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After four preseason games with the Minnesota Timberwolves on an Exhibit 10 training camp contract, forward/center Drew Timme was waived before the start of the 2026-27 regular season.

No need to fret, as the Phoenix Suns immediately picked up the Gonzaga Bulldog legend off waivers and signed him to their third and final two-way contract spot. This was first reported by The NBA Consensus. Timme replaced guard Koby Brea, who was cut in order to add more frontcourt depth to second-year coach Jordan Ott’s roster.

The 6-10, 235-pound talent plans to split his time with the big club and their G League affiliate, Valley Suns. Former Gonzaga guard David Stockton will be teammates with Timme on the Valley Suns. The G League franchise’s general manager, Brendan Sabean, used to be a student manager under coach Mark Few from 2010-14.

This will be the sixth NBA organization that Timme has been involved with in his professional career since going undrafted back in 2023. His second time being on a two-way deal after being with the Los Angeles Lakers and the then South Bay Lakers in the G League during the 2025-26 campaign.

During this past preseason with Minnesota, Timme averaged 6.0 points on a shooting split of 60.0 field goal percentage/40.0 three-point percentage/57.1 free throw percentage, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 10.8 minutes per game. He has put together 5.6 points and 2.7 rebounds in 36 games played across two NBA seasons with the Brooklyn Nets and Lakers.

With Timme being named to Phoenix’s opening night roster, that makes 12 active former Zags in the NBA.

Chicago Bulls forward/center Zach Collins

Los Angeles Clippers forward Rui Hachimura

Sacramento Kings forward/center Domantas Sabonis

Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs

Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren

Atlanta Hawks wing Corey Kispert

Denver Nuggets wing Julian Strawther

Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard

Denver Nuggets guard Ryan Nembhard (two-way)

Golden State Warriors forward/center Graham Ike (two-way)

Toronto Raptors guard Malachi Smith (two-way)

The 2026-27 NBA season tips off on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with Oklahoma City’s Holmgren traveling to the San Antonio Spurs at 6:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on X @a_cravalho

Both Dalton Knecht and the Lakers took a giant kick to the chin. 

As for the Lakers?

They waived their No. 17 pick in the 2024 draft on Monday after trying to use the 25-year-old forward as trade bait but getting no bites. 

This is their second first-round pick in the last few years that turned out to be fool’s gold following selecting Jalen Hood-Schifino with the 17th overall pick in the 2023 draft and then declining his third-year option and watching him slip out of the league. 

As for Knecht?

He went from being a promising stud who had back-to-back 27-point and 37-point performances his rookie season to slipping out of Lakers coach JJ Redick’s rotation. 

His fall from grace was precipitous, leaving the forward treading water in no-man’s land with his best option at this point likely being signing a two-way contract. 

So, how did we get here?

Dalton’s downfall

This is unfortunate for both parties. The Lakers let a desperately-needed first-round draft pick evaporate into thin air. And Knecht’s career is snowballing downhill. 

Things reached a critical point in February 2025. 

Shortly after the Lakers stunned the basketball world by acquiring Luka Dončić from the Mavericks ahead of the trade deadline, they sent Knecht, Cam Reddish, a future first-round pick and a pick swap to the Hornets in exchange for Mark Williams. 

But Williams failed his physical with the Lakers, who then rescinded the deal. That meant Knecht had to tuck his tail between his legs and walk back into a locker room that had been ready to move on without him. 

There’s no coming back from that, really. 

How could his confidence not be irrevocably shaken by that? Imagine your boss firing you. Then getting a call from him, saying, “Never mind.” And then having to go into the office the next day. 

After that, Knecht’s deficits became more and more glaring. 

He was liability on defense. And when his shot wasn’t falling, trying to plug him into a roster that needed shooters that could create space for Doncic and Reaves became like trying to shove a square into a round hole. 

He went from averaging 9.1 points on 46.1% shooting (37.6% from deep), 2.8 rebounds and 0.8 assists in 19.2 minutes per game his rookie season, to averaging 4.2 points on 45.5% shooting (34.2% from deep), 1.4 rebounds and 0.4 assists in 10.2 minutes per game last season. 

Things got even worse for him this preseason. 

With nine new players trying to prove themselves, Knecht kept free falling. 

In four preseason games, he averaged 2.8 points on 25% shooting from the field (3-for-12) and 14.3% from 3 (1-for-7) as well as 1.3 rebounds in 11.9 minutes per game.

