In the wake of a 2024 to forget, the San Jose Sharks have found their leader of the future.
The Sharks are naming assistant coach Ryan Warsofsky their next head coach, they announced Thursday morning. Warsofsky, 36, has spent the last two seasons as an assistant to former coach David Quinn.
"I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement to be named as the head coach of the San Jose Sharks," Warsofsky said in a team statement. "This a tremendous opportunity to continue to be part of a well-respected organization, and my family and I couldn't be more excited for this next chapter."
Once a perennial winner, San Jose is licking its wounds after a 19-54-9 '24 season—its worst by point percentage since going 20-55-7 in 1996.
For their struggles, the Sharks won the number one pick in the draft on June 28. They are widely expected to take highly touted Boston University center Macklin Celebrini.
Netflix's new NFL-focused show, Receiver, is set to premiere on Wednesday, July 10. The streaming service dropped the highly anticipated trailer on Thursday morning.
The trailer included clips of this season's featured players: Minnesota Vikings' Justin Jefferson, San Francisco 49ers' George Kittle and Deebo Samuel, Detroit Lions' Amon-Ra St. Brown and Las Vegas Raiders' Davante Adams.
The show followed these offensive players throughout the 2023 season, including all the ups and downs on the field, along with some footage of their family lives at home.
Receiver is from the producers of last year's Netflix NFL show, Quarterback. The streaming service seemed to want to create a second season of Quarterback, but they ran into obstacles of current NFL quarterbacks turning down the offers. Some examples of quarterbacks who turned down the show include Baltimore Ravens' Lamar Jackson, former Chicago Bears' Justin Fields and Philadelphia Eagles' Jalen Hurts.
There hasn't been much talk regarding a second season of Receiver will happen or not. It likely depends how popular this year's show is, and if the producers can find more receivers to agree to do the show.
The Florida Panthers head to Edmonton with a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final. The Oilers are in a near must-win situation in tonight's Game 3, in danger of falling down 0-3.
The Oilers have been fantastic on their home ice throughout the playoffs. Will that trend continue tonight?
Let's dive into everything you need to know to bet on tonight's game.
Connor McDavid: Great players step up in big moments and this might just be the biggest moment of Connor McDavid's career. He needs to drag his team to a Game 3 win and scoring just one goal as a team through the first two games is unacceptable. The Oilers turnaround in this series starts with him.
Florida Panthers
Sergei Bobrovsky: The Panthers' goalie has stepped up in a big way in this series, allowing just one goal through the first two games. If he continues playing at this level, the Oilers have no chance in this series could be over before the end of the weekend.
I've bet the UNDER in the first two games and I see no reason to back away from that. It's hit in both games and the advanced metrics so far this series have supported the idea both teams are playing a defensive style of hockey.
The Oilers have an expected goals mark of 2.4 per 60 minutes while the Panthers are at 2.33 per 60 minutes. That's a combined expected goals of just 4.73 per game, well below the set total for Game 3 of 5.5. Both teams are also averaging fewer than 10 high-danger scoring chances per game.
If you want a bet for the side, I'd recommend the Oilers. They have been fantastic on their home ice throughout the postseason with a 6-3 record and an average goal differential of +0.99 per game. It's desperation time for Edmonton and I expect the Oilers' stars to come through in impressive fashion.
Picks: Oilers -138 and UNDER 5.5 (-118)
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Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
COBRA PUMA Golf ambassador, Brice Butler, treats fellow football legend Eric Ebron to a custom club fitting at Cobra Golf’s new fitting studio located at their headquarters in Carlsbad, CA. Watch as Ebron gets dialed for his metalwoods, irons, and putter.
Click HERE to explore Cobra Golf’s lineup of clubs.
Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes appears to be taking notes from America’s favorite pastime this offseason.
On Wednesday at Chiefs minicamp, a video of Mahomes winding up like a baseball pitcher and throwing a football à la knuckleball went viral, with many fans commenting on the star quarterback’s pitching form. Shortly after, Mahomes posted about the video and named a surprising source of inspiration for his baseball warmup antics: San Diego Padres’ Matt Waldron.
