Worldwide Sports News

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers were hoping to land LeBron James in free agency after he announced he was leaving the Los Angeles Lakers last July. After almost a month of waiting around, he ended up choosing to end his career with the Philadelphia 76ers. A decision that he says won’t result in him leaving his family just to end up getting bounced in the second round — which is pretty optimistic since the Sixers haven’t advanced out of the second round since 2001.

The only people seemingly aware of what James was thinking during the free agency process were the players he was communicating with. But from the sound of things, not even those on the short list of his final destination knew much of what LeBron was thinking.

“I knew probably as much as you did,” Mitchell said when asked about his thoughts on James signing with Philadelphia.

Support us and Let ‘Em Know with Homage!

Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can buy the Believeland shirt HERE. You can also shop all of Homage’s Cavs gear HERE.

Mitchell also admitted that he thought LeBron was going to come back and end his career where it started.

“I think for a lot of reasons it made sense (for him to sign with Cleveland),” Mitchell said. “I didn’t think Philly. I thought if he didn’t come here, he’d be in Golden State.”

Now James is in Philadelphia playing for one of the handful of teams that stand in the way of the Cavs and their goal of reaching the NBA Finals. Former Cavs general manager Mike Gansey drastically transformed Philadelphia’s roster in a few short weeks, placing them as one of the favorites to win the conference.

The Cavs won’t have to wait long to see how they stack up against the Sixers as they open their season in Philadelphia in under a month.

“For us, it’s about moving forward and not really looking back at that,” Mitchell said. “They’re an opponent. The’ve gotten stronger. Not just him, but they have Jalen Brown, obviously [Tyrese] Maxey, V.J. [Edgecomb], [Joel] Embiid, (and) Anfernee Simons coming off the bench. They got a lot of talent over ther. They’ll be a fierce competitor so we’re excited.”

SAN FRANCISCO — There were two things Steve Kerr omitted from his usual preseason address to the Golden State Warriors to set the tone for the season ahead.

For one, there will be no more special treatment for Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.

“Our team was built in such a way that I literally told everybody, all of you guys have to take care of the ball, they’re allowed to turn it over six times,” Kerr said. “We’ve got to tighten things up.”

The crackdown on playing cleaner, crisper basketball is part of a broader makeover that was desperately needed after finishing fourth from the bottom in giveaways last season. 

It’s also part of what Kerr described as a way to “reimagine” Warriors basketball heading into his 14th season with an aging roster that’s been lapped by teams both younger and better.

That goes as far as their own expectations for this season and however many Curry has left with Golden State after taking a discount to sign a two-year extension.

For the first time in a while, the Warriors didn’t spend media day talking about championships.

The word of the day was “process.”

“Last year I think I told the team in our first meeting, ‘we’re trying to win the championship,’” Kerr said. “What’s our goal? They all said, ‘championship.’ I think I even told them, we want a home court advantage in the playoffs.”

This season, after contemplating walking away, “I am 100% locked in on the process on how we’re teaching every single day,” Kerr continued. “I firmly believe that if we do that from the beginning without even mentioning anything about expectations, then we’re going to have a good season, and that’s how I’m approaching things.”

After watching Giannis Antetokounmpo take his talents to South Beach, losing out on Kawhi Leonard to Toronto and getting snubbed by LeBron James for the 76ers, maybe the Warriors are just being realistic. According to DraftKings, there are 14 teams with better NBA title odds.

They’re certainly not speaking with the swagger that we’ve come to know from the dynasty that dominated the league for the better part of a decade, culminating in 2022 with its fourth title.

Kerr touted Golden State’s “under the radar” signings — Brandon Williams, Georges Niang —  as “guys who can really play and who have helped winning teams.” General manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. had his tail between his legs after every other pursuit came up short.

He wasn’t able to give a full-throated endorsement of the roster without couching it first.

“First and foremost,” he said, “we’re humbly optimistic about the prospect for this team.”