“The team changed. The needs changed, the fit changed,” Redick said when asked about Knecht before the Lakers played the Nuggets. “I think he got better as a player over the last two years. I think each guy has, particularly last year, each guy got plenty of opportunities with the amount of injuries we had. So I just think coming into this year, we added a lot of wings and he’s in a tough spot right now.”

So when the Lakers had to trim their roster from 16 players under contract to 15 on Monday, the inevitable happened. 

Knecht was first in line, ahead of Bronny James (the 55th pick in the 2024 draft) and Jaden Hardy, whom the Lakers acquired along with two future second-round draft picks (in 2031 and 2032) in a exchange for Deandre Ayton in July. 

The Lakers ultimately decided to wave the white flag, letting one of their prized first-round picks drift into the ether with absolutely nothing to show for it but $4.2 million in debt that was remaining on his deal. 

It’s a shame the Lakers didn’t trade him the summer after the botched Williams trade. It’s unfortunate they couldn’t strike a deal last season. And it’s unsurprising that they couldn’t get a Hail Mary before Monday.

Now, this is a blight for Lakers’ general manager and president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka. 

And it’s a darn shame for Knecht, who just a short while ago was headed on a very different career trajectory. 

Just a lose-lose for both parties. 

Retired NBA forward Blake Griffin and swimwear designer Francesca Aiello are married, a representative for Griffin confirmed to People.

The pair, who reportedly got engaged in late 2024, have yet to share details of their wedding.

Griffin made waves when he was spotted wearing his gold wedding band while promoting Season 2 of NBA on Prime, as well as his new weekly talk show, “The Stepback,” last week.

The six-time NBA All-Star put his wedding ring on display while posing with Aiello, who founded the lifestyle brand Frankies Bikinis, on the red carpet at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

Before that, he donned it at an exclusive screening of “The Stepback with Blake Griffin,” on Wednesday, and the NBA on Prime Season 2 Launch Event “The Art of Basketball” on Tuesday.

Griffin and Aiello never announced an engagement.

He reportedly proposed to Aiello around the holidays in 2024.

The model, a Malibu native, stirred buzz when she showed off her massive engagement ring in various Instagram posts in early 2025.

Griffin and Aiello first started dating in June 2018 and briefly split before they reconnected in August 2023.

Griffin is a father to son Ford, 13, and daughter Finley, 10, from his previous relationship with ex-girlfriend, Brynn Cameron.

He spent eight seasons with the Clippers after being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft.

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The 2011 Rookie of the Year also played for the Detroit Pistons, Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics.

Griffin’s new weekly late-night sports talk and comedy show, “The Stepback with Blake Griffin,” premieres Tuesday, Oct. 20 with Amazon Studios, YouTube and Wondery.

The 2026-27 NBA season tips off next Tuesday, but the basketball card market is already in midseason form. 

Since the Knicks’ dramatic NBA Finals victory in June, NBA fans have largely been focused on LeBron’s move to the 76ers, because it wouldn’t be an offseason without The King commanding the vast majority of the attention. However, when it comes to cards, Michael Jordan inserts and Cooper Flagg’s Rookie Debut Patch stole the show this summer. 

As the world prepares for the NBA’s opening night tripleheader, which features the Knicks’ banner-raising, LeBron’s 76ers debut, Wemby vs. Shai round 2, and a matinee Pistons-Celtics clash, digital collectibles platform Courtyard, released an interesting take on their platform’s data with the introduction of a unique NBA tier list. 

Unlike most player rankings floating around social media around ahead of a new season, this list isn’t based on on-court performance. Instead, Courtyard’s used data to showcase the players basketball collectors are most likely to hold—or sell—after they’re pulled from one of Courtyard’s basketball packs.

The Keep, Flip, Ship Hierarchy

On Courtyard, collectors who rip one of the company’s many digital basketball packs can take an instant buyback offer (flip) on their new, graded card, keep the card vaulted for free, or redeem it and have the physical version of the card shipped to them. Courtyard’s tier list ranks players by how collectors treated their pulls, with the S-Tier representing the players that collectors held onto the most, while the F-Tier represented the players that were most frequently flipped.

A few placements stand out. Tyrese Maxey ranks above Flagg, the reigning Rookie of the Year. Donovan Clingan, who averaged a double-double last season and Pistons guard Ausar Thompson, who might find his shot one day, share a tier with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Chet Holmgren, an All-Star and All-Defensive First Team selection last season, landed in the D-Tier, alongside Mikal Bridges, who helped the Knicks win their first title since 1973. Needless to say, collectors will have plenty of opinions about who is where on this list.