Mahomes wrote on X, “I’m trying to learn the knuckleball the Waldron dude from the padres throws”
I’m trying to learn the knuckleball the Waldron dude from the padres throws 😂😂😂 https://t.co/W7GeJv37yR
— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) June 12, 2024
Waldron has accumulated a 3.76 ERA in 13 starts for the Padres and, as MLB’s Brent Maguire pointed out, is the only true knuckleballer in the MLB right now, throwing the pitch at a 37.6% clip.
Waldron, a Chiefs fan and Nebraska native, recently caught wind of Mahomes’s comments and felt honored.
“It's kind of crazy. Like I'm living in a different universe,” Waldron said.
Mahomes’s roots in baseball already run deep as his father, Pat Mahomes, was a reliever for the Minnesota Twins in 1992 and went on to pitch for five more teams in his 11-season MLB career. Mahomes never played baseball professionally but did play shortstop for his Tyler, Texas team in the 2010 Junior League World Series.
The Florida Panthers have proven a major headache for the Edmonton Oilers thus far in the Stanley Cup Final.
First, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky dominated Game 1 as Florida scored a 3-0 shutout win. Then, a big third period from center Evan Rodrigues paced the Panthers in Game 2.
Ahead of Game 3 Thursday in Edmonton, drastic measures appear to have been placed on the table. Among them: diverting Florida's team plane from Edmonton, as Canadian air traffic controllers joked about doing Wednesday.
"I've got about a two-hour hold for you, or whatever it would take that you'd be low enough on fuel that you'll have to divert from Edmonton," a controller said over the radio in audio posted by Andy Slater of WMEN-AM in Royal Palm Beach, Fla. "Mention it to your passengers, maybe they'll figure it out."
NEW: Florida Panthers pilots were jokingly told by a Canadian air traffic controller to run low on fuel so the team wouldn’t be able land in Edmonton.
Pilots from other flights join in on the conversation.
The Boston Celtics are on the verge of winning its 18th NBA Championship in franchise history, and Finals MVP is starting to take shape.
It appears to be a two-man race for Finals MVP, and through three games, Jaylen Brown appears to be ahead, fresh off an outstanding 30 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists output in Game 3, including a clutch jump shot that helped stymie a late Mavericks run.
Brown is now the heavy favorite to win Finals MVP, with his teammate Jayson Tatum the only other one within striking distance.
Brown was the exclamation point on the Celtics second-half surge past the Mavericks, sparked by a 35-19 third quarter. Brown scored 15 points in the third quarter and 24 in the entire second half to finish with a healthy stat line.
He is averaging 24 points, six rebounds, and five assists while shooting 55% from the field in the NBA Finals, and also had the game-sealing jumper.
Tatum is the only other player in the mix, fresh off his best scoring performance of the series, putting in 31 points with six rebounds and five assists, but did shoot 11-for-26 as he continues to struggle with his shot. Tatum has been stuffing the stat sheet with 21 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists, but is shooting below 36% from the field.
Brown, who won Eastern Conference Finals MVP, looks primed to take home Finals MVP with Tatum’s inability to score efficiently, and with the Celtics well on its way to banner No. 18.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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"With this goal, we believe that the best for my body is not to change surface and keep playing on clay until then. It’s for this reason that I will miss playing at the Championships this year at Wimbledon," Nadal wrote on social media. "I am saddened not to be able to live this year the great atmosphere of that amazing event that will always be in my heart, and be with all the British fans that always gave me great support. I will miss you all."
With this goal, we believe that the best for my body is not to change surface and keep playing on clay until then. It’s for this reason that I will miss playing at the Championships this year at Wimbledon. I am saddened not to be able to live this year the great atmosphere of…
The 38-year-old has missed quite a bit of the season already because of abdominal injuries. He missed nearly the entire 2023 season because of a hip injury, meaning he also was absent for the 2023 Wimbledon tournament.
