ lead with 4:13 to go in the middle frame.
It was a particularly frustrating goal because the Cats had just killed off another penalty and seemed to be carrying some momentum off of the PK, but instead they suddenly found themselves facing down the barrel of a two-goal deficit.
Florida was able to gain some of that momentum back thanks to a shorthanded goal by Sam Reinhart late in the period.
His initial opportunity was denied by Dan Vladar, but Reinhard found the puck again behind the net and his backhand wraparound snuck under the goaltender’s outstretched blocker.
Florida kept their foot on the pedal during the third period, eventually earning a power play that led to the game’s tying goal.
A pretty passing play saw the puck go between Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand and Sam Reinhart before Bennett was fed from below the goal line by Reinhart and fired the puck into a yawning cage midway through the third period.
The tie game didn’t last long though. Philly tied the game with 4:10 to go, shortly after a power play ended, catching the Panthers with some quick puck movement and a snipe of a shot by Couturier.
The Flyers added a pair of empty-net goals, ending Florida’s hopes of a comeback win.
Photo caption: Oct 13, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Flyers center Sean Couturier (14) scores a goal against Florida Panthers goaltender Daniil Tarasov (40) during the second period at Wells Fargo Center. (Eric Hartline-Imagn Images)
With the contest still scoreless, Game 1 of the NLCS between the Dodgers and Brewers came to a stunning halt in the fourth inning Monday, as Max Muncy's fly to deep center with the bases loaded and one out led to mayhem on the field and several minutes of figuring out what had just happened.
As was correctly ruled, Brewers center fielder Sal Frelick missed out on a jumping catch, with the ball bouncing off the wall and back into his glove. None of the men on base seemed to notice that, though, and with only the left-field umpire making any sort of ruling, the Dodgers' runners were just left to guess where to go next.
Still, while it's understandable that the players on first and second weren't sure what was going on, the runner who really shouldn't have had much of an issue was Teoscar Hernández at third base. Hernández ought to have been standing on third base and ready to score whether the ball was caught or not. However, in the confusion, he left initially and then went back to tag, giving the Brewers enough time to retire him on a force out at home plate. Brewers catcher William Contreras then ran the ball to third for an extremely unlikely double play.
To reiterate, if Frelick had simply caught the ball, the Dodgers would have taken a 1-0 lead on a sac fly. If Hernández had done his job, it also would have been 1-0, with the Brewers probably still getting an out at third base. If there had been two outs when Muncy hit, rather than one, the Dodgers would have scored two or three runs, since the runners would have been off with the ball in play. Instead, it's 0-0, and poor Muncy, an extreme fly-ball hitter who very rarely hits into double plays, gets tagged with the GIDP on a 404-foot fly that should have been a double.
Chicago Blackhawks legend Jonathan Toews had a big moment during the Winnipeg Jets' 5-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Oct. 13.
During the contest, Toews recorded an assist on Nino Niederreiter's goal that gave the Jets a 2-0 lead at the 11:48 mark of the first period. With this, Toews has gotten his first point since his final season with the Blackhawks during the 2022-23 campaign.
This is a big accomplishment for Toews, and he is showing early on this campaign with the Jets that he can still be an impactful NHL player. The 37-year-old center missed each of the last two seasons before this current one due to chronic immune response syndrome and long COVID-19 symptoms.
It will now be interesting to see how Toews builds off his solid performance for the Jets from here. The potential for him to be a key part of the Jets' roster is there, and Blackhawks fans should be rooting for their former captain's success as he continues his NHL comeback.
TORONTO — Julio Rodríguez and Jorge Polanco hit three-run homers, Josh Naylor added a two-run drive and the Seattle Mariners took a 2-0 AL Championship Series lead by routing the Toronto Blue Jays 10-3 on Monday.
Seattle, the only big league team never to host a World Series game, headed home for Wednesday’s Game 3 needing two more wins in the best-of-seven series to end that drought.
Toronto had just six hits, only one after the second inning, and had eight hits in the first two games. Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was 0 for 3 with a walk and is hitless in the series.
Rodríguez homered for a 3-0 lead three batters in against rookie Trey Yesavage, a 22-year-old making just his fifth big league start.
Nathan Lukes and Alejandro Kirk had RBI singles in the bottom half off Logan Gilbert, and Lukes’ run-scoring single tied the score in the second.
Polanco’s three-run homer off Louis Varland put Seattle back ahead 6-3 in the fifth. J.P Crawford added an RBI single in the sixth and Naylor had a two-run homer in the seventh against Braydon Fisher.
Six of Polanco’s first seven hits this postseason drove in runs. He had the game-ending single in the 15th inning of Friday’s Division Series clincher against Detroit and went 2 for 4 with two RBIs in Seattle’s 3-1 opening ALCS win, Polanco’s two previous home runs this October both came off Detroit's Tarik Skubal, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.
The roof was open on a breezy 62-degree day on the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, but the sellout crowd of 44,814 had little to celebrate.
Seattle's bullpen has combined for nine scoreless innings in the series, allowing just one hit. Winner Eduard Bazardo, Carlos Vargas and Emerson Hancock each pitched two innings.