Teams that compete for championships don’t tend to be humble.

The Warriors don’t really have any other choice, not when their top two wings — Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody — won’t be ready until at least midway through the season. They got another reminder of the challenge that lays ahead when Dunleavy’s phone rang the night before.

It was Kristaps Porzingis, calling to tell him his “health issues” had sprung up again. Their starting center won’t join them in Hawaii for training camp and is out indefinitely.

Curry, bless his soul, signed up to run it back, anyway. He could have used his leverage and refused to sign an extension unless the Warriors upgraded the roster around him, a la other superstars. Instead, he never even threatened to leave and even took less money than the Warriors offered him — about $10 million this season — to give them more flexibility.

So far, all that’s resulted in is a hit to Curry’s bank account.

“Without knowing the answers to the test, it was my best way to study for it, if that makes sense,” Curry said. “This is home. This is what we’ve built. This is a community that I’ve played in front of my entire career, and being able to finish the story the right way is a big part of I think what I can control.”

Curry was about the only one who didn’t seem to be infected by the dour mood outside the building. He was so flabbergasted when one reporter said “nobody” expected them to make the playoffs, let alone compete for a championship, that all he could muster was, “Damn!”

“That’s how bad it is?” Curry questioned of the outside expectations.

Kerr, on the other hand, seemed to be looking forward to getting to play the underdog for once.

“I don’t mind the fact that everyone is picking us to miss the playoffs. You know, that’s not a bad spot to be in as a team, as a coach,” he said, returning to a familiar theme. “For me what it means is we get to focus on the process.”

Even before the season-ending injuries to Butler and Moody, the Warriors weren’t living up to their championship aspirations. When Butler went down on Jan. 19, they were 25-19, eighth in the Western Conference. 

Absent any significant personnel changes from last season — besides intense defensive assistant Frank Vogel, whose addition Kerr described as a “coup” — the Warriors seem to be content with re-evaluating how they use the players in the building.

“We lost too many close games. We gave too many games away in the margins,” Kerr said. “So the vision for this year is to clean that stuff up and build some momentum and then we get those guys back.”

Green is being asked to reimagine his role, too. He’s going to spend more time on the perimeter, and Kerr wants him to shoot more of the open looks he gets from 3. “Shooting, crashing, you know, spreading the floor for other people, dribble hand-off stuff,” Kerr said.

And turn the ball over less.

Green pushed back on the notion that championship expectations precedes championships.

“I hate to be cliche, but in 2022 nobody walked into that season like, ‘Hey, here’s the beginning of a championship year.’ Our process was great, which then allowed us to grow over the season and become a championship team.”

There’s that word again.

Process. It may be the only thing the Warriors will be able to control this season.

“Put together a great process and then you get to the end,” Green said, “and you let the cards fall where they may.”

SAN FRANCISCO — There were two things Steve Kerr omitted from his usual preseason address to the Golden State Warriors to set the tone for the season ahead.

For one, there will be no more special treatment for Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.

“Our team was built in such a way that I literally told everybody, all of you guys have to take care of the ball, they’re allowed to turn it over six times,” Kerr said. “We’ve got to tighten things up.”

The crackdown on playing cleaner, crisper basketball is part of a broader makeover that was desperately needed after finishing fourth from the bottom in giveaways last season. 

It’s also part of what Kerr described as a way to “reimagine” Warriors basketball heading into his 14th season with an aging roster that’s been lapped by teams both younger and better.

That goes as far as their own expectations for this season and however many Curry has left with Golden State after taking a discount to sign a two-year extension.

For the first time in a while, the Warriors didn’t spend media day talking about championships.

The word of the day was “process.”

“Last year I think I told the team in our first meeting, ‘we’re trying to win the championship,’” Kerr said. “What’s our goal? They all said, ‘championship.’ I think I even told them, we want a home court advantage in the playoffs.”