Nadal wrote that he will play in the Nordea Open in mid-July, which is played in Bastad, Sweden. It is a clay court tournament.
When Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said last week that Jaylen Brown was the Boston Celtics’ “best player,” it was widely believed that Kidd was playing mind games (an allegation Kidd denied) rather than expressing an earnest opinion about Boston’s hierarchy. But he may have been right.
Kidd’s initial assertion seemed outlandish because Jayson Tatum undoubtedly has a better résumé than Brown. (Tatum was named First-Team All-NBA in each of the past three seasons, while Brown has just one Second-Team selection to his name.) Brown is a star, but Tatum is a superstar. In the Finals, though, it’s Brown who has shone brightest.
Tatum struggled offensively in the first two games of the series, averaging 17 points per game on 31.6% shooting (although he contributed in other ways). And while Tatum was better in Game 3 (31 points on 11-of-26 shooting), he was quiet again in the fourth quarter as the Mavs mounted a ferocious comeback, making just one of his five field-goal attempts.
That’s when Brown stepped up.
The fourth quarter very nearly turned into a nightmare for the Celtics. Boston was able to stretch its lead to 21 points in the opening minutes but saw that lead evaporate as the Mavs reeled off a 22–2 run to cut the deficit to one. The only Boston basket scored during Dallas’s run—which lasted more than seven minutes—was by Brown. He played a huge role in helping stop the skid, scoring on a putback layup with 3:08 to play that made it 95–92 in favor of the Celtics and hitting a contested jumper with 1:01 to play that made it 102–98. He scored nine of Boston’s 21 points in the final quarter as the Celtics held on to win, 106–99.
“I mean, how can I explain Jaylen?” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “The guy just has a growth mindset. He just wants to get better. He yearns to get better. He’s not afraid to face his weaknesses on the court. So when you have that type of mindset, you’re just going to be able to take on every situation that the game brings you. He puts himself in every single situation that he sees in a game. He uses six, seven, eight coaches a day, and every situation on both ends of the floor, he puts himself in that.
“And that’s how you have to grow, is to become vulnerable and on the things that make you uncomfortable, and he does that.”
Brown’s biggest play of the night, though, may have been the foul he drew on Luka Doncic with 4:12 to play. Brown attacked Doncic in transition and gave Doncic no choice but to commit a foul, causing him to foul out. Doncic’s absence changed the entire shape of the game. Once Doncic was forced to leave the floor, Dallas’s comeback came to a screeching halt. Kyrie Irving did his best to carry the Mavs, but Doncic’s absence allowed Boston's defense to zero in on Irving.
Doncic’s poor performance was the other main takeaway from Game 3. He scored 27 points, but his uninspired defense left him vulnerable to foul calls, eventually leading to his disqualification from the game. His constant complaints to the referees probably didn’t help flip any borderline calls in his favor, either.
Doncic has never been a great defender but that’s been especially problematic against a Boston team whose scoring depth makes hiding Doncic on defense impossible. And he’s clearly struggling with injuries that hinder his mobility, making him even more of a defensive liability. Doncic certainly looks like he could use a rest, and now that the Mavs have fallen behind 3–0 in the series, it appears he’ll be getting one very soon.
McIlroy is looking for his first major victory in a decade. / Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
… things I saw last night:
5. The couple that got married in the stands during a Giants game. 4. Giancarlo Stanton’s 449-foot shot for his 17th home run of the season. Stanton, Juan Soto (17) and Aaron Judge (25) have combined for 59 homers this season, which is more than five teams have on the year. 3. Christian Pulisic’s free-kick goal vs. Brazil. 2. Angel Reese’s big game against the league-leading Sun. She had a career-high 20 points and 10 rebounds as she notched her fourth straight double double. 1. Jaylen Brown’s ferocious dunk at the end of the third quarter.