Does this mean that Donovan Clingan is a better buy than say, Nikola Jokic who is on the B-tier? Definitely not, at least in my opinion. It’s more a reflection of where the market has him currently priced (low) versus his overall potential. Conversely, Cooper Flagg is still high on the list but not at the top, likely because his market is currently reaching new market highs each day, which leads to collectors selling quickly. In that regard, the list is very interesting.

“Keeping a card is about the most honest thing a collector does. A sale tells you what the market thinks a card is worth. Holding onto it tells you what it’s worth to you,” said Nico le Jeune, co-founder and CEO of Courtyard. “That’s why this list doesn’t look much like an MVP ballot. Collectors hold onto Tyrese Maxey more than Cooper Flagg, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander lands in the same tier as Donovan Clingan. Fans have their own idea of who matters.”

Key Offseason Moves

The Knicks might have won the NBA Finals, but Mavs’ rising sophomore forward holds the title for the biggest NBA card of a single player sold since June. Others haven’t played a game in decades.

• Cooper Flagg: His 1-of-1 Topps rookie debut patch autograph sold for $8.04 million at Fanatics Collect on September 25th. It’s the highest price paid for any single NBA player’s card, and the third-highest NBA card sale overall, behind only a Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman Auto 1/1 ($12.93 million) , and a Jordan/LeBron Dual Logoman Auto 1/1 ($10 million). Flagg’s previous record was $366,000.
• Kobe Bryant/LeBron James: A 1-of-1 2007-08 Exquisite Dual Logoman Autograph sold for $6,501,840 through Alt on September 24th, the most expensive sale in the marketplace’s history. It also marked what might’ve been the high point of the recent Jordan boom, which has captivated The Hobby for what seems like forever at this point—leading to rising prices for other vintage cards from players like Shaq, when the cost of Jordan inserts started to price people out.
• The Knicks starting five: A 1-of-1 Topps Now quintuple autograph featuring Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Bridges, and Karl-Anthony Towns sold for $317,200. Credit where it’s due. It’s nice to see something other than RCs and vintage, for once. 

The 2026 Rookie Class Gets Its Debut

Last week, the preorder for Topps Flagship Basketball crashed Topps’ website. We all know rookies drive demand, but the class of 2026 has a wider breadth of potential than collectors are used to. 

Washington selected former BYU star AJ Dybantsa first overall, followed by Darryn Peterson (Utah Jazz), Cameron Boozer (Memphis Grizzlies), Caleb Wilson (Chicago Bulls), and Keaton Wagler (Los Angeles Clippers). Their first Topps rookie cards will arrive… sometime soon, as the initial launch date during the NBA’s opening week (October 23rd) has since been pushed back to November 5th. 

Who will you be chasing in NBA packs this season?

Let us know over on Mantel.

When JJ Redick took over as the Lakers’ head coach in June 2024, he and Rob Pelinka, the franchise’s general manager and now president of basketball operations, laid out many emphases that fit into their vision of the franchise.

Among them was player development – with the exact phrase being mentioned by Redick and Pelinka at least 13 times during Redick’s introductory press conference on June 24, 2024.

Nearly 2 ½ years later, the Lakers’ player development system is coming back into focus after they waived 2024 first-round pick Dalton Knecht Monday to become compliant with the league’s rules, trimming their roster from 16 to 15 players signed to standard NBA deals.

The decision highlighted the Lakers’ struggles with maximizing younger players over the last few years.

If they are going to compete with the best of the Western Conference, led by the Spurs and Thunder, they must make a drastic improvement in this area.

And soon. 

Lakers inability to develop

Knecht, along with second-round pick Bronny James, who Redick once referred to as “case study one” for the franchise’s player development program after the team drafted the son of LeBron James with the No. 55 pick in the 2024 draft, made up the Lakers’ first draft class after Redick was hired.

The Lakers also had 2023 first-round pick Jalen Hood-Schifino and second-round pick Maxwell Lewis entering their second NBA seasons as Redick was brought on board. 

But the Lakers have very little to show from the players in those draft classes.

Hood-Schifino? Traded to the Jazz, and immediately waived by Utah, as part of the three-team trade that brought superstar guard Luka Doncic to Los Angeles after an unremarkable 1 ½ seasons with the Lakers.

Lewis? Currently playing overseas after playing just 41 games for the Lakers, and two seasons in the NBA. 