Naylor, born in Mississauga, Ontario, fouled a ball his right foot in the first inning and looked uncomfortable in the batter’s box in the fifth, prompting manager Dan Wilson to come out and check on him. With Miles Mastrobuoni getting ready to come into the game if needed, Naylor convinced Wilson to leave him in and homered in the seventh.
Yesavage, who took the loss, gave up three runs and four hits in four-plus innings. He set a Blue Jays postseason record by striking out 11 Yankees in 5 1/3 hitless innings in ALDS Game 2 but had two swings and misses on his splitter, down from 11 against New York.
Blue Jays outfielder Anthony Santander was scratched from the lineup because of a sore lower back. Davis Schneider replaced him and went 0 for 3 with a walk.
Mariners RHP George Kirby is expected to start against Blue Jays RHP Shane Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, in Game 3. Kirby struck out six and allowed one run and three hits in five innings Game 5 of the Division Series . He doesn’t have a decision in two postseason starts. Bieber gave up three runs, two earned, and five hits in 2 2/3 innings in Game 3 against the Yankees.
The NBA "vetted and approved" the $300 million sponsorship deal between Aspiration and the Los Angeles Clippers more than eight months before the company struck a separate endorsement agreement with Kawhi Leonard. The NBA is now investigating the latter agreement under claims of salary cap circumvention.
The latest reporting on the case comes via Baxter Holmes and Bobby Marks at ESPN and dives into the initial sponsorship deal between the Clippers and Aspiration, a "green bank" company that team owner Steve Ballmer invested $50 million in around the same time. From the report:
Two sources with direct knowledge of the arrangement said the Clippers submitted the 23-year agreement to the NBA for approval before it was announced in September 2021, as required under league rules because it contained a jersey patch component, the sources said...
"Teams vet their own sponsorship partners and negotiate their own sponsorship agreements," NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement to ESPN. "Given the jersey patch's inclusion on player jerseys and its level of exposure across game telecasts, the league reviews and approves jersey patch arrangements pursuant to league rules that are intended to avoid potential brand issues or conflicts with league partnerships."
The other thing the league looks into is the viability of the company — can it live up to the financial obligations of the sponsorship deal? On paper in 2021, Aspiration looked like it could, which is why Ballmer and other billionaires were investing in it. Within a couple of years, Aspiration had fallen apart, the sponsorship deal with the Clippers had been canceled, the company had filed for bankruptcy, and its CEO Joe Sanberg had pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
All of this is separate from the allegation that Ballmer and the Clippers used Aspiration and its $48 million endorsement deal with Leonard to skirt the salary cap and get the Clippers star more money, an allegation investigated and made by the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. The NBA has hired the law firm of Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the claim that this was a "no show" endorsement deal — there is no public evidence at this point of Leonard having done any work, made any appearances or done any social media posts for Aspiration — used to circumvent the NBA's salary cap and get more money to Leonard (and his family, including his uncle and business manager Dennis Rodgers). There is a lot of circumstantial evidence for the Clippers to explain, including Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong investing $2 million in Aspiration in late 2023 — when it was clear the company was failing — and Leonard getting a $1.75 million endorsement check days later.
Through all of this, the Clippers and Leonard have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
"I mean, the NBA is going to do their job. None of us did no wrongdoing," Leonard said at Clippers media day. "And, yeah, I mean, that's it. We invite the investigation ... I understand that full contract and the services that I had to do. Like I said, I don't deal with the conspiracies or the clickbait analysts or journalism that's going on."
That same day, Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said, "We feel very, very confident we're on the right side of this."
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said the burden of proof is on the NBA to show there was something amiss. The league's investigation is expected to last months, very likely into 2026 (the ESPN report suggests it could take until after the 2026 NBA playoffs). Whatever the investigation finds, Silver must bring it to an independent arbitrator — agreed to by the NBA and the players' union — who will determine the next steps and whether Silver has enough to punish the Clippers or not.
Until then, expect the leaks of information to continue.
The Nets have parted ways with Drew Timme and Dariq Whitehead as they continue cutting down their roster ahead of the regular season.
Timme spent the majority of last season in the G League with the Long Island Nets, where he averaged a stellar 23.9 points and 10.3 rebounds per game.
Brooklyn decided to give him a shot on the active roster down the stretch, and he responded by producing 12.2 points and 7.2 rebounds over nine appearances.
The 25-year-old was on a non-guaranteed deal.
Whitehead landed with the Nets out of Duke as the 22nd overall pick in the 2023 Draft.
The youngster showed plenty of promise when he was able to get out on the court, but he was sidelined by numerous different injuries throughout his time with the club.
He averaged 5.7 points and 1.5 rebounds in 20 games last season.
Whitehead was due a guaranteed $3.3 million in the third year of his rookie deal.
With both him and Timme out of the mix, it looks like the Nets will roll with Nic Claxton, Day'Ron Sharpe, Noah Clowney, and rookie Danny Wolf as their big men.
Penguins' Prospect Shines In First KHL Action Of SeasonThere are several Pittsburgh Penguins' prospects who have been making headlines as of late.
It's Only Been Three Games. But Kindel And Brunicke Should Be In Pittsburgh To Stay.Going into Pittsburgh Penguins' training camp this season, it's safe to say that most folks did not have 2025 11th overall pick Ben Kindel making the NHL roster out of the gate.
