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Spurs' De'Aaron Fox to undergo surgery on left pinkie finger, out for season

This news was expected, especially after it was announced that De’Aaron Fox would meet with doctors in Los Angeles to discuss the next steps for his injured pinkie finger on his left hand.

Fox will undergo season-ending surgery on his finger next Tuesday, a story broken by Shams Charania of The Athletic.

The timing makes sense. With Victor Wembanyama out for the season due to deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder, the Spurs have fallen off to 27-47 and, at 4.5 games out of even the play-in, have no real chance for a postseason run. It's better to get the surgery, start the healing process, and have more time to work on chemistry with Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and the rest of the Spurs throughout the summer.

Fox injured the finger in training camp when he was still a member of the Sacramento Kings and has played through it all season, Charania reports. Fox had learned to play through the injury, dropping 32 on the Mavericks in a Spurs win Wednesday.

Fox started the season in Sacramento, but after coach Mike Brown was fired Fox pushed to be traded, he no longer felt there was enough stability in the Sacramento organization to win. Fox wanted to be traded to Sacramento to team up with Wembanyama and got his wish.

The future is bright in San Antonio, but Fox has prioritized getting his hand right first.

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Duke advances at a price

There isn’t much else to cram into the gamut of emotions for Duke’s first game of the ACC tournament. Duke missing its first 13 3-pointers and matching its largest deficit of the season — those were just in the first half — paled in comparison to the rest of the bad news. Maliq Brown suffered a left shoulder injury with five minutes left — later ruled a re-dislocation of the same shoulder he injured about a month ago at Virginia.

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Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

Myles Lewis-Skelly could return to an old role, Wolves are still in danger and United’s strikers are running out of time

Premier League safety is all that matters to David Moyes and an eight-game unbeaten run – Everton’s best sequence since going nine matches without defeat under Ronald Koeman in 2016-17 – has almost accomplished a task that looked much more onerous when he returned in January. Publicly, the Everton manager maintains the job is not done and that no contract issues will be resolved until the club’s top-flight status is mathematically confirmed. Privately, and beneath the more relaxed demeanour that he has brought back with him to Goodison Park, there may also be a fierce ambition to finish above two clubs who deemed him surplus to requirements. Everton can go three points clear of one, West Ham, and leapfrog another, Manchester United, with victory over Graham Potter’s visitors on Saturday. With Liverpool, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Chelsea to come after an impending two-week break, Moyes could do with a more clinical display from Everton to step closer to his aims. Andy Hunter

Everton v West Ham, Saturday 3pm (all times GMT)

Ipswich v Nottingham Forest, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v Brighton, Saturday 3pm

Southampton v Wolves, Saturday 3pm

Bournemouth v Brentford, Saturday 5.3pm

Arsenal v Chelsea, Sunday 1.30pm

Fulham v Tottenham, Sunday 1.30pm

Leicester v Manchester United, Sunday 7pm

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Breaking Down Avalanche's Remaining Schedule — And Their Chances At Rising In Hyper-Competitive Central Division

Nathan MacKinnon (center), Cale Makar (right) -- Isaiah J. Downing, USA TODAY Sports

The Colorado Avalanche have been one of the NHL's toughest teams of late, going 10-3-1 since Jan. 28. That stretch of hockey has allowed the Avs to vault over the Minnesota Wild for third place in the incredibly-competitive Central Divsion. And if the Avalanche are going to catch the Dallas Stars for second spot in the Central, they're going to have to be almost as good, if not better. But let's break down their remaining 16 games and project how well they'll be doing.

According to the very useful Tankathon web site, the Avs have the NHL's 11th-toughest remaining schedule. Starting Friday in Calgary, Colorado has nine straight games against either teams who are in serious contention for a playoff spot, or who already occupy a playoff spot -- the Flames (twice), Dallas, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Detroit, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. After that, they've got Chicago, Columbus, the Blues, Golden Knights, Canucks, Kings, and Ducks. So if they can play well in those first nine games, the Avalanche's remaining seven games should be considerably easier.

Getting into second spot in the Central is important for the Avs in many ways -- most notably, in terms of their home and road record. When they're playing in Denver, the Avalanche are an impressive 22-10-2 this season. But away from home, the Avs are only 17-14-1. Nine of their remaining 16 games are on the road, and that means Colorado needs to be better than that in order to challenge the Stars for second place and home-ice advantage in Round One of the post-season this spring.

Either way, it certainly seems like the Avs are destined for a first-round showdown with Dallas. And considering their season series record against the Stars is 1-1-0 -- with a less-talented squad than the Avalanche are after this season's trade deadline -- Colorado should feel confident they can hang with Dallas and get at least to the second round for the sixth time in the past seven seasons. The Avs did lose to the Stars in the second round of last season's playoffs, but this is a much stronger Colorado team we're talking about this season.

The Avalanche have arguably the deepest defense corps in the NHL, a strong goaltending tandem, and legitimate superstars in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. Most teams do not have that combination of depth and elite skill.

It took them a while to get up to speed this season, but as it stands right now, the Avs are as dangerous as any team in the league -- and they could wind up winning their second Stanley Cup in the past four years. Time will tell how they fare this season, but the Avalanche look like they can do a whole lot of damage the rest of the regular-season and the post-season.

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Manchester United must win titles for Bruno Fernandes, says Ruben Amorim

  • United in Europa League last eight after beating Sociedad
  • ‘We need to help him win titles because he deserves this’

Ruben Amorim praised Bruno Fernandes’s hat-trick performance that swept Real Sociedad aside and took Manchester United into the Europa League quarter-finals, saying his side “needs to win titles” for the captain.

After Mikel Oyarzabal struck first via an early penalty, United dominated, Fernandes scoring two from the spot on 16 and 50 minutes, before a superb late strike to complete the hat-trick. Diogo Dalot’s added-time fourth sealed progress.

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