This season, after contemplating walking away, “I am 100% locked in on the process on how we’re teaching every single day,” Kerr continued. “I firmly believe that if we do that from the beginning without even mentioning anything about expectations, then we’re going to have a good season, and that’s how I’m approaching things.”

After watching Giannis Antetokounmpo take his talents to South Beach, losing out on Kawhi Leonard to Toronto and getting snubbed by LeBron James for the 76ers, maybe the Warriors are just being realistic. According to DraftKings, there are 14 teams with better NBA title odds.

They’re certainly not speaking with the swagger that we’ve come to know from the dynasty that dominated the league for the better part of a decade, culminating in 2022 with its fourth title.

Kerr touted Golden State’s “under the radar” signings — Brandon Williams, Georges Niang —  as “guys who can really play and who have helped winning teams.” General manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. had his tail between his legs after every other pursuit came up short.

He wasn’t able to give a full-throated endorsement of the roster without couching it first.

“First and foremost,” he said, “we’re humbly optimistic about the prospect for this team.”

Teams that compete for championships don’t tend to be humble.

The Warriors don’t really have any other choice, not when their top two wings — Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody — won’t be ready until at least midway through the season. They got another reminder of the challenge that lays ahead when Dunleavy’s phone rang the night before.

It was Kristaps Porzingis, calling to tell him his “health issues” had sprung up again. Their starting center won’t join them in Hawaii for training camp and is out indefinitely.

Curry, bless his soul, signed up to run it back, anyway. He could have used his leverage and refused to sign an extension unless the Warriors upgraded the roster around him, a la other superstars. Instead, he never even threatened to leave and even took less money than the Warriors offered him — about $10 million this season — to give them more flexibility.

So far, all that’s resulted in is a hit to Curry’s bank account.

“Without knowing the answers to the test, it was my best way to study for it, if that makes sense,” Curry said. “This is home. This is what we’ve built. This is a community that I’ve played in front of my entire career, and being able to finish the story the right way is a big part of I think what I can control.”

Curry was about the only one who didn’t seem to be infected by the dour mood outside the building. He was so flabbergasted when one reporter said “nobody” expected them to make the playoffs, let alone compete for a championship, that all he could muster was, “Damn!”

“That’s how bad it is?” Curry questioned of the outside expectations.

Kerr, on the other hand, seemed to be looking forward to getting to play the underdog for once.

“I don’t mind the fact that everyone is picking us to miss the playoffs. You know, that’s not a bad spot to be in as a team, as a coach,” he said, returning to a familiar theme. “For me what it means is we get to focus on the process.”

Even before the season-ending injuries to Butler and Moody, the Warriors weren’t living up to their championship aspirations. When Butler went down on Jan. 19, they were 25-19, eighth in the Western Conference. 

Absent any significant personnel changes from last season — besides intense defensive assistant Frank Vogel, whose addition Kerr described as a “coup” — the Warriors seem to be content with re-evaluating how they use the players in the building.

“We lost too many close games. We gave too many games away in the margins,” Kerr said. “So the vision for this year is to clean that stuff up and build some momentum and then we get those guys back.”

Green is being asked to reimagine his role, too. He’s going to spend more time on the perimeter, and Kerr wants him to shoot more of the open looks he gets from 3. “Shooting, crashing, you know, spreading the floor for other people, dribble hand-off stuff,” Kerr said.

And turn the ball over less.

Green pushed back on the notion that championship expectations precedes championships.

“I hate to be cliche, but in 2022 nobody walked into that season like, ‘Hey, here’s the beginning of a championship year.’ Our process was great, which then allowed us to grow over the season and become a championship team.”

There’s that word again.

Process. It may be the only thing the Warriors will be able to control this season.

“Put together a great process and then you get to the end,” Green said, “and you let the cards fall where they may.”

It’s going to take a long time for this all to set in.