In sports, narratives born from what happens on the field of play constantly shape the conversation for fans. Over the last decade, more and more media personalities have driven those narratives through the art of the take– planting a flag on the boldest argument conceivable and defending it until their last breath. It matters not if the take starts out “hot” and ends up “cold.” What matters is the take was given. A conversation, launched. A narrative, driven. Engagement, plentiful.
We welcome you, then, to TAKE MARKET. Our endeavor is to look back upon the strongest takes in the media ecosystem from the most recent news cycle and evaluate their stock. Should you buy low on a Stephen A. Smith take that’s on the verge of coming to fruition? Should you sell high on a Skip Bayless take that looks good now but has a nosedive rapidly approaching? We will provide those answers, fully informing you of where the most prevalent narratives in sports today are coming from and where they are going.
In the first edition of TAKE MARKET, we look back at the discourse surrounding the 2024 NBA Finals.
"Well, Jaylen [Brown] is their best player.. He plays both both sides at a high rate.”
This take comes from an unexpected source; head coaches usually stay out of the narrative game unless they're defending their own players. But Kidd, ahead of Game 2 of the Finals, threw out his own hot take by proclaiming Jaylen Brown, not Jayson Tatum, to be the best player on the Boston Celtics. It is a familiar debate for Celtics fans. It may be a newer one for the national audience after Brown flopped in Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals following Tatum's sprained ankle, seemingly putting the conversation to rest once and for all.
But Brown elevated his game to such an extent in this postseason that it is, indeed, a conversation once more.
Through 17 games this postseason, Brown is averaging 24.9 points and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 54.3% from the floor; after his 30-point Game 3 outing, the All-Star has shot above 50% from the floor in each of the last seven games played. Tatum, meanwhile, has struggled mightily to score efficiently in the playoffs. He's performed at an elite level in every other aspect of the game but his shooting troubles have cracked the door open for Brown's candidacy as the team's top talent.
These trends continued in the first three games of the NBA Finals. Brown has scored efficiently while making Luka Doncic's life visibly miserable. Tatum has done everything well ... except score. The Celtics wouldn't be up 3-0 without their combined production, but in regards to the "who is better" debate, Brown's case has grown stronger by the game.
Most dismissed Kidd's initial comments out of hand, assuming it was more a ploy to stir up drama rather than an honest evaluation of Boston's two stars. Now, though, the stock is going up. If you didn't buy the dip last year, it isn't too late to get in on the action.
Recommendation: BUY
Stan Van Gundy: "Minnesota's top rated defense is gonna be challenged trying to slow them down arguably the best offensive backcourt in the history of the NBA in Luka Doncic & Kyrie Irving."
During the 2024 Western Conference Finals, TNT announcer Stan Van Gundy sparked debate around the media sphere by labeling Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving as "arguably" the greatest offensive backcourt duo of all time. Given the incredibly rich history of scoring talent at the guard position in the NBA, it was quite the proclamation, even if SVG hedged by slipping an "arguably" in there.
The two did all they could to prove Van Gundy right against the Minnesota Timberwolves. In the Mavs' six-game defeat of the Wolves, Doncic and Irving combined to average 54.5 points and 12.6 assists per game on 48 percent shooting from the floor. In Game 6 they both put up 36 points to eliminate Minnesota and reach the Finals.
The stock of this take fell off a cliff once the Finals started and not even a "vintage" Kyrie performance in Game 3, as Jaylen Brown described it, can salvage it. Doncic has put up his usual numbers over the first three games of the Finals but hasn't been nearly as dominant. Irving reminded everybody why this was even a conversation with an excellent outing on Wednesday night, scoring 35 tough points on 13-of-28 shooting, but mustered up only 28 points combined in Boston to open the series.
This is a position you should move off sooner rather than later.
One of the strongest narratives heading into the Finals this year was the Celtics' easy path through the Eastern Conference playoffs, as laid out above by Nick Wright of Fox Sports.
All three of Boston's opponents in the conference bracket were missing their best players for most or all of their matchups. The Celtics took care of business by losing only two games, and were commended for it. But true adversity was in short supply— especially compared to the Mavericks, who beat two of the top three seeds in the West for their spot in the Finals. It made for popular reasoning to pick the Mavericks to beat the Celtics, as Wright did.