With Knecht now gone, Bronny is the Lakers’ lone draft pick from 2023 and 2024 still on the roster. 

Even though he’s made significant strides in his development, to the point of being a positive contributor in the rotation toward the end of 2025-26 after regular-season, the younger James’ play during the preseason has made it clear he isn’t ready to be a regular contributor to this Lakers’ team.

There’s a good chance Reaves will not only be the lone player in the Lakers’ starting lineup on Wednesday who started his career with the franchise, but also the only player in the rotation who was at least on a rookie contract with the Lakers.

By comparison, the Thunder drafted three players projected to start this season (Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and Cason Wallace) and traded for another (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) while he was still on his rookie deal.

Even as those former young players sign more expensive veteran contracts, they have multiple young players on less expensive deals that will provide depth behind their higher-paid rotation players. 

The Spurs are in a similar boat as the Thunder.

With the constraints on roster building under the first and second aprons, more attention and investments are being paid to identifying and developing younger players.

Even by the league’s best teams. 

Pelinka spoke about this trend over two years. 

“Part of the road to a really, really good team,” he said in June 2024, “and you can look around the landscape of the league right now with many young teams doing really, really well, is going to lean hard into that player development piece.”

It’s time for the Lakers to catch up in this department.

They must if they want to compete for a title while Doncic is in his prime. 

The Thunder and Spurs, with their young stars and younger rosters, aren’t going anywhere. 

Redick acknowledged developing second-year forward Adou Thiero and rookie wing Cameron Carr into “functional rotation NBA players over the next 12 to 24 months” would change the Lakers’ ceiling. 

And he’s absolutely right.

The Lakers know firsthand how much quality development can change the direction of a franchise. 

It’s why they’ve made hires and internal changes to ramp up their player development program over the last couple of years.

They developed Alex Caruso, who went undrafted in 2016 and joined the Lakers in 2017, into a rotation player for the 2020 title team before he departed the franchise in 2021.

Reaves developed from an undrafted player into a star guard who received a four-year, $180 million contract this past summer and is the unquestioned No. 2 option behind Doncic in this new era. He was also an essential part of the Lakers making the 2023 Western Conference finals.

Max Christie, the Lakers’ 2022 second-round pick, developed into a starting-level 3-and-D wing before being traded to the Mavericks as part of the Doncic acquisition. 

But since then, the success stories haven’t come as often. 

This needs to change if the Lakers want to have any shot at catching up with the best of the West over the next couple of years.

By mid-August, Josh Hart was already tired of the perpetual congratulations. In September, it felt like “a burden.”

As great as winning a championship was for the Knicks — and many of the players celebrated wildly and extensively, to be clear — Hart wanted to focus on progress, not history. 

“You’re fully into the swing of working out in the summer and it’s tough to turn the page,” Hart said. “Because you’re sitting there, you turn the page, you’re like ‘I got to work and then somebody says, ‘Congrats, we did this, my family did this, we watched it together,’ and you just keep getting brought back to the championship. 

“You move on, you get brought back. That’s also why I can’t wait for that opening night tip, to really put all that stuff behind us.”

Hart’s conundrum is at the center of Tuesday’s season opener against the 76ers, a night at MSG meant to celebrate the feelings and accomplishments he’s been trying to avoid. It will be a test of focus from the Knicks, who will go from accepting rings to raising a banner to trying to beat LeBron James. 

All within minutes. 

It probably helps that New York’s head coach, Mike Brown, has participated in four ring nights with the Spurs and Warriors. There’s a voice of experience in a high position. 

“It is a little tough even for me as a coach,” Brown said. “People are patting you on the back, telling how good you are and it’s good and you want people to be able to do that with you and for you and all that stuff, but in the same breath there always has to be a part of you — and I know this from experience that says — don’t listen to this, don’t read this, don’t watch this. Because it’s hard to stay even-keeled in situations like that. You got to embrace it, you got to enjoy it with others, especially your family, but try to come back down to earth as soon as possible. … We have a pretty sharp group. But if they don’t know, we’ll definitely help by reminding them, ‘This is not last year. This is a new season and we can’t just think we’re going to switch that light on and get after it.’ ”

History suggests the Knicks will beat the Sixers. The defending champions are 64-15 in their home openers, according to The Elias Sports Bureau, which isn’t surprising because defending champs tend to be good. Not all of those games were ‘ring night,’ but most were and the recent examples hold firm:

The last loser of their own ring night was the 2020 Lakers, who fell to the Clippers in an empty arena because of the pandemic. James, who will be at ring night Tuesday with the 76ers, was on those Lakers. Two years ago, the Knicks were shellacked by the Celtics on ring night in Boston. 