These guys still haven’t even played a preseason game together yet, but 2026 Media Day was very exciting for the Philadelphia 76ers. It’s not every day one of the two best players of all time dons your jersey for the first time. It was also the first time LeBron James answered questions about joining the Sixers from reporters as opposed to a recorded podcast.

The excitement around James joining the Sixers and his first day at the team’s practice facility nearly overshadowed the first major domino that brought him here in the first place. While it wasn’t Jaylen Brown’s first time talking to the Philadelphia media, it was also his first time wearing a Sixers uniform. Frankly, it was weird to see a guy who spent the first 10 years of his career terrorizing the Sixers as a member of the Boston Celtics put on the other team’s jersey.

It didn’t feel any more real when VJ Edgecombe crashed his press conference, prompting Brown to jokingly tell him to get his ass out of there like they had been teammates for years. I think I finally understand how people felt when Hulk Hogan joined the nWo.

Every time Brown has been asked about going from one rival to another, he’s repeated the same one-day-at-a-time mantra. The focus of Brown’s quotes since joining the Sixers have rather been about leveling up his game while being a contributor to his community.

“I’m not sure. I’m taking it one day at a time. Obviously, things happen in this league. It’s a business,” Brown said. “I think what I value about this game is the human connection, to be able to bring people together, to be able to uplift their community, inspire people.”

As someone who’s been on the other side of the rivalry for nearly as long, Tyrese Maxey did point out how weird it felt to see Brown in a Sixers uniform.

“I was just messing with JB before we came up here,” Maxey said. “It’s just like seeing him in Philly’s uniform in red, white and blue is kind of awkward, but it’s good.”

As someone who hasn’t just watched the Sixers and Celtics go to battle time and again for the last decade, but has been a part of several of them, Maxey admitted he has to recalibrate his thinking now that Brown is his teammate. Of the Sixers who discussed their reactions to the trade, Maxey was the one who conveyed a similar amount of shock to the rest of the league.

“Every time we stepped in between the lines I didn’t really mess with Jaylen, it was smoke, I wanted to beat him every single time,” Maxey said. “I think my initial reaction was just, it’s just crazy. We’re division rivals, I see him, I feel like 12 times a year. I feel like we play the Celtics at least 7-8 times every season. For him to be on our side, you kind of got to reframe, reprogram your mind just to be cool with him.”

The competitive respect mixed with a genuine dislike of each other’s teams is why the Sixers and Celtics feel like one of the last real rivalries left. It’s what made Joel Embiid’s post-up and subsequent back-and-forth with Brown in Game 7 last season such a special moment.

The fact that one of the most important players to this rivalry’s recent history swapped sides out of nowhere in the middle of his career is jarring. With the joy of signing LeBron James a few weeks later, there’s hardly been time to process that type of whiplash.

But there Brown was sitting in a blue jersey Monday morning rather than a green one. Even crazier is the fact that James wouldn’t have chosen Philadelphia if not for the shocking blockbuster trade. They still have to play a game together and actually accomplish something to be celebrated.

After the last two years the Sixers have been through, it’s unbelievable this is where the journey led them.

The eyes did not deceive. Karl-Anthony Towns did indeed drop weight.

Looking slimmer than ever at Monday’s Media Day, the Knicks center said he shed pounds during the summer to feel fresher and healthier.

“It’s good for my body, my knees,” Towns said. “And it keeps me young.”

Towns said he slims down every summer after adding mass during the season, which is against the grain since players often lose weight once training camp begins. The benefit is injury prevention and quickness, while pitfalls include reduced strength and power for battling in the paint.

Tim Duncan popularized weight loss for frontcourt players in his 30s, extending his career.

Towns didn’t reveal the specific numbers behind his summer weight loss. The 7-footer weighed 248 pounds last season, according to the Knicks website.

“I always lose a lot of the weight,” Towns said. “I put on a lot of weight for the season.”

But it never looked this dramatic.