Then Boston came out of the gates swinging, and swinging hard. They went up by 29 points over the Mavericks during Game 1 before coasting to an 18-point win. In Game 2, the Celtics had one of their worst performances from deep of the whole season, hitting only 10 of 39 three-point tries ... and still won by seven. The Mavs were on the ropes in Game 3, falling down by 21 in the fourth quarter, before ripping off a roaring comeback that cut Boston's lead to two. But the Celtics pulled out another clutch win and now have a 3-0 lead.
Their stars are more rested than the Mavs' leading men. The way Boston closed out Game 2 and Game 3 shows they didn't need to battle with other stars along the way to know how to win when it counts. Whatever other problems arise with the Celtics over the life of the Finals, any stock in the idea that their easy path was actually a bad thing is plummeting.
Recommendation: SELL
There were many questions about Kristaps Porzingis' ability to step in and compete in the Finals after he missed 10 straight playoff games with a calf strain. The Latvian big man did not play a second of the Celtics' second or third round series. It was legitimate to wonder if he would be capable of regaining his 20 point-per-game form from the regular season with basically zero runway.
It was also legitimate to wonder if the Celtics could beat a fully healthy, star-studded opponent without Porzingis. The sweet-shooting center is what unlocks Boston's highest potential. There are very few players in the NBA who can shoot and make 30-foot jumpers with regularity while protecting the rim at a truly elite level. The Celtics had enough talent to breeze through the East without him, but the Mavs were a different sort of beast. Some of the top analysts in basketball, like ESPN's Zach Lowe, planted flags on the idea that Boston would struggle to win against such talent without Porzingis.
After two games of the Finals, it's clear Lowe wasn't off-base at all in terms of how good the Celtics are with Porzingis. Porzingis got Boston off to a hot start in Game 1 and his 18 first-half points gave his team a lead they'd never relinquish. He was less impactful in Game 2 but his mere presence in the rotation means Boston always has five good three-point shooters on the floor at any given moment, no matter what.
Then Porzingis suffered another injury and was ruled out of Game 3. The Celtics got their doors blown off in the opening minutes before settling in and ultimately pulling it out. They are now up 3-0 in the Finals and historical trends suggest they will win the championship pretty much no matter what. Porzingis is a tremendous player who makes Boston truly great, but we cannot say at this point the team needs him to earn Banner 18.
Recommendation: SELL
As media members staked their claim on one side or the other of the Celtics-Mavs debate, it became clear that just about everybody was earnestly excited for this matchup. It's rife with legacy talk and star power, featuring new blood in a way the NBA rarely experiences. On the strategic side of things the matchup features a fascinating clash of styles and the potential for quite the chess match between C's head coach Joe Mazzulla and Mavs' head coach Jason Kidd.
More than anything, there was reason to be hyped because both teams boast incredible shot-making prowess. Thus, the audience received segments like the above from Stephen A. Smith, wondering if the combination of new storylines and talent would be enough to rank this Finals matchup the best of the last 10 years.
The stock here started falling from the outset. Slowly, instead of off a cliff. But falling nonetheless. Game 1 was not very competitive, and Game 2 only marginally more so. Doncic, arguably the marquee star of the series, is clearly hindered by a variety of injuries and his running mate Irving is struggling to create his usual magic. The Celtics have beaten the Mavericks in a "death by a thousand cuts" situation, which is not nearly as enticing to watch as true greatness.
The Mavericks looked like they were going to make a series out of it in Game 3 but lost composure down the stretch with Doncic fouling out, which is not quality viewing for anybody. Now Dallas is down 3-0, a deficit nobody in NBA history has ever come back from, and all of the tension of the matchup is gone.
If you were only evaluating this stock, you'd think there was a bear market the way it's going down the drain. All hope technically is not lost; if the Mavs forced a Game 7 then this take would soar. But betting on that sort of longshot is unwise.