OG Anunoby won his ring night with the Raptors in 2019, but it required overtime to topple the Pelicans. Anunoby finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and two blocks in 36 minutes. 

“You celebrate with the ring, take pictures, then the game started. It was kind of weird,” Anunoby said. “Then the game goes on, first quarter and second quarter, it gets back to normal. You get used to it. But initially, yeah, it was kind of weird.”

For Hart, Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges, this will be their first game as champs on ring night. They were the defending NCAA titlists with Villanova in 2016, but the banner was raised at a students-only pep rally called Hoops Mania — not before a game. 

Brunson, nonetheless, understands the assignment. 

“It’s about how quickly you turn a page and how quickly you understand that the egos have to be checked at the door,” he said.

The Knicks will get their first glimpse of life without Mitchell Robinson. 

After eight years with Robinson on the roster — though not always on the active list — New York faces the Sixers in Tuesday’s opener with Andre Drummond as the backup center. 

It is by far the biggest change from last season’s championship-winning roster and therefore will be under the microscope when Drummond faces his former team from Philly. 

“Mitch [who signed with the Celtics in free agency] is a great player. We’re not bringing Andre in here to quote-unquote be Mitch,” coach Mike Brown told The Post’s Steve Serby. “Andre’s going to be Andre, but that means everybody else has to give a little bit more defensively, and has to give a little bit more when it comes to offensive and defensive rebounding.”

Drummond’s greatest strength, throughout a lengthy career, was rebounding. But he’s now past his prime at 33 years old and replacing the NBA’s best offensive rebounder in Robinson.

The Knicks entered camp without a third center after Karl-Anthony Towns and Drummond, opening up a competition that ended with James Wiseman as the winner.

Wiseman is a former No. 2 pick and draft bust with the Golden State Warriors, but a superb athlete who always had a fan in Mike Brown. 

Brown was the lead assistant at Golden State when Wiseman was drafted there. 

“It was a different situation with the Knicks,” Brown said. “You come in as No. 2 pick in the draft with Golden State and you’re talented and skilled as he is and it can be tough on you because of expectations. Not just from the media and fans but sometimes your teammates and coaches and rest of the organization and if it’s hard for certain individuals to live up to. … With this situation, it’s — OK, he’s been around the block, he’s experienced adversity. We’re not looking for him to start or fight for a starting position. We’re not necessarily looking for him to come in and be a backup. He has the luxury of growing at his own pace without much pressure.”

The Sixers also have frontcourt questions after their backup, Ariel Hukporti, tore his Achilles in the preseason opener. Hukporti was the Knicks third-string center last season but left in free agency. 

Joel Embiid’s backup is Adem Bona, who will have to deal with Drummond, his teammate last season. 

Collin Sexton participated in his first full Lakers practice on Monday and and is considered day-to-day for Wednesday’s season opener against the Warriors.

Sexton said he’s dealing with a “lower leg injury,” adding that he has been experiencing “tightness.” He said that “nothing in particular” brought it on.

“We’ll be taking it day by day,” Sexton said. “At the end of the day, I had a really good practice [Monday], felt good. Super excited to be back out there with the guys, so I look forward to it.”

Sexton, who signed a two-year, $19 million contract with the Lakers this offseason, missed all five preseason games.

The 27-year-old guard will bolster the Lakers’ second-unit scoring and give them another ball-handler when he returns. He has career averages of 18.3 points on 47.2% shooting (38.9% from beyond the arc), 2.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game over his eight seasons in the league with the Cavaliers, Jazz, Hornets and Bulls.

After watching the Lakers’ exhibition games, Sexton said he sees where he could slot in alongside his new teammates as another ball-handler.

“I’m super excited to get out there, and I can see where I can fit in pretty easily,” he said. “I think even just on the defensive side, bringing that energy, bringing that juice, and, and trying to disrupt, not always turning the ball over and get someone to turn it over for just disrupt and bring the clock down. And then offensively, getting to the paint. I think that’s something that I’ve done really well in my career.

“And then spacing, making sure I’m spacing for the guys like Luka [Doncic], AR [Austin Reaves], even just when Walker [Kessler] gets in the pocket, being ready to shoot on the back side. So, just finding ways that I can help the team.”