“My wife thought I look good,” added Towns, who is also navigating stagnated contract-extension negotiations with the Knicks.

It was a landmark year for Towns, who turned 30 in November, won the NBA championship in June and married longtime girlfriend Jordyn Woods in August.

Along the way, Towns was rediscovered as a playmaking hub during the playoffs — a role that helped transform the Knicks from potential first-round busts in Atlanta to NBA champs. His average assists jumped 60 percent in the postseason, and the Knicks were an offensive juggernaut while winning 13 straight.

Coach Mike Brown confirmed that strategy will continue this regular season — with an expectation of an evolving offense.

“We started last season with an offense with him at the elbow but we just did different things when he caught the ball at the elbow and the action wasn’t always designed to go to him at the elbow,” Brown said. “And so we eventually evolved into [going more to KAT at the elbow] and we will go with that and evolve into other things throughout the course of [the] year based on where we are as a team.”

So the offense will change. Towns’ body already did.

“In today’s sports world, you always hear about strength and speed and quickness,” said Brown, who added that he hasn’t checked Towns’ weight or body fat percentage yet but was informed his center dropped weight. “So whatever his body needs to be to optimize those things, that’s what I have faith him and our performance staff will do for us.”

The eyes did not deceive. Karl-Anthony Towns did indeed drop weight.

Looking slimmer than ever at Monday’s Media Day, the Knicks center said he shed pounds during the summer to feel fresher and healthier.

“It’s good for my body, my knees,” Towns said. “And it keeps me young.”

Towns said he slims down every summer after adding mass during the season, which is against the grain since players often lose weight once training camp begins. The benefit is injury prevention and quickness, while pitfalls include reduced strength and power for battling in the paint.

Tim Duncan popularized weight loss for frontcourt players in his 30s, extending his career.

Towns didn’t reveal the specific numbers behind his summer weight loss. The 7-footer weighed 248 pounds last season, according to the Knicks website.

“I always lose a lot of the weight,” Towns said. “I put on a lot of weight for the season.”

But it never looked this dramatic.

“My wife thought I look good,” added Towns, who is also navigating stagnated contract-extension negotiations with the Knicks.

It was a landmark year for Towns, who turned 30 in November, won the NBA championship in June and married longtime girlfriend Jordyn Woods in August.

Along the way, Towns was rediscovered as a playmaking hub during the playoffs — a role that helped transform the Knicks from potential first-round busts in Atlanta to NBA champs. His average assists jumped 60 percent in the postseason, and the Knicks were an offensive juggernaut while winning 13 straight.

Coach Mike Brown confirmed that strategy will continue this regular season — with an expectation of an evolving offense.

“We started last season with an offense with him at the elbow but we just did different things when he caught the ball at the elbow and the action wasn’t always designed to go to him at the elbow,” Brown said. “And so we eventually evolved into [going more to KAT at the elbow] and we will go with that and evolve into other things throughout the course of [the] year based on where we are as a team.”

So the offense will change. Towns’ body already did.

“In today’s sports world, you always hear about strength and speed and quickness,” said Brown, who added that he hasn’t checked Towns’ weight or body fat percentage yet but was informed his center dropped weight. “So whatever his body needs to be to optimize those things, that’s what I have faith him and our performance staff will do for us.”

Nikola Jokić, arguably the best basketball player in the world, committed to sign a contract extension with the Denver Nuggets.

Jokić, the three-time Most Valuable Player, has been eligible to sign a massive, max contract extension each of the last two summers, but he has delayed that, seemingly so that he can maximize his earning potential for an enormous five-year deal worth up to $360 million.

The delay, however, has caused some angst among Nuggets fans, given that Jokić is under team control for just this upcoming season, though he does have a player option for $62.8 million.

At Nuggets media day, he tried to ease the apprehension of any nervous fans.

NUGGETS PREVIEW: Lineup, roster, prediction and biggest question mark